What I've been up to: Mungyeong Saejae and Adventures in Seoul

Hello again! It's been quite a busy week on my side of the world.  I didn't have to go to school last week ( because my school is awesome and nice to me), which means I was free to spend time with friends and do some exploring.  It was like having a surprise week of vacation, which was pretty fantastic.

Last weekend my friends from Seoul came to Jeomchon.  My friend Jackie, who I met back in September is sadly returning to Hong Kong at the end of the month, so it was meant to be a farewell celebration for her since she has become friends with many of the Jeomchon people over the past few months.

She came down on Friday night, and then our other two friends, Doug and Ji Young, came down a few hours later.  Saturday we had plans to go to Mungyeong Saejae.  Mungyeong Saejae is Mungyeong's claim to fame.  It was a road that connected Busan to Seoul during the Joseon Dynasty and as such, it was an important destination for scholars, government officials, and those involved with trade markets.  Mungyeong Saejae is one of Korea's famous destinations, so usually when I'm in cities and have to tell people where I'm from I say "Mungyeong, as in Mungyeong Saejae."  People don't typically know Mungyeong, but they typically know of Mungyeong Saejae.

After missing the noon bus from Jeomchon, we eventually ended up getting a ride to Saejae. Our afternoon started a little later than we had planned, but we were fortunate that the weather was nice.  It was rainy in Jeomchon, which made me nervous, but out by the mountains it was just cold enough to be snow, not rain.  Luckily, the temperature wasn't too cool, and although we walked for hours along the trail, and I was never uncomfortably cold.  The snow was fresh and beautiful, which I was happy about because otherwise I'm not sure the barren trees would have provided a picturesque view.  Overall, we had an enjoyable day at Saejae full of fresh air, snow, and good conversation .  I'm really looking forward to going back there in the spring when the trees are full and green again!

After we got back to Jeomchon, we got some dinner and then met up with other friends for some drinks.  In typical fashion, we were out pretty late, which after noraebang, turned into an early morning.  By the time we finished noraebang it was already after 6 AM, at which point our friend Tony volunteered to make breakfast for everyone. Obviously we weren't going to miss our chance for bacon and pancakes, so we went over to his place to end our night/start our morning.  What time did we get to bed? 8 AM.

Naturally we slept most of the day away, but it was well worth it for a night as fun as it was.  The next day Ji Young and Doug had to go back to Seoul, but Jackie stayed in Jeomchon with me because she already finished work and I didn't have to prepare for school the next day.  We had a quiet night of hanging out at my place, eating ice cream, and watching the Olympics.

Monday was also a low-key day.  We met some friends for lunch, then at night we had a movie night at my place with a few other friends.  I FINALLY got to see Frozen. Although I hear it was quite popular back home a few months ago, it just recently came to Korea and my students are OBSESSED. I knew I had to catch up and see what it was all about, and it definitely didn't let me down.

Tuesday Jackie headed back to Seoul because her mom was coming from Hong Kong and she had to meet her at the airport.  This wasn't the end of my activities though--that night we had a birthday party for one of our fellow Jeomchoners.  It wasn't a late night for me though because the next morning I was off again, this time to Seoul to meet up again with Jackie.

Less than 24 hours after she left, I was back with Jackie--this time on her home turf.  Since her mom was visiting, Jackie wanted to do a bunch of day trips, which I was pretty happy about because despite the fact that I've been to Seoul a ton of times, I haven't seen many of the tourist attractions.

Our first destination was Hwaseong Fortress in Suwon.  It was a beautiful day, and we had some great views of Suwon.  Overall, some good sightseeing.  After we finished Ji Young met up with us and we grabbed lunch, then headed to a multibang for some fun.  It was my first time going to a multibang, and it was awesome.  Multibang's are rooms that you can go to to watch movies, play video games, or even sing karaoke.  We spent our time playing wii--Mario,Guitar Hero and Mario Kart.  I hadn't played any video games since college, so I thoroughly enjoyed getting my competitiveness out.  Plus, the free snacks were a definite plus.

We ended our night by getting a few drinks, but left in time to catch the subway back to Seoul.

Thursday was an early morning for us.  We went a bit outside of the city to a tourist destination called Petite France.  Petite France is in the countryside--only a few minutes from Nami Island, where I went back in October.  Petite France is inspired by the book "The Little Prince", and in my opinion is mainly a destination for taking pictures (have I mentioned that Koreans LOVE photo opportunities?)  It wasn't that I didn't like it, it's just that there wasn't a whole lot to do there.  There was an awesome view of mountains in the background though, and I can imagine that the place comes alive a bit more in the spring, summer, and fall when it's warmer outside and flowers are in bloom.

Still, we had a good time, but after a few hours we had seen just about all there was to see, and we headed to our next destination--the Garden of Morning Calm.  This garden contains an abundance of flower displays during the spring/summer/fall, but during the winter they decorate the entire place with lights.  It's really quite clever--instead of losing money during the season, they have found a unique and beautiful way to keep people coming during the cold weather.

The display was really beautiful.  There were tons of people, which really made me glad we weren't there one day later (Valentine's Day) or on the weekend.

After a busy day, we were totally exhausted.  We grabbed some Mexican food (YUM!) then headed home to get some rest.

Friday we slept in a bit, then headed out to Hongdae.  We grabbed some Italian food for lunch (I have to get my western food fix while I'm in the city!), then we went to the Trick Eye Museum.  This is a really cool place where there are different pictures you can take pictures with.  It was really cool, but unfortunately it was PACKED.  We picked a poor time to go because there were tours from Hong Kong, China, and Thailand all there at the same time as us.  So basically, we had to wait to take any pictures, and it was just plain crowded.  By the end I was just really sick of taking pictures and ready to get away from the crowds of people.

YUM

Cheese! Oh how I miss eating good cheese. 

Before we left, we also visited to Ice Museum, which is in the same building as the Trick Eye Museum.  When you go to the Trick Eye Museum, you automatically get admittance to the Ice Museum as well, so we figured we should check it out.  The Ice Museum was really small and COLD (go figure!), so we didn't stay there for too long.

After we finished in Hongdae, we headed back to the bus terminal and I caught a bus back to Jeomchon.

Yesterday we had a going away Braai (South African BBQ) at our friend's place since he is leaving at the end of the month. I'm preparing myself for my first round of goodbyes because despite the fact that I want nothing to do with them, they are rapidly approaching.

I'm really exhausted from a solid week of activities, but I'm really thankful that I had time off from school to enjoy with Jackie. She and I became close really quickly, and I think I'm in denial that she's actually leaving.  I can put off thinking about it for a bit longer because on Wednesday she and her mom will be back in Jeomchon, then this weekend we will all head to Busan together.

February has been a really busy month, but as always I'm thankful for the opportunity to do so many cool things with awesome people.

Seoul Lantern Festival

This weekend I had plans to meet up with some friends for the lantern festival in Seoul.  I caught a 6:00 bus from Jeomchon, and arrived in Seoul a little after 8.  I hopped on the subway and met up with my two friends at my friend's place (and consequently felt extremely proud of myself for navigating my way there without getting lost, even with multiple transfers...Yay!)  We put my stuff down, then headed out to Hongdae.

Hongdae is a really cool area of Seoul that I hadn't been to before.  I actually don't know why I didn't take pictures while I was there-- maybe next time! Hongdae has tons of street vendors (street food =YUM!) and a plentitude of bars.  The first bar we went to was a western bar, and for the first time in the three months I've been here, I was surrounded by westerners I didn't know.  It was a really weird feeling, and honestly I didn't care for it.  It was actually a little uncomfortable, and I realized that in some (many) ways my not understanding Korean has put in a larger of a bubble than I even realized.  When people are speaking Korean around me, I can't understand, even if they are saying crude things.  I guess sometimes ignorance is bliss.

Next we went to small, laid back bar, before heading to dance for a little while.  We had a late night (or early morning?), but luckily we didn't have anything in particular on the agenda for the next morning.  .

We started the next day with some brunch, then after a minor delay due to some ummm....technical difficulties? (yes, there is a story there that only the three of us girls will ever know) we finally headed out to do some shopping.  When my friends asked what I wanted to do when I came to Seoul, I said that I needed to do some shopping.  It's been getting cold and my supply of warm clothes is pretty limited due to the whole two suitcase fiasco I had to deal with when packing in August.

Luckily, Seoul is AWESOME for shopping.  It's actually probably a really good thing I don't live in the city because I would, without doubt, be broke.  There were OODLES of sweaters, shoes, bags, whatever you want...and for CHEAP!  I bought 3 sweaters, all for $10 each.  I'm sure they're not the highest quality, but they actually feel pretty nice, and for $10 I don't care if it doesn't last forever, just as long as it keeps me warm this winter.  You can actually buy clothes, shoes, makeup, and other general accessories in lots of the subway and bus stations across Korea..  It's pretty genius.

After shopping for a while, we met up with our other friend and then we headed to the lantern festival.

The lantern festival was really awesome, although totally packed with people.  The lanterns went all the way down the steam, and were quite beautiful if I do say so myself.

Christmas?

After we saw all there was to see at the Lantern Festival, we got some food, I grabbed a chai latte from Starbucks (ahhh, my old friend, Starbucks!), then we went back to Suwon, where one of our friends lives.

Once we got there we met up with yet another person, and went to a few bars. I don't think we even drank anything until 12:30, so I knew it was going to be a late night.  We stayed at bars until maybe 4, then naturally we headed to noraebang until 6 AM.  We grabbed some street food (really delicious, but probably disgustingly unhealthy chicken), then made our way back to the train station.  We couldn't get a train until 7:30 AM, so our wait in the train station was pretty painful and included a short cat nap for all three of us.  We finally got back to my friend's place in Seoul around 8 AM, at which point we all collapsed from exhaustion.

We slept well into the afternoon, at which point I realized I really should get back because Monday was coming too quickly.  I finally got on a bus around 6, and made it back to Jeomchon by 8.

As per usual, the weekend flew by way too quickly, but I had a great time.  Here are my major takeaways from this weekend:

1)  There are A LOT of people in Seoul.  I obviously knew about Korea's crazy population density, but wow, it's pretty intense.  There are people everywhere, and after adjusting to small-town life, it's pretty overwhelming whenever I step into a city.

2)  I still have quite a bit to see in Seoul. Seoul really is huge, and I've barely seen any of it yet.  Good thing I still have plenty of time to explore more!

3)  It's probably a good thing I don't live in a city.  Like I said, there's so much to buy everywhere.  Not to mention the street food, bars, and other general activities to enjoy.  I think it's safe to say I would be dirt poor if I lived in a city, never mind the fact that I could never keep up with that kind of nightlife every weekend.

4)  I'm pretty lucky to have some great friends after only three months of being here.  When I did Nutcracker last year I met a guy who shortly after moved to Korea to teach.  We kept in touch, and meeting his friends has introduced me to some pretty great people.  It's crazy how things work out, but I'm really thankful for all of the great people I've met thus far.

The Color Run, swing dancing, and staying up until dawn

This weekend was awesome. Like, really all-around awesome.

A few weeks ago I signed up to do the Color Run in Seoul with some of the other people in Jeomchon.  I have some friends that live in Seoul/Suwon, so they also joined our team to get in on the fun as well.  I did the Color Run in Boston two summers ago, so I knew it was going to be a good time.  It certainly didn't disappoint.

I went up to Seoul Friday night with another Jeomchoner.  When we got to Seoul I met up with one of my friends who lives in there, we grabbed some chicken and a beer, and went back to her place to get to bed.  Of course, we didn't actually get to bed until 2 AM....because well, we're girls and we talk a lot.

The next morning came way too soon, as our alarm went off at 6:30 AM.  We mustered up all of our energy and headed to Seoul Grand Park, where the run was being held. We met up with the other members of our group and started to run.  The running didn't really last that long because it became immediately apparent that most Koreans were more concerned about the photo opportunities presented by the Color Run than they were about the actual running. So, the Color Run was in reality the Color Walk...or actually, the Color Walk while taking an insane number of selfies. Not that I was really bothered by that since I really don't care for running and I was pretty tired from the lack of sleep the night before. A leisurely walk in the park was A-okay with me.

At the beginning...so clean still!

All orange!

Finished product

We had a great time at the Color Run and we were successful in getting completely covered with color.  By the time the run was over we were all hungry and we found a place to eat.  It was really entertaining to see other people's reactions to us on the subway as they saw us covered in colors.  Korea is obviously an image conscious country, and Seoul is pretty much the center of all of that, so the majority of the Koreans were looking at us like we were completely insane for going out in public in such a state.  Oh well.

When we finally got back to my friend's apartment, it was probably around 4:30.  By that point I was exhausted, so I took a 20 minute power nap on my friend's floor while she took a shower. After we got clean, we headed to Suwon, which is a city right outside of Seoul.  Suwon is smaller than Seoul, but still a pretty large city, and home to one of my friends who also is a teacher.

We decided to go to a place that has swing dancing (yes, swing dancing in KOREA!) from 8-11 on Saturday nights.  My friends have been many times, and told me it's really fun and you don't need to have any prior experience.  I was easily sold since I've always wanted to try swing dancing, and I was pretty pumped to give it a chance.

We had a really awesome time swing dancing, and we stayed until the last song at 11.  I definitely never in a million years would have expected to be SWING dancing in Korea, but I'm so glad we went because it was right up my alley and definitely something that I want to do again.

After we finished dancing, we went to a pretty low key bar and got one drink.  After that, one of our friends opted to go home for sleep, but before he left we made plans to watch the sun rise.  The sun wasn't supposed to rise until 6:45, so we knew that it was going to be a long night, but now that it was just us three girls, we were ready for the challenge.

We decided to move on to a dance club next to get some energy for the rest of the night.  This particular club apparently plays old K-Pop from the 80s and 90s. I obviously didn't know any of the songs, but I had to think: how awesome would it be if we had a club in the US that played 90s pop songs? Amazing. Someone really needs to work on that!

We had a lot of fun dancing, and during one of our breaks we sat down at a table and met three other Korean guys. Anyone who has ever been to a club knows that it's nearly impossible to have a conversation with anyone because of the loud music.  This becomes even more of a challenge when there is a language barrier.  The guy that was talking to me could barely speak any English, so I had to keep asking him to repeat what he said, then it would take another minute for him to think of what he wanted to say, and then once he would say it, I usually couldn't hear a word of what he said.  It usually ended in him using google translate, which made sense about 50% of the time.  Oh well.  At this point I was with two other girls--one of whom is Korean, and the other is from Hong Kong, can but speak Korean.  So, despite my inability to speak Korean, things could still be translated through someone else, which made it easier for me to have a clue about what was going on.

We hung out for a while longer with the guys, and eventually we decided to leave with our new friends and go in search of some food.  Of course, it was probably about 3 AM by this time, but you would never know since the city really does not stop in Korea.  Every sign on the street is made of bright fluorescent lights so when you go outside it never really feels dark.  Plus, there is no last call, so people will really just keep drinking all night long.  It's insane.

We ended up going to a noraebang place, which was perfect because we could order food AND sing.  Awesome.  We spent the next few hours there, and I was going strong until about 5 AM, at which point I totally crashed.  One of the other girls and I ended up crashing in our noraebang room for about 20 minutes....because that is normal?  But actually, I bet we're not the first ones to do so.

This is how the hallways at the noraebang place were decorated.  So awesomely Korean.  I absolutely love it. 

This picture wasn't even my idea.  Koreans must be the only people on earth who feel the need to take more pictures than I do.

Our friend who had gone home earlier in the night overslept, so although we were trying to stay awake until 6 to meet up with him, we ended up not being able to see the sunrise.  I mean, we did actually see the sun come up, but we just didn't have a good place to get a scenic view.

At this point I was so tired it was almost painful to be awake any longer, but we went and got one last coffee before we FINALLY got in a cab and went to my friend's apartment where we went to sleep.

And what time did we finally go to bed, you ask?

8:30 AM.

And keep in mind we only got roughly 4 hours of sleep the night before.

I slept until 1, had some food, and caught the 3:00 bus back to Jeomchon.  Needless to say, I went to bed early Sunday night.

Despite the damage to my sleep cycle, this weekend was one of the best I've had since I've been in Korea.  When I got to Seoul Friday night, I was with one of my Korean friends from Jeomchon and my friend from Hong Kong.  As we sat there eating and talking, I had a moment when I realized just how awesome my life is right now.  Two months ago I did not know any of these people.  In fact, two months ago I didn't have any friends who live outside of the US.  But there I was, sitting and laughing with two people from different countries, all three of us with different first languages.

Sometimes when I am at work I start to question why I'm teaching here. I had to write plenty of papers about my philosophy of teaching social studies when I was in college, but in all honesty my reasons for going abroad were somewhat selfish.  It was the experience of living abroad that brought me to Korea, not my desire to teach English. I've been working in a country whose education system has an educational philosophy that is pretty much the exact opposite of my own. In Korea, many students study English simply for their college entrance exams--they take English because they have to get a good score on a test to go to a good college.  Many of them will forget everything they have learned as soon as they graduate. On some days I've seriously wondered why I spend so much time on lesson plans when in reality, many of my students are never going to become English speakers.

However, this weekend showed me how awesome it really is when English can serve as a common language between people.  Having a common language allows you to be friends with so many people you would otherwise never be able to share experiences with.  This is what I want to be able to convey to my students--they have so many opportunities ahead of them, and if they can think of English as more than something than they need for a test, they open up a world of possibilities for themselves.  I also think it would be helpful if I could tell my male students "Hey, one day you're going to be in a bar and there's going to be a western girl that you're going to want to talk to.  Learn English now so you actually can without relying on google translate."  I'm not sure my co-teachers would ok with me actually saying that...but I bet it would be effective.

Language is tremendously powerful.  When you don't know what is being said you can feel isolated and alone.  But when you can have a common language with someone you can connect and share life's finest moments with other people--even people who have grown up on the other side of the world, thousands of miles away from you. It's fascinating and awesome, and it makes me feel really blessed that just because I was born an English speaker I am able to have this experience.

To say that I am fortunate is a huge understatement.  I have been taken care of ridiculously well throughout this whole process--from the wonderful orientation we had, to my rent-free apartment, to my salary  (which pays me just about as much as teaching in America while doing less work), to the health insurance, to the vacation days, etc.  Just being born an English speaker has provided me with the opportunity to be here and live a comfortable life--if that's not the definition of privilege, I don't know what is.

Of course, I've been really lucky that I've met people from other places who can speak English.  I don't expect everyone else to always learn English just so they can talk to me. I really do want to be able to have conversations in Korean as well so that I can continue to share experiences with people while I'm here.  It's just that you know, Korean is one of the hardest languages to learn....so it's going to take some time.

If you would have asked me a few years ago where I thought I'd be at 24, I never would have said that I thought I'd be spending my Saturday night (well, technically Sunday morning) in a noraebang room in Korea with five other people, among whom I'd be the only native English speaker.  Life sure is unpredictable, but right now I absolutely love it that way.