Gwanaksan

Well, the sun is back which means it's time to find another mountain to climb. Today's was Gwanaksan, which is in the south part of the city nearer to home. The guidebook said that it was right next to the University, so I got off at what I supposed was the correct stop and poked around.

Well, it didn't exactly look right. There was a University all right, but not a mountain to be seen. It took me an hour of wandering around and double-checking my maps to realize that I was supposed to be at Seoul National University. The place I was currently at was Seoul National University of Education. They were only three subways stops away from each other. If I had had access to a desk, my head would have impacted it at great speed.

So I scooted down to the correct stop. Oh, yes. This looks much more promising.

I am incapable of writing a bad paper

Remember a few days ago when I was complaining about what a hard time I was having writing that stupid paper for my single solitary class? Remember how I said that I laboriously dragged six pages out of my skull while feeling sure that the finished product would be barely readable? Well, here's the email I got back:

Thanks for the paper, Christina. It sounds like you had a great experience and learned lots. Your paper was well written, a skill that is becoming somewhat rare these days.
All the best in vet school!
Traci

Ahahaha! This is awesome. Even my on-vacation, no-effort, un-proofread papers get compliments. I am like unto an essay-writing god!

Rain

Ugh. Sorry about the lameness of my posts recently. The weather's been terrible, and since my main mode of transportation is my feet that tends to mess things up.

Today I really tried to go a to a museum (I figured if I could get inside, I could learn about Korean culture while staying dry). I packed an umbrella from the cabinet, but when I exited the subway station it was barely drizzling. Everyone had umbrellas up, but not me! I walked in the rain like the proud Oregonian I am. Well, eventually I realized that I had no idea where I was going and the rain was getting worse, so I grudgingly pulled out my umbrella.

It was tiny and flimsy. Apparently my reliance on Dad's enormous golf umbrellas has made me forget that not all umbrellas are created equal. I wandered around for about an hour and a half getting cold and wet, and never once did I even see a roof in the distance that might have belonged to a museum. I have a high tolerance for being lost (I kind of have to), but being lost in the rain and cold is just unnecessary, so I bailed at the next subway station I found.

So, yeah. Lame. But it's supposed to clear up by the weekend, so hopefully we'll be back to regularly scheduled programming.

The Hurt Locker

So with it raining and blowing outside, but with me not feeling up to another entire day in front of a computer screen, I opted for an enormous theater screen instead and went back to the Megabox theater in the underground mall. I saw The Hurt Locker because hey, I'd heard a lot of good things about it and it won an Oscar so it couldn't be too bad. Plus the only other movies in English were some BS featuring Jennifer Aniston and Kickass (although I saw a preview for Kickass and I might actually have to watch it now just to see that purple-haired girl pull off that sweet bullet-time fight scene).

Pajama Day

You know those days - the ones where you never leave the house, never put in your contacts, and never change out of your pajamas? I love those days. Okay, I actually did put my new tie-dye dress on over my PJs, but that's just so I could eat meals in the kitchen without showing my nipples through my tank top.

Oh hey, it's an actual picture of me in an actual dress that I actually bought! Haha. God, I look like a boy in drag.

Frisbee

Yesterday I had planned on sleeping all day until Drew texted me at 11AM asking if I wanted to go to the park. Well, by then I was already getting bored with my sleep-all-day plan, so I happily accepted.

Back to School

I woke up this morning and noticed this:

How did I do that? Hmmmm... I hate mysterious injuries. By the way, that's not the leg with the crappy knee (which now feels fine, whew!). So apparently both my legs just hate me.

Thunder and Lightning

Today I went to the National Museum of Korea, because it happened to be the next destination circled on my map.

The grounds were really nice. The weather was okay, so I wandered around and had lunch in the park.

Guidebook, you may now die in a fire

Today I was determined to go hiking on this little mountain right here. My guidebook had lots of good stuff to say about it - that it was a holy place for Buddhists, which landmarks to hit on the way up, some history, blah blah blah. What it was conspicuously missing was maps, and my big city-wide map doesn't show enough detail to tell me how to get to the base of the mountain from the nearest subway station. All the guidebook had to say was, "Leave the station, go toward the Hyundai Apartments, and follow the road behind them to the gate." Considering the honeycomb of streets between the station and my destination, this advice was almost completely unhelpful.

Street Markets

Today I went back to Myeong-dong and Namdaemun, where I went last week with Mom and Eun-mi. You know, the place with the crazy mascots?

Yeah.

Soju and Samgyupsal

Oh. My. God. Tonight was so much goddam fun. If there are a lot of misspellings in this post, please for figeve me because I'm still pretty drunk.

I went out with Kris and her English tutor, Eugene. Eugene is a thirty-something slightly heavy man. He's full-blooded Korean, raised in Canada. We waited together for Kris to get out of her meeting, and made small talk. At first it was pretty light stuff - about my family, the weather, how I liked Korea... But right before we went to meet Kris we happened to touch on politics and I mentioned something about supporting gay rights. He laughed and said, "Well, we'll talk about that more over soju." Uh-oh. I'd never actually met someone who didn't support gay rights except my slightly-crazy Grandma Esther, so I hadn't thought anything of mentioning it.

Walking in the park

You can't get away from people in this city! It was really muggy today, and the sky was threatening rain, so I figured I could return to that little park that I found last week and actually go inside this time. I was hoping that the weather would ward off any other visitors and I would have the place to myself. Not so much. It turned out to be a beautiful day, and the place was swarming with tourists (including a Japanese tourist group that blocked the whole path at one point).

Make Your Own Fun: Offending Korean Sensibilities

HA. My hair is short again.

Not that it was exactly long before...

Daycare Time

I went back to Auntie's daycare for more beatings. It was actually awesome - the kids are a little rough and they tend to tire out way, way after me, but they're really sweet and playing with them is a lot of fun. Today was a birthday, so there was cake.

Back to Suwon

With a minimum of rolling my bag down the street searching for my bus stop, yesterday I managed to get myself back to Suwon to spend the night and pick up the rest of my clothes (and my camera charger! No more cell phone photos for me! I can zoom again!).

Then I missed my stop in Suwon. I had to get off at the next one and walk back. Sigh.

Lions and Tigers and Beavers

Sunghun took me and Eun-hyuk to the zoo yesterday! I love the zoo.

Insa-Dong

Last night Kris and her husband suggested I take a day to look at Insa-dong, a market street that's popular with tourists. It was touristy all right, but it was also pretty charming.

I don't know what's up with those sculptures, but they made me laugh.

Cherry Blossoms

I had a little subway adventure, choosing a destination that required two transfers. I got them all right and felt pretty good about myself before I realized that there was another subway line that would have taken me directly there. Oh, well.

Cultural Immersion Fail

I'm back at Paris Baguette. I know, I know, I shouldn't be eating French food in Korea. But you know what? They're everywhere, their food is de-freakin'-licious, they're cheap, their restaurants are pretty, and they have free wi-fi.

If I find a place where I can have a Korean meal for under three dollars while sitting in a leather booth and checking my email, I swear that's where I'll eat lunch every day.

Plus, today I'm having a red bean croquette-thing, which is kind of Asian. If you squint.

How to Read

Dinner time, and Kris and her husband still aren't home. Jeez, they work hard.

Here's Harmuni, cooking for us every night and every day.

Fishies! And more!

I went to the aquarium. Those of you who know how I get around critters might expect this to be a long and picture-heavy post, and you'd be right. The rest of you, don't say I didn't warn you.

The Return of the Underground Mall

I have a feeling I'm going to be spending a lot of time here when the weather isn't nice. Well, I saw a movie this afternoon. Luckily Koreans, who apparently trust that most of their movie-watching population can READ, don't feel the need to dub all their foreign movies, so I got to watch The Crazies in English (can you tell that I have a beef with the way we tend to handle foreign films in America?). It was delightfully scary.

Fisheyes

I didn't think Korean food could surprise me anymore. Make me extremely reluctant to put it in my mouth, yes, but not surprise me. I thought I'd seen it all and that the rest would just be variations on the norm. Not so much. Breakfast was whole six-inch-long fried fish, which was actually pretty good. That's not the surprising part. The surprise came when Harmuni took a pair of chopsticks, popped the fish's eye out of its socket, and fed it to Eun-hyuk. It wasn't a little fried crunchy thing either; it was a big, gooey eyeball! The kid loved it! I think my jaw hit the table, and I was so sad I didn't have my camera with me.

Subway time!

I found the subway station! And now I know the reason I couldn't find it before - I didn't go nearly far enough. The normal two-lane streets that I had been passing I assumed were part of the main grid on my map. But no. On my map, two-lane streets are considered side streets. The main street that I was looking for turned out to be an eight-lane behemoth that I needed to go a couple more blocks to find. The things is, the one-lane side streets that I thought were the side streets marked on my map actually aren't on the map at all, let alone the pedestrian alleys. Seoul streets are a frickin' Mandelbrot set, I swear to God.

Portland is not the only place with spastic Weather Gods

I tried to approximate the Korean style by wearing leggings, a t-shirt, and a denim mini-skirt. Still way edgier than most girls around here, but I'm working with what I've got. I got fewer stares, which either means I did a good job or word has gotten around that a crazy foreigner in weird clothes is walking around the area.

Yesterday was pretty warm, so today I left my coat at home. Bad idea. It was fruh-eezing!

Seoul is Frickin' Huge

Okay, even though yesterday was a pretty short day due to my lack of in-shapeness, I still walked around for three good hours. I covered some ground, I circumnavigated some big park-thing, and I saw the largest underground mall in Asia. I thought I did pretty good. Then I checked out a map.

That is Seoul. See that little red circle drawn on the lower right side? That's the ground I covered yesterday.

Yikes. I'm gonna have to step up my game.

Tired...

First day of exploring was pretty short. After a few hours my legs started speaking up. "You sit around studying for two weeks, then spend another two weeks watching TV at home, and now you expect us to walk all around Seoul? Eff you."

Ugggh. I'll be in shape soon.

Konglish

I've said before that half the signs in Korea are actually in English. I'll prove it to you.

Bi-uh-si-ti = Beer city (best name for a bar ever)

Suh-ka-i-phur-ra-wuh = Sky Flower (a brand name, so I guess it doesn't really count)

Pho-reh-su-tu Hui-tu-ni-su = Forest Fitness (I have no idea why they made the second "f" into an "h.")

Ko-su-mo Taeg-su-ta-il = Cosmo Textile

Tae-guk Ma-sa-ji = Taeguk Massage (Taeguk means, as far as I can tell, yin-yang)

I could go on like this all day.

The Underground Mall Part 2

Okay, I went back and this time, after wandering around in a daze for about an hour, I basically figured out my way around. I'll probably go back now and then. They have nice clothing stores and a fun food court. There's spicy bulgogi and kimchi next to a Sbarro. Kinda surreal.

The Underground Mall

This morning I followed Kris to work where she explained a little about the city before cutting me loose to explore. She showed me the way into this mall that extends into the basements of every building on an entire block! It's huge! The idea is that you can get in and out through the lobby of any of the buildings, and wander all over once you're down there. Kris left me, and I took a deep breath and said to myself, "Let's see. Street's that way. River's that way. Home's that way. Okay. I got this!"

I then took two turns and completely lost my bearings.

Seoul

Yesterday I made the move from Suwon to Seoul, and I think this is where I'm going to end up spending most of my time. I love my uncle's family, but Seoul is just beyond awesome! I met the family I'm going to be staying with. Kris is the friend of a friend that my Mom was in contact with, and luckily she speaks excellent English. She's very nice, and she's showed me around a bit. Her husband is Sung-hun, and her son is the cutest kid ever, named Eun-hyuk. He went nuts when he saw that my Mom had brought him M&Ms, and he likes me now that I've played soccer with him and let him beat me up. His grandma also lives with them as a sort of nanny.

Street Food

We went to Seoul today! The family I might stay with wasn't there, and the American boy I need to meet was in class, so we just went to shop. We'll go again tomorrow to meet everyone and set things up.

Okay, first of all, Seoul is full of cute boys. The problem is, on their arms are an endless supply of cute girls.

Korean kids are the cutest kids

I'm still posting retroactively, covering all the things I did my first day and half while I didn't have internet access on a computer with an English keyboard. So this was yesterday that I visited the daycare that my aunt runs, and my my cousin Eun-mi works.

My Family

On my second night here, my uncle and his family took us out for Korean barbecue. This is when I remembered that actual Korean barbecue is really nothing like American Korean barbecue. American kalbi are neat little strips of shortribs in Asian-style marinade. Real Korean kalbi are huge honkin' chunks of meat that look like they just got hacked off of a cow. And they taste crazy awesome. I should have taken more pictures of the food, but I wanted to be polite and not become a mad picture-taker. Don't worry. I'll get over that soon. Anyway, the only pictures I took were of my family.

The Crowded City

I wanted to write an entry as soon as I got here, but that didn't happen so much. First I was just too jet-lagged to write coherently. Then I found the use of a couple of Korean computers, but they don't seem to like writing in English characters. Even when we switched the keyboard settings to English, I swear to God, it would revert back to Korean if you typed more than two sentences into any one box. To write one Facebook message, I had to copy-paste from the Google-bar, then from the url-bar, then from a notepad-like program, then... Yeah. So finally I have managed to get my trusty laptop hooked up to the internet and I will give a rundown of the last couple of days.