Motorcycle!

Guys, guys! Motorcycle!

Okay, that's Stella riding it, but we all got a turn and I was the best at it! (By virtue of being the only girl who wasn't terrified of going fast enough to have to pick up her feet.)

After Korean class we all went to the waterfront to play basketball, and one of the students (a man who works at some kind of proofreading service, and whose name I forget) brought his shiny motorcycle. He said that he had brought it to teach some of the boys to ride, but the boys were all playing basketball so he ended up with four girls to teach instead. I got it up to third gear and zoomed down the waterfront path! It was SO COOL!

Turns out I still didn't know how big Seoul is

I met Jessie for lunch at Jeongbalsan station. Turns out that's a two-hour subway ride away from home. Jeez. So I was late, but not to worry. Jessie took me out to a buffet-style restaurant before showing me all around her neighborhood.

We bussed over to a huge street market where we wandered, examining bowls of live sea creatures and observing open-air butcher shops. On the main street adjacent to the market, one of the candidates for mayor was giving a speech from the top of a campaign bus.

Next we went to a place that was either a museum or an art gallery - I'm not sure which. It was definitely about the Joseon emperors' tombs, but most of the exhibits were modern art based on the Joseon dynasty. It was all really interesting, and some of it was a little spooky. It didn't help that two attendants in black clothing were following us everywhere (I suppose they were making sure we didn't touch anything). They kept their distance, but it was still unnerving. Especially when we walked through a dark, narrow hallway draped with silk partitions while numerous grandfather clocks softly struck six (the death hour, according to Jessie), that feeling of being followed isn't really pleasant.

Finally we went to a huge park on a lake very near Jessie's apartment. It was gorgeous there. There were cute little walking and biking paths, bridges so you could completely circumnavigate the little lake, docks and islands, sports courts... I would go back if it wasn't two hours away. Yeesh.

Horrific depictions of torture = fun for the whole family?

This morning I declared today to be Twentieth Century Korean History Day.

JESUS CHRIST what a depressing idea that turned out to be.

I went to Seodaemun Prison Museum where Korean resistance fighters were imprisoned during Japanese occupation, and the Korean War Memorial near Itaewon. The prison museum was... interesting. Pictures under the cut are not for the squeamish.

Don't Panic (now where's my towel?)

This morning I woke up and got online. This was waiting for me on Skype:

Stellar: Wow Christina, have you been up on the news about the potential war within Korea? This is insane.. I hope you are updated about it because its getting a bit intense: if you don't know here is a link: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/26/world/asia/26korea.html?hp 

Luckily, I was pre-warned, so I didn't freak out. Stellar was still online, so we got to have a talk:

Christina: Hey, this is funny. Last night Sunghun was talking to me about this stuff, asking if I had heard anything from back home, and now I see this first thing when I log on. It's pretty scary, but the general consensus in Korea is that it's mostly posturing on the part of government officials because elections are next week. Re-declaring North Korea as their "archenemy" is them trying to remind people of the constant danger, the same way Bush tried to stir up fear after 9/11.
Stellar: I know, its kind of scary though! How is everything going?
Christina: Things are fine. There are banners everywhere for the election, and little campaign cars are all over the streets blaring music and info about the candidates. It's kind of hilarious.

Stellar: LOL.. Korean style campaigning. Gotta take in the hilarious moments :)
Christina: They apparently get pretty worked up about the whole thing, so I can see the stuff with North Korea blowing over afterward (as long as Kim Jong Il doesn't decide to be a genocidal dick). I have to say, that line from the article about turning Seoul into a "sea of fire" gave me pause.
Stellar: ME TOO. I tried to translate that into Korean and I was like..oh ok it makes sense. But in English...ahem..right.
Christina: Yeah. It sounds pretty evil-dictator over-the-top. You can totally imagine some ridiculous sci-fi villian going, "If you do not bow to our demands we will turn your precious planet into a SEA OF FIRE! MWAHAHA!"
Stellar: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAAAA

So, yeah. The news is scary, but Seoul is still intact. Here, I will show you it!

Visa success!

Woooo! I finally found the damn travel agency, and I can pick up my passport with a shiny Chinese Visa next week.

I didn't have a specific destination in mind today, so I decided to start at Wangsimni station and go from there.

Macro Time

Um, sorry. It's raining, and I didn't want to go outside... so I wasted a day. But Kris tells me that it's the beginning of the rainy season so I'll probably have to just suck it up pretty soon.

In the meantime, please enjoy these macros that I collected from LJ:

Why, yes! I am a complete dork! Thank you for asking!

I wasn't joking

Ahahaha. Yes, I really did sleep in until noon, and then proceeded to spend the rest of the day in front of my computer. But that wasn't entirely my fault, because I caught Stellar on Skype (Stellar!!!!!) and I had to catch up with her. For... three hours. Yep.

So, sorry for the lack of real bloggage. I'll try to have something more interesting tomorrow. But oh, hey! What's this I see?

It's the aquarium! Newly filled with water and fishes! The sad buckets of emptiness and failure have been replaced by triumphant flower arrangements of oceanic magnificence!

Yeah, uh... that's all I got.

Catch-up post

The last two days have been jam-packed, and I'm going to cover both in one post. So brace yourselves; this is gonna be a long one.

I'll start with our trip to the beach. We left Suwon on Thursday night with a car full of bags. I didn't know what was in the bags, but I kind of wondered why they needed to pack so much (spoiler: the bags were full of food).

At a rest stop, Aunt Jung-hee noticed that I didn't have a coat. I had stopped carrying one around since it started getting hot recently; it gets a little chilly at night, but I'd rather be a little cold than have to haul a coat around. Well, she got worried about me and gave me a jacket to wear. I'm glad she did, because I can now say that I have found the least-flattering jacket on me ever.

Technical Difficulties

My laptop still won't connect via ethernet cable. Grrrr... I'm really hoping that this is just one of its sporadic hissy fits, and that I haven't actually managed to break the network adapter. Anyway, I decided to give up on the thing for now and just transfer all my pictures over to uncle's desktop so I can write a blog post. Because that's how much I love you.

Hey look! It's the new and fancy apartment!

Please stand by...

I'm back in Suwon, and I'm having some technical difficulties. My photos are on my laptop, but I can only get internet on my uncle's desktop for some reason. (There may or may not be a problem with my network adapter. Sigh.)

Hopefully all will be well by tomorrow, or Friday, at which time I will post a double-update.

I'm only happy when it rains

Is it weird that a gray, drizzly day like this can lift my spirits?

Something about walking in the cool air and feeling the mist on your face. I dunno. It probably means I've been living in the Northwest for too long.

Robin Hood

Hello all. I have some kind of stomach bug, so instead of photos of my adventures today you get another movie review. This time it's Robin Hood: the origin story that might as well have been an original picture.

Now, here's the thing. I went into this movie expecting not to like it. After all, my first exposure to the story was Disney's version, and I frickin' love that movie. I know it was low-budget and silly and turned everyone into anthropomorphic animals, but I didn't care. It's still one of my favorite Disney movies and I think it may have been the source of my bondage fetish.

Yeeeeaaahhh... 

Seoul Forest is not a forest

Seoul forest is not, in fact, a forest. It is most definitely a park. It is a nice park, and a large park, but it is not a forest. And honestly, I can't see how people could get confused about this. There are legitimate forests in Korea. Heck, there are legitimate forests in Seoul!

Aaaanyway. That's where I went with Honey and Kait today.

Basketball

Korean class in the morning, which is fast becoming my favorite (and kinda only) way to meet people. After the lesson some of my classmates and the teachers walked down to the waterfront to play basketball. I haven't played in years, but I think I held my own! It didn't hurt that the Korean girls literally shrieked and ducked whenever someone passed them the ball, so compared to them I was a frickin' WNBA star.

Joong-guk Visa

I walked to the Chinese Embassy today to try to get the paperwork for my visa. But as soon as I turned down the side street, a lady ran toward me waving business cards. "Joong-guk visa?" she asked over and over, "Joong-guk visa?"

Joong-guk is China. I learned this because Eun-hyuk has a giant map of the world on his bedroom wall. "Yes," I said warily. The lady continued to babble at me in Korean while I repeatedly tried to tell her that I couldn't understand a word she was saying. Finally she handed me a business card and I figured out that she was from a travel agency. It turns out you can't go through the embassy directly; you have to talk to a travel agency. She led me to a little shop where a man (who, thankfully, did speak English) explained all this to me as if it should have been obvious.

On the embassy's website it said that you could get a visa directly there, so my bullshit detectors were going off. I took an application and left. I found the embassy, which had a big sign on the front saying, "You should apply for visa through travel agency." Oh. So much for my bullshit detectors (I've gotta get those things replaced). But still, I wasn't going to hand over my passport to a bunch of people I didn't know the first thing about.

Bleh. I guess I'll work on finding a place where I can get a photo printed out, and get my passport photocopied.

Food Time

My "students" took me out for dinner and coffee today. They insisted I try dakbukgi and soondae.

The red stuff is dakbukgi: spicy rice cakes in ramen. It was pretty good. The soondae are the black things on the right, and they were a little scarier. I heard them described somewhere as "blood sausage," which sounds awful. Turns out they're just sausage skin stuffed with black noodles. Very odd, but not too bad.

After getting my butt kicked repeatedly by online flight booking (Orbitz and China Southern Airlines can kiss my half-yellow ass), I finally managed to book a reasonably-priced flight to China. I'm so excited to get to see my girl Kayli next month! Now I just need to get that visa.

Oh, and I almost forgot. I talked to my dad about my recent Joan Baez obsession. Apparently my taste in music is uncool, and not in a "you kids with your rock and roll" way, but in a "I remember when that came out and also when it went out of style" way. I am uncool by the standards of my dad when he was my age. Haha. Ouch. But apparently he was never much into what he dubs "hippie music." I think he was a little more funky. (Oh, great. Now I have Mr. Jones by Counting Crows stuck in my head.)

We now return you to your regularly-scheduled programming

I very much appreciate all the concern I've been getting for the past few days. It's nice to know that I have at least three people who will mother-hen all over me from across the Pacific. But I want you all to know that I'm not being stubborn; I really honestly don't need to go to the doctor. I feel better, and while my eyes are still a little bloodshot they no longer look like alien-eyes. And I'm back outside.

Look! It is me outside! For realz guyz!

Still not dead

I'm feeling better, but I spent today sleeping and lounging around again because I still don't feel great and my eyes (both of them now) look like demon-eyes. But they are not as red as yesterday, so if they're any better tomorrow morning I'm going to confirm that I don't need to go to the doctor.

It's so nice out. I really hope I feel up to leaving the house tomorrow because I feel like I'm wasting this beautiful week on being sick.

"Take these eyes, I would rather be blind"

So, you might have noticed that there wasn't an update yesterday. And there's not really one today. That is because I have a cold, and also pinkeye.

Yes, my right eye is bloodshot and dripping yucky stuff out of it. I'll spare you a picture. Anyway, I generally feel like crap and now I look like I'm infected with the zombie virus, so I've been sleeping in and lounging around in my jammies. I suppose this is as good a time as any for this to happen, when I have nothing to do anyway and I have Harmuni to make sure I don't starve.

The fun part is that I don't know what caused it. If it's viral, my cold could have brought it on. But it also might have been my new eyeliner. Or the swimming pool. Or the fact that I'm living with a four-year-old.

Anyway, I hope it goes away soon. Waking up with your eye glued shut sucks.

(The title of this post is pretty self-indulgent of me. I think maybe one person might get the reference. Haha.)

Christina in Korea: Mother's Day Edition

Whoa! It is Mother's Day, and I am just a little out of hugging range of my mother. How sad. I will have to give hugs with interest when I return. Also, I will now get mushy in full view of the internet.

My Mom is really, really awesome. Even now, she is my best friend and the one I call when I'm in trouble. I call her for two reasons: 1) she makes me feel better with alarming speed and 2) when she gives advice, she is always right. I mean always. I think I can count the number of times she has been wrong on one hand, and that's including that one time that she said we had milk and we didn't.

I never went through a rebellious phase when I was a teenager. Not even a little. Some people would attribute this to my natural distaste for conflict, but I think it's because I genuinely had nothing to rebel against. My parents provided everything for me, allowed me to do anything within reason, and made me happy. When I went through rough times outside of their control, they were my greatest support. 

Despite having every reason in the world to tell me, "I worked my way through college and pulled myself up by my bootstraps, so you should be able to do the same thing!" she instead made sure I never had to worry about money while I was in college. Since I have made friends who do, in fact, have to worry about money, I have become excruciatingly aware of just how uncommonly privileged I am.

My Mom is my role model, and I'm not just saying that because it's Mother's Day and that's what you're supposed to say. I look up to her and hope that, faced with the same adversity that she has conquered in her lifetime, I could be as clever, brave, self-reliant, resilient, loyal, and loving as she has been. I love you Mom, today and all days.

Seven Luck

Korean class in the morning. I saw some of the girls I met on the hiking trip - Rachael and Cait. They wanted to go to the foreigners' casino later that day, and of course I was all over that. But before that I killed a little time in Myeong-dong.

Dude. They have clowns. Why doesn't Saturday Market in Portland have clowns?

Korean hikers are hardcore

Oooh! After fiddling with it for a month, I figured out how to set a timer on my camera!

I also figured out how to put my posts behind cuts! Now my front page might actually be navigable! Technological wonders will never cease.

The Karaoke Conspiracy

I have somehow become Eun-hyuk's Beyblade opponent. Permanently.

And another thing...

I'm back in Seoul, and I spent the day playing on my computer and flopping about in bed because I feel awful. I think one of the kids at the daycare gave me a cold. Anyway, I feel better than I did last night so hopefully I'll be fine tomorrow.

I figure I'll use this time to add a few addendums (addenda?) to earlier posts.

The fashion. Okay, okay I was exaggerating. Not ALL women wear the same thing. There are women who wear jeans and T-shirts, who have boyish haircuts, and who wear sneakers. They are somewhat rare, but after enough people-watching to get a good sample size I have to concede that they exist. There are also quite a few foreigners depending on what part of town you're in, although they all stare at me as though trying to figure out if I'm likely to speak English if they talk to me.

Also, I haven't talked about the men here (expect to note that they all seem to prefer their adorable Korean women to Western feminists). All the Americans I've talked to complain about how Korean guys are effeminate and wear tight jeans and flamboyant colors. Whenever this happens I don't miss the opportunity to tell them how much I enjoy it. Seriously, I love femmy boys, especially the ones with nice legs. I wish the tight-pants look would catch on in America. Then I could ogle more hot ass and the boys would finally understand how much it sucks to try to stuff yourself into those things (boys, you have it good with your baggy pants. Don't you forget it).

Now, when I went hiking I mentioned the old ladies (ajumas) in their hiking gear and enormous visors. I'm afraid I was a bit dismissive of them, which I shouldn't have been because those ladies are frickin' hardcore! I wandered off into the woods so I wouldn't end up on paths clogged with slow, frail grandmas, and when I reached the top they had beaten me there! And remember that really steep rock wall that I was too scared to go down? Well, while I sat at the top I kept watching the ajumas coming up the other side of the mountain, passing me, and going over to the other side where the wall of doom was. I kept expecting them to reappear when they realized how steep it was on that side, but not a one of them did! There was nowhere else to go, so they must have gone down the scary rock wall. I have nothing but respect for them now.

Okay, that's all I can think of and I want to go to bed. I have this month to continue bouncing around Seoul before things kick into gear. At the beginning of June I'm going to see Phantom of the Opera with Eun-mi, then I'm going to fly over to China to spend a week with Kayli in Beijing and Shanghai, and then I'll be subbing for Doug's class while he's away. Crazy times.

Children's Day

Yesterday I actually got up at a human hour and went back to the daycare.

A Day with Family

I slept in way too long yesterday, and when I woke up I found that someone had put plastic wrap over all the breakfast dishes and left them out for me. Aw. Eun-mi and Auntie were at the school, but Uncle and I had breakfast-as-lunch together and tried to communicate.

Then we headed over the the school, where I think the kids are starting to recognize me.

I kept trying to get candid shots of the kids, but it's impossible. As soon as they see the camera they're all over it.

Everland

I was exhausted yesterday and this morning I slept in til noon, so you get a belated account of my adventures with Eun-mi in Everland.

The place was huge and gorgeous, but really crowded. This is the tulip garden. On stage in the foreground are a brass band dressed as bees. Korean entertainment is really weird...

Busy Saturday

Because I was not proactive enough to write up the first half of this post earlier in the day, this will be another experiment in blogging while under the influence.