Caves, Seoul, and St. Patty's

              Blogging is not my calling. I rarely ever write; in fact, I'm only writing now to avoid doing my dishes.  That being said, I have a lot to update everyone on! However, because I'm lazy, it may be short (well, we'll see).

              A few weekends ago, Francesca and I went to Samcheok, a city on the coast. It was about a two hour bus adventure to the cave we were going to. The cave, Hwanseongul, was the most peculiar cave I have ever been to. First, it was MASSIVE. The chambers could fit buildings. There was no guided tour, but a railed walkway that everyone shuffled through. The second peculiar thing was the juxtaposition between the cave formations (some only present in this one cave in the whole world) and the neon lights that were added to make the 'tour' more interesting.  

If you're wondering, is that a rainbow? Yes. Yes it is. It was the Vegas of caves really. The third thing that made it so strange was the Christian motifs. You did hear me right. Each chamber you go through was named things like "the Chamber of Desire," "the Chamber of Love," etc. Jokingly, Francesca and I were like, "dang, we are sinning or something." Two seconds later we stumble upon this:

I

The Bridge of Hell. The sign says something about how we have been sinning in the cave and in our lives and we must cross the bridge to cleanse ourselves. Also, I'm not sure why the bridge's mascot is a mummy, but it is. Who knew mummies were rampant in Hell? After this bridge we crossed the Bridge of Confessions, which forgave us for our past transgressions.

After this, we saw a stalactite that looked like the Virgin Mary. It was actually creepy how much it looked like her. Nevertheless, I felt pretty pure and holy after our trip to the cave. 

            The next week my co-workers and I headed to Seoul. I still don't like Seoul, but I was going to meet up with one of my Cornell friends Hatcher and find clothes that were big enough to fit my cherub curves. Hatcher and I went to the Korean War Museum; which had really well-done exhibits. I learned a bunch about Korea's wars; still always more to learn though. The English translations weren't the best. Afterwards, we met-up with everyone else and got Mexican food. NOM! It's very odd not eating tacos. I have to make a three hour trip to get tacos!?!?!? It's mad. The next day we went shopping, and finding American fitting clothes is still a task. It wasn't very successful, sadly. 

            FINALLY to this past weekend. It was the joyous St. Patty's; one of my favorite holidays. On Friday a few of us went out and ended up going to a Noribang with a bunch of other people. It was just a bunch of foreign girls singing. The Korean men at the place were very curious and kept coming in our room to see what we were doing. It was odd, creepy, but extremely funny. Saturday night was the big event. We went bar hopping. All of the foreign community was doing this and going to the same bars. It was so much fun! I met so many new people and hung out with people who I don't get to see very often. It was a blast. 

            Sunday and Monday consisted of a few of us trying to go to a CatCafe (you get coffee and pet cats I guess), Paul and Mary's for hamburgers, and other random things. ALL of which were closed. We had walked and taxied all over town trying to do this stuff for hours, and all of it was closed. So we settled for hot dogs and beer by our house. During the evening we went up to the park by our apartments and had a fire. Blake and Rachel (the married co-workers) play the violin and the guitar (I myself have recently acquired a mandolin which I'm learning how to play), so we brought those and had a 'jam' session. It was such a great time. We did set a bucket on fire, and I did burn myself, but it was worth it! All in all one of the best weekends since I've been here.

Lets hope there's more of those to come.

Nice blogging with you!

    <3 Stine  

  

Trips to Seoul and Such

Once again I fail at writing on a regular basis. Sorry. The good news is that my extra class that I've been teaching is finally over. The sad news is that I'll probably get an extra class again in two weeks. Nevertheless,  I've done a few trips to Seoul the past month.

The first time I went back to Seoul I went to watch The Hobbit in 4D. That's right 4D! Not only is the movie in 3D, but the seats move and they blow wind on you. It's very similar to the movie rides in Disney World. The Hobbit was a bit disappointing, but I'll always have my loyalties to Lord of the Rings first. Watching it in 4D was an interesting experience though. A one time thing for sure; it was like $20.

While in Seoul, I met up with one of my friends from Cornell. It was nice seeing a familiar face. At night we decided to see the foreigner night-life in Itaewon. Oddly enough we ran into a bunch of people I trained with, so it was nice to see them again. However, after meeting a bunch of people in Seoul, I realized how lucky I am to live in Gangneung.

First off it's a lot harder to get by with English is Gangneung, so the little Korean I know is much more than most of the people I met in Seoul. Second, I get to eat real Korean food ALL THE TIME! It's great. Also, the food in Gangneung is much better than most of the food I had in Seoul. I know it seems like I'm ragging on Seoul, but you have to understand that I don't like big cities to begin with. Seoul does have a better night life compared to Gangneung though. One of my friends is gay, so he took us to a gay bar. Gangneung doesn't have gay bars, so I've been going through gay men-detox. It was nice to get some flamboyancy back into my life for the night. :)

Then my friend Francesca and I stayed in a jinjilbang (a Korean bathhouse). That was wonderful! It's pretty much a public shower with a bunch of hot tubs. It was so relaxing. Also, you can sleep there. We slept in a sauna; which was way to hot to comfortably sleep. Koreans can sleep anywhere though and the jinjilbang proved that: the floor, a bench, a broken chair, a workout machine. It's crazy.
Okay, now on to the second trip to Seoul.

Last weekend my co-workers and I signed-up for a DMZ tour. We took the night train to Seoul; which takes 8 hours (the bus takes 3). Once again, Koreans where sleeping all over the place, so we tried to sleep on the train too. Once our 8 hour trip was over, we took the subway to a restaurant called "Butterfingers Pancakes." It's an American breakfast place. I cannot tell you how much I miss a Perkins, so I was really excited. I got an omelette with a side of bacon. It was HUGE and I couldn't eat all of it, but it was just okay and it cost about $25. ! .

Afterwards we met up with Adventure Korea, the company providing the tour. We got to the DMZ, had a shitty 'Korean' lunch and started the tour. The first stop was a park where Freedom Bridge is; the bridge connecting the North and South.

It was quite strange though, because it was a sad place. It's the DMZ, right? Yet, there was a small amusement park there. Koreans are trying to make the DMZ have a positive connotation. It's not working.

We went to one of the tunnels that North Korea had dug to try and infiltrate Seoul (there's 4 that the South has found). It was really interesting; I wish I had pictures, but we weren't allowed to take any. Don't want to give away 'secrets' of the tunnel. I mean, the North dug it, so I'm assuming they know everything there really is to know. 

Then we went to the observation tower to look at the North's capital. We could only take pictures from one spot, so the picture isn't good. Here is the capital of North Korea:

It's really small. Also, in the 80's the North cut-down all their trees for firewood. Now there's no trees. The mountains and plains look like a barren wasteland. It's like Nevada. (Sorry Nevada). They also have huge statues of the previous leaders on the base of the mountains. Can I just say that the leaders are also all funny looking: 

Point, set, match.

Our final stop was the train station that connects the North and South. The countries plan for unification, so the train is suppose to eventually connect the two capitals without have any forced-stops. Clearly right now people cannot go between the two countries freely. Does it sound like an interesting stop? Well, it wasn't. The only fascinating thing about it was the guards who controlled the entrance to the platform. They were intense.

My final comment on the DMZ is this: they are trying to make it a hopeful place; a symbol of unification. However, everything about it screams about the turmoil. A barbed-wire fence marks every part of the boarders. There are little, triangle signs with skulls on them telling visitors they can't go off the path because there are mines everywhere. Maybe one day the countries will unite, but I can't see this happening soon. The DMZ will always be a place of tension. I guess we'll see what the future holds.

Nice to blog with you!

   <3 Stine

  

  

Compilation of Short Stories

Clearly I have not written in a long while. I've been a busy beaver. In fact, this month I am teaching an extra class called "winter intensive reading." This means that I work five days a week instead of four, and for of those days I'm teaching for 8 hours with one 20 minute break. It has been and will be exhausting. So I've decided to update you on what has happened the last month or so by a few short stories/updates.

Christmas:
Although Christmas is celebrated, it is not nearly as crazy as the U.S. Therefore, we worked Christmas Eve and day.On Christmas day we went to Bon V (the foreigner bar by our house) and celebrated with some friends. One of the Korean girls who works there, Lucy (as we named her), got 'krunk.' We danced the night away and now hang out with Lucy about once a week. Yeah, Korean friend!

New Years:
The traditional New Years Eve is celebrated in Korea by doing the count-down to midnight then watching the gong in Seoul. Then Koreans drink ALL night then make their way to the beach to watch the long-honored tradition of watching the sunrise. This was also our plan. We went to WaBar for the midnight count-down; taking the drinking slow as to stay up all night. Then we headed downtown to a foreigner bar called Rush. EVERYONE was so drunk and acting like highschoolers who have never seen the opposite gender. I continued to drink slowly; which made the atmosphere pretty awful. Around 4 am we went to McDonalds with the others from the bar. At that point I was WAY too tired and annoyed by the wasted people I was with. I guess not binge drinking was my downfall and I had to go home and go to sleep. I missed the sunrise. It was really sad. The others met up with some of our Korean friends at the beach and had a blast. Oh well, next time, right?

Coffee and Obscure Songs:
Went to one of the many local cafes (I live in the coffee capital of Korea) for a coffee and to read. My ears started burning when I heard a song playing over the speakers in English. It was a song by the Plain White Ts. One from their first album before they became popular. I happen to have that album from seeing them as an opening band when I was in middle school. The only time I have ever heard that song was in my CD player, and here it was, belting over the speakers in Korea.

Set fire, to the Soup:
After a night of bar hopping, the other teachers and I decided to get Shabu Shabu the next morning for lunch. Being that none of us were on our best things went wrong rather quickly. The bowl of soup on the communal open grill at our table started to tilt from one of us bumping the table. Naturally Matt went to fix it before the soup started to boil over. The bowl was HOT. He grabbed a handful of paper napkins and grabbed the bowl's handle. The handle was so hot that the wad of napkins instantly burst into flames. There we were, in a quite, Korean restaurant at noon with a decent-sized fire at our table. We lunged for the pitch of water and poured it all over our table. The Koreans next to us quickly left.

A Real Nori Bong:
This past weekend some Koreans took us to a nori bong (Karaoke). It was extremely fun and everything you would expect. This led me to think about the nori bong Aaron and I tried to figure out a few weeks ago. The first one was really sketchy, had blacked-out door windows on each singing room, and there were not microphones. Turns out that we went to a prostitution ring that was covered by 'nori bong.' Oops.

Walking on Water and Saying Hello:
This isn't really a story, but some random things. First, the huge lake by our house/the beach has started to freeze. Naturally Koreans were walking on the water. We joined them, and a dog, and walked on this lake. It was a good time. Also, I would say at least once a day a random person will say "hello!" to us. It's only because we're white. Koreans do not do this to each other. It's kind of nice though, it makes everything feel a bit less lonely.

I'll try and write more often. I'm not promising anything though, time is going to be restricted this month. I'm also hooked on the show Sons of Anarchy; so that addiction my out-weigh blogging. Just a heads up.

Nice blogging with you!
    <3 Stine