Bosung

Monday:
Monday, we packed up our stuff, and left Jinju at nine to start heading the next city. First stop of the day was Daehan Dawon, a famous gorgeous tea field (better to be known as tea hill, because it’s up a mountain) around Bosung. The Bosung area is known for it’s 녹차 (green tea). We climbed up the hills, took a bunch of pictures, ate some green tea icecream, and moved on to the next town.

The next town, 삼수마을 (Samsu town), we had lunch, and then were sent into the corn fields behind the town hall. Everyone picked two heads each for the ladies in the town hall to boil for us. I also got destroyed by mosquitoes in the process. After we finished picking corn, we went back into the town hall for a Korean tea serving demonstration. It was really interesting to watch. I thought it would be just like tea ceremony in Japan, but it was actually quite different to many ways. The only thing similar about it is that they were both art forms. When the tea demonstration ended, the corn we picked came out and everyone stuffed themselves with corn on the cob. It’s so good they way they make corn here!

Around 4:30pm, we finally arrived at our next hotel, Oksum Beach Mansion. The place has a whole little kitchenette, which makes me a bit jealous since we don’t even have one at home. We got a corner room with a good view, but once again was a small room with mats and pillows on the floor.

Even though our hotel was right on the water, we had to take a 15 minute bus to get to the beach where we could swim. We headed out to the beach at 5:30, but there wasn’t too much or see to do there. It was pretty much a village, and didn’t have a PC café or anything. It was easy to get bored quite fast.

At 10pm we got back to the room finally, and everyone was kinda tired. We started setting up our beds, and then a large grey and orange centipede the size of an unused crayon crawled out of Jacqueline’s bedding. Her and Mary started freaking out, so I grabbed some tissues and went after it. As I was trying to kill it, it STUNG me, so we captured it underneath a bowl instead. Tyler came down and grabbed a bunch more tissues and killed it.

The night ended with me going to the local hospital to get two shots because apparently there are poisonous centipedes here. A girl got bit by a centipede on the ankle last year on the trip, and thought nothing of it, but the next day went swimming and her ankle swelled up huge.

Tuesday:
No radioactive bug signs were visible, so I guess I survived. We started the day with going into the beach town to have a FULL AMERICAN CONTINENTAL BREAKFAST. Really unexpected, but a welcome change. We’ll be having breakfast there the next two days as well. We’re all looking forward to that.

After breakfast, we went to Nakan Upsung, a village the sits on the site of an old fortress that defended itself against Japanese pirates long ago. We had lunch there, and were gonna head to the beach again, but it started raining, so everyone just went back to their rooms to practice for the play. I have new lines because some stuff got switched around in our script. I slept through my group’s practice because I was really tired, and missed out learning the steps for our big dance performance at the end. Only one more day to go, so I gotta learn it! Pretty slow day cause of the rain.

Wednesday:
We got up same time as Tuesday to go have some more continental breakfast.

After that, we hiked up 다산초당 (Dasan Chodang), the estate of some scholar who lived there while in exile from the royal palace in Seoul. The hike was really beautiful, and at the top was this temple called 백련사 (Baek-ryun-sa).

We returned to the beach after that to practice for the plays that evening. 동선 (Dongsun), another friend from Temple who lives not too far away, came to visit and watched us rehearse. At 6pm, the show began, and EVERYONE's performance was so great and funny. I can't wait to see the video back of our performances. A lot of people did really great jobs. During one scene in ours, I was a waitress, and I had to go off to the side for a moment and come back with alcohol for the customer. I had two small bottles of soju in my back pockets, and people said I looked like I was pulling bottles out of my butt.

Someone mentioned that morning that there was internet at DaBichi Condo where we'd been having our breakfast, so after the performance, when Dongsun went home, I went to DaBichi and sat on the internet for a while getting stuff done.


P.S. I’ve started trying to practice reading and writing in Russian. My goal is to be able to read and write at least 40 words a minute by the end of September. At the moment, I feel like I can read about ten words a minute and write about three words a minute. But as soon as I learn the keyboard better, I should get that second number up really fast. Good luck to me, eh!
Fulbright application due September 28th.

Jinju

We woke up early yesterday morning, and I packed all my stuff up in a hurry since I hadn't started the night before. We were on the bus and ready to leave by 9am. We arrived in Jinju city at about 1pm. It's considerably smaller than Suwon, but like Suwon it has a fortress (castle in Jinju's case) as its' center and main attraction. Our motel is literally across the street from the castle, which is quite cool because we can just go for walks along it. We also live very close to the South River (main river running through Jinju).Yesterday we had a free day so me and Jacqueline went for a walk and there was a really nice market selling fruit and all other types of stuff. At night we went to the castle took some pictures.

This morning we went to the castle again and to the museum there. The castle is very pretty.

After that, we got on the bus, and went down to 통영 (Tongyong), a small town along the sea. It was really beautiful. We visited a temple at the top of a mountain, and then went down by the waterside. We were hoping to see the beach today because the promised us, but we didn't have much time, so we didn't go. It's ok though because tomorrow we'll be in 보성 (Bosung) which is right on the beach.

One more thing...

I asked the Korean teacher at Temple University Japan give me my reference for Korean for this CLS scholarship when I was there last fall because that's where I was when I applied. She asked me to write about my Korean language experience for a book she's writing, and I finally got around to it. Here is my rough draft. Final draft and English copy soon to come.

나 벌써 5년쯤 한국에 관심 있다. 처음에는 고등학교에서 다른 미국 친구가 내게 한국 음악과 드라마가 추천했니까 한국 문화를 감상하게 됐다. 나는 템플 대학교에서 한국말 공부하기 시작했다. 그런데, 나 옛날에 문화와 역사 잘 몰랐다. 그것을 너무 배우고 싶었지만 내 학교에서 그때 한국 역사나 문화 수업이 없었다. 서울에서 많은 대학교가 여름에서 영어로 가르치는 프로그램이 있었다. 조금 연구후에 고려대학교의 국제하계대학 프로그램을 고렸다. 아르바이트를 취직했고 신청했다. 합격 증서를 받은 때 너무 흥분했다.

처음에 왔을 때 한국이 너무 좋아했고 듣는 수업이 너무 좋아했다. 2007년 7월 1일에 도착했다. 그 때는 한국에서 대통령 선거가 있었다. 나 문화와 역사만을 공부하고 싶지만 한국 정치 대해서 자주 들었다. 그 전에 한국 영화와 드라마와 음악을 알려 듣고 싶었다. 새 목적이 있어졌다. 나는 한국어를 모국어처럼 말하고 싶고 한국에서 대사관에서 일하고 싶었다.

미국에 돌아가자마자 정치학 전공을 추가했다. 요즘 동양 관계에 관심하다. 한국과 일본 관계를 공부하고싶다. 앞으로 외국 근무에 일하고싶고 한국에서 대사를 되면 좋겠다. 미국 정부 프로그램에서 Critical Languages Scholarship이 때문에 이번 여름에 경희대학교에서 중급 한국어를 배운다. 이 프로그램이 8주간이다. 8주에 2권 책이 배운다. 이 프로그램이 너무 힘들지만 실력이 천천히 늘고 감사하다. 언젠가 한국어를 능숙하게 말하길 원한다.

More trips to Seoul...

I've officially applied for graduation!! And I managed to get it by the early deadline which means they'll have me squared away by the time school starts. That's good. I won't have to go through all that bureaucracy over the fall. January 2010 here I come!!!! Korean music is so damn catchy. Every time I go into a convenience store, I hear the same two or three songs over and over til I know at least the choruses by heart... When I first came, it was Again & Again by 2PM, Sorry Sorry by Super Junior, and Insomnia by 휘성 (Wheesung). Now wherever I go, I hear Hot Issue by 4 Minute or I Don't Care by 2NE1. These songs are quite simple to sing, and I've already got quite a bit down. I think I'll try them out next time I go to karaoke. Songs are a great way to learn a language. It's kind of weird the songs I've been singing for a while now having no idea what they meant, and now I'm learning the grammar points that come up in some songs I love. It's like a bit of a revelation.

Tuesday I had a meeting with my teacher to discuss the speaking portion of my midterm. He said that I'm one of the better speakers and listeners in the group, and gave me some pointers to fix up my problems. Overall, I think the meeting went quite well. I was really surprised because I thought I was one of the worst in the class since I didn't feel I improved much. But if he says, I'm doing good, who am I to argue?

Monday was Joyce's birthday, so Tuesday we went to Outback Steakhouse. I met some of Joyce's church friends and we had a good dinner. Then me and Joyce went shopping for a bit at the shopping arcade under Lotte Department store.

Thursday after class we were made to go to Samsung D'light in 강남 (Kangnam). It's like a showcase for Samsung's products and was really quite pointless. I mean, it had some really cool electronics but nothing worth a separate trip to Seoul for. Some people were really pissed off because they had exams today and were hoping to study for them. They didn't like that the trip cut into their study time. I didn't really mind that cause I met up with two Temple IELP friends afterwards in 사당 (Sadang).

All these trips to Seoul are really wearing me down because even if I don't leave my friends too late, I seem to end up getting back to school around 11 or 12.

Today class ended on a really fun note. We got to play this game called 윷놀이 (Yoonnori). The teams were divided up into East Coasters vs. West Coasters. It got pretty heated. But we had so much fun! West Coast won a round, and then we won a round. We intend to have a rematch soon!

(photo from KoreanFolk.co.kr)

Also, I went to the bank and picked me up a 50,000 won piece today! It's brand new, and so pretty, I just had to have one. Until now, the highest bill in circulation in South Korea has been the 10,000 won note. These days, 10000W is only about $7, which makes traveling really hard... This note is gonna be so useful! Now if only they could fill in a few more in between. Maybe a 20,000 or 25,000 would be nice. This is also the first woman to be on Korean money. She's an artist and calligraphist and mother of a famous scholar, but that's about it. Quite a bit of controversy has been stirring up over her saying this choice upholds sexist ideals of what represents a good woman in a Confucian society.

(photo from ROKDrop)

Tomorrow we leave for our long anticipated week-long program trip! I can't wait. Will update when I can.

2호선

2호선 is the second subway line in Seoul, aka the Green Line. I spent all day on this line today... It's so large! It's a circle, but unlike the Yamanote Line in Tokyo which takes exactly an hour to complete, 2호선 takes about 2 hours. It's enormous, and I usually have no choice but to take it these days whenever I go to Seoul because all my buses back to Suwon are on this line.

So today after class, I arrived in 잠실 (Jamshil) at 2:30 by bus, and went to 뚝섬 (Ddukseom) where Seoul Forest is. Someone recommended it to me, so I decided to go, check it out, and take some pictures. The sky, as usual in Seoul, was completely invisible. Nothing but fog. I couldn't even feel any fresh air in a park full of trees. In the West and in the East, there are two very different perceptions of outdoor beauty. In the West, we look at the bigger picture. When we're looking at something old and picturesque, the only way we could describe it so is if there is nothing industrial or such in the way of our view or photo. In the East, there can be a beautiful gate with a dirty highway running behind it, and they could still call it beautiful. This thought was reaffirmed at Seoul Forest where behind beautiful trees and sculptures I saw highways, apartment buildings, and large cranes. Even in Central Park in New York City you would never see that. They make sure that the trees are tall enough to block out that which isn't pretty to the eye, and all the visible buidlings are gorgeous and enviable.
*rant over*

Anyways, after that, I went to 신당 (Shindang) to have the famous Shindang 똑볶이 (spicy rice cakes) with Sean. It was really good! Also, I really missed Sean, cause I haven't seen him in two years. We used to hang out all the time last time I was here. He pretty much helped me get around the city when I knew nothing about Seoul. After dinner, we ended up in 홍대 (Hongdae), the hip college town area of Seoul. I got a rook piercing that I've wanted forever now! It only cost me $10, which was worrying, but it doesn't hurt, so I guess that's a good thing. After that, we went to a jazz bar for a bit, did sticker photos, then went home.

ASAN!!

Yesterday morning I woke up at 7am to a text message from my conversation partner saying the plan to go to Asan was still on because the weather seemed to be clearing up. I was so excited, I hurriedly got my stuff together and met my conversation partner at Suwon Station at 10am.













We got to Asan at about noon, and the station we got off at had a really cute 시장 (outdoor market) there. We had some lunch there, and bought some BBQ meat for dinner, then headed to her grandma's house.

On the way, we stopped by a 민속 (traditional village). It was really pretty there, and there was a stream going through it. A lot of kids were playing in it, and we decided to go play for a while, too.

It was pretty small there, but her grandmother was really sweet. Reminded me a lot of my own grandma. We had 삼겹살 (pork) for dinner that we barbecued outside ourselves.



















This morning we had breakfast, and then came back to Suwon. I pretty much did nothing but homework and reviewing today. I have to write an entire page in Korean about the most memorable gift I ever received. I don't know if I can even do that in English, let alone Korean. Damon and I spent about 3 hours in Paris Baguette doing hw and studying.

Week in Review

The week went past pretty quietly. I spent most of my time outside of class in my room watching Degrassi studying.

Tuesday was my final exam for my first semester. I studied a few hours on Monday night for it, but not as much as I would have liked to. I ended up getting an 81 on the final exam, and a 94 for the entire semester. I wish Temple accepted this 94. That would really help my GPA crawl closer to 4.0.

I got the part of Nolbu's wife in the play we have to put on in Bosung, Heungbu and Nolbu.

Wednesday saw Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince with Joyce, Keunbum, and Mary. LOVED IT!!!! Ok, so they left a lot out, but the direction was great. The acting.... was not so great. For being real teenagers with real hormones, the actors are really quite unable to translate that to screen.

This morning, my conversation partner texted me that we wouldn't go to her grandma's farm over the weekend cause the weather was not good. I had plans today too, but they were also cancelled because of the 장마 (monsoon season). So pretty much I spent the entire day in my room watching videos.

Old Friends

On Thursday 장마 (monsoon season) officially set in. How happy am I for that....... So anyways, after classes, me and Keunbum went back to that karaoke place at Ajoo University we went to last time. It was at 3pm, so it was only about $8 for 2 1/2 hours which is amazingly cheap! One hour in the US is $30. This time one of his classmates, Abel, joined us for karaoke. Then we went to a cafe to study for a couple hours.

Friday morning I did my powerpoint for my presentation. Right as I was finishing up my last slide, my computer suddenly went blue and shut off after that. I almost had a heart attack. Thank god for Microsoft 2007 having a good autosave. My computer was able to turn back on, and I retrieved all my info with the exception of my last few slides. It was good thing because this happened 15 minutes before class was due to start x.X Friday went off like any other school day, and my presentation went pretty well. I knew most of my information by heart, but in English, not Korean, so I did some reading off the slides instead of speaking for memory. I hope I didn't lose many points for this.

Friday night I ended up at Korea University (고려대학교), my old uni in Seoul. They had a party for incoming summer students, and my friend Haeyoon invited me. I saw Daniella again finally after three weeks of waiting to meet her! I keep meeting this girl every time I'm in asia. We studied together 2 years ago at Korea Uni, and last summer I met her for a day in Tokyo while she was staying for a month. She left right after I arrived, so I only saw her that once in Tokyo. But so anyways.... we ended up partying, and then around 1am went back to CJ International House dormitory at Korea Uni. We went to sleep in the basement as we have known many people to do in the past who've missed curfew for the other dorms and were locked out because CJ didn't lock it's doors. But at 3am a security guard came down and told us we werent allowed to sleep there, and we ended up staying the rest of the night at a sauna.

Saturday, I met up with my program group to go see Nanta (난타), a sort of musical about a bunch of chefs who have an hour to prepare a feast for a bunch of weddings. It's mostly instrumental, and while I love musicals, I don't really like instrumental ones much. I thought I'd sleep through it, but I actually managed to enjoy it quite a bit. Then Zury and I met up with Sheila in Hongdae to go to a photography exhibit for the Seoul Photography Club, or something like that. The photographers were really amazing. I wish I had the means and talent to do the stuff they do.

Last night I went to bad at 11pm, and woke up today at 12:30pm. It's been a really lazy day because the downpour was so heavy that no one went out mostly. I got a tiny bit of studying done, but I have to study a lot more tomorrow because I have my midterm on Tuesday, and on Wednesday we begin Intermediate II.

Homework piles up...

The homework is slowly piling up on us. He's assigning more and more every night, and it's hard to keep our due dates straight. Yesterday, Erin did the first of the presentations about Fan Death (read here to understand). It's pretty ridiculous, but the fact that most Koreans believe in this is quite funny. Even funnier is the fact that they think the rest of the world does as well.

I have about 15/20 interviewed so far. I need 5 more guys cause I have 10 girls and 5 guys so far. Still no one who actually HAS a tattoo -_-. It's a shame. The teacher said the best way to go about the presentation is with a powerpoint, so I'm prolly gonna work on that tomorrow. Also... aparently it's ILLEGAL to do tattoos in Korea unless you have a medical license? I didn't know that. That must be really hard on people trying to open up tattoo parlors here.

Not that you can really understand, but here are my research questions:
1.) 유학 해 본 적 있으세요?

2.) 요즘 문신이나 피어싱에 대해서 한국사람들이 보수적인 생각을 가지고 있다고 생각하세요?

3.) 문신을 한 남자에 대해서 어떻게 생각하세요? 괜찮다고 생각하는 문신과 괜찮지 않다고 생각하는 문신이 있으세요? (보기: 작은 문신, 큰 문신, 용 문신, 별 문신, 한 개 있음, 많이 있음)

4.) 피어싱을 한 남자에 대해서 어떻게 생각하세요? 괜찮다고 생각하는 피어싱과 괜찮지 않다고 생각하는 피어싱이 있으세요? (보기: 귀를 뚫는 것, 혀를 뚫는 것, 한 곳만 뚫는 것, 여러 곳을 뚫는 것)

5.) 문신을 한 여자에 대해서 어떻게 생각하세요? 괜찮다고 생각하는 문신과 괜찮지 않다고 생각하는 문신이 있으세요? (보기: 작은 문신, 큰 문신, 용 문신, 별 문신, 한 개 있음, 많이 있음)

6.) 피어싱을 한 여자에 대해서 어떻게 생각하세요? 괜찮다고 생각하는 피어싱과 괜찮지 않다고 생각하는 피어싱이 있으세요? (보기: 귀를 뚫는 것, 혀를 뚫는 것, 한 곳만 뚫는 것, 여러 곳을 뚫는 것)

7.) 팔이나 등에 문신을 남자를 보면 어떤 생각이 드세요? 조직폭력배가 연상되세요?

8.) 앞으로는 문신을 하는 한국 사람들이 늘어날 것이라고 생각하세요?

9.) 문신을 하는데 있어서 서양의 대중 문화, 힙합 문화와 동양의 서예 문화 중 어떤 것이 더 큰 영향을 준다고 생각하세요?

10.) 문신을 하고 싶은 생각이 있으세요?

11.) 문신을 하지 않는 이유가 있다면 그것은 무엇이에요?

P.S. I got the cutest green pair of glasses that when I wear them, my eyes look green!! Quite cheaper than in the US, too.

The weekend

Yesterday we went to Sokri-san (속리산), a mountain 2 hours south east of Suwon. We drove down in our typical "rainbow bus", the company we use to transport our group whenever we go somewhere. But little did we know until yesterday that the bus was equipped with a karaoke complete with a microphone that travels to the back of the bus, and videos with lyrics for us to sing along. It was pretty ridiculous, and kinda fun. A little more than half of the bus was coerced into singing a song.

When we arrived, we had lunch, and then visited the temple Beopjusa (법주사) which was beautiful and had a giant golden Buddha there.

After lunch, we only were given an hour to go hiking around the mountain. The trails were quite simple, and I would have loved to spend a whole day there.

When we got back, Joyce came over and we went to Bon Juk (본죽) for dinner, which is an asian style porridge restaurant. About halfway through dinner, Sheila texted me that her and a couple of coworkers were getting together for a picnic at a park in Youngtong (영통), the area around my school, and asked if I wanted to come along. We were really close to there, so we decided to walk over. Until I got over there, I didn't realize that they were having a 4th of July picnic.

We had watermelon and fireworks and people playing guitar. Overall, it was pretty fun. The guys tried to put some roman candles in the ground, but they wouldn't stick too well, and looked a bit dangerous. I recommended that we try it out of the second half of the watermelon that no one seemed to be eating. It was pretty much a success.

Today I didn't really do much except for when Sheila once again invited me to dinner at NOW! Bar (the expat bar in Youngtong). One of the other English teachers had just gotten back from India, and he learned to cook there while living on a farm so he cooked dinner for us. The food was delicious, and I saw some of the people from last night again. We also played some pool, and I met some more English teachers. It's kinda bad that I've met more foreigners here than I have Koreans. At the bar there was this one Chinese girl that spoke no English, so we had to communicate in Korean. And it's perfect that she lives in my building one floor down, so that's at least somebody who lives closeby and I can speak Korean to.

The rest of the week

On Wednesday after class we had a guest lecturer come and talk to us about where Korean food came from. I thought that it would be really boring, but it was actually quite interesting learning random tidbits about Korean food like that bulgogi was only introduced to Korean cuisine in the 20th century, and there are 200 varieties of kimchi (and it didn't used to be red).

After class, I met up with Keunbum, Hyungsuk, and one of Hyungsuk's friends who's on leave from the army for a week. We went to a really tasty chicken place for dinner that we went to the night before for Chris P's birthday. They seemed to be happy with my recommendation cause they kept eating more and more. After dinner, HS and his friend left, so I showed Keunbum around campus and "Zeus' Temple", which is what we've started to call that colosseum thing...

Then we went to Aju University area to some karaoke place that he recommended. It was the luxury sort. Really good and really cheap. All in all, we paid total 18,000 for 2 1/2 hours of karaoke compared to paying 50,000 for 2 hours at the place we went to near Kyunghee. We had so much fun and sang way too much~

Thursday after class, I did Taekwondo for the first time. It was pretty embarrassing cause he thought we were all quite ridiculous. The class was specifically for our program participants and 11 of us showed up. I think we have 4 classes total. The guy was a sports something grad student at Kyunghee. One of the English teachers in Suwon told me that Kyunghee is famous for their Taekwondo so I was excited. But we pretty much were terrible. At least some of the guys and all the girls with the exception of Lindsey.

Today we went out for lunch and had pig kalbi and a bunch of other stuff. We had A TON of food for really cheap. It was all amazing and delicious. Afterwards, we were supposed to go karaoke but all the places nearby campus were closed at 3pm. That really sucks. So we just went back to the university instead.

I finally printed out my interview materials for my research project, and got to interview my first two people. Then I was really tired, so I just went to bed around 6:30pm.