Quick trip to Seoul

(Both patriotic and gaudy, Korea never ceases to amuse)

Living in Korea for over 15 months now, it is easy to forget how fantastic it is to jump on a train and get whisked off to the nation's capital for a day or two. The more often I visit, the less harsh and crowded it seems. I have learned to lean into the bustling traffic and found an area I know well and love. Of course, the seasons changing, and I was well over due for a weekend of shopping and good food. The decision wasn't difficult - we were off to Seoul.

Laura hadn't been to the Prison for Korean citizens during the Japanese occupation before, so drug our sleepy bodies out of our hostel and headed there first. It is easily in my top 5 must-see's in Seoul. If you can't commit to the time constraints of the DMZ and don't want to wander the War Museum, this is a great opportunity to see the Japanese invasion from Korea's perspective. It truly makes the Korean War more up-close and personal, and is well-worth the trip. These are taken in the park around the prison.

My favorite part about the city has always been the juxtaposition of ancient and modern structures. A city with a huge economy and global standing that preserves its history is notable. Seoul is packed - with a higher population and a smaller area of land than New York City - and yet, it has five beautiful palaces in the city limits. It is truly impressive to me that Korea values its history so deeply.

Next, we went to the Folk Village. I must say, I was mildly disappointed. It was mostly "museums," that charged 3 or 4 thousand won to look at different types of traditional arts. You could pay more and learn to do one of them - like paint a fan or tie knots. Compared to Andong, which is actually like a village where you can see people's daily lives, it was lackluster. They had posted their website, gahoemuseum.org, but I couldn't get the site to work.

The more important point is that we had a fantastic weekend eating Taco Bell and Subway, meeting up with lots of friends for plenty of drinks, enjoying copious amounts of galbi, and shopping everywhere from Myeongdong to Insadong. Living the good life, obviously.

Sweet Potato Farm

November's field trip was a day at Goo-Am Village, the folk village I went to in September on the Daegu City Tour. We were going to dig up potatoes with the kindergarten students.

Michelle, our director, is showing the kids how to use the tools for digging up potatoes.

The village is on beautiful Palgong Mountain.

Joanne, my coworker, helping the kids pack their bags for optimal potato fitting. She's traveled all over and is truly kind and intelligent. Joanne really is one of my favorite people at St. Louis.

Wini and Mina - Wini is one of our newer students. I teach their class first, and they are always diligent and excited to learn .

This is my wonderful homeroom class, K-E

Korean style swings, the kids loved them. I was worried they were going to wipe out jumping off of them, but luckily there were no injuries.

Cindy and Julia, their class is awesome.

We were finding bugs.

Earlier this month I realized I have now been in Korea for over 100 days. This means that I've been in Korea for over three months, which leaves nine more here. I feel like I have established a life here. Its nice to have groups of friends and people I can count on. I've met so many people from all around the world, it really is an amazing experience. I have had friends leave, which is hard, but am comforted knowing that most of my close friends here will be here at least another 6 to 9 months with me. Its nice to be able to say that I am happy with my life.

Andong Mask Festival

I have to apologize, this is going to be a long post with lots and lots of pictures! Luckily, you can click the picture and it will open it up much larger, if you would like to see better details. Just click the "Back" button to return to the blog.

This past weekend Laura and I went to Andong's Hahoe Folk Village for a Mask Dance Festival. The village is a beautiful and set in the mountains.

Hahoe is notable because it features preserved Joseon Dynasty architecture.

The first performance was a traditional Korean dance, which was similar to a play - the characters had masks on but microphones underneath. It seemed like it was supposed to be funny, as everyone was laughing, but it was entirely in Korean.

The masks are rather simple, but have very exaggerated facial expressions.

The next two performances were drum ensembles. They were younger students, and very talented. The video below is the older group, six girls and two boys.

After performances with masks, it was interesting to see the young students perform with the masks pulled up on their heads. I could see their concentration and fear easily, but they did wonderfully.

Next was a Thai group; it is an international festival. The rest of the pictures will be from their company. I didn't stay long enough to see the next group, which was Malaysian.

As far as I could tell, the focus was primarily on subtle movements of the hand and feet, rather than rhythmic movements one imagines when they think of African traditional dances. It was all quite precise, and technically impressive.

These guys were awesome! When I go to Thailand (with Tricia, Mom, and Dad) I hope we can see some of these performances while we are there.

Laura and I met with them after and got some pictures with the Thai performers. Laura actually bought a wooden sword and battled one of the guys! haha!

I love the totem poles in Korea. I am still on the hunt for miniature ones that I can get as a souvenir, for now I will settle with my two Korean masks.

Daegu City Tour

This past weekend I vowed to be more independent in my tourist-ing around the city, and went on a Daegu City Tour by myself. These are pretty cool, and all of the big cities have them in Korea. You pay about $8 for the day, and you hop on and off the tour buses at the designated stops/times, and its unlimited for the whole day. I got a late start, but had time to see three of the locations on it. (you can make the pictures larger by clicking on them)

First, I went to the Bullo-dong Tombs. Daegu has 137 tombs right in the city, which is because Daegu was a part of the Silla Empire (remember the post about Gyeong Ju?).

I wore flip flops and was hung over. I was not prepared for the hiking portion of the morning.

Lots and lots of tombs, each one labeled with a little plaque and a number.

After the tombs, I wandered around the area waiting for the next bus, and found a really cool outdoor market that stretched on for blocks and blocks. They had all sorts of strange things and smells, amazing textures and colors. It was beautiful.

I am addicted to peppers in Korea.

Korea has a lot of telephone wires. Between the buildings, everything is exposed and cutting through the mountain views. It makes for a very unique picture of the city.

My second stop was the Goo-Am Folk Village. This is a living museum - they have traditional aspects of Korean culture on display and it is generally hands on. This was a small one, but was interesting nonetheless.

Everything here is cute.

Everything.

I was taught out to make egg baskets out of straw. To me, this doesn't look like a basket, but they have handles and are cute. Don't worry, those are foam balls, not real eggs.

The instructor made me this out of leaves, which I love.

I wanted a little statue of their totem poles, but they only make cutesy things in their wood carving shop, like the heart shaped stuff above.

The third stop was the Bangjja Yugi, or Bronzeware, Museum, which is up on the Palgong Mountain (remember the Dondhwasa Temple?). It aims to preserve Korea's traditional methods of bronzeware, and it is full of beautiful, intricate pieces of art. These are handbells, which I loved, since I learned to play them and all.

This is the largest gong of its style in the world, in the Book of World Records and all. I wish I had gotten some frame of reference in the shot.

These are candle sticks. I wish I had more information about everything, but there wasn't a lot of English captions. Then I tried to find a place to eat, as I had some time before my bus was coming to take me home.. a wonderful older woman working the information desk at the museum decided to walk me to a noodle place down the road, and taught me how to eat the long thin, slippery noodles with metal chopsticks. She had been studying English for twenty years, but felt uncomfortable speaking in it, since she rarely was able to practice with native English speakers. I try to explain to these people that my Korean is practically nonexistent, and their English is generally impressive, so they shouldn't be worried.. but I get the impression that a lot of people have not been as accepting of little grammar errors, which is just wrong.

Changing the subject though, the work weeks fly by, and I have been crazy busy. I am sending packages and letters to people who have sent me things already, and am excited for that. Corinne and I are going on base today, to pick up some American goods (some for Tricia, t0o!) and eat some Taco Bell. Tomorrow might be a day trip, so I should post more pictures soon.