Gwangju

This past weekend Laura and I went to Gwangju. It is notable because it was the heart of the democracy movement in Korea. The first place we went was the May 18th Memorial Park - which was the setting for the 1980 student protest that ended in several civilians being killed. In my mind this is the closest Korea has to its own Tienanmen Square, so I had been wanting to see it. Gwangju is also notable for me because had I not signed my contract with St. Louis, I would have been living here instead.

This is a huge monument, these children are young and unsupervised. It isn't really surprising, in Korea, but I thought it was notable because they were climbing so high and were adorable.

Under the giant triangle the kids are climbing on, there is a list of names, which I am not sure if these are people involved in the democracy movement, or if they were those killed during the protests.

This was a stone carved mural on one wall, and in the middle was a statue of a mother carrying her son, killed by the soldiers in the movement.

This is Laura. These giant metal poles are surrounding the giant triangle.

I am becoming a more and more capable tourist. Lonely Planet is extremely helpful in this endeavor.

Next we went to the Gwangju National Museum. It was a beautiful building.

The most interesting thing to me was the capsule style coffins. The captions were only in Korean, but from the photographs, like the one in the background, I think they tuck one jar's lip inside the other, to create a seal.

Gwangju is also famous for "Art Street." We went pretty late, so some stores were closed, but its all art galleries and stores, selling supplies, original art and pottery. Everything was beautiful and so well done. I was a little sad, because Daegu doesn't have much of an art scene, there isn't a museum or galleries really. This is one thing that has depressed me a bit, and Art Street was a wonderful treat for me.

We stayed in Gwangju, and the following day we went to Damyang.

First, we went to a bamboo forest. It was really beautiful, and it was great to see things so lush and green in fall, where most trees' leaves have already changed colors and fallen off.

When we finished exploring the forest, Laura and I tried to get a cab to a bamboo museum. We realized pretty quickly that Damyang is not Daegu - there were absolutely no cabs. Our only option was to call one, which was difficult given our limited knowledge of Korean. So we stood at the road and looked around contemplating our next move. Luckily, we were in Korea - within a few minutes, we were stopped by a random Korean man, who looked at our map and gathered where we were trying to go. Turns out, he was a tour guide leading a bus around Damyang full of older Korean couples from Seoul. He invited us to join them - for free- and took us on a pretty awesome tour of the city.

Metasequoia Avenue has been voted the most beautiful road in Korea. I can see why.

These little guys were all over Damyang's tourist locations, which I thought were the cutest things ever.

Soswaewon was made in 1520 and it was great to see the traditional architecture.

I'm excited for our tour. The guide communicated what he could in English, and one of the other tourists spoke a little English, and would translate a little more. We got the jist of most of it, and my guidebook helped, too.

In Korea, Autumn lasts months. Its wonderful, the leaves are still changing and colorful. I'm happy to have nice weather still. Of course Thanksgiving isn't exactly a holiday here, we still have to work.

As for the concern about the artillery fire earlier this week... I am not to worried, and don't think you should be either. Life is continuing on as normal here. I am registered with the US Embassy, and if there is an evacuation, I will be the first to know. Yes, it is the most serious threat since the Korean War, but I believe all parties involved will be rational and show restraint. My plan is to be in Korea until next August, and as of now, that is not changing. Obviously, if the situation becomes untenable, I will put my safety first. As of now, thats all I know. Keep Korea in your thoughts, watch the news, and eat some mashed potatoes for me on Thanksgiving!

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.

Swimming field trip, cat, and Daegu National Museum

Its been a little bit since my last update, which I apologize for, but now I actually have some friends (!) so I have had things to do, and also writing September's lesson plans, which has had me a little overwhelmed/less interested in sitting around after work to type.



It has been a fun week though, because we went on a field trip! We took the kindergarten classes to a pool on Thursday, and it was probably the cutest thing in the world. This is me with most of my "homeroom" class, looking incredibly adorable. All the kids wear swimcaps, most brought huge tubes and squirt guns. The next picture is my co-worker and friend Corinne and her class, you will hear more about Corinne later in the post, though (also, the Korean woman in the middle is Michelle, the director of my school). I'm really glad I brought a one piece swimsuit, most women in Korea wear them, from what I've gathered. Also, a bikini wouldn't have been very effective when I was running through the water dodging kids splashing and spraying water at me while dragging two tubes of screaming kids behing me. It was a great time. Since the trip some of the more shy students seemed to warm up to me, and the kids I don't have a class with now run up to me and say hello. I feel lucky to start with a field trip, it has for sure helped the kids and I to get to know each other better.




After swimming the Korean staff (the teachers with the girls, and even the bus drivers with the boys), took the kids to shower and dry off. Yes, I did say that the bus drivers helped the boys shower, which would never, ever happen in America - the parents wouldn't allow it, the bus drivers would charge extra by the minute. In Korea, its just accepted as normal, which is nice. I haven't lived in a place were it is assumed that people are intristically good and trustworthy. Then we all had a picnic, the close up is me with Suzie, one of the students from my first class of the day. She is one of the sweetest kids I have ever met.


Back to what I was saying though, friends. I have some. Corinne for one, she's been here for 9 months, and is really supportive and inclusive with me. Inviting me out with her friends and helping me get around the city. It is really nice to feel like someone understands what I am going through, as she did it nine months ago, and since she lives in my building and works at my school, she knows the area well. She is someone I feel like if I met her back home I would be her friend - which is saying something, really.


Corinne put me in touch with her friend who was leaving Korea this month, and gave me my cat! My cats a girl, and is starting to get more friendly with me, I've had her less than 24 hours so far, but she seems darling. She is very "vocal" as in, she meows all of the time. I am debating naming her Trenton, which is kind of a masculine name, but am not sure yet. Suggestions?


Another friend I've made is Chris, who is a Korean guy living semi close to me in Daegu. This is us at Burham's Burgers with Western style burgers and beer. We met because he followed me at midnight down the side street to my house and asked me to get a drink with him so he could practice his English. I said yes, and laughingly informed him that to befriend Americans he should be aware that if I was in the US I would have called the police, because you just don't follow women around at night! He's learning English for his job, which is something with designing phones. Chris is smart, and his English is actually pretty good considering how recently he started learning. There are times when I will say something and he won't understand, then its a short game of charades, miming, drawing, Chinese writing (some Korean words are still based off of Mandarian), and dictionary searching. He doesn't get frustrated and give up when he struggles to find the words for what he is trying to express. This weekend we went to the Daegu National Musuem together. It was a lot of fun, he helped me, since the captions were mostly in Korean, and we went to the kids' area and did traditional Korean printing.




This is wet printing. He was okay at it, I was kind of terrible, but basically you take thin handmade paper, lay it on the metal plate, wet it down, use a cloth and then a bristle brush to press it down, then take the stamp pad in the top left to imprint the image. I was much more interested in the (much easier) dry printing. This you had a metal plate that you rubbed ink on, then set a sheet of regular paper on, and rubbed the paper to print the image. We spent about an hour doing a ton to send back to some lucky people in the states. I was hoping I could just buy some in the gift store, since mine were flawed, but alas, we could not, so we did our best. Luckily Chris was a sport and helped me make a bunch. Interestingly, the museum was free to get into, and two slices each of thin and regular paper were just 500 won, so it was a steal.


There was also whole room full of clothing from around Asia that was just beautiful. Most of the pictures didn't turn out, but here is one of a traditional Japanese wedding dress and the Confucian monk's traditional robes.



Alright, that is all for now. I will update on Daegu's night life soon, but its monsoon season, and I haven't bothered taking pictures downtown in the rain. I got my ARC Friday, soI should have the internet in my house on Thursday, which means Skype soon!


Also, packages. People who mail me things get things in the mail back, because they are special. This is related to the fact that I did not bring my address book to Korea. If you do not know my address, you can email me, and get it from me. I am most interested in handmade art and things that would remind me of you. You don't need to ship frames or anything of that nature, just something small and light. I am also interested in packages containing Kraft shape mac and cheese and Reese's cups. There is no need to mail me books, as there is a huge English bookstore here. There is good snack food here, and the chocolate is different but not bad. They have lots of American candy bars, even Mr Big, my favorite Canadian candy bar that I couldn't even find in the US! Bye for now!