All is routine...

Hi All... another blog in the life of Danielle. There actually isn't a whole lot to report on. Even though everyday is an adventure here, my life is starting to be quite routine and normal now. However, I am still learning things and exploring as much as I can :)
Right when I got comfortable in my school schedule, it was changed on me. I just about had all of my kids names down, and I was very happy with my break time, etc. It seemed like the days were flying by me. Now, with my new schedule, I'm not 100% satisfied but it works, the days go by slower :( I have new classes, some new kids, some the same. Instead of having 3 break split up, I have them all one after another in the beginning. So then all 8 of my classes are back to back... i run around like a chicken with my head cut off. I feel bad when someone comes up to me asking a question about their class and I can't remember which class they're in. But I always say that being busy is better than being bored so I can't complain. I have had the opportunity to make some extra money by teaching some extra classes. I am working every other Saturday from 2-5pm (yes the hours kinda suck but oh well) and in exchange, I get more money and more vacation time. Also, I come into school 30 minutes on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays to teach a conversational class with the Korean teachers. They said that they all learned a lot of grammer and writing but they do not think they speak well (i think they all speak VERY well.. i can definitely ask them just about anything), but they wanna speak then that's what I'm there for. We just have conversation about... whatever comes up for the day. Today was about natural disasters (since there was an earthquake in Los Angeles, my home, last night), which turned into a lesson for all of us in bad hand signs (like the middle finger, and other various hand gestures, i had no idea were bad lol). I still need a lesson in Korean swear words. As my co-worker Esther says "you need to know when they're saying bad words... either to you or each other. They will definitely talk about u straight to your face cause they know you can't understand." I think it's funny. Every now and then I'll say something to the kids in Korean and they're SHOCKED! "Teacher knows Korean?" and I usually just say "a little. you have to teach me." Since I am the 'speaking' teaching, I tend to get off the books sometimes if there is good english conversation going on. One of my classes really enjoy teaching me Korean words. They try so hard to explain things to me in English, so as long as they're speaking english, and I get to learn Korean, I think everyone is happy. It's really cute watching them get all excited to teach me new words, and see them laugh when I pronounce it funny, or they laugh cause my hangul (korean writing) looks like a 5 year olds.

So away from school, there hasn't been a whole lot going on. Mostly just hanging out with friends doing different things. 2 weeks ago, I went to a Toga/charity event party which was raising money for a Korean orphanage. It was TOUGH trying to turn a full sized fitted sheet and turn it into a toga. It was fun trying. There were soooo many foreigners and good food! Ranch dressing, and cheddar cheese!! Mmmmm. I was so happy :) We stayed there a bit, and then ventured into Kyungsun (when I say we, I mean my friend Gillian and Tina, in the pic, and my friend Albert, who is kinda my neighbor). I had never been to Kyungsun so that was fun. We wound up at a dance club and danced till 5AM!!! I am pretty sure that Korea is the first and only place I've been in my life where time flies EVERYWHERE all the TIME! My 2 months here have flown by, my days at school go by quickly, my nights on the town fly by... I can't tell what time is around here. I don't know if that's good or bad.
Saturday night, we went with my friend Lacey to a B-boy musical type thing. Lacey is a break dancer so she's always finding out about cool dance performances. This one was supposed to be really good and she got free tickets. I had no idea what to expect and I was BLOWN AWAY!!! It was sooooo great. It was literally a musical... kinda. No singing and no talking. Just acting and dancing about a ballerina who fell for a break dancer. It was really funny! And sooooo entertaining They were REALLY GOOD!! It was one of the best shows I'd been to in a long time. I LOVED IT!!

So just so my parents don't think I party every weekend (As much fun as i am having, I am also serious too... lol), I will let you know some of the other events I've been involved in/are starting this weekend. Last weekend, I ditched out on seeing Alice in Wonderland in 3D to take a Korean class. It was really really helpful. There were so many things cleared up that I was confused about, and I finally got some clarity into hangul (the alphabet characters). I even wound up reading my first word 'bus' this week (i only could understand it cause they say 'bus' also. If they had another word for 'bus' it would be a lot more complicated). But I'm definitely starting to get the hang of it all, the characters, the order, the syllables, the boxes, etc. This weekend I am torn between my 2nd korean class and attending a writing group... though I've pretty much made up my mind to go to the writing group (I wasn't able to attend the first meet up because of work). I'm VERY excited about the writing group. I've been wanting to join one for awhile in LA. I've always enjoyed writing. I love writing poems, short stories, etc. So I've started writing a lot about my experience here (i think i'll attempt an Eat, Pray, Love type novel) so it'll be great to have some support and help with that. This weekend is also another cultural event day at the Temple... English Dharma and Korean calligraphy (hopefully this helps with my hangul) on Sunday. Saturday, I'm going to attempt to go to a Bullfighting Festival in Cheongdo... about an hour or so away. I never connected Korea with bullfighting but it should be pretty interesting.

Independence Day, Moonrise hot spring festival, and more!!!

I can't believe it's been 3 weeks since I've written! So much to catch up on :) Hard to beat Gyeongju but there has still been a lot of excitement in my life.
I found out that at the end of the month, there is a local temple in Busan that hosts a cultural events day for the foreigners. It's free and they just teach a lot of traditional activities. In January they learned how to make kimchi (i missed it but this would've been great seeing how Koreans LOVE kimchi). This month was kite making. The theory is that you make your own kite around the Lunar New Year. You write what you hope for for the new year... your wishes, hopes, dream, as well as what you DON'T want. Then you fly the kite high in the sky :)
The bus for the Temple picked us up from the Nopodong terminal (the main subway/bus termainal in Busan) around 1:30 and took us the Temple. It was so beautiful. The 'see no evil, speak no evil, hear no evil' statue was in the entrance of the Temple property. Gotta love it....pretty fitting I think. Then in front of the Temple itself were these big hand symbols. I know they are very important and mean something in the Buddhist religion... I just haven't figured out what yet. Whenever I see the symbol, the description was written in Korean... but I will find out!! I wanted to take pictures when we were in the temple, however I am not sure if we were allowed, and I wasn't about to be the one who was disrespecting Buddha :)
Once in the Temple, there were about 35 people all sitting in about 3 big circles on mats. We had a piece of thick paperish type material in the diamond kite shape, 2 sticks, markers, string, and then we were instructed, step by step, how to make a kite :) It was a lot of fun. My friend Gillian took pictures of the process... I'll have to get them from her. The hardest part was thinking of what to draw on it... what do I want this year? Love (maybe not from someone else, just love within myself), health, my family to be safe, healthy, happy, success (if not in money then in finding what I want to do with my life), things like that. I used symbols in representing it all. Some of the kites were really elaborate and beautiful... mine looked like a 9 year old colored on it lol. I'm sooooo not artistically talented :) But it was still fun. Then we went outside to fly them :) Luckily it was a nice/semi-windy day. The picture on the left shows most of the group flying their kites... it was a bit crowded so my friends and I went into a different area. My kite didn't like me at all. First it wouldn't go up for the life of me (i was sooo frusterated), then once it finally got up, the string got crossed with some of the other fliers causing a lot of complications in the sky lol. Then finally the string on the spool was yanked, broke, and my kite flew away to a far far away land without me... :( I hope that doesn't mean bad luck this year... I was actually hoping to keep the kite to put on my wall for decoration. Oh well. At least Gillian and Christina had fun (though Christina's kite flew away also later). Next class in March is calligraphy. That should be fun!!

This past weekend was Independence Day here in Korea (when they were freed from Japan during the war way back when). In Haeundae Beach, they host a big bonfire event called Moonrise Hot Spring Festival. Since Haeundae is the most popular beach in all Korea, I was very curious to see how crowded it would get and what would happen there. The 2 nights before the festival, a friend of mine arrived in town, so we spent the evening roaming the streets of Haeundae. First off, I would like to point out the toilet in his hotel room...the most complicated/wierd/yet cleanest toilet in the world.... Yes, there is a wash or spray for everything and I do mean... EVERYTHING... lol. And yes you can get a massage as well while you're sitting on the toilet lol. I almost fell to the floor laughing!! Definitely the highlight of my night.
So yea we and I just bounced around the streets all night... almost looks like Christmas doesn't it? I will always be fascinated in the fact that drinking, is an older, successful mans job. In Korea, it is customary to drink Soju or beer when you have dinner out, and with co-workers. You will often find adult men in their 50-70's passed out on the street, or roaming the streets completely beligerant. This is a lot more common/accepted than seeing the younger generation out getting drunk (though they do too, trust me... but most live with their parents so I believe they control it a little it more). So yes we took a picture with this older man who was sooo excited to be talking to foreigners (though neither of us could really understand each other). I was a bit surprised he looked normal for the photo lol. At one point we ended up at a very popular 'foreigner' bar called Fuzzy Navel (great name right). I'd heard about it but never been. There, I was 'forced' to take their famous flame shot. They piled glasses up to make a pyramid, put a shot glass on top, layered it with about 5 liquors, and then managed to put the whole thing on fire...and when I say fire, I don't mean a little flame, I mean you have to stand back 6 feet because the whole thing will blow up!!. The is a little bit of liquor on the top of each glass. The bartender, River (whom we became great friends with) , lit the top of the shot on fire, took a drink of some strong liquor, dunked his finger tips in the liquor, lit his fingers on fire, and then spit the liquor in his mouth through the fire on his finger tips and onto the shot, creating a HUGE explosion and creating a flame on top of all the glasses. It was the first time I'd seen something this big!! U gotta see the video to believe it. Pretty cool! Needless to say I was a bit tipsy after that.

The next day, I decided I was going to explore a bit more. My friend Tina and I had previously walked around Haeundae beach but only in 1 direction, I was going to walk in another direction... plus I really wanted to exercise a bit :) This walk turned into a long 1 1/2 hour walk along the beach, up/over/through a hill, around a lighthouse, traditional Korean gazebo type things, a fishing area, and the APEK building. It was a GREAT WALK!! The APEK building was pretty interesting. You got to see the seats of the representatives from about 30 countries around the world. It tell you a little bit about the building, the surroundings, etc. Outside of the building is a little trail area and there are glass statue type things of every country and something that represents that country... naturally the U.S. had an eagle. Though I enjoy my walks alone, I can't wait to come back on a non-cloudy day with a friend and take really cool photos. It was beautiful!
On my way back, I noticed this HUGE pile on the beach of what looked like pine branches. I honestly couldn't tell what it was. There is a huge branch coming off the top, and about 20 kites flying off the very top of it. I knew there was going to be a bonfire the next night for the Moonrise Festival, but Wow... this was gonna be a HUGE bonfire :) I was so excited!!
The next day (Sunday) I went to a break dancing competition with my friend Lacey (I think it's awesome to have a girl friend who break dances!). On my way into Busan, I saw this mini marching band in the middle of the street playing around in circles... wonderful colors! lol I have no idea what they were practicing for or what or when but it looked pretty funny. Only in Korea :) I met up with Lacey and some of her other friends in Nopodong. There were surpisingly a lot of foreigners at this competition. There were about 20 or so teams of break dancers and they literally just battled each other 2 at a time. It was so funny. The MC would talk inbetween each battle and I often caught myself listening in deep concentration.... I couldn't understand a word (besides please and thank you) lol but I listened just like I could. I thought it was pretty funny. The break dancers were actually VERY good! I was impressed and entertained for sure! I love dancing :) I think next weekend we are actually going to another dance thing... not sure what yet but the we got free tickets so I'm in!! :)
After break dancing, I met Gillian back in Haeundae for the Moonrise Hot Spring Festival :) It was definitely a sight to see. When we arrived, we saw the bonfire, it had just got lit. This picture doesn't do it justice of how big it eventually got. But this gives you an idea of the setup, how many people were there (thousands!!) It was crazy trying to walk around. In Korea, the older (as we call senior citizens) get the most respect out of anyone. If they are walking, you let them go in front of you. If you don't let them through, they know they deserve to be first so they will elbow their way through a crowd... heck they elbow their way through a crowd no matter what, no matter where. Those little Hazumas (old women) are brutal!! If there is a line, they will push your back forward making you push the people in front of you, until there is a slight break where they will then push you aside so they can walk through. I know this is very customary and traditional, but this may be the one thing I will never get used to. I've seen people fall over from being elbowed or pushed aside and the old people don't care. It's soo rude!! ANYWAY... Gillian and I managed to get pushed through a crowd to where we could see a little bit of the traditional Korean dancing and singing on the beach. It was quite lovely.

As I continue to enjoy and explore this new foreign land and culture, I've really taken the time to enjoy the little things. Everyday, I take a bus to school or a bus into the city. Every single bus driver waves to each and every other bus they pass on the road. I don't know why but this just makes me smile. Listening to my kids call each other 'Unie" and "Opa" (meaning big sister and big brother). If there is a boy in your class that is 3 months older than you, you refer to him as your big brother. I understand calling friends who are older that but it's funny hearing the kids say it when they're literally the same age. As I buy food at the local grocery store, I am often just stared at... for no reason, just that I'm foreign, but blunt stareing lol. It warms my heart a little and I don't know why. Our culture is so different in so many little ways that you'll never know of until you see the opposite somewhere else. When I am out to dinner with people, I have to slurp my soup as loud as I can. If I do not slurp (and yes make the big slurping sound), it is considered an insult that you are not enjoying your meal... in America, we learn it is rude to slurp. I feel like I learn so much everyday. Culture, traditions, and language. I love roaming the streets and watching the cars drive by, knowing that they will all run the red light in front of me (apparently rules on road are purely just optional. This is very common) and know that if I am not walking far enough over on the sidewalk, I will get honked at. Forget the idea that the car move over a little... Oh no... I need to be shoulder to wall on the sidewalk lol. NEVER a dull moment in Korea :)

As I head to bed, I wanted to share with you that I am still having minor issues in the grocery store. I really need to learn hangul (korean alphabet) cause I can not figure out what ANYTHING is in there!! lol But still managed to survive (i love that it's cheaper to eat out than to eat at home... I just wish fruites and veggies weren't so expensive!!!). But I manage to get by. I make things similar to the picture... little salads (which can be quite colorful as u can see), and potato soup with tofu, lots of fruit salad with yogurt, boxed food, instant rice, stir fry, frozen potsticker dumplings which I can make on the stove things like this :) I haven't even attempted the meat yet. I can say chicken (dalc) and beef (sogogee) but it looks completely different. One day I'll have to figure it all out... and I"m looking forward to it!

Day trip to Gyeongju (aka Kyungju)

Last week, my friend Tina and I had planned on going on a trip to Gyeongju. Then we realized with lack of money, maybe we should just do a day trip. Now she is sick. But i decided I still wanted to go. I believe this is our longest national holiday all year, so I wanted to have something to show for it. When I told one of the Korean teachers at my school that I was going to go alone, she offered to go with me. So that made things a bit more exciting :)
Sonny and I headed for Gyeonju on Tuesday morning around 11. Took the 20 minute bus to Nopo-dong and then the 1 hour bus to Gyeongju. Thank God she is Korean cause Gyeongju wasn't THAT english friendly. There was some stuff but not a lot. We arrived at the bus terminal and it was a bit cooler than Seochang. Gyeongju is a very old city. Many of the buildings are set more in a traditional korean style (see picture on the left). As we set out on our journey, we passed a very popular amusement park and water park... and yes the water park was called California Beach. I just thought that was very funny.
Sonny and I both decided that the first thing we wanted to do was to see a temple. The Bulguksa Temple specifically. We took the bus ride up and around the city and hills, until we arrived. As we were taking the bus ride, we noticed that there was still a lot of snow left in Gyeongju. In Seochang, we had 2 days of snow, and it was all gone and melted now. Here there were still many patches, there were still semi-frozen lakes, and and it was still snowing just a little bit. Neither of us counted on this. We actually thought it may be a little bit warmer! I had bought a new pair of boots the day before and i was very excited to wear them... so I did. Needless to say, when we arrived at the temple, the ouside area was covered in mud and ice. My new boots barely survivied. They definitely had a big mess on the bottoms (that i had fun cleaning off later). Bulguksa Temple was beautiful (once we hiked up a big hill). The picture on the left was the entrance. Once we got into the main courtyard area, this statue (on the right) as well as another statue in the shape of a tower stood next to each other. The theory behind it is that the
Beophwagyeong preached side by side together to spread the word of their religion/doctorine. The Temple was painted so elaborately. The detail and color used is amazing. Reminds me a lot of the 'awe' i experienced with some of the European cathedrals. It is amazing when you see the whole thing decorated in tiny detail. The temple itself, you are not allowed to take pictures of inside. But there was a big Buddha statue, and other smaller gold statues beside him. They were all holding up a symbol with their hands that was a meditation type symbol where the ring finger and thumb come together. I think I need to do more research on Buddha and learn more about the symbolism. There were many paths to take that lead to different statues, drums, rooms, etc. Even though they all had a tiny blurb about what they were all about, I wish they had guided tours. Those always seem to be so informative. I'm going to have to look into that. The picture on the drum is just a nice view of the roof tops of some of the traditional Korea buildings (and my friend/co-worker Sonny). On the right, are tons and tons of tiny towers built from rocks, obviously by people like me. Sonny said that people build them as a sign of good luck on their families. I am pretty sure there is a structural theory behind that (hence the Christmas tree shape). Of course, I made one, but I wasn't as picky at my perfect shape and rock formation... it was cold! So yea, that's my little tinky tower on the right :)
As we walked out of the temple, we were approached by this little old lady.. Hazuma, that said she has food and to come into her restaurant. So we followed her over... we were starving. But we ordered a few dishes and they were really good! I ate crab and shrimp with the shell still on for the first time. I figured since it was just crab and shrimp, I'd eat that normally anyway. Koreans eat it with the shell... nutritional value. Then we had like a stir-fry type dish of some veggies, mushrooms, in a soy sauce type sauce. It was DELICIOUS! And then more soup that had rice cake and seafood in it, kimchi, seaweed stuff, and some kind of root (it was kinda sweet... good!). My tummy was happy. I just want to point out the 'hangover soup.' I dont know what's in it but I will let you know lol. I think it's funny.
After lunch, we took a bus to the Gyeongju National Museum. I thought it may be closed due to the holiday, but Sonny thought it would be open... I was correct. It was still very beautiful outside and we walked around a bit. After, we took a walk thru this park area where apparently they do theatre sometimes. On the other side of the park, I saw these big hills. I asked Sonny, what they were and she said that they were Kings tombs. The bigger the tomb, the bigger the King (not fat or tall but a big deal type thing). I have informed my family that when I die, I would like to be mummified... however this may change my mind. I like this tomb concept :)
Then lastly Sonny and I went to this... thing. It was used to look at the stars... astronomy thing. Very old. Kinda cool the way they explained it. After this, we walked over to get some bread (I guess Gyeongju is famous for a certain kind of bread). Sonny gave me some and it was ok... has some kind of red bean something in the middle. Not bad but not great. So that was my trip to Gyeongoju!

Lunar New Year 2010

Happy 2010... again :) I've had a great holiday weekend, trying new things, and hanging out with new friends, etc. My 4 day weekend couldn't have imagined it going any better :)
Early Saturday afternoon, I took a bus to meet my friends Lacey and Gillian (and their friend Christina) in Ulsan... another big city about 25 minutes from me (20 min. south is Busan and 25 min. north is Ulsan). We wanted to get away and do something fun but not go too far. With the snow the past 2 days, we weren't sure what to expect. Luckily the snow stopped Saturday morning, it was just still really cold. We got a cheap motel to unload our bags. As cute and little it was, it is so strange knowing that the "love room" (as it's translated) is purely used for people to have sex for a couple hours. Not really used for traveling, etc. The room had many products, shampoo, conditioner, lotion, hairspray, etc as well as 'personal products' condoms, lubricant, even dirty tv. So wierd lol. I tried not to think about it and just laugh it off a bit.
After we unloaded, we walked the town in search for a BBQ lunch. Well we didn't really think about it being a holiday weekend and most things being closed. There were soooooo many places closed. We found the downtown area and there was close to no one there! We were so surprised. We thought it'd be easy to find a place to eat lunch but it was actually tough...we wound up finding a BBQ place and enjoyed a nice meal (my first meal where we actually sit on the floor). We really weren't sure what to do after, so we roamed around and wound up at another 'bar' that opened early. Turns out that some of the 'bars' here, you can order a drink but you must order food as well. I say 'bar' because, it looks like a bar atmosphere, but nice. Maybe more like a lounge atmosphere? But yes, you have to order food. Since it was early, we were the only one's there and we had just eaten, e just ordered some soju and a fruit platter. So yummy :) I love fruit. Surpringly, fruit and veggies are actually quite expensive at the grocery store...more than home I think. So it's nice to eat a bunch when you can. Once we finished there, we stopped by Paris Baguette (the popular bakery chain around here) and decided that we needed to pick up a Valentine's Day cake for ourselves. So we did. It was so pretty :) (the cake the right). However, we did see this little cake there as well. We thought it was so cute because it said 'travel' on it. So 19,000 won is equal to just about $19. Not too bad right? It's so cute!! So we headed back to our motel, showered, got ready for the evening, and ate our yummy cake. Yes, the candles was to celebrate us girls on Valentines day :) lol. Nerdy? Absolutely. Funny part was that we didn't think to get plates or forks or chopsticks or anything. The motel had coffee cups so we all ate the cake in coffee cups and with our fingers lol. That was a sight to be seen for sure.
When we finally left the motel, we were headed to a bar called Elune when we got stopped by some random foreign guys who convinced us to go into another lounge type place called Bee. They asked us to sit with them, but we were happy getting our own booth. We ordered a kiwi flavored drink that was yummy! Maybe it had soju in it...apparently you can mix soju with anything. To make this story short, we had some drinks, another fruit platter, met and hung out with some more s.african people (they were a bit sketchy), then headed to Beat Bar (which we heard was good). Beat bar had a live korean band playing but they played a few american songs. They were actually quite good. The amps were up a bit too high though, to the point where it was unenjoyable. However, we danced while we could. Gillian was funny. when she dances, she pulls everyone in to dance with her. The korean girls were so shy but excited to be dancing. Definitely puts a smile on everyones face. While we were there, a korean guy took a liking to Gillian. She told him she wanted to go to noraebong (karaoke bar) and boy he never let us forget it the rest of the night. We decided we wanted to leave Beat Bar... to loud, so we headed to Elune which was more of a clubby place. The guy was very aggressive about trying to get us to go to noraebong but we wanted to go to elune first. So he agreed he'd go with us to Elune first if we did noraebong after (p.s. it was us 4 girls... who did he think he was trying to make our decisions for us? Yes we were very annoyed). Apparently Elune is a club, with a cover charge, etc... which we were not about to pay. Luckily Gillian, had had a bit too much to drunk, was gutsy to the point of just pushing past security and dragging us girls in... Korean guys must've paid for us lol. They came over to us again with beers for all of us. He must've really liked her. By this point, it must've been 1am... I was coming down from my buzz and ready to head home soon. But Gill was on a roll. She was so funny. Dancing on top of the speakers, pretty much bouncing the bouncers. The club was actually pretty dead. We were only there for a little bit and we left. I think the rest of us girls were ready to go to bed, but Gill was VERY intent on singing Lucy in the Sky of Diamonds... and again, this guy was sooooooo pushy! I think we were all about to clobber him. Again, literally pushing us out the door, not letting us talk about our plans, keeping Gill's purse hostage until we got there. He was a creeper for sure. We went to 3 karaoke bars. The first 2 were full or something and finally got into the last one. We finally get to noraebong and everyone sings for awhile. The karaoke bars here are a bit different. You rent a room for an hour or so. Room has long table, songlist, etc and you control everything. It's your own private karaoke room. I kinda felt bad because the guys obviously paid for us to be there, paid for snacks, food, and a huge pitcher of beer. We sang maybe 6 songs, and took off. By then it was 3am and we were DYING... definitely can't hang like I used to anymore lol. Getting too old. Something very strange was, that when we had checked into our motel, we asked the lady 'do we pay now or later?' and she said later... well at 3am when we got back, she wanted us to pay... wierd?? Overall, we had a really good night and time in Ulsan. We left the next afternoon