Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Bong soong ah

A couple weeks ago we went on a field trip to a nature museum with the kids. I love field trips with the kids. We explored the inside of the museum that wasn’t too exciting. It’s just a typical museum with a few interactive things for the kids to do. When we were done looking inside we ate lunch and then went outside and played for a bit around the entrance where they had different sculptures and random things to look at.  


Connor and I in the museum.


This is one of those random thoughts I have about Korea.... The men here are extremely feminine. I often times am on the subway and look over and see a man who is dressed more like a girl than I am... to top it off they usually have purses whereas I mainly wear a backpack around all the time. My 6 year old student Connor was no exception this day. As you can see he was wearing floral leggings and a pink t-shirt/dress. He also has better hand writing then me and has a huge baby attitude, he cries daily about something stupid. Below is a better picture of his attire! 




Before we left we had a guy come help us “paint” some of our fingernails. I use quotes because it is actually stain that they use to color the nail. It is called Bong soong ah; a traditional Korean fingernail polish that is made up of crushed flowers and stems. You apply the mush onto your fingernail and then cover it with a plastic bag for your finger. You need to cover it up because you have to keep the flower mixture on your finger for 12 hours or so. Typically you apply it at night then take it off in the morning. The legend is that if the stain stays on your finger (your fingernail doesn’t grow fast) until the first snowfall then you will fall in love.  I put mine on my thumbs. Some kids put them on their thumbs or their pinky’s or random fingers. We each put them on two fingers. When Hadley saw me she said “it looks like you went to town on a bag of Cheetos!” Haha. My fingers were stained as well as my nails. The color that it turns out being is orange. Hadley wanted to take a picture of me with Cheetos, we actually went to a convenient store but they didn't have any so there is no picture of them... (If you look in my blog Dongdaemun and scroll down to the picture of the fan or the watermelon, you can kinda see my orange thumbs!)  It was a fun experience. Sharon says that every little girl in Korea knows what it is and has done it before. 


Two of the 5 year old kids, Stella and Elin.

Julie and Lucy being butterflies.

Dajeong's trip to Seoul

Last weekend I was able to take Dajeong (my 16 year old Korean friend) to Seoul with me. It was a pretty big deal to be able to take her because her mom (Yoma, my teammate) is super protective over her. I guess it is normal for Korean mothers to be over protective of their children especially the daughters. I also found out that Yoma has had 4 miscarriages and when Dajeong was born she was put in an incubator so she really is the prize child. Dajeong and I left for Seoul early Saturday morning. We met Hadley at Coex mall. Coex mall is a huge mall in Seoul that Hadley likes to call Mall of America on crack because it doesn’t make any sense and has a terribly designed layout. We were planning on going to a waterpark Saturday but ended up cancelling that due to the weather. I am told that this year’s monsoon season has lasted a lot longer than it has in the past, Lame! We ended up going to Seoul to go to the aquarium in Coex mall. The aquarium wasn’t anything exciting. It is comparable to underwater world at MOA. It was, however, interesting to see how they display the animals and fish. They make the fish tanks pretty and provide actual “homes” for the fish. Once you see the pictures you will understand what I’m saying…


Dori's yellow house...

There was only one american animal in the aquarium and it was "the american bullfrog" who's tank was next to a bunch of skinny korean frogs.... 

Hadley and Dajeong! We had to take pictures at the photo op place in the aquarium... 

The korean fish pond.


There was a section in the aquarium where they had fish on display in random places. Here are a couple of pictures of my favorite ones… 


fire hydrant fish

This one's for you mom... Coke machine fish! It even has ariel in it. Haha

Dajeong next to the phone booth of fish... I told her to pretend to be on her phone (if you look close it's in her other hand...)

There was one with a working computer in the middle of it... I thought you'd appreciate this one Dad. 

It's a two headed turtle! 

Dajeong in a shark! 

Had to take a pic of the penguins! 

This is right outside of the Aquarium.


After the aquarium we walked around the mall a bit walking in random shops. We eventually found ourselves ordering a pizza at Uno. Dajeong didn’t want any Korean food when she was with us so we took her to get a pepperoni deep-dish pizza at Uno. One of her favorite foods is cheese so she was very pleased. We ate so much there that I had to do some breathing exercises after our meal. Haha. We headed back to Hadley’s because Dajeong wanted to see her place before she went to see her cousins who happen to live in the same town as Hadley. When we got there, Dajeong had heard about Hadley making me rice krispie bars and wanted to watch Hadley some. She’s very curious about everything that we do and all the American products that we own. Dajeong loved the rice krispies. Hadley gave her a pan of them to take to her relatives to enjoy. Clearly we made a second batch for Hadley and I to enjoy. Dajeong told me that her aunt is on a diet but she ate a lot of the bars because she liked them so much. Haha!


Dajeong taking pictures of Hadley making the rice krispie bars! 

Sunday, Hadley and I decided to go explore an area of Seoul that we haven’t seen yet. We ended up going to Ewha women’s university. We met up with Addie and her Korean boyfriend Jiho (aka we had a tour guide) at Ewha. The university is really cool. It’s huge! I guess it’s one of the top universities in Korea. Sharon told me that the girls who go there are snobby, maybe she’s just jealous though – who knows! While we were walking around the place we stumbled upon a familiar coffee shop… Caribou! Hadley and I were pumped to see our MN based coffee shop in Korea. We immediately went in and bought a smoothie (sorry starbucks partners). It was delicious and they even were willing to customize Hadley’s for her, which is unheard of in Korea. Starbucks will never let you customize drinks here… They may if you’re Korean, I’m not sure, but they won’t let any foreigners. Later for lunch we had some Vietnamese food. It was delicious. We had the wraps that you share family style and some soup.  


The church at the University



This was really cool. These are buildings on either side of the walls. On the right there is a library and on the left is a cafeteria area. This took a while to build and a lot of money. (Hadley, Me, Jiho, Addie)


I had one of my students read this to see if it actually said Caribou... it does!

Hadley and I filled out a survey card... well we commented, everything is written in Korea. The comment reads "We love Caribou! Our smoothies were delicious! (Heart) two Minnesota USA girls".

Our Vietnamese lunch! 

Friday, July 15, 2011

Dongdaemun

Last weekend I met up with Hadley and Elizabeth in Seoul on Saturday. We ended up going to Dongdaemun to check out the area. It was a cool to walk around there and explore. The area had a bunch of different markets, which were very different from other places I’ve been to in Seoul. Dongdaemun has different places to buy fabrics and materials. We roamed around Dongdaemun for most of the day then headed to Konkuk University for some dinner and hookah. It was yet another successful weekend in Seoul. I headed back early Sunday morning for a soccer game that we ended up winning 1-0. I scored a goal in the first half. Coach said it was an important game because it was in Hongcheon and there were a lot of people from our town watching. This weekend I'm heading back to Seoul and I get to take Dajeong (one of my teammates daughters) with me! She's so excited to come and hang out with Hadley and I. I still can't believe Yoma (her mom) is letting her come with me. She's pretty strict. 



Heunginjimun was the east gate of Seoul originally built in 1398 then rebuilt in 1869. It's now just chillin in the middle of Seoul next to a busy street. 

Side view of the gate


Crazy ride that was right outside a department store, extremely bazaar. It also had no seat belts so people were just falling into the middle...

Hadley and Elizabeth by the man-made little river that runs throughout Seoul.

I'm sure everyone has seen these booths where you can take pictures in it... Koreans are OBSESSED with them. Theirs are a bit more high tech though and include editing and adding things to the picture after you take them. We just had to do it...



Fan death... so Koreans believe that you can die from sleeping with a fan on all night. This is no joke. I actually just read another article about it this week!

Koreans love eating donuts... I would even go as far as saying they love donuts more than cops.


Hads and I making the Korean heart on the rock "bridge". 

Thursday, July 14, 2011

Hoddeok Lesson

This past Monday one of our Korean friends Amy taught Elizabeth and I the fine art of making Hoddeok. Amy used to teach here at Wonderland for a while before I came. She is super nice and knows how to cook very well. For those of you who don’t know, hoddeok is basically a pancake filled with a brown sugar, honey, chopped nuts, and cinnamon mixture. It is delicious. Hoddeok is typically sold on the street during the winter. The hoddeok man in our town was still selling them when I first arrived in Korea at the end of March. Shortly after I discovered him, he left… It was a sad day. Fortunately now I know how to make it so I can have it anytime! 



Amy! 

Amy and I with the Hoddeok utensil... It is used to smash the pancake down after you flip it. 

I'm hoping to get another lesson soon on how to make more delicious korean food! 

Wednesday, July 6, 2011

Class Time!

I don’t know if I’ve talked about Sharon teacher at all but I’ll mention her again. She’s the Korean teacher who has lived in New Zealand for two years so her English is the best among all the Korean teachers here. She also happens to be super sarcastic like me so we get along very well. I’ve hung out with her after school a handful of times and have been to her apartment a couple of times as well. Now that I finally bought a bike I can easily get to her place. She’s always asking me to come over since her husband works long hours and she’s at home by herself taking care of her 6 month old baby.

This is my sweet new foldable bike that Jessica helped my buy online! 

Anyways, Sharon comes into school for the second period of kindergarten classes where she teaches the 6 year olds, I teach the 7 year olds, and Elizabeth teaches the 5 year olds. Today, it was nice outside so Sharon asked me to go to a traditional Korean market with the 7 year old class and her 6 year old class. I LOVE when she asks me to go outside and do things with the class. The kids here in Korea don’t have recess or have any sort of outside playtime so I jump at any opportunity to get them out of the classroom! Today was super fun; the markets we went to were special markets that are only open a select few days during the month. I think I enjoyed going there more than the kids did. While we were walking to and from the market we saw quite a few people that we knew. We saw Jenny’s mom, Joseph’s dad, Julie’s dad, and my corndog friend. I guess that’s what you get for living in a small town… 


Walking down the streets of Hongcheon

Inside the Traditional Korean Market.... trying not to loose any of my kids! Haha

Right outside of the market some lady on the street was selling chicks. The kids were intrigued. There was also a lot of puppies for sale... I didn't ask if they were pets or for other purposes, I choose to believe that they were for pets...

On our walk home we stopped at the GS Supermarket to get ice cream. I watched the kids while Sharon went inside to get ice cream for them. She bought two Starbucks doubleshots for her and I to enjoy! 

We ran into this little boy on the walk home. He had the coolest bubble machine, clearly we had to stop to pop some bubbles! 

My corndog friend! He has the best corndogs... comparable to MN State Fair corndogs which is saying a lot! 



These are some pictures of the little playground that Sharon and I sometimes take our kids to if it's nice outside! They love playing here... It is about a ten minute walk from school. We also sometimes take them to the mountain that is right outside of Wonderland, they love it when we go there as well. I'm so lucky that I teach the 7 years old class and not the 5 years old. The 5 years old class never gets to come with us because they are too small and get tired easily.



The swing set.

The dirt basketball court that I've never seen used.

Tuesday, July 5, 2011

DMZ

Last weekend when Hadley came to visit me I was telling her about how much I missed Rice Krispie Bars. We actually went searching for some ingredients in Chuncheon but gave up after we couldn’t find Rice Krispies. When I arrived at her apartment on Friday night she had a present waiting for me… she made “Korean Rice Krispies.” It was awesome! I wanted to cry I was so happy. She found some puffed kind of rice krispies and some colorful marshmellows. They were soft and different but they turned out good! Thanks Hads, you’re the best!  



This past weekend I took a trip up to North Korea. I know it was a bit crazy but it was very cool and interesting. I went with Hadley and Elizabeth, my friend that I met through Hadley! We had to leave super early on Saturday morning, which ended up not being early enough. Hadley and I had troubles getting to the meeting place because the subway line conveniently switched and all the subway maps haven’t shown the switch yet… it was awesome. After sprinting through the subway and running down the street we made it! The bus was just about to leave as we got on too. Haha, woops! The first thing we did on the tour was go to the JSA (Joint Security Area) between North and South Korea. When we were driving there you could tell when we were getting close and entering the DMZ (demilitarized zone), everything looked the same just dead. It was silent and eerie. In the DMZ like everywhere in Korea, there were camera’s watching you. We got to the DMZ and had to transfer to a special military bus in order to drive up to the border. The place where we switched buses had a gift shop and museum as well as a theater where we were supposed to watch slide panels but weren’t able to because the power was out, very convenient! I guess during monsoon season the power goes in and out in the DMZ. 


This was the area where we had to switch buses... There was a band playing when we were ending our tour, it was all for someone important that was coming on the tour. 


The ride to the border was scary because our “glorified tour guide” aka the US Soldier, who was placed in Korea to give tours, was telling us that we were surrounded by mine fields and went through a gate that was wired with explosives that were ready to go off at any point in time. FABULOUS! We got to a building that was built by South Korea as a place for families to meet and be reunited with their relatives on the other side of the border. There has been a few times where South Korean’s have been able to meet with their relatives in North Korea. Once South Korea built this place, North Korea said they weren’t comfortable with it so the building remains vacant and useless. 


This was inside the family reunion building.

The outside of the family reunion building. This is a picture of the side of it. Kind of a bad picture but you get the idea of how big this building is... all built for nothing. So sad. 

Right outside of the family meeting building was the border with 5 or so blue rectangular meeting buildings that were located on both North and South Korea. We got to go in one of the buildings that have been used for meetings with both sides, which doesn’t happen often. When South Koreans are in the building, the doors to North Korea are locked and vice versa. It was pretty crazy being in that room. The US soldier was telling us about meetings and incidents that have happened in that building between the two countries. Tensions right now are super high between the South and North. There was a soldier standing on the North Korean building with his binoculars watching us. We had to stand in two lines while going in and out of the building too and when we were facing North Korea we had to stand on the top step. It was nuts! 


Inside the MAC (Military Armistice Commission) Meeting room... aka a building located on North and South Korea! To the right of the meeting table is North Korea, to the left of the table is South Korea.

A ROK(Republic of Korea) Soldier standing by the North Korea door.

Me standing next to the soldier in North Korea...

These ROK soldiers that guard the border are hard core... they have to be black belt certified and pass a ton of martial arts tests. They also have to pass a height requirement. 

The gray building behind the blue ones is North Korea! 


This is the building we went into; the MAC conference building.

After seeing the buildings we headed to a lookout point. There are three lookout points in near the area we were at I believe. From the lookout point we were facing North Korea and could see one of their lookout towers as well as their “town”. Both the North and the South are allowed to have one town of people live in the DMZ, why you would want to live there I’m not sure but some people do. There are around 230 or so people living in South Korea’s DMZ town. There are perks for living there. Most all of them farm and they make money tax-free. If they don’t sell all of their crops at the end of the year then the government will buy the leftovers from them so they are guaranteed a certain salary of around what would be 100,000 USD. You have to be a born into this town or marry in. Apparently, the North Korean town is all a front. The soldier was telling us that at night the tall buildings are lit up by one light at the top that fades down at the bottom of the building so you can tell it’s empty and has no floors. 




The US Soldier pointing to different parts of North Korea. We weren't allowed to point but apparently he could. 


This is one of North Korea's lookout towers.

This is the "town" in North Korea. Rumor has it that the actual town is behind this facade of buildings and it's said to be that the town is very poor. From what I've learned about North Korea I don't doubt that one bit. 

Next stop was the 3rd tunnel. North Korea has 4 tunnels, that South Korea knows of, underground going from North to South Korea. It’s scary to think that there could be other tunnels where North Korea crosses the border into South Korea. The 3rd tunnel is the most threatening tunnel because it heads right towards Seoul with the least distance. We weren’t allowed to take our camera’s down in the tunnel but it was really cool down there. We had to walk pretty far down to get to the point where you could see a big cement door locked to North Korea. We wore hard hats down there and it was small so we had to bend while walking so we didn’t hit our heads. Walking down the tunnel was easy but it was quite a workout getting back out of it. I was in need of a beer after that workout. Just so happens that the Gift shop was at the top and they sold North Korean Beer!  I got one to have with lunch. It was pretty good considering I’ve been drinking South Korean beer… if you don’t know already, South Korean beer should stay in South Korea – it’s bad.



This is the museum next to the 3rd tunnel entrance.

Hadley and I with one of the statues outside of the museum! 


Before lunch we stopped at another lookout area where we could get a view of North Korea. It was super foggy on Saturday so we couldn’t see anything really but that was ok because there wasn’t much to see, just landscape. 

The building by the lookout area. 

The overlook area. As you can see... it was super gloomy Saturday. 

It was super regulated when we could take photo's... 

Hads trying out the North Korean beer during lunch! 

North Korean beer


Last stop of the tour we went to Dorasan Station that is located in South Korea in the DMZ. It’s a subway station that connects North and South Korea together. It wasn’t anything to brag about, just looked like a clean subway station. It runs twice a day and currently only runs to a town a little closer to North Korea still within the DMZ on the South Korean side of the border. At one point in time I guess it did cross the border for a select few people to work in North Korea but now since tensions are so high they stopped doing any work with North Korea. There was a separate room in the station for security and it looked intense, more intense than an airport! The tour was really fun and I’m super glad I went on it and arrived back to Seoul alive! Haha




Showing the distance from South Korea and North Korea's big cities...