Last Post

Sorry it's been so long! I've spent the last week catching up with friends, getting over my jetlag (it took me about three days to adjust), and trying to survive the heatwave in Boston.

I had a fun stay at Haemin's house. She lived in a town about an hour out of Seoul, so it was nice seeing new scenery and enjoying the quiet. I was only there two days. On the first morning I went for an hour hike with Haemin's mom and her friend on some nearby mountains. It was tougher than I expected and had a lot of dangerous uphills and downhills. But overall it was nice getting some fresh air, and mountain hiking isn't something I can readily do in Boston.

That night I went with Haemin to see Nanta (see above picture.) It's the longest running musical in Korea, targeted specifically to foreigners. The show revolves around four chefs and their boss in the kitchen of a restaurant. They did a lot of dancing and drumming (even with real knives.) They even used real food and fire. There wasn't much talking, and what little there was was generally in English, since it's becoming the new universal language practically. They brought up people from the audience, and I got to go participate in a mandu (potstickers) race. Unfortunateky my team lost, but I still won a prize. :-)

On Sunday I went with Haemin and her mom to church. Well, it would make more sense to call it a megachurch. Sermons went every half hour, and each time the church filled up to over 1000 people. It reminded me of a Baptist church because of all the singing and clapping, but Haemin said they're Presbyterian. Since the church was so huge, everything had to be filmed and shown on large TV's so everyone could see. I was kind of grateful for this because it meant they also used subtitles and I could follow along a little. But overall the sermon was way above my level, so I watched more than listened.

Later that afternoon Haemin's mom treated me to my last bowl of patpingsoo, a shaved ice dessert. Then Haemin and I went to meet her blind friend and have a short English lesson. Her friend was too shy to try speaking English with us, but she would listen and understand if we spoke English to her. So we played some word games and things like that to pass the time. That night we watched 21, a movie filmed here at BU, so it made me even more excited to get back and see everything.

I left early the next morning, and luckily all of my flights were on time and everything went pretty smoothly. Alexa and I had a bit of trouble finding the bus station and navigating New York City, but we made it just in time. I arrived in Boston at 1 AM, but Jake was waiting for me at the bus station so I made it home safe and sound.

And now, to conclude this blog and my trip, I suppose I should go over my three goals and see how I did. I definitely improved in my Korean. I don't think my grammar or writing improved much, but I saw a big improvement in my listening comprehension (understanding most of what was said in basic conversations between native speakers). My quickness in response increased dramatically; I could respond to something without having to first translate in my head. I could also form more complex sentences, although I still stuck to the simpler grammar patterns. As for tutoring, well I didn't do any "official" tutoring, but I spoke a lot of English with Sungah's little brother, her friends that wanted to practice, and Sophia's cousins. And as you know from my previous post, I learned how to make kimchi firsthand.

Well, thanks for reading and I hope you all keep me informed about your own travels.
안녕!

Last night!

Well it's my last night here in Korea. I'd like to catch you up on everything that I've done the past few days at my friend Haemin's house, but it's getting late and I have an early flight. So I'll make sure to write a conclusion blog when I get back and let you all know I'm safe.

I have to admit that I'm very excited to go back! It will be weird not speaking Korean and seeing it everywhere, but to be honest I feel like I could use a little language break for awhile. :-)

I hope the flight isn't too horrible. I have about 24 hours of travel ahead of me, including my 4 hour layover in Tokyo and then my bus ride back to Boston (arriving at 1 AM). Hope to see you all soon!

Catching up

Well, the rain finally stopped but now it's become much too hot to go outside during the day. And Sophia has a really early curfew, so we can't really go out at night either. So I've been watching a lot of TV and YouTube (and studying of course.) :-) My plane back to Seoul leaves tomorrow and then I'm spending the weekend with another friend from high school, Haemin. And then on Monday I'm flying back to the states!

Some exciting events from the past week include a traditional ancestor ceremony dinner at Sophia's uncle's house. I spoke a lot of Korean with her relatives, ate a lot of good food, and learned how to do the traditional bow. I didn't take a picture because I thought it would be rude, but I've attached an online picture of what the ancestor table looked like. It's covered with partially cut or emptied food, and at the end sits the pictures of a great grandfather and grandmother. Everyone has to bow to the pictures before and after the dinner. At the end of the night, the men of the family take a little bit of food from all of the offerings on the table and mix them together in a bowl. Then they throw the bowl outside. Later they throw out the rest of the food too. To me it seemed like a waste of a lot of good food, but that's tradition I guess. I also found it interesting that one of the offerings was orange Fanta. Maybe they thought the ancestors would like it now even if they didn't have it during their lifetimes.

Earlier that day I'd gone sightseeing with Sophia's family again. This was the last day of the rainy season, so there were still thunderstorms, but we were able to see a giant lava tunnel cave (made my molten lava flowing underground.) We also went to a giant waterfall, did some rock climbing on an old volcanic rock, and other such sightseeing. I have a lot of pictures on Facebook if you're curious. (http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2001425&l=df4e6&id=1606470007) That link should be available to everyone.

On Tuesday I finally got to go to the beach! I'd gotten another straight perm the day before so I couldn't go swimming at get my hair wet, but I splashed around in the shallows and found a few seashells. Hopefully Sophia and I can go again today and do some swimming! On Tuesday we hung out with Sophia's older cousin and his friend. He took us to this place called "Mystery Road." Even though the road goes uphill, your car will still roll uphill if you put it in neutral. Bottles also rolled uphill, and water drained uphill too. It was pretty cool. We also went and saw some old dynasty government buildings, but it was really hot outside so we didn't stay too long. That night we went to a lit-up suspension bridge and saw another dragonhead volcanic rock formation (they seem to have a lot of them here, but I thought this one looked more like a chicken.) We also went to Love Land, a sculpture park of lovers from around the world.

Today I'll have to pack and write my thank you note. Sophia and I are planning to go out tonight to celebrate my last night here, if her parents let us. I can't wait to be back in the states and not have curfew again!

Wednesday

Still rainy...

Sophia's mom woke me up early yesterday morning so we could go jogging on a nearby nature trail. She ended up walking, but I did some jogging. Hardly anyone jogs here, it's really different than Boston. There are quite a few power-walking ajummas, but that's about it. For those who don't know, ajumma is a kind of stereotypical name for middle-aged Korean women with permed hair that think they own the world basically. They do a lot of things that would be very rude in America, like elbow you out of their way, but people tend to ignore it here. Anyways, after about 20 minutes on the trail it started raining and a big thunderstorm started. Luckily we made it into the car before getting too wet.

When the storm died down a little, I went to a Jaeju Minsok Folk Museum with Sophia's mom and her aunt (Sophia was in Seoul for a flute lesson.) It was pretty interesting, but Sophia's mom is very impatient and kept trying to hurry me through it. Then we went to pick up Sophia at the airport, went grocery shopping, ate dinner back at home, and watched TV like usual. I've become quite familiar with most of the Korean programs, especially the dating shows and reality shows since they use Korean subtitles and it's easier to follow along.

I'm still working my way through Charlie and the Chocolate Factory in Korean. Just finished the second chapter. :-) I feel like I'm learning a lot more useful vocabulary than what's in my textbook.

P.S. That's a picture of me by volcanic rock.

장마

It's still 장마 here so it's been raining practically every day. When the weather is nice Sophia and I are going to go to the beach. Everywhere we go here is so close to the ocean, but most of the shoreline is developed. At the center of the island is Halla Mountain, the largest peak in South Korea. You can see it from almost every spot on the island. Sophia's dad said he will take me hiking there later, although I'm not sure if I want to do the 2 hour hike to the top... :-/

Complementing the dreariness of the rainy season, I woke up with a cold this morning. Not too bad, but enough to be a pain. Maybe it was too much singing; we've been going to noraebangs practically every night. The spicy food is also starting to hurt my digestion a little, but I don't eat much so I think I'll be fine. The news said that the Korean president just signed a contract purchasing beef from countries with Mad Cow Disease, so there have been a lot of protests by the City Hall and I think there's going to be a boycott soon. I'm not much of a meat eater anyways so I don't mind avoiding beef.

Until later...

My Little Island Paradise

I made it safely to Jaeju Island on Monday. The weather was really rainy and windy my first two days here so Sophia and I didn't do much. I went to her acupuncture appointment with her (which sounds very painful by the way) and we met up with one of her friends for drinks and noraebang. They have a lot of different flavored sojus here that taste a lot better than the straight liquor, so we tried strawberry and grape. They tasted just like cocktails.

Yesterday Sophia's parents took us on a sightseeing trip around the island. First we went to a crater mountain island (formed by a vocanic explosion under the ocean) called Seongsan Ilchulbong. We climbed steps all the way to the top, seeing a lot of the historic "guard stones" along the way. Then we went out for some lunch, cooked fish and rice. Afterwards we went to the Jaejudo Minsokchon (traditional Korean folk village.) With Sophia as translator I was able to learn a lot more about what things were and what they meant. We ate some traditional cactus taffy, which was suprisingly really good and sweet even though there was no sugar added.

For dinner we ate pork that we roast ourselves on our table. Sophia's parents wanted to drink with me, but it was kind of awkward on my end. They said in Korea it's custom to drink with your parents because then they can take care of you if you get too drunk.

Today the sun's finally shining but we don't have any plans yet. I'm hoping to go to the beach sometime soon.

Well, it's almost my last day here in Seungah's house. On Monday I'll be flying to Jaejudo. Hopefully the weather will be nice!

Sandra left yesterday. It was fun getting to know her, hopefully I can meet up with her if I ever travel to Germany. While she was here we did a lot of shopping. We went to some big cheap malls so I spent a lot of money too. But it's all so much cheaper here than the states! Anyways, now I'm trying to be more careful with my money. This is just a very expensive city.

I feel like my listening skills are still greatly improving. My speaking feels about the same. I have a few standard phrases that come in handy a lot (such as "okay", "where are we going?", "thank you for the meal", etc, etc.) I met up with my BU friends a few days ago, we all had a good time. I went to a house music club last night and had a really great time. It's my favorite kind of music, and I can't go in America, so I'm glad I got the chance.

Today I bought a copy of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory in Korean. I'm moving through it slowly but it's much more fun than my textbook! :-)

Pools and Parties

On Friday Sungah's friend Sandra came to visit from Germany. She went to Conserve the year after I graduated, so I don't know her too well, but we've been having a lot of fun since she got here. We met up with more of Sungah's friends, usually going to bars or noraebangs. We also went to this all-night shopping mall that opens at 9 PM and closes at 6 AM. The clothes there are pretty cheap, so I bought myself quite a few things (way cheaper than in Boston!)

On Sunday we wanted to go swimming, so Sungah's parents paid for us to get a room at Hotel Shilla (named after the first unified Korean kingdom; I wrote an 11 page report about it for World History 175). The hotel was really nice. Indoor pool, outdoor pool, fitness center, sculpture garden, nature trails, high scale restaurants, etc etc. I was scared to even touch anything. We spent most of the day at the pool tanning. I burnt a little but not too badly. That night we went out to meet Sungah's boyfriend and some of his guy friends at a bar. That's how most of our nights have been, but meeting friends and going out has actually been the most beneficial to my learning, believe it or not. Since they're all having fun and I want to have fun too, I work really hard to keep up with the conversations and understand what's going on. I've noticed that my listening comprehension has greatly increased. I can understand the subject matter of pretty much every conversation, now I just have to work on catching all of the details. Unfortunately I feel like my speaking has stayed about the same, but that's the most difficult part of the language process so I'm sure it will take a lot more time.

Today we are meeting friends again and going out. We seem to meet new people every day. I've already given up trying to remember all of their names, although I did finally make a Korean name (김태히) Taehee Kim. Sungah's friends said that sounded the most similar to my real name. I'll probably still use my English name in Korean class though. It sounds prettier. They pronounce it like tu-ree-shya :-)

Kimchi!

Sorry it's been awhile, I just haven't been up to that much. I've been meeting a lot of Sungah's friends and going out with them. It's really helping my Korean but it's also rather lonely because I can't keep up with their conversations. Last night I met some friends from BU that are also studying Korean here, so we went out to a bar and then noraebang. They seemed really uncomfortable at the noraebang, but I remember feeling like that when I first started.

I've been trying to do some studying, but my textbook is very difficult and I'm usually exhausted enough from just trying to converse. Tomorrow Sungah's friend from Conserve, Sandra, is coming to stay with us for a week, so I'll have a chance to be lazy and speak English with someone. I'll still have Sungah's family and friends to speak Korean with.

Today Sungah's grandma taught me how to make kimchi (see the picture.) It's a lot more complex than I expected. First we had to buy all the ingredients, which took quite awhile because grandmother was really picky about getting the best quality and the lowest price. The bartering she did and the tone she used would have been considered very rude in Wisconsin, but the supermarket workers seemed complacent with her. When we went back home she taught me how to cut up the cabbage. We sprinkled it with salt and soaked it in a big tub of water. She showed me how to grind the onions and cut the green onions. When the ingredients were all ready we mixed them together in a big bowl. To my surprise, the mix also included pears and sugar. I'd never tasted anything sweet in kimchi before; the spicy pepper must cover it. Lastly we rinsed the cabbage in three separate buckets of water and then tore it up and added it to the mix. It turned out pretty well, but still a little too spicy for my Midwest-bred tastebuds. :-)

There's one goal I can cross off my list!

Insadong, Everland, Korean Folk Village, etc

I haven't gotten any comments on this blog yet, so I'm not even sure if anyone is reading it. I guess I'll keep writing just for my own memories anyways.

Three days ago I spent the day at Insadong Market with Sungah and her mom. It was really crowded because it was the Korean Memorial Weekend. I bought a shirt and a pencil case with hangul on it (the Korean alphabet) which was really cool because every other piece of clothing here is only in English. We saw some traditional demonstrations, such as King's Candy (honey pulled so thin that it becomes hard and stringy) and making dd'ok (rice cakes) with a sledge hammer and a grinding bowl. That night I met up with some more of Sungah's friends and we went to a bar. I ate some dried squid with them, but I wouldn't touch the part that still had legs on it...too weird.

The next day I left early with Sungah's dad, mom, and little brother and drove about an hour and a half to Everland, the Korean Disneyworld. My travel book described it simply as "an expensive amusement park" and that seemed about right. I've never been a big fan of amusement parks, the rides make me sick and the costumes freak me out, but Sungah's little brother loved it. I posted a lot of pictures on Facebook for those who are curious.

Afterwards we went to Minsokchon, a traditional Korean folk village. I'd read about that in my textbooks, and it was fun to see a lot of the history I'd heard about or seen in movies. Plus they had a lot of live demonstrations and "try it yourself" things, such as old games like seesaws and swinging (except we did both standing up.) I went horseback riding, and the guy leading my horse thought it would be funny to make the horse run really fast. I almost fell off a few times - it was pretty scary.

Then we went back to Everland to see the fireworks/ light show. It was really impressive and they even acted out a little play, but I couldn't really understand it. There was a lot of fire and explosions and fancy pyrotechnics.

Yesterday, Sunday, I went with Sungah and her friends for brunch and then to a swimming pool. They were all pretty lively so I had a good time. We went to a public bath and sauna, which is much hotter than in the states. Plus everyone goes naked there, which is not something I'm used to seeing at a public swimming pool. Afterwards we went to a bar where I learned some more drinking games, and then of course we finished the night at the noraebang where I sang horribly as usual. :-)

Apgujeong

Yesterday was a day of sightseeing and doing traditional Seoul activities. We went to Apgujeong again, the young and hip shopping district of Seoul. Sungah bought some clothes and I went to a big hair salon to get a straight perm.

I really liked how my perm turned out; it'll be so nice not having to worry about poofy hair when it gets humid. The entire process took about 2 1/2 hours, and it was rather difficult with the language barrier and all. Sungah helped at first, but there's a lot of stuff that can be said with just hand gestures too. I wasn't sure what was going on the whole time though. I understood the putting chemicals in my hair and letting it sit, and then washing my hair and straightening it. But after that my stylist put some sort of weird soapy mixture in my hair and wrapped it in toiletpaper. Then I got it washed, dried, and straightened again. The stylist told me that caucasian hair is a lot finer and thinner than asian hair so he had to be really careful not to damage it. I think it turned out fine though. And the entire process, which would have cost probably over $100 in America, came out to roughly 23 bucks. Good deal, no?

After that we met up with some of Sungah's guy friends at the noraebang (karaoke room). One of them lived in Australia for awhile, so he wanted to talk to me in English. I'm getting pretty good at picking things up though, so I could understand most of what they said to each other. We sang a lot of the standard noraebang songs. They were all really good, and I couldn't keep a pitch at all. Really embarrassing... But as long as I tried they were happy. My textbook taught me that it's more disrespectful to not sing than to sing poorly.

We soon left and took the bus across the Han River to some part of Seoul I've never been to before. We met another friend of Sungah's (a girl this time) and got some food. I thought I'd already tried pretty much every kind of Korean food, but they still had more surprises. This was some sort of deep fried meat in spicey sauce and a different kind of meat that we dipped in salt powder. I'm not much of a meat eater, and it was especially difficult eating this because I had no idea what animal it's from, or where on the animal. They said one was some sort of finger... Needless to say, I didn't have much of an appetite at that meal.

Then we went to a billiard room, but their pool is completely different. It took me awhile to learn, especially because Sungah's friend explained the whole thing to me in Korean. Each player gets a ball, and then there are two same colored balls on the table. The objective is to hit both balls on the table with your ball. Needless to say, it required a lot of angles and positioning. I failed miserably. :-( There was this other guy there who kept trying to translate into English for me, but he only knew simple words like "left", "right", and "good job" which I already know in Korean anyways. Then he tried to give me his phone number as a "Korea present." He was kind of odd.

Oh, I forgot to mention that I also visited a middle school and elem school. They looked just like the scary movies! I kept expecting a ghost to jump down the long hallway... The elementary students were really cute. They were all cleaning with little mops and brooms when we came in.

Rain rain go away

My second day here and it's still raining. Maybe we're still in the rainy season? Yesterday Sungah and I went to a mall, saw lots of Hello Kitty shops and merchandise with misspelled or misworded English. (I saw something about "fuming flowers in spring.") We hung out with some of her guy friends that night, and they took me to a bar for some soju (Korean liquor) and beer. They taught me some the drinking customs, such as pouring with two hands for someone older and one hand for younger. We also played some drinking games, like this game where you peel the ridge of the soju cap back and whoever flicks it off first makes the person next to them take a shot. There's also a number on the bottom of the soju cap, so one person sees it and the others have to guess while the first person says "higher" or "lower." Whoever guesses it first has to take a shot.

Turns out I'm 21 here...pretty sweet. I'm not exactly sure how the Korean age system works, but it starts counting when the baby is conceived, so the baby is born at 1 year old. Then at every new year everyone becomes a year older, regardless of their birthday. I was born in Dec 1988, so I was 1 when I was born and then a month later when 1989 started I turned 2. That's why now I'm 21.

I'm not feeling as much of a culture shock here as I did last time I came. I now know what to expect with manners, food, etc. Although there still are some surprises. For instance, we've been eating watermelon a lot, and everyone here eats the seeds. I feel kind of rude spitting them out onto the plate when no one else does, so I've been trying to eat them, but it feels really weird. The other food customs are kind of what I expected, a bowl of rice and different banchan (side dishes) to eat with it. There aren't certain foods for certain meals like we have in America (such as cereal for breakfast.) They seem to eat the same types of food for every meal.

Today I'm going to get a straight perm for my hair (it's really cheap here!) and Sungah's going to give me a tour of the local elementary and middle schools. Once I get more pictures I'll start uploading, but if you're curious I still have my pics from last time up on Facebook.

안녕!

I'm here!

Well, here I am finally. The flight wasn't too bad. I sat next to a Japanese girl who didn't know any English so I couldn't hold a conversation with anyone, but I had an aisle seat so it wasn't so bad. I watched Vantage Point, 27 Dresses, and 10,000 BC to pass the time. I was able to sleep for an hour or two thanks to some sleeping pills, but overall it felt like an all-nighter. I'm not sure why, but everytime the plane hit turbulence everyone would go "ooh..." Maybe it's a Japanese thing?

The Tokyo airport was fun. Now can I say I've been to Japan? It was rainy and cloudy so I couldn't see any of the landscape, but from what I saw it looked just like America. I resisted the Hi-chew, plus I didn't feel like exchanging any money. I took some pictures of Sake and grammatically incorrect signs, but otherwise nothing exciting to do. On the plane to Seoul I watched "The Notebook" in Korean. Still just as sad... :-(

I didn't have any problems with immigration or customs, thank god. In fact, this was the first trip I've had in awhile where my flights were all on time and problem free. Maybe airport hassle is just a domestic problem? Meeting Sungah was a little difficult because she'd died her hair blonde so I didn't recognize her at first. But everything worked out, and I found that I could understand quite a bit of what they said to me, if they spoke slowly and repeated things.

Seoul looked pretty much how I remembered it. A lot of four lane double highways and narrow sidestreets crowded with people. I was really exhausted when we got back, so I went to bed almost right away. Unfortunately the time difference plus the unfamiliarity of the bed (which according to Korean custom has only one very flat pillow) made it difficult for me to sleep. I woke up at 5:30 AM hungry for "dinner" according to my circadian rhythm. It will take a few days to turn my schedule around.

I just ate a really good Korean breakfast made by Sungah's grandma. Lots of food! :-) Now we're going to get coffee and tour the city some.

Peace.

Still in the states!

Hey all, it will still be a few days before I leave for Seoul, so you probably won't need to check back here for another week or so. Here's a brief summary of my journey: 20 days in Seoul with Sunga (Angel) Kim and her family, 20 days in Chaeju-do Island with Minhee (Sophia) Kim and her family, and then a weekend with Haemin Shim and her family back in Seoul.

I'll be flying out of JFK on Monday afternoon (thank you Alexa for the ride), and then I'll have a 14 hour flight to Tokyo, an hour and a half layover so I can buy some Hi-chew, and then a 2 and a half hour flight to Seoul, where I'll arrive at approximately 7:40 AM Eastern/ 8:40 PM Seoul. That will be a lot of jet lag. :-)

Before I depart, I'd like to list some goals for the next month and a half:

1. Become proficient in Korean, particularly in speaking (at least to the point of being able to hold a decent conversation)

2. Help Sunga's younger siblings and Sophia's cousins in learning English.

3. Learn how to make kimchee.

I hope you will continue reading, and please leave lots of questions/comments. You can also get in touch with me at tricia.klos@gmail.com or on Facebook of course.

안녕히 계세요!