Surviving Basic Korean... Barely

This is the little foyer when you enter our one room.
The left wall of this room is a closet with shelves for shoes, hats, etc.

Sean and I have begun a 14 week Korean Class with one of the local universities, Chon Bok Dae. We are in a class of about 15 people and we meet everyday for an hour, 1:00pm to 2:00pm. Although we show up just before class starts and are usually leaving in a rush in order to make it to work on time, we are getting to know some of our classmates. It’s refreshing to interact with people who can understand us, and are our age. We don’t get to hang out with enough of them.

We are the only Americans in the class! For some reason this surprises me greatly. In fact, we are the only people in 

the class that would be classified as English. There are a number of people from China and the Philippines, as well as a Guatemalan, a Nepali (Nepalian, Nepaler, Napoleon… I dunno), and two women from Mongolia. It’s quite the mixture and the only thing we all have in common is that we don’t know Korean but we can communicate in English. That is except for the teacher -____-

Peck Un-Ah. She’s Korean and she speaks Korean. English is not something she is even mildly versed in. This came as a shock to me. It didn’t take me long to feel pretentious and ashamedly elitist. Why should she know English? This was a Korean language class, not an English class. I don’t speak Korean but I teach Koreans English. I would also like to point out that she speaks more English than I do Korean, not like that’s particularly difficult but she should be given some credit.

For those of you reading who were not aware, Koreans use an entirely different written alphabet than we do in the English language. They have 40 letters in their alphabet versus the English alphabet, which has 26. There was a dire error made in my previous blog that lead my readers to believe that there were only 19 vowels… This is not true, there are in fact 21 (two of which I am beyond any hope of ever being able to pronounce correctly). Not to mention that some of their letters look somewhat similar to English letters causing me great confusion. Also it would seem that many of their letters are reflections of a different letter, which leaves very little variation between some of the letters.

I wanted to give you a little insight as to what we learned within the first couple days of class:

Consonants:

ㄱ – This little mark makes a “C” or “G” sound. I haven’t learned when to use which pronunciation of the letter but I stick with “c” because it seems to be the most frequent.

ㄲ – Although this looks like the letter above written twice (which it is) it is a completely different letter. This one sounds like “G”. A very clipped, fast “G”.

ㄴ – I know what you’re thinking, “It’s an L!”. It isn’t. It’s actually an “N”.

ㄷ – It is a bit blocky but it looks like a “C”. Well it’s not. It’s a “T”.

ㄸ – Again we have a double letter that’s really one letter and doesn’t sound like the letter it’s made from. This one is a “D”.

ㄹ – This is definitely a strange one. It resembles a 2 or a backwards “S” but it is actually a letter that sounds like “R” and “L”… I have no better explanation than that.

This is the very fashionable couch, a sweet cow piñata, and my wall shrine to my family.

ㅁ – This box is a box that you pronounce as an “M”.

ㅂ – This kind of box is pronounced as a “P”

ㅃ – Yet another double symbol, except this one is somewhat similar to the “P” sound. You pronounce this as a quick “B” sound.

ㅅ – This is lambda. Or apparently an “S” if you are Korean.

ㅆ – Double Lambda is the short, clipped “Z” sound.

This is the bed with some bamboo next to it because Feng Shui says
it brings stability to a room. Please ignore the puppy full disclosure cannot yet be made about her.

ㅇ – I am sure you are dying to know what this one sounds like. I hate to let you down but it doesn’t have a sound. It’s a placeholder… At least that what they tell you at first! You quickly find out if this is at the beginning of the clump of letters it is a placeholder but at the end of a clump of letters it is “ng”.

ㅈ – Here’s a nice symbol that doesn’t correlate to a particular letter but rather to a sound, “ch”.

ㅉ – Double “ch” is a whole new letter that is pronounced as a “J” sound. Again this double letter is very short and abrupt in its pronunciation

ㅊ – I know you were under the impression that we already covered “ch” but this letter is “ch” too… I have yet to fully understand the difference but it kind of makes the vowel following it a bit more higher pitched.

ㅋ – Again it is a letter we already covered, the “C” sound but the vowel next to it is higher pitched.

ㅌ – This is another “T” sound with the higher pitched vowel to follow.

ㅍ – A second “P” sound.

ㅎ – Lastly we have the “H” sound.

Vowels:

ㅏ – ah

ㅐ – a (like the way the letter sounds)

ㅑ – yah (like what you tell your horse)

ㅒ – yeah (like yeah, sure I was listening to you when you were explaining all of the Korean letters’ sounds)

ㅓ – awe (like awe what a cute little doggie)

ㅔ – eh (like eh why not?)

ㅕ – yaw (like my boat is about to fall over it’s yaw-ing so much)

ㅖ – yay (like what you say when you find out you don’t have Korean class)

ㅗ – oh (like oh my this Korean class is a lot harder than I thought it would be)

ㅘ – wah (like you were going to say walk but then changed to ah I understand you now)

ㅙ – wah (like the sound you make as you cry because there are 21 vowels in the Korean language)

ㅚ – … Still trying to figure this one out, it is more of an ewwhhhh

ㅛ – yo (like yo how you doin’?)

ㅜ – oooo (like ooooo I saw teacher holding hands with boyfriend!!!!)

ㅝ – wawe (like awe that American is so cute trying to speak Korean but with a “w” sound in front of it)

ㅞ – whey (like the stuff left over once milk has been curdled)

The Plant Bookshelf which holds plants that refuse to live

ㅟ – This is another one of the vowels that I am hopelessly lost with… perhaps it is the sound you make when you try and say “we” with your mouth in the shape of an o and you don’t move your tongue.

ㅠ – you (like you are so lucky you aren’t learning Korean)

ㅡ – This is the sound you make when you clench your teeth and try and say “uh”

ㅢ – ewww-eeeeeee (like a small child telling you broccoli is gross, ewww-eee!)

ㅣ- eeeeee (like the letter E drawn out)

Some Korean words my youngest student is helping me learn

We are now a few weeks into the class and I am just barely keeping my head above water. I feel as if we are moving at a break neck speed and I am not intelligent enough to absorb all the information being thrown at me. I do well when it comes to writing and understanding things 

when they are written down but not when they are said aloud. When the teacher talks to me the only thing I can hear is the whoosh of air as whatever she’s saying flies right over my head. I also sound like a bumbling moron with a stutter/ lisp when I talk. The teacher wears the same wide smile and nods over encouragingly at me the same way I do when I am dealing with one of my particularly slow students… Humph.

We get H.W. and have tests, there’s a speaking, writing, and comprehensive part to each of our classes. I am going everyday and I vow repeatedly every time I leave the class that I will get better, I will understand. We go through a chapter a day, always working with new words and grammar rules. At least she keeps our class on its toes.

My awesome origami love flower =D

Vlad and his girlfriend

The upside to this whole adventure is that when we get out at 2:00pm and have to catch a taxi to work in order to make it in time, most taxi drivers are listening to the same station. This station has some sort of show that begins at 2:00pm and the intro music for the show is “I Like Big Butts”, and no I am not joking. After being submersed in Korean class, struggling through every syllable, wishing that there was some sort of English component to the class, to my life here in Jeonju, I am rewarded with Cisco who cannot lie about his infatuation with fat bottom girls and what they do to him when they walk in the room.

Have I told you about Mudfest yet?

One of the things I somehow managed to leave out of my blog was Sean and I’s adventure to Daecheon Beach for the 2012 Boryeong Mud Festival (Mudfest). Mudfest is very similar to an American college student’s spring break. There are tons of people in bathing suits indulging in copious amounts of alcoholic beverages participating in questionable activities while justifying their entire experience with the idea “It’s vacation, so why not?

Mudfest has a twist. It has the aforementioned qualities of Spring Break but it adds a ridiculous amount of MUD to the equation.

What happens is thousands of gallons of special mud are brought in from nearby mudflats and people flock to this little beach town to immerse themselves in it. We joined the crowds and partook in this odd occurrence.

When you first arrive at the Daechon beach bus stop, you get off the bus and immediately jump in line to buy your bus tickets back home. So many people are coming and going that you don’t want to miss out on a seat.

I’d like to take a moment to point out that you could buy a ticket to get on a bus that does not include a seat number. This ticket will get you on the bus… Your “seat” is the aisle. You can stand or sit in the aisle during the duration of the bus ride. I am glad we got seats because an hour and a half is a long time to just be chilling in the aisle.

Then you walk a bit towards the ocean and stand in yet another line to buy a locker to put your change of clothes/ any other items you don’t want coated in mud. While in line you begin to bake in the sweltering heat and you quickly douse yourself in sunscreen. 

When we got off the bus from Jeonju it was shocking to see how many foreign people we saw. English was flowing from people’s mouths and our ability to communicate increased a hundred fold in a matter of minutes.

We acquired some sweet hats, got our token for the locker, and began to sort out what belongings did not need to come with us. We figured we needed some cash, the camera (the old one), and the sunscreen. The lockers here work the same as the lockers in the States. You give the locker a quarter and it gives you the key, if you want to open and lock it again then you owe the locker another quarter for its key. For whatever reason it took Sean and I a couple 500 won pieces (Korean equivalent of quarters) to figure out how to take the key and leave the locker locked… Not a proud moment.

Moving along. We made our way over to the ocean and as always the sight, smell, and feel of the ocean reminded me of how much I’ve missed it. We stood looking out over the water for a little bit before we went over to the mud area. The water was at low tide leaving the beach a football field and a half long. The sand was covered in tents and people; the water was filled with colorful tubes and rafts. There were tons of floatation devices because apparently there are a large number of Korean people who cannot swim. The water had numerous people in it but none further than twenty feet out.

After admiring the ocean we turned back around and faced the masses. We knew we had reached the right place because not only had we found the highest concentration of westerns in weeks but also there were inflatable slides, buckets of mud, and more lines!

We waited in another line to buy tickets to get into where the slides were. We wanted tickets for the whole day and surprisingly the total was only 10,000 won or about $9.25. I guess I say we weren’t really surprised because the express bus we had taken here had only cost us 10,000 won a person too!

We were banded, the ocean had been viewed, and it was time for some mud! Walking up to the mud barrels you feel so clean and prim. I tied my over-shirt around my waist and prepared to get dirty!

My summer at Sea Base with the Out Island program prepared me for “painting up”. Sean and I were quickly drawing with mud all over one another. As we were applying tiger stripes and hand designs we quickly became the focus of over ten photographers all with giant cameras who couldn’t get enough of it. These camera guys were all Korean and they were all trying to get the best pictures of the foreigners.

We didn’t really mind. It was a bit strange to have them so intrigued by us but in all honesty, being the focus of a group of Koreans simply because you happen to be existing near them is something we’ve become used to (personally I blame Sean, he’s tall and has red hair… definitely his fault!)

By the time we finished painting up we had tiger stripes, handprints, and Sean was sporting an outrageous mustache. Afterwards, looking all spiffy, we went and played on the inflatable slides. The lines for everything were absolutely horrendous! So we chose which slides we wanted to do with care. We had to leave our shoes to be able to go on the slide, which sounded reasonable, but abandoning my shoes was definitely a strange feeling. But, as usual, the Koreans running the attractions didn’t seem overly cautious about safety precautions. We were being sprayed in the face as we climbed up the ramp and you could go down the slide any way you pleased.

IT WAS AWESOME! Every time we went down the slide I jumped off the top and halfway flew down the inflated ramp. Getting on the slide was up to our discretion as well so we “superman-ed” it belly first onto the slide. The whole thing was really a lot of fun.

The lines were long for pretty much everything. They had inflatable tug of war areas, obstacle courses, and bungee cord races. The slides looked like the most fun so we opted to wait in line and try them all out! They also offered a “ride” that didn’t seem like much fun except for the festival workers. People would run inside of this overhang that was closed off with bungee cords. Once you were “trapped” inside an obnoxious carnival worker would start slinging a ton of mud right at you. People were getting it in their ears, eyes, and noses. Yet more people still crowded in line to get into this thing… Needless to say, we stayed away from this particular attraction.

The foreigners at this festival ranged from army boys to schoolteachers to random world travelers. We saw people of all races, shapes, and sizes. It really felt like home.

In between riding the slides, we took visits down to the water to rinse off, cool down, and just in general enjoy the ocean. The water was colder than Florida’s but it didn’t feel as cold as California’s. It was really murky and had protruding rock formations that proved to be quite sharp (Sean ended up stepping on rock and slicing his foot up a little). We found pretty shells, a starfish (that we saved), and an anemone!

As I previously made mention, the beach was easily 150 yards long and the tide was coming in. Throughout the course of the day the water’s edge rapidly approached the sea wall marking the beginning of the beach. The beach went from 150 yards down to an EXTREMELY crowded 20 yards. It was incredible to watch the transformation.

The second time we painted up we decided to go “black out” and cover ourselves entirely in mud. We coated everything in a thick layer of mud, which is probably what we should have done from the beginning. The mud was a natural coolant for our bodies as well as acted as sunscreen. The design painted on my shoulders from our first go around at the mud tubs had been temporarily etched into my skin by the sun’s powerful rays. It stayed that way for a few weeks… Oops.

We ate delicious street food for lunch. They were serving spicy chicken on a stick and a potato covered hotdog. The weird hotdog was overrated while the chicken on a stick was great! It was outrageously spicy but so good. We also partook in what appeared to be the popular lunch choice for the masses, Lotteria (the Korean Burger King).

One of the other memorable things we did was got a caricature of us done by an old Korean man. He took close to a million years to complete the drawing but when he did it was pretty good. Sean and I both look pretty Asian in this picture but I really like it!

Mudfest was awesome for the experience. I am not sure if I’d do it again but I’m glad we did it the one time. Sorry this blog is not about something current but I didn’t want to not share our experience here.

Typhoon Update: Sean and I made it through Typhoon Bolaven alive. From our apartment window not a whole lot happened. We had Tuesday off and had the chance to do some serious sleeping. I took at least three naps, had two lunches, and played three rounds of Carcassonne (all of which I lost -_- I was NOT happy about this). Our day off was great and nothing at our apartment was damaged or at our school. Some damage was done in the city; I believe a few people across the country were killed by the storm.

Typhoon Tembin came and went with not much ado. Typhoon Sanba also was quite a let down. They had introduced Sanba as a “Super” typhoon but when we experienced it nothing but a light rain occurred all day.

While I am on the subject of typhoons and Korea, I would like to let you know that the information available on the storms approaching us are severely limited and, it is kept nowhere near as up-to-date as in the U.S. Being from Florida, this wasn’t our first rodeo and we didn’t sweat the storms coming our way. I just wanted to be able to follow the storm’s progress! It was unbelievable how difficult it was to find any radar of the storms or a tracking map that had been updated within the last three hours! (This has been a pet peeve of mine. What I really need to understand is that I am from a country where this information is so easily accessible and I should be grateful for it, not take it for granted)

Sean and I have begun our Korean class, we are one week in… It’s rough. 19 vowels. Enough said.

My next blog will go into further detail about my classes and all the personalities that have started to emerge and develop. I also would like to take some time to point out some of the differences I find to be most interesting, most difficult to adjust to, or least expected. (no personal space/ personal bubble, no lined paper, magnetic shopping cart wheels, watching TV while you drive, etc.)

Thanks for reading! That’s all-ll-ll-ll for now folks!

Eclectic, English, Elephants. Seoul Pt. 3

We had quite a few adventures while visiting in Seoul. We wanted the right amount of relax time versus exploring new city time.

We had sweet hostel arrangements through a friend, and landed ourselves in the Beewon Guesthouse, which ended up being a perfect location for us. The hostel was located not far from a subway station and right down the road from the most intact palace. We had some sweet food joints near us (as you may have read in the last blog) and the room was equipped with a television!

I found a sunflower!

If you know either of us, you know we aren’t big T.V. people. We love our jeopardy but we aren’t too attached to much else. It just so happens that while we were to be in Seoul, the 2012 Summer Olympics were to be starting up! I hadn’t realized it until we actually arrived in Seoul, but I was beyond psyched to see a television in our room once I had.

You may have noticed there is a carabiner attached to our wall with a rope that is leading down to a box. Inside the box is more rope... We are pretty sure this is how we are suppose to escape in case of a fire or some other debilitating emergency... I was highly amused by its presence.

We rolled into the Beewon mid afternoon after our trip to the spa. We managed to sleep the rest of the afternoon away in hopes of being refreshed enough for the party we had been invited to that evening.

After a good long long LONG nap we made ourselves semi presentable and made it back to the subway station. The subway was to be our main mode of transportation. Getting off the train from Jeonju left us at a train station, not our hostel. Taking a taxi in Seoul is not too popular or necessary if you are traveling before midnight (the subways close down at midnight). We were just becoming accustomed to taking taxis everywhere when we now had to figure out the subway. There’s certainly more English in Seoul but Seoul is still a far cry from being English friendly.

The subways were all very clean and very quiet. It was completely the opposite of New York's system and it surpassed D.C.'s system as well

We did manage to figure out how to buy a transport card (no thanks to the jerk ladies who didn’t speak English at the English help desk) and put some money on it (apparently you can only reload a card with cash, never with card -____-). We found a map that was written in the English written alphabet instead of Korean and followed the directions we’d been given to the hostel. When we awoke form our nap we followed the directions we’d been given to meet up with our new friend.

We met up with Lindsay (new friend) and a few of her friends in one of the university areas. We were due to go drink at a restaurant in particular but the reservations weren’t for a while so we stopped in at a different place. I tell you this seemingly small detail because as we entered the bar we heard Toby Keith over the speakers singing. It takes my mind a minute to register this but when I do I am ecstatic! I love country music, I love Toby Keith and I have been deprived of both for sometime now. It was quite the surprise to find it playing in this random Indie bar that looked more like it would have “the Books” or “Death Cab” playing in the background. The bar even offered us pretzels instead of seaweed when we ordered! I was impressed.

The party was great. We had a traditional drink that resembled milk but tasted like carbonated cider weirdness. The drink is pronounced Mac-key-ole-lee. We ate until we were stuffed and enjoyed ourselves. The company was great! Everyone spoke English and was super friendly! We sat next to a guy who informed us that there was indoor snowboarding located in Seoul… The mental note was made by both of us that we would most definitely try this out one day. A girl at the party who is actually from Korea was telling me how she was going to go to Jersey to live abroad for a while. A part of me longed to travel with her back to the States and everything that I was accustomed to. In truth the moment passed quickly. The night was good, and we went home to stay up until four in the morning watching the Olympics (which we did every night).

I’ll stop the story here to tell you that the Olympics did not really start getting broadcasted until almost midnight and the good stuff didn’t come on until after 2am. We struggled because we didn’t want to stay up so late but we were excited about the Olympics and for watching T.V. after weeks of not having any at all. I want to point out that watching the Olympics in Korea is very different from watching the Olympics at home. In Korea the Olympics are broadcasted in Korean, and no there are no available subtitles in English. Which is really stupid because they use NBC’s coverage so you know they could have English subtitles if they really wanted to…

Next the sports they focus on are different. America has a pretty wide variety of sports that they watch and are popularly broadcasted. Yes there are the sports we as Americans tend to excel at but nonetheless we have choices, variety. Here you can watch a handball match, a fencing match, or the same judo match on two different channels. In the beginning there was archery, until of course the Koreans men team got a bronze and then they quit showing it (sore losers, we missed the Americans vying for the gold). Occasionally there was shooting or Ping-Pong. One of the channels had a soccer match going on but the game being showed always had Korea in it or it was a rerun. I was frequently upset by what was and was not shown. I was glad that we caught some of the track and field but (as my students tell me) track and field is the Koreans’ least favorite sport because Koreans are not good at any of it and “we don’t like to watch black people”… o___O (mom this is another "face" not a secret word)

It was beyond strange to sit and watch sports I did not particularly care for, a country I was not normally cheering on, and all of this was being broadcasted in a fast-paced language I could not understand. It wasn’t all bad, but definitely it was different!

The next day sleeping in felt amazing! I hadn’t slept in for so long, not because I never have the chance to but because my body wouldn’t allow it. But for whatever reason I managed to sleep and sleep and sleep in Seoul, and it was great =] After sleeping in we found some food and headed off to the nearby awesome palace. 

There are a number of palaces littered across South Korea and seem to be congested in Seoul. As previously mentioned, we were very near to the palace that was least effected by time and war. We had quite the struggle communicating with the ticket sellers but managed to buy a couple tickets to get inside and get an English tour of the Secret Garden. The palace was beautiful but the day was hot. We had a chance to look around the part of the palace before we had to meet for the tour.

The palace and its grounds are not like what you see in the movies. These palaces are made up of many different sized open-air buildings and arches. There’s no towering spires or moats but there were some big walls closing the sprawled home into one area.

The secret garden was more a private forest. There was little flower gardening being done but rather loads of trees and nature. It was a beautiful walk that included quite a hike! The lady giving the tour tried numerous times to dissuade people from going all the way to the end. She said it would be too strenuous for some of us. (I think she was talking to some of the fatter people on the tour. I swear she kept giving them a doubtful look. I’ll have you know, everyone made it to the end.)

 There were a couple little ponds, a place for archery, and a few pavilions for thought/ reading. We met some people and it was enjoyable to go on a tour and have it be in English!

After the palace we went to Itaewon for dinner. We did this every night because Itaewon is the easiest place to find foreign food in Seoul. It is the foreign hub for many tourists and foreign residents.

Over the next few days we did so many things! And away we gooooooooo!!!

One afternoon we decided that we were going to visit Namsan Tower and go to the top. We had heard that you could place a lock on a metal fence up at the top to leave your mark of love as a couple… Of course I needed to do this. Namsan Tower also has a great view of Seoul, so off we went.

To get to the top is a bit of a tedious process. You could climb hundreds and hundreds of stairs after hiking from the nearest subway station. Or you could hike from the nearest subway station and wait in a long line, get squished onto a cable car, and then walk up maybe two hundred stairs. We were not wearing the right shoes for the climb up the stairs so we opted for the cable car.

The cable car was relatively cheap but packed. They were fitting as many people as they could manage onto each cable car. I am not sure if I have mentioned Koreans lack of respect for one’s personal space but now seems like a good time to do it. On the subway, on this cable car, on the train and bus, people are unphased about being so close to one another. I hadn’t realized I had a personal bubble until these people invaded it, weapons hot. I was not ok with it.

Sweet goatee

Getting the top was worth it! We climbed up to the base of the tower and rode the elevator to the top. We had to wait in long lines but what else is new? When we got to the top we went to the Teddy Bear Museum. We had bought tickets thinking the museum was going to be about Teddy Bears… It was not and it was a let down. The concept of the museum was pretty cool despite my disappointment. They used Teddy Bears to tell about Seoul’s history.

After the museum we went to look out at the view. It was so pretty. The sun was setting as we were on top. We could watch as all the lights turned on below us. The roads went from being moving cars to being two contrasting rivers, raging yellow and gold against one another (headlights and brake lights ***). We got plenty of pictures and headed back down to do what I had wanted to come for.

We bought a pair of locks and a plastic heart. We each wrote to the other on the heart (I got one side and he got the other) and we locked our locks together with the heart in the middle. We positioned it so our symbol of love would have a great view over the city. We also wanted it to be connected with the old rusty locks that had withstood so much time. It was a nice romantic moment =] 

What he wrote for me...

What I wrote for him...

Just a small portion of the thousands of locks there

We opted to hike down the stairs (soooooo many!!!!!!) rather than wait in a miserably long line for a cable car. Again we ended the night with a foreign food dinner and some late night Olympics.

Two of the days we were in town we spent our time wandering through the giant markets. There are two large market areas, one inside and the other outside, that can be easily accessed by the subway. The inside market was decidedly a nicer experience because the place was sort of air-conditioned and had tons of fans blowing everywhere you walked. But it had an abundance of custom clothing shops (literally three floors of them across three city blocks) which was a let down because that wasn’t something we were interested in at all.

The markets did have traditional clothing, tons of wedding dresses, fabrics, and everyday clothes. They also had hats, scarves, shoes, accessories, etc. out the wazoo! I ended up getting a pretty sweet hat that matches my shoes AND is my favorite color.

This was almost bought...

We took this time to pick up some trinkets for our family and friends, as well as souvenirs for us. We had been practicing our numbers in hopes of haggling with the locals but that didn’t work out for us because nobody wanted to haggle with us! Hmph, I was a little upset by that… I wanted to do some haggling!

My awesome, new, sweet hat!

I do have to say that it was truly amazing that both of these massive locations were up and running all day almost everyday, and they were still in business.

One evening we walked with our coworker and her friend passed the “blue house” which is the Korean equivalent to America’s White House. There were a bunch of secret service guys patrolling the area but it wasn’t as secured as I would have thought.

Me with the Blue House

Being from America, if you can throw a rock at a building it is not well guarded. Most government buildings you aren’t really allowed to go near, and if you do, you can’t bring rocks with you.  The security only showed itself once when we were told we couldn’t take pictures with one of the buildings… We could with the Blue House but not with this unknown one. Anyways I got a shot in before they told us we couldn’t have pictures.

We decided that we would like to visit the Korean National Museum. It is apparently one of the largest museums in Asia, it has A/C, and it’s free! So the real question is “Why not go?”

We ended up going on the last day, which meant we were lugging all of our belongings with us… I was a very unhappy camper. I do not know who’s idea this was but it was terrible! (it was definitely mine by the way…) 

I now am a proud fan owner

The museum was indeed huge but it was air-conditioned and plenty of benches to set our belongings down and admire all the art. We saw quite a bit but unfortunately we quickly tired and, needed to find a place to just camp out and hang out.

Before we decided to stop looking we stopped by the gift shop and picked up a few things. I bought myself a really cheap yo-yo and for all those who think this purchase was a waste, it has already been a great language barrier destroyer between my students and I (they are all very impressed with my cat’s cradle). We also bought two paper maps. One of which is of the Koreas and the other is of the world. 

When we sat down to relax we marked the maps of where we’ve traveled so far. We even highlighted a few places we want to travel to! They are now hanging up as wall decorations in the one room called home.

One of the more exciting outings we had was to the Seoul zoo! I love animals. I love going to really good zoos and admiring the magnificence of animals (especially the giant ones that can eat me… which are most of them).

I have been deprived of any animal love since I got here to Korea. I have to settle for Skype dates with my deaf dogs who also seem to be partially blind. These dates traumatize me more than them. They try and figure out why they are being placed in front of a small black wall as I calmly try and get their attention by making loud obnoxious noises, waving my arms around and attempting not to burst out in to sobs as I practically shriek their names. I don’t always freak out but I’d have to say more times than not there is a definite internal struggle on my part to not completely fall to pieces as I say my short hellos to my furry family.

Well… Back to the zoo story. We had slept in like usual and managed to make it out to the zoo around 2:30pm. We took the subway out to it and had another ridiculously long walk up to what we believed was the entrance to the zoo. We had been misled. We needed to purchase tickets to ride this ski lift up to the top of the zoo. Apparently the zoo was just this big.

As we were going to buy the tickets we found out that there were two lifts. We could walk up past the first ski lift and take the longer one to where we needed to be cheaper. We like cheap. We continued our hike up hill (both ways ;) )in sweltering weather. Somewhere along the ride on the subway the Seoul had turned into a giant brick oven, and we were getting baked like small little French fries. Even in the shade it must have been about a bagillion degrees (and yes that number is in Celsius so it’s even hotter than you originally thought!).

Half our pictures seem to have come out with us blinking against the evilness of the sun, as our faces bake in its glory

We finally made it to the lift and bought our tickets. The ride was cool and we had obtained an English map so we spent the ride scouring it to scope out what we wanted to see. There was a list of shows that occurred throughout the day but many of them overlapped, we had to choose wisely and given the fact that I had a great day I’d say we didn’t do to badly for ourselves.

I want to make a little note that getting off a ski lift is much easier in skiis or on a snowboard. The chair kept moving as we attempted to disembark and we had to do a little jog to not get run over… I can only imagine the difficulties people with babies or who are in general just slow would have with this form of transportation.

So we got off the lift (successfully) and needed to run over to the dolphin tanks for our first show of the day that was starting within five minutes. On the run there we passed by a wild sheep feeding that I couldn’t help but stop and participate in. It wasn’t anything big, more a glorified petting zoo only available at the specific time.

Animal Love!

We made it in time to catch most of the dolphin show, and although the dolphin arena area was not air-conditioned it was cooler than being outside. The show was pretty good. I am a spoiled American who’s been to Sea World numerous times so I was trying to enjoy the little show without being too critical. The trainers seemed to put on a good show… We couldn’t tell you, it was all in Korean!

After the dolphin show we had a couple minutes before our next show so we stopped to use the bathroom. After we finished we took a bath in the sink. I would like to thank my mother for teaching me how to shamelessly cool myself down. I was literally dumping water over my head, splashing my face, and filling our hats to the brim with water before we put them on. We wet paper towels and put them behind our necks, and we even bought a frozen water bottle to use to put on our necks and faces.

As another side note the zoo is incredibly well designed for the people who visit. There are plenty of shade trees, plenty of accessible bathrooms, and lots of little shops selling souvenirs.

After bathing publicly for the second time in Seoul we proceeded to the Bird of Prey Show. When we arrived it took us a little while to find the right place for where the feeding would be but that was because the only people that showed up for the feeding were us and two others! The heat must have swayed people to stay indoors… I would like to personally thank Sea Base for preparing me for days like this, working there made me appreciate what it was to be truly hot and then how to suck it up and move on with life with some of my dignity intact.

Hello Shurcan's cronies, don't think I've forgotten about the movie

The man who came to do the feeding had chosen to feed the vultures. I’m familiar with vultures, or at least I thought I was. I have been around so many black turkey vultures in Florida that it was a complete surprise to approach an enclosure with vultures that stood higher than my waist and were bald. No kidding, these birds came straight from Disney’s “The Jungle Book”, I could hear them asking one another “What you wanna do?” “I dunno, what you wanna do?”.   

This “watch the Feeding” show quickly became a “You Get to Feed” show. The guy had a tray full of raw strips of meat and a pair of tongs. He demonstrated how we were supposed to feed the birds and then he passed along the tongs to each member of his small audience. This feeding is just one example of the differences between an American zoo and a Korean zoo. In America this would have never happened. At least not until we had signed away the rights to each one of our fingers during the feeding!

We were thrilled to be given the chance to hand feed these birds! The birds took the food greedily and scampered off to fight over it. The experience was cool, especially because it was so unexpected. But I do have to say we may have just been excited because this had been the closest we’d gotten to so much beef meat!!!

After the vulture feeding we were feeling pretty good. We had to move relatively quickly in the direction of the elephants because they were going to be fed soon. We didn’t expect the elephants to put on an exciting feeding frenzy but we had nothing to do during that time so we figured why not.

We made it over to the elephants’ area just as other people were showing up. The enclosure was relatively large and we weren’t exactly sure where we needed to be but turns out we ended up in the absolute most perfect spot!

Standing near the railing next to some steps that led down into the enclosure, we waited for whatever show to begin. In a couple short minutes a man climbed the stairs leading p from the pen, he was carrying a little basket. The basket had these small wooden tokens, and the tokens were numbered. Behind him on the floor of the enclosure we could see another man positioning little baskets full of carrots… It suddenly hit me that we needed one of those tokens.

Well we got one! We were standing quite literally right in front of where the steps came up. Not only did we get a token, we got token number one =D

We understood that we were to proceed down the steps after being chosen to go first when the two men began waving and gesturing towards the baskets with carrots. Sean and I split a basket, and we got to feed elephants! I got dirt and slime on my hands from their trunks, I was ecstatic! 

This was awesome!

The pictures we took were rushed because everyone else wanted their turn with the elephants but just the mere seconds we were so close to this creatures was breath taking. This was arguably my favorite moment in Seoul (although I did find Mac and Cheese here so…).

Just call me "Professional Elephant Feeder"

We managed to visit almost every animal at the zoo periodically taking “sink baths” in any bathrooms we passed. As always, I had a battling war of emotions inside me as I had the privilege to lay eyes on some of the world’s greatest creatures but my heart went out to them at having to be contained in captivity. I won’t get into the debate here but I would like to acknowledge my internal turmoil with this topic.

At the monkey enclosure is where the sadness became prominent. The zoo’s chimps and other primates seemed to be suffering from huge boils on their bare bottoms. The growths could be seen on every animal and was not a pleasant sight. The monkeys’ enclosures also seemed abnormally small but ridiculously guarded. The monkeys were surrounded on all sides by rows of electrified wire. We seemed surprised by how much wire they used. Why don’t they just build the walls taller or rather keep the humans a bit further away?

On that note, human visitors were allowed pretty close to all the animals but the animal that made me back away slowly was the hippo. The hippopotamus is one of the top human killers in Africa, not the crocodiles…

Hippos can be extremely territorial and have been known to completely trample and stampede people who have tread to close to their space. The last animals we saw were the hippos and we got to view one of them up close. 

Look at my teeth...

We were leaning against the little wooden barrier between the hippos’ pond and us when we realized that maybe a mere 12 feet away (3 and a half meters for those who are not American) was a hippo… A big one. I swear the thing looked me right in the eye before it opened its cavernous maw in an enormous yawn. As it bared its tusks in our direction we back away in shock and awe. How could the chimps be guarded so thoroughly when this guy is laughing himself to sleep about the joke we call a fence keeps him contained.

Now admire how big my mouth is! Buahahahahaha!

All around the zoo was awesome though! We saw and did more things than we thought we would have. I know we will definitely be back and hopefully the day we return the sun won’t be in such a roasting mood.

We hung out talking with this guy for a little while, he spoke some English =]

I want to end this blog with a reflection upon a visit to something I took very much for granted in the States. One of our nights spent having dinner in Itaewon took us past a bookstore. You’re thinking “So what? A bookstore, who cares?” Well it wasn’t just any bookstore but it was a used bookstore and IT WAS AN ENGLISH BOOKSTORE. 

I let myself get caught up in the place.

The place wasn’t too big but it was jammed packed with tons of English books. We spent quite some time loitering in this place, in fact we stayed until the guy running the place literally threw us out. It was great to simply glance around the store and understand so many labels, easily comprehend which section I was currently browsing. I was loving it! I ended up picking up a “Feng Shui for Dummies” book which I have since then actually kind of read. I will be keeping you up-to-date on how we (and by we I mean me) are Feng shui-ing the one room.

On the train ride back to Jeonju, Sean spotted a figure in the sky! It was surreal how blatant this cloud was pretending to be a dragon.

Besides the dragon cloud the ride home was uneventful, and only mildly entertaining.

I've obviously matured a lot...

This blog concludes our visit to Seoul, should I have forgotten anything here I will of course include it in future blogs. The next entry will be up by the end of the weekend and include more on our adventures we partake in right in Jeonju. Until next time =]

 Ooops almost forgot to mention. We may or may not have obtained a small television to watch the remainder of the Olympics on...