Korean Wedding

Hello! So I know its been a really long time, but my daily routine is just so...normal. I'm sorry :( Anyway...awhile back I went to my co-teacher's wedding. I was so excited to finally have a chance to attend a wedding here because I had been invited to several but could never attend because I was always traveling (surprise!).

I invited my friend Sammy along, who had just arrived in Korea. I figured it would be a good opportunity to show her a little bit about Korea, plus I didn't want to be the only white person at the wedding..

Wedding hall before the ceremony

In Korea, everyone gets married at a wedding hall. Some people do choose to get married in a church if they're Christian, but primarily weddings take place in halls. And I mean, literally everyone. When planning her wedding, I suggested to my co-teacher that she get married maybe in a nice park in Seoul since the weather would still be nice. She laughed in my face. Nobody gets married anywhere except a wedding hall in Korea. My bad.

Sammy and I arrived at the wedding hall about 30 minutes before the ceremony was to begin. We received a lot of curious looks from people, but I recognized several teachers from my school, and even a few students made the trek to the south side of Seoul for the occasion. Everyone takes pictures before the ceremony so I got in line for my picture with the bride.

The ceremony only lasted about 30 minutes..all of which was in Korean. Most people were talking throughout the ceremony or texting on their phones. Weddings are a really informal affair in Korea. Although people are dressed nicely...their behavior definitely doesn't give the impression that a wedding is very important.

Father walking the bride down the aisle

Mid-ceremony

After the ceremony, everyone went downstairs to the dining room. The meal was buffet style..and we were mixed in with the guests from other weddings. Since weddings are so short in Korea, as soon as one wedding is over, the next wedding is ushered in. It sort of has that Vegas shotgun feel to it. I couldn't really tell her guests from the guests of other weddings, so Sammy and I sat with some of the other English teachers from my school so we would be able to have conversations without using wild hand gestures or speaking like 3-year-olds.

The food was pretty good. It was a good mix of Korean and western food, plus there was a giant dessert buffet which was what most of my meal consisted of. There were also some crazy fruits which we later figured out were called "rambutan". They look like big hairy meatballs, but once you peel that part away, there's a really sweet little fruit inside. They were surprisingly really good. They scared me at first, but lesson learned: don't judge a book by its cover.

Eating the scary fruit

With the bride and groom in their traditional Korean "hanbok"

So that's all for the wedding. No travel plans in the immediate future but I WILL be home for Christmas! Hopefully in the spring I'll be able to travel more, though :)

Sorry if the formatting of this entry is a little messed up. I'm on a stupid Samsung computer, and in my opinion any other than a Mac is impossible to use. So I really don't know what I'm doing on this thing. Plus all my menu options are in Korean so its a lot of educated guessing as to what I'm clicking on.

Completely unrelated...I can now rap in Korean.

Here's the latest from my favorite girl group 2NE1...its called "박수쳐" (Bak Su Chyeo) - it means "Clap Your Hands". Enjoy!

"Those who know nothing of foreing languages know nothing of their own." --Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Taiwan It That Way

Hello!

Last week was the Korean holiday Chuseok. Its basically like the Korean Thanksgiving. Everyone goes to their hometowns to celebrate with family by eating a lot of food. Of course, being American, the holiday is totally irrelevant to us..and just means that we don't have to work. My friends and I took advantage of our week off by booking a last minute flight to Taiwan!

Sammy and Marla flew into Taiwan on Sunday morning, and Brian and I went on Tuesday morning (we had to work Monday :[ ). We arrived into a sunny and hot Taipei, and found the hostel Sammy and Marla had booked for us all to stay at. Almost immediately after our arrival we were paraded around the city by Sammy and Marla (and some guy named Spike). Our first stop was the Chiang Kai Shek memorial hall and square. Chiang Kai Shek was responsible for separating Taiwan from Chinese rule. Although China still considers Taiwan a part of their territory, it is essentially independent. They don't have the internet restrictions that the mainland has, and have a separate government, although China doesn't recognize it. This public square was one of the most beautiful that I've seen, and probably one of my favorite.

Chiang Kai Shek

After CKS, we went to 228 Peace Park. It reminded me of a smaller version of the Temple of Heaven park in Beijing that Courtney and I visited. The park is an oasis of quiet surrounded by busy streets and tall buildings. We were there late afternoon into sunset, which is my favorite time of day, and the park looked so beautiful.

228 Peace Park

After the park, the 5 of us crammed into a taxi and went to Din Tai Fung. This restaurant was named one of the Top 10 Restaurants in the WORLD. And after eating there, I can see why. We ordered lots of xiao long bao (steamed soup dumplings), noodles, fried rice, and vegetables. The staff was multi-lingual and helped us order and recommended their favorites for us.

Din Tai Fung

After dinner we walked back to CKS square. It was filled with people and illuminated under an almost-full moon. There were dance teams practicing for some sort of competition (brought me back to my high school days).

Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall at night

We went back to shower and get ready for the night. We took the subway (one of the simplest I've ever seen) to the Shila Night Market. The market is crowded and noisy filled with food, clothing, and games vendors. The food vendors sell everything from stinky tofu to chicken wraps, to baked potatoes.

The next day we took an 8:30am High Speed Rail train to Zuoying. We hired a taxi to drive us for 2 hours to the small beach town of Kenting. We stayed at a surf shack/hostel that was across the street from the beach. We spent the afternoon laying out and swimming. The water was really warm, but there was a slight undertow so we couldn't swim out too far. That night we went to the main strip of Kenting (which is about 3 blocks long and that's it). Kenting was sort of like, Chinese Thailand. There were neon lights, bars, and restaurants filled with tourists. There were souvenir and swimsuit shops as well.

On the beach with Sammy

For our second day in Kenting, we went to a different beach, a little further away from our hotel. We had hoped to surf, but the water was really flat, unlike the day before, so we opted for jet skiing instead. It had been awhile since I'd driven a jet ski, and almost threw Sammy off a few times :S but we survived! We ate dinner on the beach, and at night walked around the main strip again and hit up a few of the bars. We got pretty henna tattoos too :)

We had until about 2pm on Friday until we had to leave for our train in Zuoying, so we rented some mopeds. I was a complete disaster driving one on my own so I teamed up with Marla and she drove me around while Brian drove Sammy. We drove along the coastal road and ended up driving straight into a mini-typhoon. Again, though, we survived! Once we dropped off our mopeds back at the rental place, we picked up our bags and loaded them into the taxi we had pre-arranged to pick us up. I know it probably seems a little strange that we would take a taxi for 2 hours. But honestly, it was more convenient, and somehow only amounted to like $3 more per person than taking the bus. So...why wouldn't we do it?

Trying not to die

Once we arrived back in Taipei, we re-checked into the hostel from our first night, and then went back to Din Tai Fung for dinner. We knew exactly what we wanted this time around, and we ordered sooo much food.

To celebrate our last night in Taiwan, we went to a small bar for some drinks and KTV (karaoke). Then, we went to a huge club in Taipei called Luxy. It was "Wonderland" night, so the club was decked out like Wonderland and the lighting was so trippy. We had such a fun time though, and met so many people. I have to say...the Taiwanese are some of the friendliest people I have ever met in any country. Not just in the club, but literally everywhere we went. If we appeared even a little bit lost or confused, someone would approach us and ask how they could help. The Taiwanese were much more outgoing than Koreans are. Koreans are so polite and nice, but very quiet and shy. The Taiwanese are much more openly friendly, in my opinion. Also, people in Taiwan as a whole speak wayyyyy more English than in Korea or China. It seemed like no matter who we asked for help or directions, they were able to communicate without trouble to us. In Korea or China, it would be a long shot to find someone who speaks enough English to convey what they want to say to you.

We were out until nearly 5am, but had to check out by 11 that morning. After we checked out, we stored our bags so that we could go to the Taipei 101. Its the 2nd tallest building in the world (the tallest is the Burj Khalifa in Dubai). We went to the top of the building where they have both an indoor and outdoor observation deck. The elevator is also the fastest elevator in the world...taking you up 91 floors in under 45 seconds. FYI...that's fast.

Taipei 101

Me and Marla at the top!

From the 101, we had to rush back to the hostel so we could pick up our luggage and make our way to the airport bus station.

So, my overall observations about Taiwan are that its cleaner and a little quieter than Beijing. The people are definitely more polite than the Chinese and I would say equally as polite as the Koreans, although in a different way. Taipei was hot and crowded but not overwhelming. Taipei is definitely influenced by all of the Asian cultures and it shows in their cars, food, and language. I wasn't sure what to expect from Taiwan, but after visiting, its probably one of my favorite countries that I've been too. I was really impressed by the city of Taipei, and the people in general. Its such a small country, so I wouldn't suggest people come all the way around the world just to see this country...however, if you're ever in Asia, I'd say its a must-see.

So that's all for now. I'll update soon again. Hopefully we'll be taking another trip to Busan in the next few weeks, and I'll write about my co-teacher's wedding!

Here's the latest song from 2NE1 - its called "Go Away". I attached the version with English subs since the video has an added story line. Click here to check it out!

"To travel is to discover that everyone is wrong about other countries." -- Aldous Huxley

Thailand Video

So I had been planning on making a movie from my Thailand trip back in January. I started the movie when we got home, but then never finished it and sort of forgot about it for awhile. Its one of the first movies I've ever made on iMovie, and I'm not the best at editing, even this sloppy video took awhile. But I've FINALLY finished it...enjoy! :)

Ni Hao - Běijīng

Hello!

So finally FINALLY after 2 1/2 months of not writing - I'm baaaack. This summer was super busy and full of visitors. Plus - pretty much everything (minus China) is so normal to me now, it hardly seems interesting to write about. But, maybe everyone else is still interested. Although, now that its been so long I can't really remember most of the events of this summer - partially because we were in a beer and soju haze for most of it - and partially because it is SO HOT here in the summer that we were all in a haze anyway. So...I'm just going to talk about my trip to China with Courtney. I'll try not to make it too long

My sister arrived in Korea and I had about a week to show her around Seoul and introduce her to my friends before it was time to go to China. I think she was a little shocked by...probably everything here. I totally forget what it was like when I first arrived here. Everything was so bizarre. Now..its just the norm.

So we arrived into Beijing around 2 or 3 in the afternoon. After getting through immigration and baggage claim and struggling to find the Airport Railroad, we were finally on the train. Our hotel was near a subway stop so we assumed it would be easy to find. Naturally, we assumed wrong. We spent maybe 20 minutes trying to follow the directions and backtracking and looking incredibly lost. Finally, we decided to suck it up and ask for help. There was a little information stand on the corner with a sign in English reading : "Need help? Ask me, the volunteer!" I could tell just by looking at the man that there was no way he spoke English. And he obviously didn't. I managed to communicate where our hotel was to him, but he couldn't figure out how to tell me where it was exactly. He grabbed this nerdy and terrified looking college student who spoke a few words of English to explain to us. But really, he didn't even need to explain because the kid ended up walking us all the way to our hotel. That is definitely one of the perks of Asia - everyone is so friendly, they will go completely out of their way to help you. I'm pretty sure if that happened in America, most people would give up if the other person couldn't speak English.

Of course, the one English-speaking employee at our hotel was off that day and we had to struggle through check-in. Honestly, I don't mind if we don't speak the same language. But the girl behind the counter was obnoxious and kept laughing. I was annoyed. I'm used to not being able to communicate, its really not a big deal to me.

Once we were settled in our room, we hopped back on the subway and went to Tiananmen Square. It was such a nice day out and the square was really crowded. The square is heavily guarded...you have to go through security just to get into it, and there are uniformed as well as plain-clothes officers everywhere. If anyone were to break out in a "Free Tibet" shirt its safe to say they would be arrested immediately. The square is right across from the Forbidden City and out-of-town Chinese tourist crowd to take a picture with Mao. Tiananmen Square is the largest public square in the world. Height restrictions on the buildings means that on a clear day (like we were lucky enough to have) you can see the entire dome of the sky. It is so open, which is ironic given the symbol of the oppression of Communism it holds for so many people after the protest in 1989 when an estimated thousands were killed for openly protesting the government and supporting democracy.

Tiananmen Square/Forbidden City

It was here in Tiananmen Square than Courtney and I got our first little preview of what the next few days would be like. A Chinese girls came up to us and asked to take a picture with us. We thought it was a little strange, but some of my blonde friends who had visited China before told me stories of how the Chinese people wanted to touch their hair and take pictures with them. I assumed it only happened because of their hair color, but I guess its a general "white people" thing. Beijing is touristy, but its mostly Chinese tourists from small towns in China, where they have honestly never seen white people. From that point on, pretty much everywhere we went, we were asked to take pictures with people. By the end of the trip we were joking that we should have charged people, it probably would have paid for the trip!

After that we wandered down the road and discovered the area of Wangfujing. Its pretty much a tourist sanctuary because its definitely the cleanest and most modern part of the city that we saw. There are crowds and crowds of people, flashing lights, and the hope that someone will speak English. We found a crowded shabu-shabu place so we decided to go in there and try it. Luckily, they had an English menu, tho the staff didn't speak any English we were able to order exactly what we wanted.

Saturday, we went to the Forbidden City. Perhaps we would have gotten more out of it had we gotten the audio guide, or taken a guided tour, but those take hours and hours to go through because the Forbidden City is enormous. It is definitely a strong reminder of the great imperialist power China once had. There are large open halls and courtyards that once housed royal families, now filled with tourists.

Forbidden City entrance

Getting good luck!

After wandering around the never-ending imperial palace for several hours, we decided we had had enough. From there we hopped on the subway to the Hongqiao Pearl Market! The Pearl Market is definitely touristy, but you really can get a good deal on so many things. Its full of pushy and grabby salespeople though, so only go if you're in the mood to bargain and be harassed. "Hey lady, I like your face. You want chopstick? I give you chopstick. Good price. Special price just for you. You no want chopstick? I have panda bracelet. I give you panda bracelet, good price for pretty lady." Imagine all of that said as fast as an auctioneer but in broken English. Hilarious! Courtney and I walked out of there was a pretty good-size haul, and didn't really spend too much on it all either. Definitely worth the visit and I would definitely check out that place again.

From there we went back to Wangfujing to check out the famous "Snack Street". We were greeted by live scorpions and starfish on sticks. Um..freak out. We grabbed something that was veggie and looked safe to eat, before moving on to some dumplings. Definitely an interesting place. We found a table at a snack stand and grabbed some Tsingtao to go with our dumplings.

The next day we went to Yonghegong (Lama Temple) which is China's largest Buddhist temple. There were people worshipping and the smell of incense all around. We also saw a huge 18m buddha statue. Surprisingly...it wasn't the biggest buddha I've seen. I've seen a lot of temples though and this one was definitely memorable to me.

Lama Temple

From Lama Temple, we took the subway to the Temple of Heaven Park. Its a huge park in the heart of Beijing. Its surrounded by busy streets yet you can't hear the traffic. You can only hear the music of the dancers who frequent the park. Its sprawling park with trees and benches, dotted with ice cream stands and temples.

Temple of Heaven

By this point, we were exhausted, but we still had so much to see! We attempted to go to the CCTV building - one of the more modern architectural buildings in the city, but it was blocked off by construction so we couldn't get a clear view of it.

After that we went up to the Olympic Park to check out the Bird's Nest and the Water Cube. Its mostly empty now in the Olympic Park except for on the weekends and the peak tourist season (which we were right in the middle of). We were too late to go inside any of the buildings, so we made plans to go back on our last day.

Broadcast Tower

Water Cube

Monday was our much-anticipated Great Wall tour. Generally, when I travel I prefer to do things on my own. I don't mind the being lost and the not being able to communicate. For me, that's part of the fun and experience of being in a new place. However, even my friends who live in China had advised that I book an actual tour for the Great Wall, so I followed their instructions. The Great Wall is about an hour outside of the city (we went to the closest part of the wall - Badaling) but can be even further if you chose a less touristy option. We first stopped at the Ming Tombs, which were ok I guess, but nothing special. We stopped at a jade factory before driving over to get lunch. After lunch, we were set free to climb the Great Wall. Courtney and I stuck with the people from our small 6 person tour group. The group included the 2 of us, a girl from Korea, a boy from Germany, and 2 boys from Denmark. The wall was incredibly steep, but offered some amazing views. There really is nothing like standing on top of the Great Wall, imagining all of the history before that very moment, and all of the time there is to come, to put your life into perspective. Standing up there, I definitely had a moment of "I can't believe I'm here and this is my life". That moment looking out over the mountains and the seemingly never-ending Great Wall was one of my favorite travel moments...that's why I can't stop traveling. I love those moments :)

Our last day (Tuesday) we went back to the Olympic Park to go inside the Bird's Nest and the Water Cube. They're mainly tourist attractions now, but still interesting to see. I am SO inspired to go to the Olympics in a cool location now. The Water Cube is empty for the most part, but they have turned a section of it into an indoor waterpark. It was pretty cool to see, though, and imagine the excitement and roar of the crowd in those places. Remember when Michael Phelps won like 8 gold medals back in 2008? That was ridiculousss.

Inside the Bird's Nest

Inside the Water Cube

From the Olympic Park we went to the Beijing Zoo because I had been SO EXCITED to see a giant panda. It was pretty much all I could talk about the entire trip. So Courtney obliged in accompanying me to the zoo. We walked around the zoo for a bit, and made the pandas our last stop. They're so cute! I was going nuts. It was a hot day out, so before we had to get back on the hot, crowded subway, we stopped for some water and sat on a bench in the shade. All of a sudden this lady comes out of nowhere and sort of throws her baby at me and is babbling on in Chinese about how she wants to take a picture of me holding the child? I tried to be normal about it, but I was dyyyyyying laughing on the inside. Who does that? Then she wanted a pictures with me, the baby, AND her. Once they left, we were mobbed by about 7 more Chinese people wanting pictures. To get through all of them took about 20 minutes. They wanted group shots, individual shots, just me, just Courtney, and a million other combinations. Once they left, that was our cue to get out of there. We felt like a zoo attraction.

I really enjoyed my time in China, but its definitely different from Korea. Its more crowded, dirtier, and just not as developed in general. The subways are always packed and sometimes they aren't air conditioned. Going to China was so amazing, but it gave me a new appreciation for Korea, that's for sure!

So I feel really bad that I haven't written in forever. But now honestly, everything is just so normal to me. All the annoyances and frustrations and confusion that I had this time last year is gone. But this weekend I'm going to my co-teacher, Sang-Jin's, wedding. Its my first Korean wedding so I'm excited. I really do want to try to write more often, but I just get so stuck because I feel like I'm going to be writing about the same stuff over and over again.

There's a new Wisco group here though..so perhaps we will have some new adventures?

New K-pop song. Taeyang's "I'll Be There". Here is the Korean version as well as the English version! Enjoy!

"We travel, initially, to lose ourselves; and we travel, next, to find ourselves. we travel to open our hearts and eyes and learn more about the world than our newspapers will accommodate. We travel to bring what little we can, in our ignorance and knowledge, to those parts of the globe whose riches are different dispersed. And we travel, in essence, to become young fools again -- to slow time down and get taken in, and fall in love once more." -- Pico Iyer

Daeeee Han Min Guk!

Hello!

So, I get it. I failed. Again. Sorry! Things have been busy around here. So busy that I can't even actually remember what I've been doing for the past few weeks.

My school had "sports day" a few weeks ago. One of my classes has only boys in it, and they needed a girl for their relay races, so they asked me. One of them was just plain running, which was fine. But the other one was some obstacle course where I had to crawl under nets, hop in a potato sack, do summersaults, and grab a piece of candy with my mouth out of a flour-filled tray. Fabulous. It was pretty funny, but I helped my team win both races!

My team!

Posing with the rival team

A few weeks ago, Jane came! Jane is one of my good friends from Wisco who happens to be from Seoul. She comes back when she can on her breaks from school to visit her parents who still live here. She went shopping with me, Sara, and Rebecca in Myeongdong one evening, which was fun. It was so weird to have my friends from here be with someone who I knew back home too, but fun as well. Jane and I also found some time to take a dance class at one of our favorite studios in Seoul. Its pretty far from me, so unfortunately its not my regular studio. I forgot how small the dance world was...I saw so many people I knew at this random studio in Seoul. Go figure.

Post-dance class

And most recently, the World Cup started!! Unlike America, soccer is HUGE DEAL here and everyone goes nuts. Everyone dresses in red (South Korea's team are the Red Devils) and many of the big plazas in Seoul block of the streets and set up big screens for people to watch. This past Saturday my friends and I went to City Hall to watch the first game against Greece. It was absolutely crazy, made even crazier by the incessant rain. We decided we were going rain or shine, and bought some red plastic ponchos to protect ourselves and our homemade t-shirts. We were some of the only foreigners in the gated area near the stage and screen, and as a result, the press was going nuts for us. Rebecca's students saw us on the news, and my students found us in a newspaper! You can find us here. The caption says something like "Nations don't matter - foreign Red Devils shout 'dae han min guk' ". Kind of a nice idea actually now that I think about it. I guess the longer I live outside of America, the less I see the boundaries of countries and just am sort of in the moment wherever I am. I'm in Korea. Therefore, I'm cheering for Korea. Simple. My students thought it was so cool that I made the newspaper. We also made another website, although one of the pictures was before we had bought our red ponchos, so we're wearing yellow ones. We're the two pictures on the bottom right. Korea won, of course, 2-0 so the entire city was celebrating that night.

Before the game!

In the middle of the chaos - so many people!

Me, Q, and John watching the game in the pouring rain

Following the Korea game, we went to Itaewon where there were lots of foreigners getting ready for the US vs England game. The game was on at 3:30am so we were in for a long night! We sat the bar that was full of English and Americans arguing and cheering as loud as possible. We ended up tying, which was way better than us Americans expected so we were happy. By the time the game ended it was 6:30am and the sun was up! Except it sort of wasn't because it was still pouring rain. We ran to McDonalds to get some breakfast, and then back to the room we had rented for the night. We finally went to sleep around 7am and woke up around 1 the next day. We're lazy, but it was so worth it.

Watching the World Cup over here, it sort of makes me wish America were smaller sometimes. All of our sports are so regionalized and we rarely cheer for a national team. No one in America really seems to care about the World Cup. Everyone is so united here, so its really fun to be a part of.

There is a game on tonight, actually. I sort of wish I was in the madness of Seoul again to watch it - they set up the big screens for every game - but we all have work tomorrow so its probably not a good idea. But I'll be sitting here cheering for 대한민국 (Republic of Korea) wearing my red!

Here's your K-Pop song...its sort of the unofficial theme song for the Korean team, by Big Bang and Kim Yuna! Click here to listen! You can find a version with English subs if you search for it, I think. Sorry this was a little short, but if you don't mind, I have some Red Devils to cheer on now :)

"Imagine there's no countries. It isn't hard to do. Nothing to kill or die for. And no religion too. Imagine all the people living life in peace." - John Lennon, Imagine