제주도 Jeju Island

Jeju-do (Jeju Island) is known for a lot of things, but the things I've most commonly heard about are 바람 wind, 돌하루방 rocks, 흑돼지 black pig meat, 한라산 Halla Mountain, and 경치 the scenery (including the little yellow flowers that are called 'rape' in English).  I was lucky enough to experience all of things and much, much more in the short time I spent on the island.
There are a lot of fake "grandfather rocks" including the one in my photo but there are about 50 real ones.  They are large volcanic rocks carved to look like grandpas!! They're really cute and I loved taking pictures of them.

On the way down, I made the trip part time on a bus (5 hours - not fun) and part on a ferry (4 more not-so-fun hours).  The ferry was interesting because it was basically a huge boat divided into rooms full of about 30 middle-aged Korean people heading to the island to go hiking on the Olle trails (which go all the way around the island) and to climb Halla Mountain.  There were no chairs, only a heated floor to sit on.  There was a little girl sitting near me who came and played with me and was poking the rabbits on my socks, and then a little baby whose grandfather was offering her beer.  (The baby said no, by the way, and the mom was really proud.) Upon arriving, I trekked around the city of Jeju and got a snack, then headed on the bus to my first hotel in Seongsaneup.  Its name was Phoenix Island, and it was gorgeous there.  In the morning there were several horses with carriages clopping by the window and the bathroom had a jacuzzi!  I gave myself a facial and had a little spa night, which was nice.  I had a good seafood pizza for dinner.  One of the cool things I noticed about Jeju-do was that pretty much everywhere you go, people are drying seaweed.  Including randomly on the sidewalk!

The first day I woke up, got dressed and went to U-do (U Island) via ferry (which was packed with annoying little high school kids - no offense, little brother Danny) and biked around the entire island!  The man at the bike rental place said it would take a girl who exercises about 2 hours to go all the way around, but I only took an hour and 15 minutes.  Clearly this man underestimated my power.  (Heehee.)  The scenery was beautiful and there were a lot of places where you could ride horses.  There was also a lot of that little yellow flower called rape (which allows many people to make some very tasteless jokes) and a ton of rock walls.

I took a ton of pictures, and even met a friendly little puppy who came up and licked me!  I couldn't pet him, though, because I could pretty much see fleas hopping around on him.

After biking for a long time I was feeling a little peaky out so I had some 회국수 (raw fish with veggies and noodles) which was spicy and delicious.  They bring it out to you and you mix it up yourself on the plate with a plastic glove and your hand!

There was a little girl there telling her mom that I was from England, and when I corrected her in Korean the little girl just about peed herself.  After having a final look around the island I took the ferry back to Jeju-do.  I took a bus down south after that and I was able to see something called the 성상일출봉 (Seongsan Ilchulbong) which is basically a giant beautiful crater made by a volcanic explosion a really really long time ago.  You climb all the way to the top and can look across the whole thing.  It is full of grass and trees and apparently becomes a pond during the summer rainy season, and looks like a bowl full of snow during the winter.  It was beautiful!

That night after returning home I had a really good set dinner (I'll be writing a whole other blog post about that!) and then watched Korean TV.  There was a comedy show where they had a Japanese competitive eating girl (she weighed maybe 100 pounds) and she ate not fifty, not one hundred, but and astonishing 150 pieces of nigiri sushi.  It was one of the most horrifying things I've had the privilege to see.  She didn't even chew!!!
The next morning I woke up early, packed up, and hopped on a bus to go to 서귀포, or Seogwipo.  The bus went through a nice little town called 중문 (Jungmun) which reminded me a ton of Florida; it was almost unreal.  I dropped off my bags at the new (more conveniently-located) hotel, then went to 한라산 Halla Mountain to do some hiking!

On the way to the mountain I passed by the protestors attempting to slow or most hopefully stop the construction of a Korean-American naval base in southern Jeju-do.  It was interesting because there were about 20 police with riot shields for about 15 people sitting and singing together.  There was no violence, though.  In the bay you could see several aircraft carrier ships.

I am not known to be the most enduring hiker; I chose the half hour up and half hour down climb because the next smallest was 2 and a half hours up and 2 hours down and after that was 5 hours up.  Nope, definitely not for me.  I reached the top of the little peak of Hallasan and was able to get a really nice view.  You could even see the snow on the peak of the really big mountain!  It was really cool.  After that, I tried to go see a waterfall back in Jungmun, but the park was closed.  So much for that.
Upon returning to the hotel, I got to do something that I would never get the chance to do in Ohio - visit a Korean bath house (you'd think I'd have been able to go there more, you know, living in Korea and all, but no one will ever go with me!  *ahem, Hee-kyong*).  I'll spare you the nitty-gritty details but basically it's divided by gender and there are no clothes allowed, so needless to say I was pushing the envelope when it comes to my personal comfort, but after a little while it was less awkward and it was really nice and relaxing.  There are three pools: one hot, one cold, and one hot sea water with green tea in it (so awesome).  There is also a hot sauna room and several open-backed shower stalls so that you can scrub off and everything before getting in the water with everyone.  I spent about an hour there and then went to go have dinner.
Dinner was something I've been wanting to try ever since I heard about it - black pig meat.  It's said that the pigs on Jeju island turned black after eating human - er - refuse?  But as a failed pre-med major I know that can't be true, so I still really wanted to eat it.  It was delicious!!  There were a lot of good side dishes, and I wrapped it up in lettuce and devoured everything.  I slept well because the bath house was so relaxing and the food was so tasty.

In the morning I got up extra early once again to head back in the direction of Jungmun.  Today was supposed to be the return journey and was also the day that I did all of the things I had been holding off on.  The first place I visited was the 천제연 폭포 (Cheonjeyeon Waterfall) which actually consisted of three places where there were supposed to be waterfalls, but really only two were running at the time.  I was also able to hop the fence and climb up into the old aqueduct/irrigation line and take a picture in a little cave.  Which, in hindsight, was probably not quite legal, and also I got covered in spiderwebs.

After visiting the falls, I went to my dream destination - THE TEDDY BEAR MUSEUM!  I just love Teddy bears.  They're so amazing and cute.  I even got one there!  They have teddy bears from all the way back when it was first invented, and a teddy bear wearing Louis Vuitton, and teddy bears acting out famous portraits and everything!  I was enthralled the entire time.  It was a great experience.

The last place I visited before boarding the train back to Seoul was the Jeju Love Land.  It was pretty traumatic, although at times funny, and I don't regret going.  You can research what it is if you want, but I'll just leave my description at telling you that I spent over half the time covering my eyes, looking between my fingers, exclaiming "AUGH," and running.  By far the funniest thing about the museum, though, was that 80% of the occupants were middle-aged women wearing hiking gear.

After leaving Love Land I finally made it back to Jeju-si where I boarded the 13 hour ferry that would take me back home.  I got to sleep in a bunk this time and, although it was hot and stinky and the pillow was a pleather-covered block of foam, I was much more comfortable than when I was sleeping on the floor of the ferry on the way there.
And so, my Jeju-do trip ended.  It was beautiful and fun, and I had a fantastic time.
If you want to see more pictures than what I included then check out my album on facebook by clicking [here].

Miss you guys!
Look for some more practical posts coming up soon!

Love,
Janet

Oh, right, I have a blog!

HELLO!!!!!!

I have returned.

I've been incredibly busy and running around lately and you will totally understand by the time I finish this blog post.

I am writing this in a bit of a hurried fashion as I only have one hour until my first class by the way so bear with me for any typos!

Apparently the last time I posted was the day before Valentine's Day. Wow. Well, now that it's April 3rd, I shall catch you up.

At the end of February I was able to have a few really cool experiences.

First of all (and this will develop later) I've been getting into a lot of clubs for free through people I've been getting to know, so that's been really cool. The club music in Korea is an interesting topic - there are hip hop clubs and also regular clubs that usually play house or edge toward the verge of mashup house/techno/hip hop and the preference of club depends on what kind of music you're feeling that night. A lot of Koreans tend toward house and techno these days because hip hop was kind of the cool thing when they were in middle and high school, but the hip hop clubs remain popular these days. The DJ scene is booming as well and if you want to get famous you've gotta spin at the big clubs, and the big clubs all demand house/techno, so if you want to make it really big you'd better like that style. Otherwise you'll be stuck at smaller venues in less popular places.

The biggest area to go clubbing is called Gangnam (or like Sinsa, Chungdahm; they're the same area) and people all like the clubs Ellui, Answer, Eden, etc. Recently apparently there's a club opening called Shampoo so that's pretty hilarious and I'm tempted to go there just to say I danced in Shampoo, hahaha. Anyways, more on the clubbing thing will come later.

I was also lucky enough to attend the World Cup Semifinals match of Korea vs. Kuwait. It was amazing because everyone in the stadium had this sort of nationalistic brotherhood holding them together and rallying the crowd and everything. Some guys sitting near my section were strangers at the beginning of the game and by the second Korean goal were screaming and hugging each other and jumping up and down while holding onto one another. It was a pretty funny sight. In the end Korea one 2-0 and one of the veteran members on the team got the match ball, which was I guess pretty cool for him since it had been a while since his last time being the most important player in the game. Oh and he also received a check for 3,000,000원 which is about $2,850 or something crazy like that. Soccer players are lucky!

I've been meeting people recently that I haven't seen in 3 years! One of them is Eungyeong a.k.a. Jenna, who goes to Ehwa Women's University, and then we have Jeongmin and Dongrim who actually both go to Yonsei with me. I met them when I was a senior in high school because they came to a big global water crisis symposium that Hathaway Brown hosted. It's amazing that we've been able to stay in contact. With Jenna I went for buddaejjigae and then coffee and this REALLY cute cafe called Krema (which I want to go to all the time now but it's super expensive). Jeongmin and I went to a place called Butterfingers Pancakes in Chungdahm, which was a godsend because I had been craving American breakfast for the longest time, and they have the perfect most American breakfast-y food I've had in Korea. It was sweet, sweet indulgence. Dongrim and I just met on Yonsei campus and had food together and followed that up with Caribou coffee. She's so sweet, and right before we parted ways she asked me if I was looking for a tutoring job.

And boy oh boy do I need a tutoring job. I had been starting to worry about money because I was in grave danger. I did not realize how quickly the money Wesleyan had given me would disappear, especially considering that I do eat at least 2 meals a day. I guess I should have foreseen it, even despite having cut out many cafe trips from my life to save cash. On top of that I wanted to travel around Korea, so I needed to set aside money for that, too.

Luckily she directed me to a woman who is soon moving to Texas and wants me to teach her children, an 8 year old girl and a 9 year old boy how to be American kids. They know close to zero english and will be attending public school in America next year. I am so scared for them. This is by far the most pressured I have felt about a tutoring job, but I really need to help these kids. The boy really likes science and biology, so I'll have a great time talking to him, but when I asked the mother what her daughter likes, she could only think of princesses. ...Somehow I will persevere. In any case, I will be starting in one week, and luckily this will solve any of my potential financial worries.

I think that the most life-changing experience I've had so far in Korea is attending the Big Bang Big Show. I am sort of kidding, but not really. I have never really had celebrity crushes, but when the 5 members of my favorite K-Pop group came out on stage together, I completely fangirled out and I think I almost passed out. Now I understand those girls that used to faint and cry at Elvis and Beatles concerts. It was a great experience, and they sang all of my favorite songs. I won't blab any more because I'm sure about 75% of my small audience does not care about Big Bang. And also I know a small percentage will be judging me when they google them. Oh well. Love is love. (Teehee.)

A great thing that happened just recently in March is my joining of a group called SKY Events. SKY stands for Social Korea Youth, and what the group does is work with clubs to plan parties that bring people together from all sorts of backgrounds. The people working there are all really nice and fun people. Just last weekend we had our MT (Membership Training) which is when everyone hops on a subway to a small town outside of Seoul, rents a cabin, and spends a night hanging out, talking, drinking, grilling, and just getting to know each other and having fun. I had a really great time and although at first I felt awkward and shy around the other members, I feel a lot better now and really like the team I'm working with. I hope to join the Marketing team because I think I would be best at that. I guess I'll find out what I'll be doing soon!

Oh man, I almost forgot one of the most important things ever to write about!!! To those of you who had not yet seen me screaming about it all over facebook, one of my best friends from Wesleyan, Hee-kyong, is my roommate this semester! YEAAAAHHHHH!! I was really really excited when we found out we'd be living together. She's a great roommate and although some people thought we would hate each other by the end of the year, it's not happening yet! Although we do have until June 21st. Just kidding! It'll still be great then. Last semester my roommate was pleasant to live with but it's just a lot more comfortable being with Heeks and being able to reminisce and talk about life, laugh over old stories, and gossip about our friends at Wesleyan (whom we miss dearly, of course).

My brain is slowly starting to occasionally say things in Korean before I think the English, and the other night I had a dream in Konglish. It's a little bit scary. My friends always tell me I'm good at Korean and English, but a pro at Konglish. I don't know how I feel about that. I guess my family has a lot of re-assimilation work to do when I come back in the summer.

Last but not least I'll talk briefly about my classes. I have mixed feelings on them this semester. My Korean class is great because my Monday/Wednesday/Friday professor is none other but Kimchi sunsaengnim, the one I had last semester! She was my favorite, and I'm really happy I get to have her. The Tues/Thurs professor is funny, and she's a lot nicer than the one I had last semester. I am also lucky enough to be back in the same class as Laura, Joelle, Randy, and Julia this semester, and Hee-kyong is in the same class, too! I actually started the semester in a different class, but I switched right at the beginning because I didn't like the professors and the students were wild and too noisy. I'm learning better in this class.

My other (taught-in-English) classes are Korean Cinema, Pre-Modern Korean History and its Historical Sites, and Korean Language and Culture. Cinema is taught by a floaty existential woman who rarely talks about cinema and mostly talks about the old times in Korea and her parents and culture/interpersonal relations. We have to watch the movies outside of class and do reports every week. I'm not sure how I feel about it. My history class is GREAT because the professor is a really sweet PhD student who really wants us to get passionate about the subject. We go on one field trip every 5 weeks. Just last week was our trip to Anguk, which is a place with a lot of historical significance. We walked around for 3 hours visiting a temple, an old girls' school, different art displays, the main temple of 천도교 (sorry I don't know the English), and the constitution building. We visited the area where the leaders of the Enlightenment Movement used to live and meet, too. It was really fun and the professor is one of my favorites. My culture class is fun mainly because the professor has a Korean/Russian accent that makes her sound positively evil. However, I really like the class and she shows us videos every Thursday that keep things interesting. There aren't a lot of requirements for the class either, so I can focus on my Korean studies.

Anyways, that's all I can think of for now. If I remember anything else I'll post later.

OH by the way, I'm leaving tonight for the beautiful island paradise of Jeju-do. It'll be ballerrrr! I'll make a whole big post about that when I return!

Miss y'all bunches!

Love,

Janet

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo

돌아왔어!

Greetings from Seoul! I have returned!

Now that I'm back I'm really missing that nice weather that America was enjoying. It's freezing here!

Lately I've been just hanging around and acclimating. Despite my family's efforts to re-assimilate me into American culture my Korean actually improved over break (I started implementing new vocab and a new grammar form!) and my friends from my church commented that they were scared I would come back not knowing any Korean at all. 아싸!

Anyways, today I spent most of my day writing letters. I had gone to Hongdae to have lunch (냉면/naengmyeon) and dessert (a tiny waffle with ice cream!) and then I went to the stationary store, called a 문방구/munbanggu to get some letter paper and stickers. Yesterday I went to a different stationary store and bought a hilarious notebook, about a bajillion cute pens, and a new pencil case. I'm almost all ready for the new semester! Just gotta get a new backpack first.

Being back in Korea is like slipping back into a pair of shoes you've already broken in. It's such a relief that it's not like putting on a pair of new shoes again. Going to America was like putting on some sneakers I've had for the past four years - you're so used to them you almost don't want to look at them after having worn shiny new nikes for 5 months, but once they're on they're just so comfy!

Sorry I like weird analogies.

In Korea, Valentine's Day has evolved such that on the 14th of February, girls are expected to give the men in their lives candy. It's a time where cute boys have to hide in fear because of the many prospective women showering them with obsessive attention and gifts, as Valentine's Day here is kind of like a day where any revealing of feelings or bold moves forward are encouraged. And so for me, this meant no candy at all *sniffle*.

However! On March 14th is White Day, the counterpart to Valentine's day, the day on which I will receive the candy that I so rightfully deserve! (Just kidding, but seriously, I want candy hahah.) My Korean professor at Wesleyan told me that in the old days in Korea, when Ewha Women's University had gates that did not allow males inside, every year on White Day the boys used to crowd right outside the gates waiting for the girls' classes to end waving candy and cards and gifts in the air like a crazy man mob, hoping to win the girls' hearts with commercialized fluff.

April 14th is called Black Day, or what I like to call ForeverAlone Day, because that is the day that all single people get together and eat black bean noodles (called 자짱면/jajjangmyeon) and talk about how single they are. What a coincidence that it's Stephanie's birthday! (Stephanie is my little sister, for you readers who did not know.)

Anyways, just thought I'd write briefly to say I'm doing well and enjoying the Seoul atmosphere again. Miss you all bunches!

Love,

Janet

Making Connections

Well, some very exciting things have happened which are all making me think a lot about my future (something very scary for me since I decided to not become a doctor last year) and these days things are looking a little better.

The other day my roomie Taylor invited me to go with her to meet with the guy she tutors because she was nervous (I didn't understand why until later).

We ended up meeting with his correspondent and heading over to a restaurant a few minutes from Yonsei that served genuine Korean beef (no Australian or American beef for them!) which meant a portion of the Chinese stew went for 35,000원 per person (yikes) and there was cucumber/onion soju and makkeoli to go with it. I had to ask for water specifically for myself and for my roomie because they only had alcohol on the table. Anyways, we arrived at the restaurant and met with not just my roommate's tutee but also his five ahjussi buddies. They were all around fifty to sixty years old and were really excited to have lunch with "the pretty american girls" heehee. One of them had been involved in the Clinton administration. My roomie's tutee is a Congressman in the Democratic Labor Party and is very friendly but very bad at English. Another of the men had a son who works at Discovery channel and the other was very quiet but my favorite of the five, since he was the least overpowering. It's nearly impossible to have a conversation and deliver an opinion with a bunch of old men speaking broken English. Never even thought I'd have run into that problem. It was also a little uncomfortable (but totally hilarious) because the congressman commented to one of his colleagues in Koran about my "S-line" (to all who are confused, it basically is the term for a nice figure) and when I blushed and they realized I had understood him everyone started laughing.

Anyways, I now understand why my roomie was intimidated by them.

At the end of the meal I went to go take the subway to work, but the congressman stopped me, pushed me into a taxi, and stuck a 50,000원 bill in my hand (a little less than $50) and told me to take the taxi to work. I was speechless. I tried to insist on the subway and give back the money but he shut the door in my face and waved the taxi driver on. The taxi driver muttered something along the lines of "sheesh, she knows those guys?" and went on to his destination. He tried to cheat $5 out of me, too, which made me really mad, but it was all good because I started yelling at him in a way that only Korean dramas can teach you. Ka-ching.

Later on in the week, I was able to get in touch with a Yonsei alum who is the president of a Korean steel and glass company who helped give me a ride when I was moving out of the dorm. So that's another cool contact I've made.

Annnd third of all, today I'm going to be having lunch with a man who is a translator from Korea who lives in Rome. Since I'm going to maybe do translation or interpretation in the future I'm glad to be making contacts with him.

I've been deathly ill for about 2 weeks which made finals, moving out, and saying final goodbyes a living hell for me. I was extremely stressed out and coughing my lungs up pretty much every day. I had to pull an all-nighter for one of my papers, and a near all-nighter for my Korean-Japanese Relations exam but I'm pretty sure I killed it. I hope I got good grades. I know I had a solid A in my Korean language class so there's that at least. My cough and sore throat (a part of the sickness that only developed two days before Christmas) is FINALLY going away now. I spent almost all of Christmas day sick in bed. I did get a really pretty pair of earrings as a present, though. And a nice meal. There was also a Paris Baguette Christmas Cake - something I've been looking forward to for over a year since I first heard of it during Thanksgiving break my sophomore year. Crossed that off my bucket list!! And so, Christmas wasn't a loss at all. Being in Korea during the holiday season has a really nice feeling to it - very Christmassy. I was really lucky to be able to be here for it. I hope snow comes soon because this dry wither and wind is nasty!

I had the hardest time saying goodbye to all of my friends. I spent maybe ten minutes saying "I AM NOT GOING TO CRY" while tears spewed out of my eyeballs the morning that everyone moved out of the dorm. I had to move out in multiple parts because I have SO MANY WORLDLY POSSESSIONS argh. Need to do a clean sweep of my closet soon! Restructure my wardrobe and such. Anywho, it was really sad. My friends and I took a trip to the Sejong book store earlier and had our big-shabang-final-hangout and all that jazz but it's still sad to think that I'll probably never see 99% of them ever again. It's so weird being in that in-between place where I miss my Wesleyan and Ohio friends so much but also will be missing my Yonsei friends at the same time...I just wanna be with everyone!!! *sniffle* Ah, well. It'll be alright.

I'm planning a few more hangouts with people before I go back to America with the few people left here and with my Korean friends that live here. Just gotta stay busy!

Anyways, that's all for now! Oh, and here's a picture of me with the congressman and his friends, and also of the Christmas cake!

Love you all!

<3

Happy Holidays,

Janet xoxoxo

Pre- and Post-Dokdo

Before I left for Dokdo, on thursday Nov. 10t, I attended a traditional Korean music performance at the 국립국악원 (National Center for the Korean Traditional Performing Arts). My music professor was actually one of the composers/people who brought back life into the old archaic/damaged pieces so it was pretty cool to see her work performed live. The announcer was very charismatic and funny and was giving away prizes during the show. I won a prize in a really funny way; we made eye contact while he was walking around the stage and he ran up to me excitedly, saying, "WOWWWW YOU KNOW KOREAN!?" When I nodded and laughed we had a short conversation and he gave me a CD of various songs performed on a Korean instrument called 가야금 (Gayageum, sort of like a dulcimer?) including Hey Jude (and 3 more Beatles songs!), some Russian pieces, and of course some traditional Korean pieces. It was really fun and I had a good time. I brought my friend Christine along (the one who had taken me to that unintelligible Shakespeare performance) but I felt like she was really awkward being the only outsider among my classmates, and when I invited her to eat with us afterward she just said no and had to leave. I'm not sure what was up but I tried to be as polite as possible. Anyways, afterward I met my friend Julia afterward for 치맥 (chicken and beer) and we had girl talk time for about 2 hours. It was fun and not too expensive. I will refrain from dwelling on the food.

The following Friday was Pepero Day!!! 11/11/11~!! YAY! I know I've already explained it in an earlier post so I won't rave too much but I received and gave and consumed SO much Pepero that day and it was delicious and exciting and everything I wanted it to be. There were tons of cute couples in the streets giving each other handmade and store-bought pepero, pepero dolls, pepero baskets, giant hearts made of pepero, etc. It was very festive, hyper-commercialized, and everything a pseudo-Valentine's Day should be.

Anyways, after I went to Dokdo, I returned quite tiredly and just sort of threw my stuff around my room haphazardly and went to sleep. I was totally worn out.

Honestly after that my days were pretty much just doing a lot of schoolwork to prepare as exams came around. There were a few things that stood out though.

One night as I was coming home from work I got a call from my roommate who was telling me that her Korean conversation buddy, Johnny, was in our room and that my freshly-done pile of laundry sitting on my bed was a huge embarrassment. I was supremely mortified because I knew for a fact that all of my undergarments were sitting out in a big pile near the foot of my bed, so I shrieked and told told her to hide them. There was a break in the conversation and all of a sudden her conversation buddy was on the phone too.

"Hello, I am-uh Taylor conversation partenuh Johnny, nice-uh to meet you," came the voice. I was totally mortified and was about to blurt out something like "DON'T LOOK AT THE FOOT OF MY BED!" but I just responded with a greeting and attempted to compose myself.

"아~ 안녕하세요. 저는 Janet입니다...반갑습니다..." [*awkward tone* Oh, hi, I'm Janet, nice to meet you...]

"우아! 한국말잘해요!! Taylor보다 아마 잘 하군요!" [Whoa you speak Korean well, probably better than Taylor!!]

*Taylor yelling at him in the background*

"Hahaha ah, no, don't be mean!"

"Taylor is mad at me I think. *laughs hysterically as Taylor continues to scold him*"

[awkward silence from me because I have no idea why Taylor put him on the phone]

"Anyways, so, I saw your picture, Taylor show it to me."

"Oh, really?"

"Yes, you blonde pretty girl." *giggle*

"Oh! Uh...oh! Uhmmm thanks!" *did he seriously just giggle?*

"You very welcome. Here to talk to Taylor." *pass phone*

My only thought about that conversation is to point out to you dear readers that in this country, before I am pretty, I am blonde. Apparently that is the most outstanding feature of mine. This is not a single isolated incidence. Remember the dude that told me I looked like Scarlett Johannson? There have been a lot of Korean guys who have hit on me and literally the first or second thing they try to say they like about me is my "blonde" "yellow" "gold" hair.

The thing is, I'm not even blonde. My hair color is a mixture of blonde, brown, and red. There is no name for it, and people will never agree on it.

But I'm not blonde!

Anyways, that was that.

Another thing that was interesting about my few weeks Post-Dokdo was the Yonsei Annual Foreigner Singing Competition! WOOO!! Basically the premise is that if you're a foreigner, you select a Korean-language song and come try out for fabulous prizes! (1st prize-$500, 2nd prize-$300, 3rd-$200, and 4th-$100)

I entered along with about 70 or 80 other applicants and the tryouts were on Friday November 25th. It was nerve-wracking because one of the judges was from YG, one from SM, and one some big important professor of music dude. (YG and SM are recording companies in Korea, as an explanation to people who are confused right now about why I would care.) I was freaking out but I sang relatively well. About half an hour after the tryouts they sent out an email to the people who were accepted - one of them was me, which was pretty exciting, but the thing that shocked me the most was that out of the 70~80 who tried out, only 10 were selected. When I showed up the next week on December 2nd I realized how VERY steep the competition was. They really had picked the best of the best, and I felt like I was in a very low range in comparison, which scared me a lot.

I drew number 5 for the competition order, which means I came right before the intermission.

My performance started out a little rough as I was nervous, but a lot of my friends came to see me (thanks, Ian Ken Josh Dayoung Bomi Monika Vy and more) and they shouted a lot of encouragement at the beginning so at least I didn't faint. Ken really got me because he whisper-shouted "MAKE US BELIEEEVE!" right before my song began so I almost started my song by giggling. The song is by a boy group called 2AM and its title is 웃어줄수없어서미안하다 (I'm sorry I can't smile for you) so starting a sad breakup ballad by giggling is probably bad form. Anyways, I finished the performance strong and was happy with how I did.

Unfortunately, I am still working on my Korean capabilities and my pronunciation tips a little bit when I'm singing because I'm used to singing in English, so I lost points there, and I also lost points because I do this awkward nervous swaying thing when I sing in front of people, and so I lost points for confidence, too. When the results came out it reflected that, and although I was happy with my performance, I didn't win any of the prizes. The one thing that does make me feel proud, though, is that all of my friends told me that my singing ability was much better than the girl who got the 4th place prize, and that they all thought I deserved it instead of her. Oh well, the consolation prize was this really awesome blue velvet blanket that makes me feel like a princess whenever I use it, and Bomi and Dayoung brought me flowers!! So sweet.

I guess I'll have to work on my pronunciation and charisma for if there's ever another singing competition.

The woman who won first was some 40-year-old lady from China. No one even knew why she was in the competition. Guess she takes some classes at Yonsei or something. We were all pretty confused, but she was a great performer so I guess it was okay.

Oh, I forgot to mention. After the contest tryouts on the 25th I attended a Yonsei choir concert, which was great. They performed Mozart's Coronation Mass and then some Gospel and some Pop songs. They finished with a Beatles' medley which was hilariously entertaining because they had a really cute and funny dance to go along with it.

After the choir concert I went out with a bunch of friends of mine to Hongdae at this club called I<3KPOP (great name, I know) where I met a bunch of really funny Korean dudes and had to be rescued by my friend Andrew multiple times by the overly-aggressive ones (one of them really liked my "yellow hairs"). One dragged me over to his table and literally tried to pour alcohol into my mouth and I was like whooooa dude, who says I'm drinking tonight? And when I walked away he tried to follow me around for like half an hour. Another boy tried to get me to take Jager bombs and I was so annoyed at that point that I just sighed, shoved him, and went back to find my friends Amy and Angel (usually I'm polite and say no thank you but seriously it went too far, especially when he tried to convince me by saying "please but you are cute to me and sexy to me so please drink with me - how swagless). It was really fun.

The next morning I got up at around ten or so and had breakfast with Ken, Quinn, Brian, Andrew, and Allen at a nice Japanese place and then we hopped onto a bus to go to 춘천 (Chuncheon) to try Korea's best 닭갈비 (Dalk galbi - like spicy grilled chicken with vegetables). It was delicious and totally worth the 2 hour commute to get there.

Anyways, that's about it. Right now we're entering exam period and I'm freaking out only a little bit this time. I don't think it's hit me that I'm actually finishing up my first semester in Korea. I received my semester extension approval yesterday so I'm REALLY excited to start my spring semester! I'll be back in America for a little while before returning in February hopefully.

Anyways, I'll write again some time soon. I have 5 Korean language tests, a Korean-Japanese Relations paper and a final, and a cinema final, so I'll be studying my butt off but I'd love to hear from you guys in the following weeks!

Love you bunches!

xo,

Janet

독도홍보단 사진들이 너무 많이 찍었는데 좀 보여 줄게~

Hi guys,

I took a lot of pictures and I just realized you can view them through my facebook album, so: click here!

No More Promises

I officially cannot promise to update "every week" or "every other week" anymore.

I'm truly sorry, but there is very little I can do. Life is crazy here, tests are frequent, trips are frequent too, and I always find myself having to nap when I should be updating.

Anyways, here comes another epic post from me, followed by a picture post.

First thing's first: my 독도홍보단 (Dokdo PR Group) trip to Ulleungdo!

We started off by having to arrive at Seoul Station at 10:00 PM on Saturday November 12th (since the train leaves at 5:00am but no subway is running at that time, we had to show up the night before). Instead of giving us night-lodging in order for us to sleep comfortably until it was time for the train, they rented a big room at the Korail station and had us - yes, you guessed it - practice our PR dance for 4 hours.

As a side note, I'm not sure what it is, but Korean events have a lot of line dancing and mass-games-style card flipping (you know, where everyone holds a card over their head and together they make a picture) in order to support their causes. I was not spared of this fate.

Anyways, apart from a short break with strawberry milk and sweet potato pastry snack, we basically danced until the sun rose. I took the liberty of a half hour nap inside of a cardboard box at around 4a.m. and awoke when they started to usher us toward the train. It was simply miserable.

The one thing that superficially perked me up was my new jacket. Upon arrival at Seoul Station they gave each of us a bright blue windbreaker/rain jacket made by Airwalk, so we all matched - a team of 100 blue people (half foreigners at that!) marching through the station with signs and name tags was quite a sight for all of the other people waiting at the station. I almost passed out when I saw the price tag - because this PR group is sponsored by the government as well as through private funds, they have a lot of money - the tag read 248,000원, roughly $240(USD). That jacket is now my pride and joy and I take care of it like it's my child.

Anyways, they finally loaded us onto the train. The train stopped in Gyeongsangbuk-do, where we took a bus to Pohang (a city on the sea) where we further took a 3.5-hour ferry to Ulleung-do (Ulleung Island) the island closest to Dokdo. It was a long and miserable journey, but I fared relatively well despite my tired and decrepit state. My bleary, bloodshot eyes' first sight of land was the rocky shores of the island, along with glaring sunlight reflecting off of the lanterns of the many, many squid fishing ships.

After docking and ascending the ferry, we gathered into groups (my group was #7!!) and after having someone give us freshly dried squid to eat (not so bad) we gathered in teams of 2 groups and went to eat a full hot meal. I will keep my description of the food short because I realized that no one really besides me cares about all this food I'm eating. We went to a little restaurant owned by these three old ladies and had basically fish and vegetable side dishes with rice and a little cup of coffee afterward. We had to take off our shoes and sit on the floor cross-legged, which trust me after dancing for 3 hours and being transported by train, bus, and ship for seven or 8 hours, is not easy an agreeable, especially for a person as normally inflexible as I am. The only other white person in our group, a guy from Amsterdam named Rob (inevitably everyone called him Lob [ㄹ=R/L confusion] and eventually Lobster) also had a lot of issues with the sitting on the floor thing and actually did NOT take off his shoes and just walked into the room (causing everone else to FREAK out). I had to translate pretty much everything for him because there were, out of the maybe 100 or more people on the trip, 3 native English speakers, making it very difficult for everyone to work around this barrier.

After our rushed lunch we went to see a giant rock, which is one of the many symbols of "Mysterious Island Ulleung-do" called 춧대압 (Chotdaeap -? No idea what it means, sorry) and took a lot of pictures on the pier. I got to take some nice pictures of the tidebreakers, which are shaped basically like jacks, and the nasty seagulls, and the technicolor squid ships covered in their bulbous glass lanterns. It was at Chotdaeap that we had our first (and what we later learned was our final) filming of our PR dance, filmed by at least 7 cameras, 2 of which were helicams! This should have been my first warning sign that I'd be on camera a lot, but later it got even worse. I began to realize that because there were so many cameras, I was not safe anywhere. Seriously every time I opened my mouth and Korean came out there would be a camera in my face. Not to say that I didn't enjoy the attention *toss hair* hahah seriously but on this day in particular I felt awful, looked awful, and just wasn't feeling the paparazzi.

After the performance and the giant rock viewing we went to a giant hall in what I believe is the Ulleung-do Education Ministry building to see a few important figures involved in the Dokdo dispute speak. There were also two North Korean refugees speaking, which was pretty awesome. The hall that we sat in was called Ulleung Harmony Assembly Hall. Korean-to-English translations are so poetic. I think I was the only person in the whole hall not sleeping by the end of the presentation, though, which made me feel really bad for those North Korean refugee kids. I stayed awake the whole time, proudly, and attempted to remain perky as best I could.

After the, however interesting, exceedingly long presentation, we carted ourselves and all our luggage to our final resting place for the evening - Dae-A Resort (or, according to the towels, Dae-A Hotel). Personally I think it only qualifies as a resort because of its extra features like convenience store, noraebang, ballroom, and swimming pool (out of season) because the state of the rooms was less than luxurious. I don't mind sleeping on mats on the floor because it's comfortable and I don't mind how short Korean showers generally are because I, too, am short, but seriously, dead mosquitos accompanied by human blood on the walls are simply beneath my hygiene standards. The room was perfect other than that and the mildew on the bathroom curtain. I think my mom would have had a heart attack, though. I think I heard my common sense screaming but I honestly don't know whether or not it's proper to complain to room cleaning in Korea or really even what to do, and since I don't normally touch walls anyways I just let it go. Kind of regretting it now, though - SERIOUSLY IT WAS HUMAN BLOOD!!!

Anyways we had dinner (briefly noted as squid jiggae with the usual side dishes) and then went up to our rooms to go to sleep. It was only 8:00 PM but I was dead tired so I just changed into PJs and headed for bed.

At 9:30 I was awoken because I had to walk all the way back down the mountain to the "resort" lobby to try on suits for our trip to 울릉도조등학교(Ulleung-do Elementary School) the following morning. At that point I was rather crabby from exhaustion, and they hadn't received my size information properly even though my excellent trip partner Benjamin had sent it in properly, so I had to go digging to find something that might fit me. I tried on two different suit jackets and FIVE different shirts until they found one that fit me properly on top. It was horrifying. I never want to hear "you bigger than Korean girl" EVER again. I KNOW. Seriously. They also gave me these boot-like black shoes for me to wear which were one size too big (shockingly they have shoes all larger than my GIANT AMERICAN FEET) and told me that although the style was different, I would have to make do. I finally trudged back up to my room, decided to take another shower because my frustration had made me feel gross again, and went back to bed again.

During the night I think the floor heater monitor EXPLODED because I woke up covered in sweat and freaking out because it was SO HOT EVERYWHERE! We found out how to turn it down eventually but oh my goodness was it uncomfortable.

I showered again, changed into my skirt-suit attire, and marched down to breakfast where I met up with the rest of the blue-coats, my partner, and everyone else coming with me to teach at the elementary school. Apparently out of the 100 people there they only selected a few to go there, and I was one of the lucky ones. Who didn't get to sleep in. And had to wear clunky shoes. Anyways, I'm actually really happy for the experience, all jokes aside, and I'll go into it in more detail in a second.

Down at the lobby after meeting up with everyone we had breakfast (yes, squid again, and fish, and vegetable side dishes) and took pictures out in the back yard of the resort, which looked out onto the sea. It was beautiful, I literally cannot describe it, nor could I capture it in pictures, but I tried. I'll post some later. I also found a puppy that someone had put blush and eyebrow pencil onto. I didn't even know what emotions I felt in response to that.

After eating and preparing (and a few interviews) we were loaded up into a bus and carted off to the middle school. I wasn't sure what the reaction would be from most of the students. Ulleung-do isn't a very popular tourist site compared to Jeju-do (a place of paramount and unsurpassed beauty and 인기) and so I figured they would be a little surprised (compared to Seoul kids) by non-Koreans sort of marching into their school (all of the ahjummas and ahjussis who had run into us on the island pretty much reacted with "Oh! [name of country written on name tag]?" to which we foreigners would respond with a simple "neh" and a smile). The kids were all either really friendly, wanting to shake my hand and touching my hair and asking if it was natural, or really shy, hiding behind the taller kids. When I taught the 4th grade class for half an hour, though, all of the initial shyness/friendliness seemed to seep away, and I felt like I was standing in front of an emotionless academic firing squad. My Korean capabilities held me up a little bit, and my partner translated for me what I didn't know what to say. The main thing the kids were curious about, actually, was Halloween. They had seen it in movies before and wanted me to explain the function of "trick or treat" and nearly stumped me when they asked what was a "trick" exactly. (I first told them that you would get slapped in the face, which freaked them out, and then I was like nah, back in the old days they'd give you veggies and stuff.) When I opened myself to questions, however, the real test began "what is the population and growth rate of the US?" "what is your economic standpoint on the FTA?" "what are the differences between the laws of the 50 states?" etc. etc. and I was like oh my gosh, time to bluff and pretend that I'm smart. The funniest question, however, was, "do you have a boyfriend?" Why do kids always want to know that?? Anyways, I told him he was too young for me and all the kids were like BAHAHAH and he was like AHHHHHHH I DIDNT MEAN THATTTTTT and it was great. Poor kid. If I ever become an English teacher in Korea I'm gonna have to fight back a lot of sadism.

After going to the elementary school we were supposed to go to Dokdo for the allotted 30 tourist minutes (it's a 1 hour boat ride there) and perform our PR dance one last time, but we were given news that, because of off-shore winds, the waves were too dangerous to leave the island. We were also given the ominous warning that the wind might be too strong for us to even leave Ulleung-do to go back home.

So, despite the wind, they decided they were going to give their PR announcement address right there on the shores of Ulleung-do since there was no chance to give it on Dokdo. And, as one of three native English speakers I was chosen, along with the token black group member (they were very explicit that they chose him because he was the only black person in the whole PR group) to read the PR motto and pledge for the cameras. Apparently it's going to be shown on Arirang TV and everything. I was also interviewed for one of the Czech Republic's main news programs (so random, right?) and had at that point grown accustomed the the ten thousand cameras pointed in my face. One interesting thing about the person they chose to read the address with me was that he wasn't fluent in English - since he came from a French-colonized part of Africa, his native language was French - I was able to explain to him way more effectively what they wanted him to do in French than in the English everyone else was using. I felt like such a badass hero type person. It was awesome. But the constant reminder that I am very very beginner in Korean has kept me humble, don't worry. Mostly. Anyways, apparently without my knowledge I had become the English-speaking representative of Korea's Dokdo PR group. I was also the person they gave their English scripts to for correction, which meant I had to stick by the leaders at all times and make all of the important announcements, too. Pretty exciting.

After making the address and fixing our wind-tossed hair, we took a trip up the mountain by bus toward the 독도전망식도시설 (roughly, Dokdo sight-seeing tourist cable car) because, since we couldn't go to Dokdo, we were going up to go look at it through binoculars. Eventually, however, the path grew too steep for the bus, so we all had to get out in our fancy suits and climb up the mountain ourselves. It was a pretty cool view, and the cable car was really fun to take up. Because of the high winds it was hard to get great pictures, and the distance was pretty murky but you could just barely see Dokdo through those binoculars (they had a sign telling us the direction to point them). It was super chilly but a fun ride. While in line waiting I performed my Peking Opera impression for my two Chinese friends and they thought it was hilarious, but then commented that it actually sounded pretty similar other than the fake Chinese. Teehee.

Anyways, we started back down the mountain, but the rain that had been threatening us all day decided to spill, so we stopped in a gift shop. The shop was full of wood carvings and these three really nice old people who were offering us discounts and everything. I didn't get anything because I didn't bring my money up the mountain with me, but Lobster got a couple nice little boxes (the woodwork was actually really nice) and I tested out these cool things that you rub around on your hands and they basically stab your hands with a bunch of tiny spikes to bring up bloodflow and somehow make you healthier and more vivacious. My poor soft student palms couldn't take it, so I put it back and checked out the spoons.

When the rain finally stopped we started walking the rest of the way down. We stopped at a Buddhist temple and took pictures of the architecture and the giant Buddha, and then for the rest of the hill my partner Benjamin and my friend Jun grabbed one of my arms on either side and ran down with me swooshing behind them. It was so fun. It was like I was a little kid with two dads, hahah. After other kids saw us doing that, girls all up the hill were grabbing two guy friends and having them fly them down - the funniest was when one of the guys pretended to drop the girl and she got so scared she ended up knocking all three of them off of the road. We eventually made it back to the bus to take us back to our classy Dae-A resort.

Oh, I forgot to mention one thing. If you ever consider taking a long bus ride on Ulleung-do, smack yourself in the face for ever considering a thing so horrible, deathly terrifying, and illness-inducing. Every road in Ulleung-do has about ten thousand hairpin turns, is never flat (at least a 40 degree incline at every point) and is about 3 centimeters wider than the bus. All of these things combined make for a terrifying and potentially deadly bus ride. I'll go more into detail later.

We came back to our lovely island home-away-from-home-away-from-home and prepared for our big evening PR meeting and surprise talent show. They put on some music and dragged people onto the stage and made them do funny couple-y things like dance together and mime confessing their love for one another. It was really funny, especially when someone was super awkward at dancing. I got to participate by playing some Blue Scholars when someone asked for an "American hip hop beat" and none of the Koreans actually had American hip hop on their iPods. Represent! Anyways after the dancing and fun they showed us a quick raw video of our first dance (awful and hilarious - there were a lot of people who clearly didn't know the dance at all) and then filmed us all sending in our PR declaration to some website. After that I shared with everyone my Dokdo information blog and twitter information (@Dokdodispute and dokdodispute.tumblr.com) so that everyone could follow me. Unfortunately since I said it in English I think a lot of people didn't get what I was saying at all. Oh well, guess I'll have to push it more and shamelessly promote to get more attention!

Anyways at the end of the meaning, our fearless leader stood and gave a very emotional speech, during which he started to tear up and caused some of the other senior members to cry, and then told us he felt really bad that we might be stranded here and that he had ordered 100 chickens along with 2-liter bottles of beer to apologize to us, and that he would be making sure they were delivered to our rooms. A huge shout rose from the crowd and we rushed back to our rooms to share the chicken and beer with our group-mates and bond together. We played Korean drinking games, snapped chopsticks on each others' foreheads, and ate tons of chicken. It was a lot of fun. We went back to bed sort of early because, in the case that we *did* get to go back to Seoul the next day, we would need to wake up and be ready to go by 9am.

In the morning, as luck would have it, we were actually stranded on Ulleung-do, the island of the noraebang that closes at midnight (seriously who closes a noraebang that early!?!?) with no agenda and no actual chance to visit Dokdo. Luckily that meant a lot more time to bond with friends. Unfortunately, they decided to take us on the ocean-view tour, a drive around the island in the previously mentioned bus of terror. I had never had 차멀미 (cha meolmi - car sickness) in my entire life until this bus ride. Ulleung-do, if you look up pictures, is mostly made of rocky hills/mountains. The roads are steep and unpleasant, and the buses have bad suspension. My friend 건우 (Geonwoo? Gunwoo? - no English name) was sitting next to me the entire time with a plastic bag over his face. We were both laying on each other moaning in misery the entire drive up. Halfway through the tour we stopped to eat (ugh) at an old-style restaurant where they served us a ton of 비빔밥 (bibimbap - basically mixed rice and veggies) and my friend 해림 (Haerim) and I walked around taking pictures. She gave me some motion sickness medicine before we got onto the bus again, and I am eternally in her debt for that.

We reached the seashore and they were going to make us perform the dance one more time but it had started to rain and so they didn't make us (thank goodness!). Instead, they took us to a lighthouse surrounded by lots of the breakers and we hopped around on them and took pictures with the lighthouse before getting back on the bus. We drove a little further and came to a Buddhist temple similar to the one from the day before but with a smaller building, and a bigger statue. This one also had a magical enchanted Buddha fountain, which I drank from despite my better judgement and precaution against oral bacteria. It was frighteningly cold, but we still took a ton of pictures (and a lot of pictures of ourselves, I'm a little embarrassed to say [although I shouldn't be, I am in Korea after all]). It was pretty fun. We all loaded back up on the bus and set off again.

After the Buddhist temple we drove some more and found ourselves at the Ulleungdo seawalk! It was made of metal and wood and went along about one kilometer on some steep rocks and over the sea at some parts. It was really high up and super windy so a little scary but it was alright after you got used to it. At one point Haerim and I were walking out on the rocks without using the path and we saw some (evil) goats hopping around like they owned the place, and I took some pictures of them, and took a video of the waves gushing everywhere. It was really pretty and the power of the waves illustrated pretty clearly the reason we couldn't go home just yet.

Upon our return they told us to go get changed and then we'd go and get dinner. We went into town in our huge group for 오삼 - ("Eo-sam"?) which is a combination of 오징어/삼겹살 - basically spicy fried pork belly and squid (yes, squid again! The pattern unfolds!) and then later they make a porridge out of the leftover stuff in the bottom and add veggies and laver. It was really delicious. I called for another rice container and called the woman working there the Korean word for Aunt and she got so excited, ran over, put some squid in my mouth, and hugged me for about thirty seconds when it was time to leave. Then she told me to be good and study hard. I felt like I'd just adopted a Korean mom.

One of the coolest things I've ever seen was the squid ships out on the sea when I was walking back up to the dorm rooms. I didn't have a camera so I couldn't take a pictures, but basically they were these long strips of light blazing in the distance and reflecting off of the waves. They light up all those lanterns because it attracts squid, who like to come up to the moon at night. I stood there and looked at them for about five minutes before I kept walking again. Man I wish I'd had my camera...

After dinner it was time for pizza. Yep. Still hungry. We girls all ate the pizza in our room and hung out for a while and then when some of them got tired, me and a French girl from a house up the hill headed downhill to a room where a bunch of the kids were partying. We all sat in a circle and played Korean drinking games for three hours (I had to be taught a lot of them because I don't know that many comparatively). It got really difficult when we had to switch to silent mode for all of the games. In any case, I eventually headed back home and went to sleep.

In the morning it was time to head back home, sadly. I really liked Ulleung-do despite the blood on the walls, the carsickness, and the endless diet of squid. I got a bunch of my friends' contact information and added everyone on Kakao Talk (to those who don't know - a chatting service) as quickly as I could so that we could stay in touch. My one friend, 서희(Seohui - Sue) invited about 50 of the 100 people there to go to a party hosted by her school the following Saturday so I was happy to be certain I'd be seeing a good number of them again.

We took the long boat ride, had lunch, took the bus, and then the train, and then finally made it back to Seoul Station. It was a long and tiring ride. After arriving at Seoul station my friend Ara and I went back the rest of the way together because she lives so close to me (yay). It was a good ending to an amazing and very tiring trip.

Anyways, I'll post about the subsequent days of my month in a post after this. Look out for pictures coming!!!

Miss you guys,

xoxoxoxo,

Janet