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

Going to Dokdo so soon - yay!

Hey y'all,

I'm in a weird mood so excuse this post for being a bit strange.

It's gonna be a bit until my next post. I'm going to Dokdo finally for my short little trip this weekend. Get siked!

This Saturday I had orientation at 10:00. My partner for the trip's name is, Gunhee/Benjamin (I'm writing his American name so that my Mom has some chance at remember what to call him when I talk to her, heehee) and I was going to meet him at the subway station where our paths would converge at 9:30 so that we could go to there together. Unfortunately I got a text that said that he was in the hospital. (Don't worry, he just had a stomach ache; Koreans go to the hospital for everything.) So anyways, instead of waiting in the subway for two hours, I decided to set off and find the university on my own. I got there just ten minutes late and sat for the first two hours alone, wishing someone was there to translate the 50% of the speech that I didn't understand. He got there eventually and basically the entire orientation was useless. I got a free meal out of it and had to learn some dance we're doing for a documentary that I'm apparently going to be a part of, and I learned that I did the wrong thing for the presentation I have to make for kids at an elementary school on Ulleungdo (the island nearest to Dokdo where we will be staying overnight).

At the orientation I noticed a few things. On top of gaining confidence in my Korean skills (apparently even though I'm among very few beginners there, I am actually one of the few people that can actually communicate effectively with the non-English-speaking Koreans) I also encountered, all at once, all of my favorite and least favorite type of foreigner in Korea. I will give a rough categorization. Keep in mind that most people are hybrids of all of these.

1.) the foreigner who refuses to actually try to speak Korean 2.) the one who knows a few key phrases in Korean and will use them incessantly to try to impress people 3.) the one who thinks that everything in Korea is the best and will love/praise/purchase the Korean version of anything just because it's Korean 4.) the one who thinks that Korea is an inferior nation and is "just so adorable and cute trying to be just like America" 5.) the freaked out one who is too terrified to even respond to a hello 6.) the one who is just chilling out 7.) the one who knows Korean and uses it effectively 8.) the one who knows it but blurts out the wrong stuff all the time

I think I'm a hybrid of numbers 6, 7, and 8. I used to be a tiny bit of a 3 when I first came to Korea because everything was so new, but I'm starting to miss American stuff again (i.e. REESE'S PUFFS!!!).

I can't tell you how annoyed I got at this one guy who was a textbook case type 2. He repeated the phrases for "good job!" and "cool!" and a couple of slang words like thirty times. The most frustrating part was that he kept getting compliments. He was literally just going around and saying words at the Korean speakers. I may have been a little jealous that he was getting so much attention for so little effort and here I am over in the corner negotiating suit rental prices with the director of the Dokdo trip and the RealKorea program and no one was saying anything to me. ...I am a bit of an attention seeker. Anyways, that's not important. What IS important is that they were going to charge all of the foreigners 40,000원 for a ONE-DAY suit rental so that we could look good for the government documentary, and I complained so much that they called RealKorea and made them erase the fee. I think I got my skills from my mom (further evidence: I still refuse to ever sit near the kitchen or the restroom when I go out to eat in a restaurant).

I left the orientation early because it ran over by two hours. And then that night I went clubbing!! My friend Levis is friends with a pro golfer who, for his birthday, rented an entire club in Apgujeong for the evening. I was on the super special guest list and didn't pay a dime!

While we were there that night Kyle had ordered a long island iced tea but I didn't see him get it and so I yelled at the bartender for ignoring us and he just sighed, talked to his supervisor, and made another one. I brought Kyle the tea proudly and he looked at me like I was crazy, and then I realized that I had literally just intimidated a Korean bartender into giving me a free 10,000원 drink. All in Korean! I feel so awesome these days.

I am so so so sorry for sounding like I'm bragging about my improvement in Korean. It's just so exciting and I'm really pumped to go back to America and show 백선생님 and Mia and all the other Korean adults that they didn't help me for no reason.

Anyways, this friday is 빼빼로Day (Pepero Day) which is sort of like a (similarly overly commercialized) second Valentine's Day; it came about because the date 11/11 looks like the little pepero sticks, which are basically crunchy cookie sticks covered in chocolate - the Korean version of Pocky. This year is the biggest Pepero Day ever, because it's 11/11/11. At 11:11 on 11/11/11 people are going to be going crazy. I think it's not a coincidence that at 11:11:11 on 11/11/11 it's also going to be THE BIGGEST 11:11 WISH EVER!!! (For any of you who don't know what the 11:11 wish is [parents] it's basically some dumb thing that people made up where if you look at the clock at exactly 11:11 you can make a wish.) I'm so pumped. I will eat so much pepero it's not even funny.

On Friday I also get to pick up my now #2 Alien Registration card. Ugh. I can't believe I went through all that trouble. At least I get to keep one as a souvenir now.

On Monday at 8:00am (oh my goodness) I went to a place called 나눔의집 (Nanum-eui-jib - Sharing House) which is a place where surviving Comfort Women, victims of Japanese governmental sex crimes during World War II, live together and try to get noticed by citizens, the Japanese, and the world. Women from countries all over the globe were conscripted, abducted, and sold into sex slavery serving the soldiers fighting for the Japanese stationed all over asia. Most of them were slaughtered at the end of the war to hide the Japanese government's involvement, but there are still hundreds of survivors and they want an apology and punishment for the responsible. They hold protests every Wednesday at the Japanese embassy in Seoul. This December they will hold their 1,000th protest, and I hope to attend it. The trip was really interesting - we got to take a walk around the museum, watch a video about their struggle, and speak with one of the survivors. They had a reconstructed model of a comfort station and various artifacts on display (including a 70 year old (unused, of course!) condom that had been found intact at an old destroyed comfort station - icky). Anyways, after it was all over we took the bus home.

I'm going to go crazy if the little girl I tutor on Mondays does not calm the heck down by next time I see her. She tried to give me moldy orange, mocked me repeatedly, stuck a candy she sucked on onto my face, and keeps saying she has to use the bathroom every five minutes - either she's drinking too much water or she's not focusing hard enough. I had a stern talk with her at the recommendation of her mother and told her that she was making me very sad and that I don't want to get angry at her so she'd better focus and pay attention. I think I traumatized her. But at least now maybe she'll listen better. I think after she started doing better in school she thought she could treat me like some sort of teacher-slave-punching-bag but THAT WILL NOT BE THE CASE. I will defeat this child's short attention span! Also after her kid started getting awesome scores, her mom has started making me full meals instead of tiny sandwiches when I go over. So happy.

Anyways, that's all for now! I hope you're all doing well and I love you!

<3,

Janet

Recent Photos!

"Hip Hop Fairy" - attempt at a costume - thank you for the lovely suggestion my dear roomie!

Club Mansion!!

HORSE HEAD!!!!!!!

This guy's costume is great. Love the gache.

SAMGYUPSAL so delicious.

독도, Halloween, and Love Notes

Hello!

I'm updating in less than two weeks this time!!

Midterms are over and thank goodness! I thought I was going to die. Not really, but I was seriously worried about my grades.

The Korean-Japanese Modern Relations exam was exceedingly specific and difficult, and as such the average grade was in the 70's. Awesome. In case you were all wondering, no, I was not a shining star and did not exceed the average. Guess I'll just have to work harder in the future! Luckily the midterm doesn't actually count that much in that class. Phew.

I got a solid A on my Korean language midterm, which is awesome because that's what I really have to accomplish while I'm here.

The Korean Traditional Music midterm was SUPER easy (seriously 5 short-answer questions and 20 multiple choice) and afterwards the professor unpacked a bunch of 뗙 and coffee that her husband had bought in Germany (but was made in Brazil[?]) so we had a little party. It was delicious and a lot of fun. She let me take an extra rice cake home with me, too. There were three types: injeolmi, mochi, and just like...a square-shaped one with stuff on it whose name I don't know. Anyways, yeah, easy midterm, and I think I'm the only person in the class who bothered learning the names of everything but it didn't matter because she didn't have it written in Hangul anyways (**grumble** that actually made it more difficult**).

On Sunday the 23 I had speaking practice in Insadong, and while I was there my friend Benjamin/Gunhee (can't decide which name I like better) told me about a thing called 독도보홍단 (Dokdo Bohongdan - basically Dokdo program) that allows 30 teams of one foreigner and one Korean native to go on a foreign relations trip to Dokdo, and island that is a disputed territory between Korea and Japan as a result of the fallout from the colonization of Korea by Japan and World War II (Japan's name for it is Takeshima). He told me that he wasn't sure when the deadline was.

On the 25th he called me to tell me that the deadline was THAT NIGHT at midnight and that I had to HURRYYYY and apply if I wanted to have even a chance (apparently hundreds of students applied for it already and were just barely going to squeeze in). He sent me the application and it was in the wrong format (US microsoft word can't handle Hangul sometimes) so he reformatted it and sent it again. I couldn't understand the Korean so he translated it and sent it again. I finally filled it out (the end was two essays) and then he had to translate it all back into Korean (including my essays) and then send it in. He finally emailed in everything by 11:45. It was a close call. He told me not to get my hopes up so I didn't, but on Saturday he called me with the news - WE GOT IN!!!! He made sure to let me know how intense the competition was and how most of his friends didn't get in at all. The trip is three days from November 13th to 15th and two nights, and they're giving us free clothes including shirts and shoes (...? shoes, why?) and there's a 6-hour orientation on November 5th. I'm so excited!! I told me Korean-Japanese Relations professor and he got REALLY excited and asked me to take a lot of pictures and make a presentation when I got back. I will have to take a lot of good notes so that I can remember all of it!

Another thing that follows is that after the trip I have to open up a social networking communication line talking about Dokdo to spread the word to other countries, which means I have to open a new blog, open another twitter, and also a tumblr to profess the facts and verités about the property claims issue of Dokdo island. It'll be fun - maybe I'll become a famous representative!! Just kidding. Also I'm worried that my Japanese friends will be mad at me.

Oh and the best part is that the trip - transportation, housing, food, lectures, clothing, etc. - is all FREE!!! It's like a $1,000 value. I'm so stoked.

Anyways, that's the big Dokdo news.

On Tuesday night (since my exams were finished) I decided to go out for just a little bit with my friends to celebrate. I ended up coming home at around 5 in the morning with absolutely no voice because I'd been singing noraebang on top of having a small cough. It was great. I met some new people and did some good bonding. Anyways...

...now onto - Halloween in Korea!

Traditionally, Halloween has never been celebrated in Korea until recently, and it's really just an excuse for stores to deck out their shelves with jack-o-lanterns and for college kids to dress up in crazy outfits and, of course, drink ridiculous amounts of soju, beer, "tekira" or "hwohdca/podca." I told Bomi and Dayoung about Halloween and they thought that bobbing for apples sounded hysterical, and when I mentioned trick-or-treating, Bomi exclaimed "I saw that in a movie once!" When I heard her say that I think my brain exploded. I went trick-or-treating every year from when I was a little kid in a flower costume 'til I was a high school junior in a Zombie Housewife costume (with the exception of when I was 15 and stayed in to study for my Chemistry exam and pass out the candy). When she said that it was probably the scariest moment of my Halloween. No lie. Anyways, for my halloween costume I had several ideas, one of which was being "sexy Ahjumma." To those of you who didn't know yet, Ahjumma style has a very particular je ne sais quoi to it - if you click this link you'll know what I mean. They're basically a stereotypical Korean middle-aged woman. My korean professor told our class that Korea has three genders - male, female, and ahjumma - just to illustrate my point. [Photo Courtesy of Eric Sellgren's photo blog.] I decided against it, however, because I'm growing a little tired of only having worn costumes with the adjective "sexy" at the beginning since my frosh year of high school, so I decided to be a fairy this year! Yes, I did bring fairy wings with me to Korea, don't ask me why.

Anyways when I told my roommate, a New Orleans native, that I was going to be a fairy she told me that it just wouldn't do, and that I'd have to be a hip-hop fairy. As a very non-swag person, I had to ask her what the heck that even meant and basically I ended up wearing a little white club dress with a white 59Fifty and my white nikes along with my lavender fairy wings and super awesome eye makeup. Much camwhoring ensued.

For Halloween, the Yonsei Global program threw a party at Club Mansion in Hongdae. It was pretty fun - the music was all techno/house music, though, so dancing involved a lot of jumping and weird hand gestures, but it was really fun. After that we took to the streets and roamed around finding awesome costumes and just having a good time. I finally ended up getting some AMAZING samgyupsal for a pretty cheap price and getting home around 5am. One of the best costumes of the night was this really kkangpae-looking dude wearing a traditional female hanbok and a fake giant braided hairpiece (gache) à la Chosun dynasty. So hilarious.

Anyways, that was all good and fun, and then I woke up early the next morning to meet my friends down at 10:30 at the Hyundai department store to grab a taxi together to go to 와우산 공원 (Wausan Park) to play some badminton. We never actually ended up playing badminton because all of the jangs were full, but I learned a lot of traditional Korean games and had a good time running around and trying out all of the cool Korean workout equipment (some of it was just hilarious and fun). That evening for dinner I had some cheap pizza and watched a comedy show on the giant LCD screen in the seating area and was actually shocked that I understood and was laughing at some of the jokes. SO COOL!!!!! AHHHH!!!

Anyways now I'm here on a Monday after my first class of the day and finishing up this post for you guys. Tonight I'm going and tutoring for the girl who asked me how to say breasts in English, and I'm anticipating it because last week her mother gave me permission to scold her, because she's been acting up lately. She's apparently been doing a lot better in her English class, though, so her mom is really pleased with me and thinks I'm awesome. The little girl likes me a LOT, evidence being that for the past two times I've been there she's written me a little note that says "I love Janet teacher!" with a picture of us together, and during the lesson she doodles pictures of us skipping and holding hands and playing on the playground. I'm not sure how to react but I think it's adorable. I just wish she would start drawing arms on the doodle of me. Hahah.

Anyways, that's all! I'll upload some pictures soon and give you updates on the Dokdo island trip later!!

Love,

Janet <3 <3 <3

Raw Meat

Hello there! I figure 12 days is enough time between blog posts. My promise to update more often has been interrupted by the fact that this week and half of next weeks is - **DUNDUNDUNNNN** - midterms time!

Midterms for Korean high school students meant no sleep, no life, no friends, no proper food, etc. (actually, pretty much every day during the school year meant that, I guess) but for college students it's a little more relaxed. Still, all the same, I have been significantly cut into my free time and haven't seen my friends really at all this week. My motto during this time has been "You Can Sleep When You Die." Thus, I have been quite self-alienated and am slowly dying a soul-crushing death. Luckily my last exam is on Tuesday, and on Sunday I'm taking a health-break (I'm gonna clean my room!) and so I will most likely survive unscathed.

The best part about taking an intensive Korean language course is that I get to take five separate tests for the class. Reading (the smallest and lowest point value: fluency, speed, pronunciation), Writing (grammar, conjugation, essay), Listening, Speaking (a sort of interview), and Reading Comprehension. I had two of them on Thursday the 20th and one today, and one last week on the 11th. Monday is the speaking exam and so on Saturday I'm going to Insadong and renting out a room at a cafe (yay free coffee) and practicing speaking for five hours with one of my friends (a native speaker). I'm actually more terrified of being judged by my friend than taking the actual test, haha.

Anyways, I'm rambling, and you don't care. I'll just briefly talk about what happened with my Korean/Japanese Relations exam, which was on Wednesday the 19th. Long story short, the exam started at 10:00; I woke up at 9:30...and then woke up again at 10:30. Never had I ever dressed and run to an exam so speedily as that morning (except for my infamous Freshman Year Final Chemistry Exam Debacle...but that's a different story). The exam had no study guide and the professor told us that we should study by "going over the readings and class notes" (the readings were over 600 pages and the classes were half taught by his grad student) and so I was really worried, but in the half-hour of remaining time I had to take the exam I was able to double check my work twice and I think I did pretty well.

My music exam is going to be lots of fun. I hate that I love the professor because while she's busy talking about her family and singing Arirang with us, she's not teaching us all of the material that needs to be on the exam. Yes, she did give us a powerpoint with everything we have to learn. No, she did not explain all of it, and yeah apparently I have at least 60 new vocab words to learn, most of which are just random instruments such as "big bamboo flute," "little bamboo flute," "tiny bamboo flute," "stone chimes," "brass chimes," "little brass chimes," etc. Not to mention there are like thirty types of song and dance and we have to memorize the names of the 12-song Gasa repertoire...blah blah blah I'm going crazy. Maybe I shouldn't take Sunday off after all.

Okay, phew. Sorry I'm just using this blog so far to talk about midterms (the memory of which is still fresh in the minds of many Wesleyan students). I will now move on to 생활, daily life.

On Saturday night of the 8th (last time I posted) I went to the fireworks festival at Yeoeuido Hangang Park. The fireworks were AMAZING. The crowd was so appreciative and there was much more ooh-ing and ahh-ing than in America. The fireworks were shaped like triangles, squares, flowers with actual petals, and - best of all - LITTLE FACES!! It was so cool! I had a great time, despite the huge crowds and nearly being trampled in the subway. After the fireworks I hung out around the Han River and got a sad phone call from my friend Changmin/Alex, who is being transferred to a new job near Oido. I will miss him very much, he was very welcoming and nice to me during my first few months here in Korea.

The next day I woke up extra early so that I could to on a super-exciting Korean Culture and Food festival. It ended up being the worst field trip of my life. They cut out the Green Tea Farm portion of the trip and replaced it with a trip to a Trot concert (which we only stayed for half an hour for) and the food at the actual food festival was average tasting and overpriced. We only got to explore the old fort for about 2 hours, which was not enough. Total I think we spent 10 hours on the road and 4 hours actually doing anything. It was horrible. The only good part of the day was the fact that I spent it getting to know my friend Annie a little better. She's really awesome and nice but won't let me take pictures of her. Oh well. You'll just have to imagine what she looks like, I guess.

On Tuesday the 11th I sent out about 9 postcards (my family got theirs, did my first batch of friends at Wes get theirs? :D)

And on the 12th I had dinner with Annie. It was, of course, donkatsu, at my favorite restaurant, Painter and Cook. We had pat bingsu afterward. It's getting a little cold these days for bingsu, but everywhere sells them basically until they run out of pat, and then they stop and start selling wintery things. It's gonna be interesting to see how all the ice cream shops keep up their interest during the winter.

I didn't really do much except for go to classes and prepare for exams for a while. On the night of the 17th (right before my K/J Relations exam) I went out to dinner and had an interesting experience with (yes, you guessed it!) a drunk Korean guy! I was sitting on a bench and he staggered over and sat next to me. My friends were looking at me as though to ask "do you know him?!" but my facial expression, which looked sort of like: O___O told them no. He then attempted to make conversation with me in poor English.

- Curtain Opens -

Man: You-uh...you is-uh...looking like....Suh-carlett Johannson! You know??

Me: **stunned silence** 스칼렛 조한손이 너무 예뻐요. 난 예쁘지 않아요. (Scarlett Johansson is too pretty, I'm not that pretty.)

Man: OOHHHHHH 한국말 잘 하시네요!! (OHHHH You speak Korean well!)

Me: No, I'm just average. **attempt to turn back to friends**

Man: **ignores my cold shoulder** You is-uh...movie liking? You go with me? What is you...uh...do you has....핸드폰? (cell phone)

Me: 전화걸기 바싼데요. (But making calls is expensive [polite rejection].)

Man: Is okay, I think, you-uh...you is-uh very pretty.

Me: ..........**looks to friends pleadingly**

Friends: 저리가세요. (Please go away.)

Man: 씨발...... (F-word) **stumbles away back to table of friends, who start laughing**

Me: Guys, do I look like Scarlett Johansson?

Friends: No.

**jovial laughter**

- End Scene -

Yeah, so apparently I look like Ms. Johansson to drunk Korean 30-year-olds. I don't know whether to be flattered or terrified. But it does explain a lot of the things that have happened to me so far in Korea. My friend had a worse encounter where she ended up being trapped in a Karaoke room with a guy who was trying to kiss her and she had to press the call button to get someone who worked there to save her. Luckily I'm not naïve enough to believe that a random Korean dude is going to walk up to me to ask for English lessons, so something like that will most likely never happen to me.

Oh, and to explain the title of this post, that night when I went out to dinner with my friends, they ordered some meat dish and it came out as literally a pile of shaved raw meat with a raw egg cracked on top. I asked where the gas range to cook it was and they laughed, mixed the egg into the meat, added some apple shavings and started eating it dipped in some sort of grey sauce. I was shocked, because since I was born I have been indoctrinated with the belief that if you don't wash your hands after picking up a package of hamburger in the meat section at the grocery store, you will get typhoid fever and die. After watching my friends eat it, however, I decided I'd try it, since apparently no one had died from the restaurant we were in as of yet. It was actually delicious. I do like rare steak so it kind of tasted like that. Except rarer. I kind of felt like a caveman. It was sort of fun, haha.

Anyways, that's all that's happened to me so far. I'll attach a few pictures of the outing to the food festival, but trust me my happy face in those pictures is only there because of the fact that I can't refuse to smile when a camera is pointed at me.

Love you guys!

I'll post again after midterms and all this stress is over!

Mwah,

Janet xoxo

(looks kind of like the other village I went to)

(best picture I've ever taken)

(you can kind of see the misery on my face in that last one lol)

I got married!

Don't be alarmed by the title - I really freaked out my mom when I called her and the first thing I told her was that I got married (that was the scariest silence of my life! - love you, Momma) but don't worry, I'll explain in a little bit.

First of all, hmmm...where did I leave off? Ahhh, yes...the totally authentic Korean experience of TGI Friday's.

But...let me reassure you, I am not wasting my time here in Korea. My following experiences were much more authentic than that. And they were AWESOME.

Aside from my very boring week of schoolwork, tutoring, schoolwork, more tutoring, and more schoolwork (and some vocab tests thrown into that) I really did absolutely nothing. On Friday I was supposed to meet with some Korean friends but they ditched me because one girl forgot she had a meeting with a professor and the other forgot it was her mom's birthday. (?!) Speaking of which, happy birthday, Mommy! I don't know how old you are now off the top of my head but I'm guessing you're around 35 now, right? Heehee.

Anyways, on Saturday, I had a grand adventure - 40 students and I hopped on a bus for a three-hour journey to a place called 외암리, Oeam Folk Village. It's a place sort of like Hale Farm & Village, except for all of the people there actually do live there and aren't actors. It's like stepping back in time. You're next to a mountain and surrounded by beautiful scenery, a creek and fields of flowers and grain. The weather was beautiful, sunny, and breezy that day, perfect conditions for a great day. The leader of the village was wearing a purple version of traditional Korean clothing and greeted us warmly, and told us that everyone in the village hoped that we would come back to visit again (they love visitors and have a thing called a farm-stay program, where you can go and live there and work on the farms for a few days - I really want to do it!!). Anyways, it's pretty hard to describe what it was like being among these 옛날 things and thatched roofs and traditional way of making 인절미 (injeolmi - soft rice cake) so I'll just post some pictures.

While I was there I got to use a mallet to pound rice for the 인절미, [1] eat the product of our labor, [2] drink cold sweet au naturale 식혜 (rice drink), [3] make a paper-craft mirror, [4] play some old games (a sort of horseshoe-like game with rings, one where you throw arrows into a pot, and a kind of tight-rope thing, along with a GIANT yutnori mat), [5] eat delicious food, and [6] make new friends.

[1] The 인절미! My friend Vi and I (the only person I knew at the beginning of the trip) both got to pound the rice with these giant mallets, and I am proud to say that she and I were the least pathetic of all of the girls there. We actually hit it with force rather than just letting the mallet fall onto the rice with a whimper. After all of the people who wanted to try finished, two men of the village stepped in and attacked that rice with fervor. It went from steamed grains to gooey lump in a matter of minutes. It was kind of amazing and a little scary (I imagine if anyone attacked the village, those two men could chase off and army with just those mallets.) They then covered the paste with soy bean powder and sliced it up into little tasty morsels. It was so yummy!

Delicious and fresh 인절미:

Adorable little boy eating with us whose father let me take a picture (yes, I am a creep):

[2] 식혜! Sweet rice drink!! They were selling it for $1.00 per bottle, which is pretty good, considering it's kind of hard to find it made from scratch, and this one was delicious (wayyy better than any can you can find in the subway). I tried not to think about the fact that maybe the tools to make it weren't sterilized to factory level, and drank all of it, and I didn't die so I now put all of my trust into that village.

[3] Paper-craft 거울! It was really fun - we used rice glue to put paper and pretty flowers onto a wooden oval-shaped thing, stuck a mirror in it, and hung a dangly thing from it, and an ahjumma came around and threw glitter all over it before it dried. She was really funny and was trying to teach us how to say all of the colors in Korean (I still only know half of them, but I'm learning!! Here's my finished product:

[4] 놀자! The games were pretty fun - I made it halfway across the tightrope before falling!! And along with the aiming game and the circle-horseshoes, they had a place where they would tie people down and hit them with paddles if they did something wrong. Another tour group of native Koreans tricked their friend into laying on it, and then they held him down and beat him (gently, of course) while they took pictures. It was hilarious.

Man being paddled:

My friend Vi on the tightrope:

[5] Delicious food! (a.k.a. The only thing I talk about in this blog)

I'll spare you all of the mouth-watering, delicious details and get to the main thing I wanted to say about the meal (which, on top of being huge and amazing and price-inclusive, was super tasty and authentic). The dessert was a soft version of a fruit called 깜 which is now in season in Korea. The leader of the village took a big net and picked one for each of us by himself and taught us how to eat it without getting too messy (I failed big-time and thus was unable to take a picture, but here is a picture of a tree covered in them!

[6] New friends! I made friends with a girl from Seattle name Christina, a girl from Singapore named Gabrielle (who reminds me a lot of my friend Gavin), a boy named Kyohei (or Hyangpyung in Korean) who is what is called a "permanent alien" of Japan - a Korean citizen living in Japan as a result of the colonial period, and Sumito, a Japanese guy who is 31 and married, but came to Korea to learn the language of his in-laws (yep, his wife is Korean). We now call ourselves "Fork Family" (the way Koreans pronounce "folk" is "fork").

Anyways, after all of these things, the crowning moment of the day came - my marriage.

The funny thing was that I actually married Sumito, the guy who is already married. They dressed me in the many-layered wedding hanbok and put my hair up into a VERY painful contraption and had me stand and do the ceremony while everyone took pictures and cooed at my beauty (haha just kidding). They had me standing in a really difficult position, too, but it was really fun, and everyone was making jokes about me being "the second wife" and asked Sumito what his wife would say when he got home. Anyways, here are the pictures:

Anywaysss, after all of that we had the long bus ride back to campus, during which Vi and I apparently fell asleep on each others' shoulders (AWWW!!) and woke up when the bus almost got hit by three other cars at an intersection and jolted to a stop. Awesome.

Monday was a holiday celebrating the independence of South Korea, so I had the day off from school (yay!) and then the rest of the days of the week, I (once again) just studied and tutored.

Friday morning, however, I got....**drumroll** A HAIRCUT!! It was fabulous. I tried to get a picture but it did not capture the beauty of my new hair. The lady thinned it like crazy so that now I don't look like a cocker spaniel. Winning.

Well, that's the end for now!! Tonight I'm going to the firework festival and tomorrow I'm taking a trip to the Jeollnam-do Food and Culture festival!! Updates to come!!

Miss ya, love ya!

*Mwah*

~Janet

P.S. I have ten postcards that I will be sending out soon!!!! If you don't get any this round, round two will be coming up!!

Caribbean Bay!

I can't manage to get the rest of my photos off of my card, so no pictures of 연고전 for now, but here are some pictures of Caribbean Bay!

Some gates in the "authentic Caribbean style":

"Delightful luxurious" locker room costs money while outdoor locker room does not. It's somehow better, but I wouldn't know why because I'm a Scrooge.

These pirates and I are best friends. Repping Wes'13!!

It looks like a cleaner version of Pirates of the Caribbean - really cool :D

The workers had really fun outfits, too.

I'm alive, don't worry!

Wow, it's been forever.  What was going on last time I wrote on this blog?
...Apparently the only useful thing I've talked about was on September 4th.  Oh my gosh.  I am so so sorry.  I promise I will write at least once a week from now on.  Or at least I'll try to.  These past two weeks have been so intense that I don't even know what to say.
Well, basically I spent the week of September 4th getting ready for school and running around and adding and dropping classes and basically being a big crazy mess.  I finalized my schedule (I think I mentioned I was dropping Japanese literature at the recommendation of my professors) and started beasting at all of my subjects.  I LOVE Korean-Japanese relations (the professor is really funny and interesting - more about him later) and my Korean music teacher (more about her later, too) and my East Asian Cinema class is pretty much my favorite, I'm obsessed with it, even though the professor is a little on the meh side.  I'm "group leader" in cinema class which means I direct the discussion and lead the online forum.  This is the first leadership position I've ever had in my life, which is pretty pathetic because I'm only leading six people.  I'm just the kind of person who is terrified of running for a vote because I'm scared no one will vote for me.  Being in Korea kind of gives you a little confidence, though, because you feel all "different" and a little less scared of what people will think of you since you're a foreigner.  That doesn't mean I'll go as far as sitting in the handicapped/old person/pregnant person spots on the subway, though.  That's a big no-no.  You can't even sit there just until an old person gets onto the subway.  All six of them can be empty and there is no way you can sit in it.  If you're young and you have crutches you can't even sit in it.  It's horrible when you've got a 45 minute ride on a crowded train and there are only two old people.  If you sit there you literally get your teeth knocked out.  Honestly I don't see why these virile old people who can hit so hard have to have these special seats.  Hmph.  Just kidding, gotta respect your elders.
Anyways, I digress.
My Korean-Japanese Relations professor is really smart and knows a TON about history but is a little biased and misinformed about a few things.  When he talked about opium dens in China in the mid-1800's and related them to "the crack houses in the ghettos of America" I couldn't help but laugh a little, since clearly crack dens are not a pervasive detriment to all levels of American society.  But yeah anyways, the best thing about this teacher is he really likes me and always likes to discuss things after class with me, which I love.  And he yells at the Korean students for being late in Korean, and I can understand him.  Today in that class we divided up into final presentation groups and I'm with one native Chinese girl, one native Korean girl, and a Korean-American named Joshua.  We were victims of the "nobody-wants-to-do-the-hard-topic" phenomenon, so we're doing the Economics of Korean-Japanese Relations presentation - as many of you know, I really don't like economics.  But that's alright, I'm sure we'll get through it.  It's not until November, anyways, so I'm sure I'll be much wiser by then.
My Korean Music professor is hilarious and she tends to ramble, but her class is really interesting.  I went to her house at her invitation for Chuseok and met her husband, son, and nephew, and we all had a ton of food together and hung out and her husband decided to try to force everyone to drink until they died.  Luckily as a woman I get to escape that fate (ahhh Korean drinking culture).  In any case, her story is that her father was a rebel and activist against the Japanese back in the day, and then her husband was an activist later on against the invading communist forces.  He was kicked out of Yonsei for his rebellion and sent to jail once.  Her father was in jail twice.  She worked to put her husband through school and herself as well and now they live in this big awesome apartment and are two of the most renowned scholars in their fields in all of Asia.  She's very sharp-tongued and will say whatever is on her mind.  I like her a lot.
My Korean class is a lot of fun - we have a few crazy kids in the class and a few calm ones so it's a nice mix.  My M/W/F professor's name sort of sounds like "kimchi" so we call her Kimchi Sunsaengnim (her full name is Kim Ji-yeon).  The T/R professor has just a normal Korean name but she's still nice.  Her instructions are slightly easier to understand than Kimchi's.  Kimchi always talks about how handsome the boys are and tells us about her weekend beer-drinking.  She's adorable and I love her so much.  We do a ton of reading and grammar and vocab memorizing every week - this week we had about 8 words to memorize, as opposed to last week which was about 120 words.  I had to learn about 6 new grammar structures right at the beginning of the class because all of the questions were posed in those forms, and I had no idea what was going on the first day.  Luckily my speaking is top of the class and my pronunciation is right up there with the Korean-Americans', which is great because I don't have to be "that white girl" who can't pronounce anything or sounds like she's saying "gurreego" when she's saying 그리고 (typical example of bad bad bad way to say things - it's hard to explain in writing but trust me it sounds REALLY ugly).
On Friday I went back to the Seodaemun Public Clinic to get my lab results ("You okay!  No hurting!  No sick, okay?  You go home okay.") and turned it into the front desk for housing so that I wouldn't get kicked out.  Yay!  The weekend afterward (starting September 10th) was a four-day weekend for CHUSEOK!!!! (That's the Korean version of Thanksgiving - this year it was September 12th.)  As I told you, on the actual day of Chuseok I went to my Music professor's house and had a good time with her family.  The next day, I went to....Caribbean Bay!!!!  **steel drum music in the background**
As my family knows and many of my friends know, I'm a little hydrophobic and a weak swimmer.  So I was a little apprehensive about the water park, but hey, it was discounted from the usual $50 per entry to $18, so what could it hurt?  I went on a bunch of water slides and raft rides, (holding my breath and plugging my nose the entire time) and went to a sauna and a steam room and a hot tub and everything.  It was SO MUCH FUN!  I was nervous about wearing a one-piece because I heard that in Korea girls wear coverups all the time, and so I thought I would look maybe a little...not-conservative in my bathing suit, but I counted 6 girls with bikinis on so I decided it was perfectly fine.  I was also ready to pull out the "I am an ignorant foreigner" card, but it didn't come to that.  Anyways, yeah, Caribbean Bay is great and I'll attach some pictures later.
For the rest of the week I didn't really do much fun stuff, mostly my TONS AND TONS of reading (boo) and other homework.  I went shopping and got a new winter coat and some running shoes - SO CHEAP!! - and I mistakenly tried to go for my first tutoring session on Thursday the 15th when actually it was supposed to be the next week - I made it halfway to Namtaeryong before the mother called me and corrected my error.  Oops!
On Saturday I met up with my friend Christine and went to see a Shakespearean play presented at the Seoul National Theatre in Dongdaemun.  The play was Measure by Measure and thank goodness I knew something about that play beforehand because although the actors were supposedly speaking in English, I had NO idea what was going on.  Korean people have a lot of trouble with British accents and, when combined with unnatural patterning and strange syntax as Shakespeare is wont to include, it just becomes a giant balloon of what tha heck are they saying??  I read the Korean subtitles along with being able to pick out a few of the English words and was able to make out, in general, what was going on.  It was still fun, though, and I had a great time with Christine.  She was asking me a ton of questions about what the difference is between Korean guys and American guys and I had to keep explaining that I had absolutely no clue as I've never been close friends with a native Korean guy, let alone dated one.  She told me to investigate and I just laughed.
On Monday I had my very first tutoring session with a little girl named Suhyun, American name Minnie.  She was so adorable!  However, she absolutely would NOT make full sentences.  Her mother speaks a little English and was able to explain that, although the other kids in her class would write whole paragraphs about a picture, she would write just one sentence and not say anything else after that.  My mission was clear.  However, as I was a stranger and such, she had no way to open up to me just yet.  I started planning her next lesson as soon as I left her house.  Her second lesson was actually tonight (September 26th) and this one went beautifully.  Her mother wanted me to stay for two hours so I made double the pay, and she talked a ton because at the beginning of the lesson I explained a few times that teachers like BIIIIIIG sentences and lots of words.  I also drew pictures for her and had her tell me some BIIIIIIIG sentences about them (to make teacher happy!) and then she sort of caught on and went crazy.  Like she literally would not shut up.  It was great.  Her mom was really pleased.  We even went for a walk and she held my hand and told me about her ballet lesson.  SO CUTE.  I can't get over it.  At the end of the lesson she was talking to a toy bunny in Korean and she said "Rabbit, I love Janet teacher!" and I legit almost cried.  It was a truly beautiful moment in my young teaching career.  Minnie, Janet teacher loves you too!
On Tuesday night, the 20th, I went out to a Makkeoli bar with my conversation partner, Donghyun.  His English is pretty darned terrible so our conversations consist mostly of a fumbling and mumbling and searching in our phone dictionaries, but it's not so bad.  Makkeoli is a fermented rice wine and we had a few bowls of that with something called 해물전 (haemuljeon - seafood pancake) which is basically a salty eggy fried pancake that you eat with makkeoli because the tartness of the wine cuts the heaviness of the fried taste.  It was delicious and the place we ate it in was decorated in the style of the late Chosun dynasty.  That was the most awesome part for me because recently I finished up a Korean drama called Damo (tea-serving-girl?) which takes place around that era and I felt like I got transported back in time.  Very cool.
On Thursday I tutored Mia's cousin's daughter for the first time (her english name is Eileen) and she was pretty good at pronunciation and LOVED talking a lot.  She was really fun.  A little hyper toward the end, but what can you expect out of a little kid?  We ran out of time for tutoring her mom, but next time her mom and I will do some grammar trouble shooting and get to know what kind of help she needs in English as well.  For Eileen I might work on making sure she has better pronunciation and just slows down a little when she reads because she rushes wayyy too much.
On Friday the 23rd, my life as a true Foreigner-living-abroad-in-Korea began because I obtained my Alien Registration Card (FINALLY) and my ATM card - YAAAAY!  Although now that I have an ATM card I might become very, very poor...very, very fast.
That night I went to tutor for Mia's cousin's other friend, whose kid's name is Rachel.  She was really good at talking and had to work at pronunciation a little.  She's adorable and, although shy at the beginning, got really excited and silly at the end.  She even started putting books on her head and calling them hats after I taught her the word hat.  She wanted me to wear a book-hat too and so I happily obliged because sometimes I'm weird.  Later on I'm supposed to start tutoring her father as well.  Korean people are often just very afraid of using the English they've learned - they understand it quite well, but they're afraid to speak because of how difficult the pronunciation is.  I will make it my mission to improve future global communications by raising confident English speakers!!  **self-important digression!!**
On the 24th I attended 연고전 (Yeongojeon - the Yonsei vs. Korea University sports event) and had a great time there.  It was crazy - kids were all screaming and jumping up and down and doing coordinated dances and shooting off fireworks and drinking and heckling and all sorts of insane stuff.  My friends and I didn't get so crazy because we don't exactly have all of that school spirit, but I got a great video of a really drunk white guy with a cape and no shirt on doing all the female dance moves to the Yonsei dances, so it was totally worth it.  I have a few pictures of the event, too, so I'll put those up.
It was fantastic.  I'm going to totally skip over the part where Yonsei got their butts kicked in the soccer game with a final score of 3-1.
Yesterday night I ate at T.G.I. Friday's...which was, surprisingly, a great experience.  For 20 dollars I got a salad appetizer, a half rack of ribs and two chicken fingers, a brownie with ice cream (which was, by the way, amazing) and a smoothie called Perfect 10.  It was one of the entrée specials and oh man it was good.  It was probably better than American Friday's.
Anyways, yes, as I told you today I went back and taught Minnie again and now I'm back home.  In the morning I skyped and chatted some Wespeeps (shoutout to Angie, Reese, Autumn, Seungkwon, Esther, and Heekyong!) and I miss Wesleyan SO much!  I wish I had my good friends here with me.
In any case, I'm really hungry so I'm gonna grab a "생그림" (fresh cream a.k.a. whipped cream) flavored yogurt and finish up my homework.
This post took like an hour and a half to write, I hope it doesn't take too long to read!
Enjoy subsequent pictures.  I miss you guys and love you a lot!
<3,
Janet