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!!