Dinner

Last night I walked down to Namaste by Dongmyo Station from work (about 45 minute walk... so I got my exercise in for the day) through the rain no less, to get dinner. I loveee Indian food in this city as I've said before. I got a mixed vegetable curry, basmati rice and nan. The walk down there was so nice, despite the rain, I realize that I need to walk so much more. I'm feeling a little chubby nowadays... if my jeans get much tighter I'm gonna have some problems... -_- But, of course, what am I doing now? Sitting in front of my computer like a lump as usual. According to my friend's scale, I haven't gained any weight (remarkably) which means that any muscle I once had must have turned to fat. ^^ I really should walk to my Korean class today. It would probably be a good 2 hour walk... but let's face it... I probably won't do that...

"Magic Hole" and "Should Students Have Cell Phones"

Today was a very cell phone day, if there could be such a thing. Last Friday one of the Korean teachers in our office came in toting a new phone. It didn't look like anything special to me, but she spent 10 minutes trying to show me how amazing her new phone was. This phone had a strange circle on the front, which seems to do... not much of anything but light up and tell the time, it has an amazing button on the hinge that makes the phone pop open "magically" and, the big selling point, I think, is the fact that you can make video calls to other owners of the phone. I asked her what the phone was called and she replied "Magic Hole". Magic Hole? Really? Can you imagine selling a phone with that name in the US??? The jokes would be endless. Ok, whatever.

So Monday another teacher came in toting the same phone and the two of them were discussing how wonderful their new phones were and how great their blue colored phone was etc. etc. Today one teacher called the other teacher while they were in the office together to test out the video call function. I guess it's cool, but I wouldn't want to be walking down the street with it... it seems reminiscent of when those Nextel phones that were popular a few years ago... when everyone was walking down the street having conversations that everyone could listen in on. I could just imagine...

Then later today, in my Fly High Junior class (the same one we discussed future husbands and wives) we opened up to a new chapter in our writing books. I really like this book because it chooses really relevant topics that kids actually care about and don't mind writing about. Last chapter was "Should Students Have Part Time Jobs". Today's new chapter was "Students Should Have Cell Phones". While we were discussing the various points about cell phones, I brought up this "Magic Hole" phone. The kids explained to me that it really isn't a very good phone at all. It doesn't have TV, it doesn't have Mp3 and it doesn't have a big screen. Obviously those are the most important features in a phone. The kids were shocked to find out that my Korean cell phone doesn't have an Mp3 player, TV, Internet or even any games. I've had past classes tell me my phone is from 1996 (which is an insult coming from them, considering they were born around 2000).

Of the six children in the class, whose ages range from 4th grade -6th grade, only one 4th grader didn't have a phone. He said he survived alright without it, but he really wanted one. The other kids didn't know how one would survive without a cell phone. We talked about some reasons why adults don't think students should have phones. The first reason stated was about the harmful cell phone waves. That was surprising. Then they mentioned the typical things like distractions and cell phone costs. Then, "why should students have phones?", I asked. "Games" "TV" "Calling friends" "Mp3", then later "calling parents" finally came up. None of them mentioned their English-Korean dictionaries that they use all the time in class, nor was calling parents first on their list. One student did mention that if a kid got kidnapped, they could use the phone to call the police.

I'm always interested in how these kids view the world... I never cease to be entertained...

Drama on my street...

Not much interesting happens around my house, but last night I heard a bang at about 10 o'clock. I always hear noises, but it struck me as strange. Then I heard sirens coming and I kind of knew they were coming to my street. One of the buildings behind my apartment had smoke pouring out the windows. The fire department came quickly, along with two ambulances that I didn't see get used. They had the fire out within 5 minutes, it couldn't have been big, but it's more action than my little side street has had since the drum band strolled in one day randomly at noon time on a random weekday last month.

Firefighters bravely putting out the fire

Emergency vehicles swarming...

Random marching band that appeared on my tiny side street at noon time about a month ago for no apparent reason. Korea is never boring

Seoul Forest (서울숲)

Sunday we decided to check out Seoul Forest (서울숲 - pronounciation is complicated, but Seoul Su should work in most cases if you don't feel like getting a lecture about Korean rules of prnounciation) We walked there from our area in Sindang and it took about a little less than an hour. Actually, it wasn't a very interesting park compared to some other parks like Olympic Park or Children's Grand Park. It was a bit smaller than these and quite a bit less to see. The did have some interesting things to see though...



Horseback Riding. Folks riding seemed to be quite experienced. A friend of mine did a little research on it because she was a big rider back at home. I guess it's around 45,000 for 45 minutes. Seems a bit steep, but not really since we're in the middle of one of the most densly populated metropolises in the world.


Here's a typical water fountain around here. In the summer these kinds of fountains are full of kids. Nowadays it's getting cold, so the kids just watch.



I've learned better than to have high expectations for animals in captivity in this country. Zoos are always dissapointing. These deers were pretty cool to see, but we were hoping they would rome free in thier own section of the park, not be locked in.

This was a cool part of the playground. It was a wire sculpture of a human that kids could climb through.

Seoul Forest is near Ttukseom on line 1. Since I walked I can't help you with exit numbers, but there's probably a sign in the subway station. It was a nice walk, but I wouldn't go far out of my way to see it.

Bringing Salsa to the Asian Masses

Actually, salsa is rather popular here in Seoul among certain circles despite my post title. This past month my boyfriend and I have gone to Club Caliente in Itaewon twice now to dance a bit. Neither one of us are great, but we both have enough experience to have fun even though we can't do it well. Saturday night after going to the Herb Medicine Museum, getting some dinner and a few drinks with a friend from Japan and another Korean teacher from my Free Korean Class, we decided to go to Itaewon again and we invited them along. They were kind of excited about it, even though they had no idea what salsa was.

We got to Club Caliente and satisfied ourselves with getting a drink and watching some of the amazing dancers do their thing on the dance floor. Finally I did my best to try to teach the Korean teacher who came, while my boyfriend tried his best to teach the Japanese guy some moves. Since neither one of us is great, neither one of us was a great teacher, but we did our best. The Korean teacher got some more experience because guys kept asking her to dance. Too bad girls don't ask guys to dance, I feel bad that the Japanese guy only got to dance with me and my boyfriend.

Seoul Yangnyeongsi Herb Medicine Museum

So our Korean class met on Saturday to go to Seoul Yangnyeongsi Herb Medicine Museum in Jegi-dong on Saturday. We had a large group of us, and evidently they had never had a group of foreigners come to the museum before. The museum was fairly interesting, and a nice woman tried her best to give us an English guided tour. She was a bit uncomfortable with speaking English and so she often refereed to my boyfriend to translate. Even still, the tour was nice enough.First task was to learn to wrap our own medicine. The medicine was some nice smelling dried orange peels... speaking of which.. they are still in my purse.. and I'm doubting my wrapping job held up for two days in the bottom of my purse... uhoh..

The next task was learning how to grind the medicine with mortar and pestle or these rolling contraptions that I have no word for in my vocabulary.

Here's our volunteer tour guide and my boyfriend trying their best to translate complicated medical information into English. The books in the glass in front of us are copies of the first Korean herbal medicine guide book, written by a fellow named Ho Jun a few hundred years ago.

We were educated a bit about ginseng. We learned that white ginseng should not be taken by people with high blood pressure, or if you are feverish. Red or black ginseng on the other hand is suggested for everyone. The four plants at the bottom are wild ginseng. Not farmed, but found growing in the mountains. One of these plants is worth about $30,000 USD according to a seemingly knowledgeable man who started to follow our tour around and correct our tour guide on everything she said. If you eat one of these before the age of three, you will lead a very healthy life. Here is the male parts of a seal. It's said that if men eat just a little of this with the rest of their herbal medicine prescription, they will have lots of stamina. Interesting idea...

The museum didn't take long to get through and a group of us downtown to the Jongno area for dinner. That was a fun time too, and maybe I'll post about that later.

Walking to Jegi-dong and around Kyungdong Market

As I said in my last post, I found a way on Google Maps to walk to Jegi-dong by following the Cheonggyechong to another small stream right up to the main street and walking a little more and arriving right where I wanted to be. Well, I followed that path correctly, but as it turns out, that second stream stopped about 100 m down because it was under construction (how can a stream be under construction? Only in Seoul would this be possible). So, we walked down some back streets to come and arrive in Jegi-dong. As I suspected, it was about a half an hour walk.




We arrived in Jegi-dong but we were about 2 hours early for the field trip. I grabbed some lunch at Kimbap Chongguk and then we decided to walk around Kyungdong Market. This was not my first time to Kyungdong Market. Last time was to find some traditional Korean medicine. This time around we had time to just wander freely. This market is a must see in Seoul if you're interested in unusual things, or just need a fresh dose of culture shock.

Kyungdong Market is most famous for it's medicinal market, though they sell fresh seafood, fruit, vegetables and assortments of other random things that you'd expect to find at a market. It's actually a great place to buy vegetables. They have some of the cheapest prices I've seen in this city.
These wriggly little fish are used to make chueotang; a soup made of these fish ground into a paste.

Deer antlers are a rather expensive but popular medicinal item when making hanyak, Korean traditional medicine.

Duck Eggs. I learned a new word yesterday: 오리 (ohri)-duck.

Bees for sale.

Down in the fish market...

10 points to the first person to guess what kind of meat this is correctly... hint, look at the feet.

Love me some dried fish

Chicken is ridiculously cheap at the market. One whole chicken is only 2,000 won ($1.71 USD)

The next adventure after looking through the market was the Seoul Yangnyeongsi: Herb Medicine Museum for our field trip, but I'll write about that in the next post.