Insadong, teatime with birds, and street art

Another rainy Saturday, we slept in (wow, 9 is sleeping in these days? haha) and had a relaxing morning before heading out into the rainy city, humid and hot, geared up to go exploring yet again! This time our exploration took us north of the river to and area called Insadong. Insadong is a cultural center of the city, with many temples and historic landmarks surrounding the area. There is a main street which is pretty popular with Korean tourists. There are lots of little shops with artists selling their work, and many restaurants and tea houses lining the side streets and alleys, and a sea of umbrellas... 

a shop dedicated to selling dried herbs

To take a break from the rain we headed up a steep staircase to a tea house in one of the many alleyways. This place was incredible, it was like a museum! Small rooms and sitting areas were divided by old wood dressers and fabric curtains, antique furniture covered in silky oriental fabrics, paintings covering every inch of the walls and figurines and buddha statues adorning every shelf! And to add to the peaceful ambiance of this strange, dimly lit place was the presence of birds! Yes little tweeting birdies flying around and hopping amongst all the artifacts. No cages or boundaries, except for the walls themselves. The birds were beautiful and sang a beautiful tune to accompany our green tea time. 

After tea we braved the torrential downpours yet again, but only to quickly find respite in a nice restaurant, where we ate spicy kimchee stew and drank some makgali. This restaurant was great, really big and open, with the nicest ajumas (old ladies) there to wait on us. 

the yummy soup restaurant we ate at

many of the restaurants have grills in the center of the tables, so each has to be equipped with it's own exhaust system.

the panchan that accompanied our soup. daikon root kimchee, bok choi kimchee, sweet peanuts with onion and soy,  perilla leaf kimchee, and one other that we couldn't figure out (maybe eggplant?).

After filling ourselves with tasty and nourishing food and drink we decided to set out on a long walk through the crowded streets, just to see what we would see! The rain let up and it was quite nice to not have to hide under my umbrella, it's pretty hard to take photos with just one hand, believe it or not. Well we saw lots of statues and sculptures, lots of people and traffic, and had great conversation to accompany all that. Here is some of what we saw:

a recycling center. these are private centers and they employ really old people to push around the carts (on the right) and dumpster dive to find cardboard, plastic, glass, etc. It's kind of sad to see these old women, maybe over 90, pushing these heavy carts and sifting through the trash. But hey, they need to survive too.

Middle School

When I began teaching middle school English in Korea, I was given the keys to the "English Zone". This brightly painted room stands in contrast to the drab, long hallways that are lined with classrooms.

There are slogans on the walls such as "Dream your Future" and "Discover your Potential". The last one is above the white boards, and has been employed in a game of hangman with the class. There is a transforming facial expression when a student who speaks English as a second language (and is looking around for any English word for help solving the puzzle) pieces together that the long statement under the gallows is written just above on the soffit. The rest of the 15 year olds all groan in unison when it is revealed. I digress. When, I first got the room, there were many tables, all of which were completely free from graffiti.

Despite my best monitoring, this is no longer the case. Some of the students are quite the artist, and I take a small bit of pride when they use the effort to write in English (at least they feel the presence of being in the English Zone!). Controlling the classroom has its limitations. The concept of being on time, raising your hand to speak, not punching your neighbor, are completely lost in translation. I find ways to keep the best order I can, but in a school where locks are mandatory on the doors when you're away, stopping graffiti on tables takes the back burner.

One such table had this drawing of yours truly (it says "Who am I?"):

When showing it to a couple students before class, they gave it their assessment, and cooly said "You're more handsome than that" before turning back to their chatting. One could be flattered by this, but let me enlighten you on what you can expect a Korean student to know what to say in case you ever happen upon one.

1. Hello teacher

2. Nice to meet you(every time they see you)

3. Hello handsome guy

4. He is gay

5. I am fine

6. I am so-so

7. Wow

8. Oh my god

Well, that is pretty much it. But actually, a lot of the students study English even after school at private institutes. These children make up a huge portion of my perception of Korean people just as I am an ambassador of the entire western world. Because the younger generation is so unanimously on course to learn the global language, they are my best friends (young Koreans) when I am out and about the city/country and lost. Side-note: 주 솨 is how my name is written in Hangul, but is normally pronounced Joshee by the students. It has been a learning experience this first half of the school year as I hope for the best for the future term.

a report

It has been one of those weeks where not a lot out of the ordinary is going on. It’s raining really hard, every day. I love my umbrella

This past weekend we went out to some gay bar til the sun came up; it was pretty great to see a 7-foot tall tranny in a sparkling white gown! There is a neighborhood in the infamous Iteawon called either: homo hill or hooker hill. You can probably guess why. This hill is crawling with hordes of people all night and into the light of the morning. It is not my favorite area, but once in a while it can be good. It was fun and we were in good company, we told stories and shared lots of laughs!

As the week started out we decided to brave our way through Costco. I have never seen so many people as I have seen in Costco in Korea. It is insane. One needs to have a lot of time to prepare for this event, I kid you not. I believe it is the busiest Costco In the world actually, to give you and idea. While I don’t really enjoy crowds, and I generally detest shopping, I happen to love some comforts of the western world. Such as cheese. Oh of course I love cheese, we both do. And we can buy the one and only Tillamook pepper jack and Philadelphia cream cheese and even some crazy expensive Parmesan… and we do. In fact this is why we go! For cheese and tortillas and tortilla chips. The wine selection is pretty good as well and they have the usual Costco snack bar with the best pizza in Korea. Haha, it’s true!

Last night we grabbed dinner at our favorite dakgalbi restaurant near Gangnam station with Nathan, Ryan, and Cat, to see her one last time before leaving town. It’s been rad to have a little bit of Portland around this place!  Dinner was awesome as usual, and we stayed up too late, as usual. It’s been a tired week! We are doing so many things…. something every day it seem!

Tonight I’m cooking an Italian feast for our friends and we’re going to play cards and probably stay up too late! We never learn do we…

In any free time Josh and I have just been planning our trips and loosely planning our future! So much fun, life is very exciting right now; there is so much to look forward to, with exciting and out of the ordinary things going on each month as far as we can plan!  And most of all we have been enjoying each other to the fullest, we are great travel companions and adventure sharers as well as good housemates and friends. Must be love…

he's busy

our building is the one on the left!

interpretive dance?

raindrops

more raindrops

raindrops with color! 

Something strange about living in Korea:

The ambulances and police cars all drive around with their lights flashing the whole time. No one ever pulls over or moves out of their way, even if their siren is sounding. I hope I never have an emergency. In contrast, the tow trucks are equipped with sirens and lights and cars always move and clear the way for them to get by.

Just throw all your logic out the window, really. They mop before they sweep and leave the windows wide open in the winter. It’s hard to explain the lack of logic, but it is everywhere…

ten things i'm into this week:

10 things I’m into this week: in no particular rank or order

Apricots. They are juicy and perfect right now and I think they are so amazing.

Pinterest.com: A really great visual bookmarking website that is full of inspiration and ideas for organization and style. I particularly love the gardening section!

8tracks and music in general. As always.

Painting with watercolors, even though I’m not very experienced there is something really rewarding about transforming all that white paper into something colorful. Just add water…

the masterpieces of Josh, Nicole, and Ryan

Spanish verbs. Yes, it’s true, here in Korea Josh and I are both plugging away at our Spanish skills. I’ve been going through my flashcards like a diligent college student (oh I remember those days), and Josh is glued to Rosetta Stone. Josh made a good point that learning a language feels a lot easier now that we are teaching it. We clearly can see the results in our students, and all it takes is practice and repetition and some commitment. And how nice it will be to speak in the native tongue if we find ourselves in Spain next year….

Planning trips. This is so fun, of course it is! I have been reading and researching all that I can about Vietnam and Beijing and searching for airfare, how to get our visas, places to stay, and what section of the Mekong Delta to take a river cruise up! Pretty exciting stuff.

M*A*S*H. yes the old TV show. We have watched a couple old episodes from this show in the past few days. It is funny, it is goofy, it takes place near Seoul, and so a lot of names of places are referenced.

Silly you tube videos.  Like this one and this and also this. I think that by teaching middle school students I am slowly adopting their love for silly viral internet videos. I want to find the funniest, stupidest, most entertaining thing I can to show my classes and I always laugh the first few times I watch them. By the end of the week I’ve usually seen each video 20 times, so it does lose a little of it’s luster…

Bulgarian food at Zelen. This is an incredible restaurant in Iteawon, just north of the Han River. Josh and I shared a stellar dinner with Mr. Ryan McCoy and Cat (in town from Portland! Yay!) . It was by far the nicest night all summer, it had rained for a few days then cleared up, so the air was clean and the humidity was low, we sat outside on their garden terrace on top of a hill and drank sparkling wine and ate like royalty. I had pork-something-amazing with smoked cheese and veggies and stuffed tomatoes. Delicious. I love long dinners that last for hours into the night, full of good conversation, good food, good drinks and good energy.

Chess. The games are getting more intense and more frequent and I can tell we are learning a lot. I am glad that I began to play at such an early age, against my dad and my brother. My brother can kick my ass in about five minutes, but he could do that to probably almost anybody. I still enjoy playing him and usually get to do so a few games a week. Josh and I are a closer match, but he’s got far more wins against me than I do him (I move to hastily I think, or some other excuse…).

What are you into this week?

slums, islamic center, and kebabs

As I write this there is an epic storm hovering over our section of the city. The rain and wind are forcing their way into our apartment, the thunder is shaking our building. Crazy! Yesterday was about as humid of a day as I've ever experience, there was a thick fog over the city, limiting visibility and ensuring our skin to be a little sticky at all times. Josh and I decided to get on the first bus that came to our stop, could be one of about thirty! Our plan: to ride it for a while and get off whenever we felt like it and explore a new part of the city. We rode for about thirty minutes and our random bus took us across the Han river and turned west, this is when we disembarked.

we stopped to buy some sponges from this guy

Seoul is a rich city. In our neighborhood it is not uncommon to see Ferraris and Porsches and Lamborghini’s every day, maybe driven by an eighteen year old kid even! Seoul is a massive city as well, a city of twenty million people, so there must be a lot of working class people to keep it running, those who do the dirty work of the city. Our random bus, number 421 to be exact, took us to where these people live. The slums. It was wow.... so different than what we are used to seeing and also the most impoverished looking neighborhood we've explored in Seoul thus far.

taking a nap I think...

this was a fresh fire, still smoking

the neighborhood was deserted it seemed! Not a soul in sight, we would imagine it to be an abandoned neighborhood if it weren't for the sounds coming from the open windows and the sight of laundry hung out to dry. Some homes were fully collapsed on one side and still inhabited. The roads winding through were far too small for any motorized vehicles. There was almost an eerie feel to some areas. We traversed the hills, taking stairways and alleys, sometimes hitting a dead end, until we came upon a more populated area. We found ourselves in the Middle Eastern district. A beautiful huge mosque was on top of a hill in the distance, and street signs were beginning to have arabic on them. We headed up towards the mosque and ran into an Islamic center and lots of foreign food stores and many Arab vendors. We stopped to chat with one man, who said that we could go in and tour the mosque and Islamic center, but I was too hot to put on the required clothing, so we said thanks and kept meandering through the area. We stopped for lamb kebabs from a little shop, run by some Turkish guys, it was so good and cheap.