First time experience

It was weird, but last night I was trying to read news from North Korea and I got a message from the South Korean police force saying the website was blocked. That hasn't happened to me before -- and I checked again today. I really want to see what was warranting the block...

Work reading material

It's been a long time since my last post and I have a couple things to talk about:

My trip to 양구 (Yangu):

There was a national university tennis tournament taking place in Yangu last week. Sadly, I was not allowed to participate due to the scoring system. Essentially, each team (Ewha A, Ewha B etc.) had 5 matches by each university they play. Since I was the only male on the team, it was near-impossible for me to play. How sad.

Notwithstanding, I wanted to watch the team for a little bit. I imagine myself to traditionally be someone who meticulously plans everything out. My friends will testify to this -- I don't often go on trips without a detailed plan with every minute organized. This is why this little fact is so surprisingly -- but I didn't take any extra clothes.

I was unsure if I would be sleeping overnight in Yangu or coming back on a late bus. Yangu is about 3 hours away from Seoul by bus to the east, putting it in the countryside but not quite near a beach, although I crossed most of the country. I figured if I arrived at 3PM I could watch for 5 hours or so, eat dinner and then head home. But as I took the subway to the bus station, I realized it would be much better to just stay until the following day and be home in time to meet a friend at 6PM on Thursday. Remembering this, I packed my bag with a book, my camera, hat, food and so forth, completely neglecting clothes. At the time, I even assumed that if I stayed overnight, I could just wear the same clothes from the day before. I want to stress this for comedic effect.

I arrived around 3PM. I wanted to surprise the team with a last meeting so I didn't call anyone. Notwithstanding, I was able to find the tennis courts due to Yangu being small enough to only posses one grouping of tennis courts. This meant that I just had to ask a couple people on the street how I could get there. I watched for a few hours, cheered for Ewha, ran into an old buddy that I played with at OSU last year and then rested for a while.

Watching tennis without playing is like starving yourself and watching others eating...I just couldn't control my body to avoid playing the whole day. As evening drew near, I asked the old friend from OSU if he wanted to rally for a little bit. Since I didn't have tennis shoes, and my regular shoes would make black marks, I played without shoes. Just for your information, I've done this many times before...and each time managed to somehow cut or hurt my foot. This tradition held and continues to hold true.

We played a shoeless match where he destroyed me. In the humid Korean summer, we were both drenched in sweat after 30 minutes of friendly hitting. Damnit...I didn't have a change of clothes.

After I was done, I went to join the tennis team in their room to eat curry rice. They were excessively kind and went through extra effort to make me vegetarian curry, which is something Koreans often do for me. After dinner, I set off to find out where I would be sleeping for the night.

Something I found out after Yangu is that accommodation in Korea is not exactly like the USA. For the most part, hostels only exist in big cities, and even then are hard to find and underused. Hotels are similar to America and extremely expensive. Overnight spas, usually the best for one night, are typically harder to find and Yangu didn't appear to have one. Motels, for the most part, are typically used for sex. I knew the last part, but motels can (and I stress can) be divided into "love motels" and "motels." This can usually be easy to spot -- love motels have names like "Kiss Motel," "Girls Motel" and "Yangu Motel" (written entirely in pink). Also some of the other ones would have advertisements for, as far as I can tell, prostitutes. They often had pictures of semi-nude women with phone numbers...maybe phone sex or something...

I only wanted something cheap. In Seoul, I think motels are usually under $20 a night. This includes regular motels and cheap love motels. I didn't really care which I got as long as it was under $20 (my quality standards have fallen drastically in the last few months). I spent about an hour wandering around Yangu, trying to find something cheap. There were more motels than any other building in Yangu and I visited probably 3/4 of the 40 some motels that were there. I asked each innkeeper how much one night was, typically getting the response of roughly $30...way too expensive! I tried talking them down a couple times, but since most were love motels, the innkeepers weren't too interested in helping me out.

Finally, I found a place for roughly $25. Humorously, the woman I talked to first wasn't sure how much it would be for one man to stay in a room alone. She asked her mother (Korean businesses are often family run) if it would be okay for me to sleep alone. If I understood her followup question, she was curious if I was meeting anyone later that night. I told her, literally, that I don't have any friends and wanted to sleep. The mother gave me a room and kindly asked if I had a toothbrush...a weird question until I got to the room and found a packaged toothbrush in a corner. As in, for free, they gave toothbrushes away.

My shirt was still a little wet from the sweat and I put my umbrella away to let the rain attempt to wash the bad smell out of my clothes when I was searching. Therefore, my white clothes were see through (retrospectially, this appearence probably didn't help my "not meeting a woman later" story). I got into my cheap room to look around and saw it possessed the essentials -- bathroom, TV, ash tray, mosquito chemicals, a fan, bed and so forth. For some reason, it also had 3 doors -- one for the outside door, one for the bathroom, and one for the 3 foot hallway between the outside door and the bedroom. The headboard of the bed also had 2 mirrors. I took off my clothes, hung them up, and climbed into the shower.

Just to have a little fun with me, the hot water didn't work. Remember this fact -- I had a cold shower Wednesday night of last week. It was a humid night, probably around 90 degrees if humidity is included, so a cool shower would have been splendid...not the 40 degree water that somehow existed in this little motel. Nothing puts Koreans in the mood for sex like a freezing shower.

Remembering that I didn't pack any additional clothes, also bringing to light my wet and dirty clothes hanging up, it is only natural to assume that I had to be naked for the night. This was the time that I REALLY wished I brought some kind of underwear to protect me from the probable STD's littering the bed. I put down the extra towels and prayed for a body-sized condom to guard me for the night. I laid down, turned on the fan and watched some TV.

I was pretty tired from a long day and wanted to sleep. Things that I didn't think about that made the whole night go better:

1) The giant spiders I saw at the tennis courts. Seoul has done a great job at killing most big spiders. The countryside has work to do. The spiders I saw earlier in the day were palm-sized and brightly colored.
2) The giant moth that almost flew into the tennis team's room. If the moth landed on my nose and had it's wings spread, you would not be able to see my eyes or mouth.
3) Things that happened on the bed I was laying in.
4) If the small cockroach I killed earlier would have a parent come after me, hellbent on revenge.
5) If it was physically possible to make the bed itch more.
6) For some reason, at around 11PM, someone was trying to open my door and would have entered it it were unlocked. I was not thinking about a drunk man walking in with a woman and seeing me laying naked on the bed.

For the record, it was a really bad night. I think I slept erratically and maybe only got an hour of actual unconsciousness. The rest of the time was tossing and turning. I left the room and walked to the tennis courts. I was feeling a little sick so I didn't stick around too long, opting instead to sleep on the bus for the trip home.


Yes, for some odd reason you are huge.

Good day to you friend! Click on the picture and check out those glowing eyes. Creepy man.

With several members of the tennis team eating curry. I don't stand out that much, do I?

A nice sunset over Korean "mountains."

Skip ahead to Saturday. One of the PEACE buddies was going to visit her hometown and invited me to go with her. Her hometown was also in the country, but in a different direction. Additionally, I would be able to hang-out in a more culturally educational situation. I went with Semi, the Korean PEACE buddy, a Japanese friend, Aya, and a Korean friend of Semi's named Seung-Hyun. We left Saturday afternoon and arrived at Semi's grandmother's home around 7PM that night.

Her grandmother was really awesome. She made food for us, opened her home for us, allowed us to call her "grandmother," and so forth. Also, at the ripe age of 80 some years old, she still worked on the farm picking peppers and tobacco.

I have been conditioned to need a shower before I sleep. I asked her grandmother if it was okay for me to shower and she said it was fine. Once inside the bathroom, I turned on the water and...guess what...it was freezing. There were a couple reasons I didn't say anything at this point:
1) I thought my friends might be playing a joke on me because I complained about cold showers earlier that day and I didn't want to be loud and wake up the grandma.
2) Maybe the house didn't have hot water and instead needed to be heated up over the stove or something.
3) I would have to wake up her grandma to learn how to turn on the hot water.

I think this is a normal habit, but I can't really shower silently when the water is freezing. My teeth chatter, I sort of dance around trying to warm my body, I breathe in sharply when the cold water runs down my back and so forth. I was loud enough that I woke up the grandma and my friends' laughter carried through the thin door. Afterward, as I explained why I was acting so weird, the grandma laughed at me and asked if all Americans make weird sounds in the shower. I confirmed her hypothesis. The light in the bathroom was also motion-sensored, something that is common in Korea, but it also meant that if I stopped moving for 2 seconds, the lights would turn off. Freezing and persistently in flashing darkness, I finished my shower and promptly killed myself.

Her grandmothers house, although very modern for the countryside, only had 4 rooms -- living room, bedroom, bathroom and kitchen. All 3 of my friends were women and the bedroom was quite small, therefore, I would be sleeping in the living room...right besides Semi's grandma. And by right beside, I mean we were both on the floor (Korean style) less than 2 feet apart. Perhaps a little awkward...

Let's add a little bit of fun to this story. I acknowledge that, as an American, I am fairly unaccustomed to sleeping on the floor. In all honestly, I have pretty miserable nights when I sleep on hardwood floors. Her sweet grandmother kindly gave me a firm pillow -- a pillow filled with something like beans instead of anything soft. This meant that I couldn't sleep on my stomach, the most comfortable position for me, and I had to instead opt for my back or sides. Let me shorten this...it wasn't a very good night.

Hmm...let's also add a little weird thing to this too. Since her grandmother was asleep before the rest of us, we stayed in the bedroom and talked for a while. When I walked out, I went through the bathroom to try my best to stay quiet. Let me stress that although I was tired, I was not delusional. Anyways, so I opened the door to the living room and entered compete darkness. The bathroom light had already turned off so I couldn't see anything. My hearing was fine in the silent house. This is weird, but when I opened the door and accidentally hit something on the other side that made a noise, I winced. I heard what sounded like irregular breathing from waking up her grandmother. Then I heard hyperventilating and movement, scaring me that I startled the 80 year old woman by hitting something in the dark. Then I heard what sounded like her backing into the corner and breathing heavily. I apologized in an embarrassed way and heard what sounded like her inching closer to me. I couldn't find any light so I walked back through the bathroom(looking at the door and expecting her to peek her head in) and startled Semi, sheepishly asking her to help me find my bed. She walked me back into the living room and turned on a lamp...and there was her grandmother, completely asleep on the floor.

It was really bizarre. That is why I stressed that I wasn't delusional -- it was surreal.

I had an awful night of sleep. I can't get much deep sleep on my back, so I had to roll to my side, which would only stay comfortable for a half hour before the hardwood ate deep into my muscles and bones.

Seven wonderful hours later the girls were leaving their room and preparing to eat and take off to a new location. Her grandmother was at Church. We ate food her grandmother prepared for us earlier in the morning, watched the Olympics for a little bit, and then called for a taxi.

The place we were going is hard to describe. The best way I can think of it is like a campground with small lodges in the form of one room and a TV. There was a "waterfall" (Semi's word) that was actually just the end of some rapids where people could swim. We played in the water for a couple hours, reverting back to childhood by playing games where the loser would be splashed by the rest of us (not my idea actually; suggested by the two Koreans). We could have showered at this point, but the hot water wasn't on yet and nobody was willing to take a cold shower -- not even me! Instead, we went back to the room and watched the Olympics for a bit. I think we all faded in and out of napping due to the fatigue of not sleeping well (me) and swimming in 4 foot water (everyone else). Thankfully, the room had only hard floors and no beds -- meaning my night of sleep was going to be splendid!

As a quick note, Korean Olympics is a little foreign to me. They only show events with Koreans (understandable), but also choose to show replays of events with Koreans winning instead of live events with non-Koreans. This means that I've seen Korea's gold medal winning mixed doubles team win some 6 times, but not a single basketball game. Not one. I've seen Korea's baseball team beat the USA twice, but only 1 gymnastics routine. Additionally, Korean announcers get far more excited and always take the Korean side. This includes criticizing umpires who make "mistakes" on the Korean baseball team, complimenting Korean athletes like clockwork and screaming into the microphone when Korea does well.

Back to the "campground."

Our meal for the night was, spelling this phonetically, samgupsah. This is when pork is fried on a small range and eaten out of the pan. I had ramen for the third time that day. The meal wasn't too bad and thanks to eating under a light at night, there were many bugs around. There was this one beetle that suddenly hit my leg, flew up to the light and then fell down to the ground. Once it was there, on it's back and legs fraying everywhere, we observed the size to be close to a large Masterlock. The girls volunteered me to kill it so it didn't attack anymore. I walked over with my shoe and hit it enough to make it stop moving. The yelling of the girls (I swear, I didn't scream or yell) caused the owners of the campground to come over to us with bug spray. We pointed out the bug that caused the recent problem and the men told us that the beetle I killed was deemed a national treasure due to it's recent listing as an equivalent to an endangered species/protected species. I proudly killed a declining beetle and symbol of national identity.

The night wasn't very good. I tried to put extra blankets under my body to cushion the hardwood floor. It didn't help enough.

I got back home Monday night. It was an amazing night of sleep.

My bed is the one on the right. The one on the left was the grandmother's.

Here I am, looking heroic. The woman holding the tube is Seung-Hyun with Semi in the background.

Here we are eating. The food cooking is typically eating by putting some of the meat inside the lettuce leaves, possibly adding in kimchi. Adding in rice is a little too crazy, so it is kept separate.

Here is Eun-Ju (the owner of my bubble tea place).

This is the bubble tea wall. A friend wrote my name and then I wrote her's between the R and K. If you enlarge the picture and read some of the notes, you will notice a large amount about me or pictures of me. I think I only have 2 up there, but friends fill the other 50.

Everything new

My lack of posts has little to do with being inactive, but more to do with simple laziness. I get really good ideas when I am in class, or eating, or watching a movie, but when I have time at my computer, they just don't materialize.

Two weeks ago I went white-water rafting. I don't really know where I was, but it was really fun. It reminded me of rafting in Sunriver -- being essentially the same. The biggest difference was I didn't understand my guide's instructions on how to live through the experience. I was still able to navigate and contribute to keeping our raft afloat. I only brought two pairs of shoes with me to Korea: my regular shoes and tennis shoes. I wore my regular shoes and swam with them, but surprisingly, they still work fine.

I didn't take my camera for obvious reasons. One of the people that came with us took lots of pictures and had the guide keep it in a dry box. I've been passively pestering him to upload the pictures so I can relay them here.

A couple random cultural notes:

I am always surprised by some of the American pop culture that makes it to Korea. Every female university student that has gone to a karaoke room has been well versed with Avril Lavigne. Each woman has known "Sk8er Boi" by heart...despite the inability to correctly pronounce her last name. It usually takes a couple tries for me to understand what my friends talk about, and always involves singing part of the song so I can understand what they mean.

Right now, as far as I can tell, the most popular American TV show on in Korea is Prison Break. The main star, now with the name escaping me, is in a surprising amount of commercials. Koreans typically pronounce his name like "soccer player," so that means his name is probably "Scott Plader" or something. Like of all TV shows to bring to Korea, Prison Break is the most popular...

This isn't so much of a cultural note, but more of a difference between semesters. During the spring semester, my Korean class was a mixture of Korean and English. If we didn't understand something, the professor would explain it in English. This meant that if I had an idea of a word, it was best to wait and see how she would translate it so I didn't make mistakes. My professor this term doesn't do that. When explaining something, she only explains with Korean and will ask us what the English is if some of us don't follow the conversation. I feel really proud of myself when I can contextually discern what we are learning without needing English. Between the two different styles of teaching, I much prefer the second because it removes my tendency to try and translate everything we talk about. Even though I may only understand about 60% of the exact words the professor uses, I somehow end up understanding the contents of the conversation.

The sections that have been hardest for me are idioms. The only one I have confidence in is nagging, represented with the idiom of a mouth hurting. Confusing as hell for me.

On that happy note, I've been able to eavesdrop in cafes over the last few weeks. I may miss small details, but I can typically get the general picture. For instance, I don't know if the boyfriend cheats on the girlfriend or vice versa, but I do know there is cheating occurring. I am still embarrassingly limited on my ability to contribute to the conversation though...

Return ticket purchased

I just finished buying my ticket to return on August 30th. I leave Korea at 12PM, arrive in Tokyo about 2 hours later. I stay in Tokyo for 2 hours and then head for San Francisco. I stay in San Francisco for 2 hours and then head to Portland, where I believe my scheduled arrival time is 12:45PM on August 30th.

In conclusion, this trip actually only takes 45 minutes. Although it is exciting to be returning home, if I think about how much time I have left, I get really depressed. I wish I had more time...

Batman

Batman Begins: The Dark Knight comes out August 8th in Korea. I hate everyone that has seen it as of this moment.

God has turned his back on me!

On Friday, I asked the dorm office if there was anything we could do to limit the amount of mosquitoes that we get in our room. The boss of the dorm, who I really like, said she would bring some spray on Monday.

Fast forward to Monday and no spray. I didn't catch her Monday, so I asked her Tuesday to bring some. She finally brought the spray on Wednesday.

So I use it and go about my day. I get home from a really really exhausting day around 10:45PM and sit down. My roommate (I can't remember if I said I have a new roommate) was talking with a friend. It naturally comes up that we are being tortured by the mosquitoes.

Here is the part where God really wanted to get a good laugh...

I was pulling my socks off and noticed that my feet were itching. Yeah...I have a couple bites on my feet and ankles. I started counting out loud how many bites I felt like I had and I reached about 20ish spread throughout my body. In fact, on my left hand near my pinky finger, I have two bites less than a centimeter apart. Like seriously, what kind of sick bug would do that? Ditto on my right wrist. This is a conspiracy.

So here was the conversation:

Me: "(Expletive) I have 20 (expletive) mosquito bites all the (expletive) over my (expletive) body. Passon (my roommate), how many times have they bit you?"
Passon: "I don't have any."
(he has been complaining more than I have about the mosquitoes)
Me: "(expletive) kidding me? Then why have you been complaining so much?"
Him: "They fly in my ear and I don't like it."
Me: (thinking) "they fly in my (expletive) ear too."
Passon: "I just really don't like mosquitoes."
Me: [glared at him and rubbed my (expletive) legs].

Confused beyond belief

The mosquitoes in Korea are astounding sometimes. Allow me to elaborate:

Weather around Seoul has recently been probably 85 degrees and humid. It has been the kind of humidity where if you were to start sweating, the perspiration would just stay there until you got to an air-conditioned place. Therefore, my room has had the window and door shut nearly all day to allow the air conditioning to do its magic. Here is where the confusion starts...where the hell do these mosquitoes come from?

The window doesn't open and the door is open for mere seconds a couple times a day and yet, each day, my roommate or I kill at least 1 mosquito. Just today, I've killed 3. And they never appear in pairs -- which confuses me into thinking there is only one and when I kill it, there are no mosquitoes left. That isn't the case and this is all a cruel joke against me. And it isn't like they only bite while sleeping and then leave me alone, what they do instead is buzz around my ear to make sure I notice and then they fly off and hide. This tricks me into thinking that I could go back to reading or watching a movie until...BUZZ...they are back.

This isn't paranoia or anything, but I took out my trash because I thought that 1 mosquito could just keep coming back to life or something. Maybe the mosquitoes in Korea just are able to survive being crushed. I swatted one out of the air today and then crushed underneath my mighty foot. I felt proud -- like I was crushing a violent rebellion.

Update

I don't have too much that I can report. I am busy everyday for most the day and spend my nights going to Bubble Tea to do my homework and get some help from 은주.

I've been a little more lonely this summer semester. There aren't too many people that are on my "good" list as people that I actively seek to spend time with. There are 10 or so, but certainly not comparable to what it was last semester with 95% of the people on my good list. Nonetheless, I am still having fun -- I just really wish I could have convinced some people to stay for the summer to enjoy the time with me. I think I will get through it fine...

I think today officially marks the 4th of July. Happy 4th to everyone back home! Make sure to blow something up and/or burn your fingers in honor of the void that I have left with my absence.

Summer semester

The summer semester officially started on Monday (yesterday). I only have 6 credits but still manage to spend 6 hours each day in class, Monday through Thursday. I am taking Contemporary South Korean Film and Korean level 2. The film class looks like a lot of fun.

My Korean class is a little interesting. I finished the first year book, which means that I move to level 2. I am one of only two people returning from spring and continuing into the summer. In level 2, I feel completely overwhelmed because everyone else has been taking Korean for either one year or several years...and I am at 3 months. So, my vocabulary is extremely weak compared to the rest of my classmates. I feel like I can understand the professor about 60-80% of the time, but I really struggle to speak correctly in class. I think I can really learn a lot in my class, but I will have to devote more time than I am used to...

On a good note, tennis is playing everyday for 4 hours and my schedule allows me to play. I can start at 10:30AM and play until 12PM, run back to the dorm and shower, in order to get to class around 12:28PM. Midway through the class, I can run (literally) to get some food and eat during the second half. We finish at 2:30PM, giving me precisely 15 minutes to sleep and 5 minutes to get to Korean. Korean class goes from 2:50PM to 5:50PM with two 10 minute breaks for naps. After I finish all of that, I get to eat dinner and start my homework under the supervision of 은주, the woman from bubble tea (where I still go everyday). It worked for one day, leaving me about 6 weeks more.

Funny story -- Aya, one of the women from Japan during spring semester, says that she needs to finish her English literature education by studying in an English speaking country. She wants to visit the most exciting state...Delaware! I think she has been there before and really loved it...poor girl, I hope the best for her naive soul.

On Sunday night, I got really lucky and received a last minute ticket to see South Korea play North Korea in a 2010 World Cup Qualifier in Seoul.

The first game they played was originally scheduled to be played in Pyongyang (the capital of North Korea). Leading up to the game, North Korea started making some ridiculous demands in order to allow the South Korean team to enter. Actually, if I remember right, North Korea made two very acceptable requests:

1) South Korea could only bring about 10 reporters. South Korea stupidly wanted to allow like 50 reporters and TV cameras to broadcast the game, but the prudent North Koreans felt that 10 reporters could accurately cover every aspect. Plus, nobody outside North Korea really wanted to watch it anyways. I think most the people that can afford TVs would have been at the game anyways.
2) South Korea would not be able hear their national anthem or raise their flag. North Korea claimed that neither had ever been heard or seen in North Korea...ever...despite Pyongyang falling to the UN for a brief time during the Korean War. Also, playing two national anthems with two different flags are both against the goal of national unification.

Like I said, the first game would have been fine if the stringent South Koreans weren't so obsessive about their reporters, anthems or flags.

North Korea also wouldn't negotiate on their terms. The game had to played in Shanghai...where there really wouldn't be anyone passionate about watching.

The second game was scheduled for Seoul. From what I understand, South Korea imposed no restrictions on coverage or flag-flying. In fact, the flag for North Korea was even on the same level as the South's.

This was also my first soccer game. I've been watching it a little since the Eurocup started. With so many Europeans, I was blessed with the chance to be the antagonist at nearly every opportunity...rooting for Russia the whole time (there weren't any Russians here...but there is now! I am so happy...I think this may be like the third Russian I have ever met). Ironically, Russia is playing in the finals against Spain -- two countries that were not represented by a single person for the whole spring semester.

Anyways, on TV, it would get boring pretty fast. It would also drag on...in fact, I really can't watch sports on TV anymore except for tennis (only exciting, close matches. I didn't watch Nadal destroy Federer because it wasn't even a contest) and when OSU plays football. I expected to be bored out of mind.

It was actually pretty fun to watch. I had a good time and cheered when South Korea had a shot. I also booed when North Korea approached shooting. The game ended in a boring tie...but...it sort of felt like neither team was trying too hard. The Europeans that I went with also echoed the same sentiments. The South Koreans took like 5 goal shots -- missing 3 by shooting about 8 feet too high and the other two went directly to the goalie...he literally didn't move.

The North Koreans had a couple shots, but missed wide once and kicked to the goalie the other times. I don't think either Korea is known to have a strong soccer team, but I expected a couple more close calls. Especially from the South Koreans.

Pictures below. I took a couple, but couldn't get much more detailed than this. My ticket was worth about $20 and was quickly approaching the nosebleed section.


The white jerseys are North Koreans. This accounts for the first time I have actually seen people from North Korea. I think this was during intermission.












This was an action shot. I thought I might be able to time it right and see a goal being scored. The goalie is from North Korea. Again, the red jerseys are South Koreans and the white jerseys are North Koreans.

The Long Goodbye

Bob Seger has this song that I've really come to love called "The Long Goodbye." Although it has little to do with friends leaving Korea, it seems justified here...

All my closest friends in Korea are leaving in the next two weeks or have already left. Ashley, my BFF and I have made dream plans of how easy it will be to get together once we are back home -- despite her living in Oklahoma/Texas. My other BFF, Ben, is from Ohio...I've been a little more realistic with that one. Many people are also taking this time after classes to travel around. One of my favorite French people, Florian, had his parents come and then they are going to visit Japan. It has been really weird to witness the dorm this quiet...also to have to mentally filter through my cell phone to figure out who is still here and who isn't.

A quick note that I found odd: when I first arrived, I didn't really hang out with many Americans. I was mostly with Europeans. But as the semester unfolded, I found that I was actually evolving to spend most of my time with Americans. I ended the semester split with my group of friends being half-Americans and half-Japanese. It was really interesting to filter into the community that I did. I really wanted to spend more time in the Korean circle, but they study so hard and rarely live near the University. Most commute between 20 minutes and 2 hours each way to attend Ewha. That coupled with 12 hours of daily studying means it is harder to spend in Korean circles than international.

As stated in my previous post, I've been spending my time after finals trying to see as many people as I could before they left. Literally, I've had a couple days that go from lunch with one friend, to coffee with another, to dinner with another, to bars with a larger group that had several people leaving. Even with all my efforts, I've missed a handful of people.

Below are pictures from the last couple weeks. I've had fading batteries for a while (I really wish my camera used lithium ion...) so I've been taking less of them. One of the Americans told me he has taken over 3000 pictures (he also takes them of nearly every meal). I nearly have 400 pictures taken...it makes me feel like I need to work harder.



The Office of Global Affairs gave us a graduation party, complete with certificates in a velvet holder. It was really cool. In the back left is Ben, mentioned earlier in this post. In front of him is Ashley, also discussed above. In the middle is Yu from Japan, proudly holding his certificate. Yu is really fun to confuse because he says "huh?" a lot. The really short woman in front of me is Maki, from Japan. Maki looks really scary when she glares at people, she has ran up to me and "meowed" before and then ran away, and she playfully beats her boyfriend. For the record, I told everyone that they weren't allowed to leave...but nobody listened or is listening to me.



This is a picture of me and Aya. Aya is from Japan and was in my Korean class. Some mornings, it would just drag on for hours and hours so I would need entertainment. I would usually turn and glare at Aya until she noticed. The first couple weeks, she looked surprised and uncomfortable, even breaking the traditional Japanese socialization and asking me why I glared at her. But eventually it became mutual and that became the way we communicated boredom. Aya was also the best student in the class and she didn't miss a day until the final weeks. When the teacher asked us where she was, I made an educated guess and said she might have been kidnapped. After that, if she missed a day or was a few minutes late, I would send her several text messages making sure she wasn't kidnapped. The thing we are doing with our hands was taught by our Hong Kong friend who said it meant embarrassment or frustration. It is supposed to look like a sweat drop. I think I said something really awkward before this picture so we could try to get in the embarrassed mood.


For my Religions in Korea class, we went to a Buddhist temple and toured with a guide that spoke English. This is called a "water fish" in English despite the fact it is a dragon. If I remember right, this fish is hit with a wooden stick to symbolize the enlightenment of all swimming creatures. To the right of this picture is a giant drum that is banged for all living things on the ground to gain enlightenment. To the far right is a giant gong that was for all flying beings to gain enlightenment.






These 3 Buddha statutes were probably 12-15 feet tall and about 6 feet across. If I remember right, the one in the middle is the first historical Buddha, Siddhartha. To the left is Amida (I am probably misspelling that) Buddha. I've forgotten the name of the one to the right. The only difference between them is their hand gestures. In Buddhism, a Buddha is simply someone who has achieved Enlightenment, making for thousands of Buddhas. A good analogy to Christianity is to consider a Buddha as a Saint and not equivalent to a central figure.

My professor is also unable to distinguish by simply using hand-gestures as a guide. If a temple were to put Amida Buddha in the middle, then the sect would be Pure-Land Buddhism. This is also the case with any other Buddha in the middle. Pure-Land Buddhism would also likely put Siddhartha on the right. These temples also have a lot of food and rice at the alter in front of the Buddha statues and also on the left and right walls. Therefore, there are tons of birds inside eating all the food. One of the women with us was scared of birds and would gasp whenever one flew by. I thought it was funny.

This is a good place to take note of this, but birds fly lower in Korea. Never back home did I feel like the bird flying at me might actually run into me. But here, I duck because they fly directly at my head and then pull up like a foot ahead of me. When I told one of my American friends, she said it was because I look like a tree.

Update coming soon

I finished my last final tonight. It wasn't too hard, but mostly had to fill up space.

Where I've been: I've had finals this last week and then spent the rest of my time trying to see as many people as possible before they leave. Amazingly, there were people leaving yesterday (the day after their last final). My best friend leaves the 20th and I am very very sad about that. It all happened too soon.

I can take this space to rant. I hate mosquitoes. Nobody told me there would be so many around here -- like I literally open my screen door for 3 seconds and there are mosquitoes in my room. I wake up everyday with bites -- it is awful...

Summer plans

I have some good news on my end, some bad news (probably) for everyone else.

I am going to stay at Ewha for the summer semester.

Since I didn't receive the scholarship with the State Department, I've been trying to find a way to continue learning Korean while I am here. The next best option was to extend my stay through the end of July (when the summer semester ends). Besides having a great time here and depressed at how short it has been, I also need to make a solid argument that my Korean study should satisfy my language requirement for my B.A. If I did the math right (which is often a statement made before I am proven wrong), OSU requires 24 credits of a foreign language to receive a B.A. After this semester, I will have 13.5 credits of Korean. This falls drastically short of what I need, meaning I would need to finish a second year of German when I got back (after taking a year off and learning Korean).

I think that even the addition of the summer semester will leave me a little short. However, it will be better to get as close to 24 as possible, and then compensate the difference with the study abroad experience.

The summer semester starts June 24th and ends in late July. At the end of August is a big tennis tournament between universities and I told the tennis team I would participate if I were still here. In the back of my mind, as I spoke, I hoped I would be here, since I was unsure at the time. I think the first week of classes at OSU start September 29th, leaving me essentially 20 days of moderate free time (I think I need like 10 days to get ready for the next term...but I am trying to downplay how much I need to do). In those 20 days, I would like to see if I can travel a little around South East Asia.

I've made some friends in Cambodia that told me I should visit them. I've been wanting to see Vietnam and Thailand, coupled with the Philippines. Singapore also sounds really fun. I haven't investigated prices or anything, but I am simply dreaming at this point.

I think that covers my plans for the summer.

Everland

It has been a long time since I last wrote. I originally started the last post on Thursday as a reminder, but then stopped short and finished on Sunday.

I haven't been to an amusement park since I went to Lotte World back in February. Additionally, Everland is considered to be the best amusement park in Korea. I will just say this now...I went two weeks in a row.

The first time: Because I am American, I have grown used to conversations going like this:
"Let's get together in like two weeks." "Yes, that sounds fun. I'll call you." I think this generally means a suggestion to be handled in the future. I don't think this is traditionally a solid plan. But, to Koreans, that is very literal. That means that you will get called the night before the two week mark to confirm that the plans will proceed. With that in mind, I had that exact conversation roughly three weeks ago with a Korean friend. Three days before the two week mark, when I asked her if she had plans for the weekend, she said "Everland on Saturday. Do you remember?"

I had completely forgotten, but was thankfully free.

The plan was to meet two friends in Suwon at 2PM on Sunday. I thought 2PM was awfully late to get started and it was. According to my friend, Jin-Na, the best way to get to Suwon was to take the subway (1.5 hours), meet them at 2PM and then take a bus to Everland (1 hour). It is pretty far away for Korea, figuring that it took me four hours by bus to go down the whole country.

So we met up and proceeded to Everland. We arrived at 3PM...those people who know me can understand how excited I was to be at an amusement park, and subsequently, how surprised my Korean friends were at my childlike trance.

There isn't too much I can say about Everland as an amusement park because the rides were pretty standard. There were a couple roller coasters and the normal rides that most amusement parks have. I was quickly drained of energy by the evening. Don't get me wrong, it was amazingly fun, but it is hard to write about amusement park rides.

Two things worth mentioning:
1) I think the normal policy in America is that if a friend works someplace, special treatment is generally forbidden. A friend of mine used to work at Subway and he would give me free sandwiches if nobody else was working. But if his boss or coworkers saw him, he would likely have been disciplined. I feel that Korea is the opposite. Jin-Na's sister worked at a popcorn stand and gave us free popcorn. Jin-Na's sister's friend worked at this restaurant and we received a heavily discounted meal (mine was free), and that was done by her boss. Her sister's friend brought us sodas before we even ordered our food. Finally, because of our connections, the chef made me my own specialized vegetarian dish...and then we got free cake.
2) I've been joking with my friends here about how weird it will be to go home. We all feel that we will have heavy cultural shock on returning home. As evidence of this, most the restaurants at Everland had dishes for about $8. When I saw the price, I felt it was too expensive to eat there. I am also giving up tipping.

The subway usually stops between 11PM and 1AM, with different times on weekends, and I have yet to confirm any precise time. Therefore, we had to leave the park at 9:30PM to make sure that I could get back without needing a cab. They suggested I take a bus that would take me, literally, a half-hour away from Ewha. So I figured that the bus would be like an hour and a half, to equal the time it took me to get to Suwon and then from Suwon to Everland. How wrong I was -- the bus was only 35 minutes. Why couldn't she have told me that and we could just have met outside Everland? It was also about half the cost to just use the bus.

Because I didn't get to ride everything, I was itching to go back. I asked my best friend here, Ashley, if she and her roommate wanted to come Saturday morning (May 31st) and spend the whole day there. They were both in. We got started a little later than I wanted, but made it to Everland around 1PM. I felt my inner child reemerge from his cave. We had a great time, but we were pretty tired by 8PM. Korean weather has started to turn awful. Although I am unsure how hot it is, the humidity creates a general malaise. Walking up a flight of stairs on a humid day makes most people wipe sweat off their foreheads. I am unaccustomed to looking outside at the clouds and looking for a white shirt to hide my eventual sweat.

Before I left the USA, I met with some people that gave me advice on Korea. They half-jokingly said that Koreans do everything opposite as Americans. For instance, the emergency phone number in Korea is 119 (I think. It may be 199. I should know this...). The afternoon at Everland was fairly mild compared to what I expected on a Saturday afternoon. There were no lines longer than about 20 minutes and the most popular ride was only about 50 minutes. We naturally assumed that as the day wore on, people would probably start heading home, or be riding less when it approached dinner time. Therefore, we delayed riding the biggest roller coaster because we wanted to wait for a time when the line was only 20 minutes long. For some reason, that doesn't happen in Korea. As the day continued, more people came in. At dinner time, the roller coaster's line was the longest of the day and there were no seats in the several dining areas. I was flabbergasted! Why would there be more people coming into the park at 8PM than at 3PM, when most rides closed at 10PM? I still don't know.

When I was there the first time, because I was with Koreans, no strangers conversed with me. When I went the second time and was with foreigners, kids would talk to us directly (in English) or would talk about us to their friends or parents. It was really funny to have this little 7 year old kid walk by, holding his mother's hand, and say in Korean "Mommy, that is a foreigner." We all understood him and waved, saying hello in Korean. That reminds me, when kids are busy with something and see us, they will often stop and stare. For instance, when this other kid was crying in Everland, she stopped crying and just stared at us.

Back to reverse culture shock. One of the few things I found to eat without meat was a chicken salad, where I could easily pick the chicken out. I grumbled as I paid about $6.50 and $2.00 for my drink. My salad had a good pineapple-mustard dressing...but...it wasn't spicy at all. I couldn't understand why it tasted good, but at the same time, made me wishing it had something more to it. I reached the same conclusion that I have the last 5 times I had mild food...food tastes weird if it isn't burning my tongue.



This is near the entrance of Everland. Lotte World is owned and managed by a food company called Lotte. Lotte makes ice cream, soda, snacks, chips and many other things...I think they also make milk. Everland is owned by Samsung, but surprisingly, the Samsung name isn't written anywhere.










In the European part of the park. The girl in the middle is Ashley and the girl on the right is Chiara. Chiara is Italian and expressed her frustration that Europe looks nothing like the section of the park. This was followed by her point that Europe has many different countries and cultures. I took advantage of that and mentioned how the flowers looked exactly like Europe, the giant bees were similar to the ones in Europe, and the classical Greek statutes were in Oslo, London and Paris.






This little store sold bright children's clothes. There are even toys above the name, including a teddy bear.













Everland has an animal section where they have tigers, polar bears (a little sad because it was in an outside enclosure), camels, bats and so forth...and they also seem to have Jackass Penguins. The Korean actually is pronounced Ja-Ka-Ss-Paeng-gwin...this is not a mistranslation.

Language

One of the hardest parts of learning Korean is remembering the unfamiliar terminology, the friendly terminology, and the regular terminology. There are changes that happen to the words to elevate the status to honorific, but we typically do not cover that. Usually it just involves adding an extra syllable at some point.

In class, we usually learn the honorific terminology. Typically, it is pretty easy to go from one form to another, but it can be confusing for understanding when I hear a verb conjugated and I am left confused until somebody mentions the imperative form. For example, to say thank you to a store owner is 감사합니다 (Kam-Sah-Ham-Ni-Da, but the Ham is rarely pronounced -- lazy kids these days). When I thank my friend for pouring me water, I say 고모와요 (Ko-Mo-Wha-Yo. I had to spell that phonetically because I am not 100% sure and I feel too lazy to look it up). I've been told it is rude to use the second form when I don't know the person, but mostly people understand because I am foreign. But, when I use the unfamiliar terminology with friends, they sometimes take it as an insult. Linguistically, it is as if I don't know them. I am usually forgiven for that as well, but I can't shake that uncertainty -- so I always need to listen to the verbs that other people use before I can really say much just to make sure I don't accidentally insult a friend.

At first, the different forms were very frustrating for me. To a certain degree, they still are. The captain of the tennis team didn't use the friendly form until very recently -- always making me feel like she didn't think of me as a friend. There is also a more honorific way to say Rice, which drives me crazy. Seriously, why does Rice need two forms? It is one of the rare nouns I know of that possesses this ambivalence.

I have started to warm up to the different forms. It feels really good when someone goes to the friendly form only minutes after meeting me. The woman that works at the Bubble Tea store switched to friendly form and her greeting is warmer now.

Another thing that was hard to adjust at first was polite gestures. When dealing with money or pouring alcohol, the hand not being used should rest underneath the arm in use, near the armpit, or be used to help support the hand in use. Additionally, when older people arrive or depart, everyone needs to stand up and bow. On a quick tangent, I hate standing up when I am eating because somebody two months older than me needs to leave. But, I am starting to like it when I get that attention. It is pretty cool to arrive at tennis and all the woman stand up and bow to me. It is pretty cool to hand someone money and see both hands extended as a sign of respect.

A woman last week handed me some change back with both hands and bowed her head. I felt like a mob boss receiving protection money.

Temple Stay

The PEACE buddies recently put together an opportunity for us to stay in a Buddhist temple for roughly 24 hours. I got back today.

Saturday afternoon: We were meeting around 1PM at the Ewha main gate. I am not exactly sure where we went, but it took 20 minutes by bus. That means that it is essentially in the heart of Seoul.

The first thing we did was change out of our street clothes. One of the monks spoke broken English, which was helpful and detrimental at the same time. More on that later. The clothes were extremely comfortable and stylish too. I joked with one of the Americans about trying to steal the shirt and he agreed, although neither of us did. After we were changed, we met in the Meditation room to listen to a short lecture on Buddhism. The room had a golden statue of a Buddha in the middle that each monk would bow to as he or she passed by. The reason that I say a Buddha is because one who is a Buddha is like a Saint in Christianity -- deserving of worship, but not God or something similar. I also say a Buddha because although I was told which one it was, I can't recall.

The monk that spoke with us the most was a woman between 30 and 40 years old. She was very friendly, charismatic and very much enjoyed talking about Buddhism and the temple. Her English, although very confident and we could understand her most the time, was littered with barriers that left most of us confused. She would want us to respond by loudly saying "yes" despite 90% not understanding the question. Most the time it was simple -- "are you hunger?"..."YES!" But other times it was "_______, yes? Do you agree? Shout yes!" and a couple people did, but she pressed us to say it louder.

She taught us a little about Buddhism -- the simple, introductory things -- and then outlined the general schedule for the weekend. For some reason, she then put on a cartoon movie about Buddhism. When she told us about it, I believed she said it was "40 minutes long. So it is short" but I think she meant to say "an hour and 40 minutes long" because it was LONG. Also, the movie didn't seem to have any direction until the last 10 minutes as this kid dies and the Goddess of Mercy explains how the kid was the perfect Buddhist. I thought it was a little ironic that the kid was praying to the Goddess of Mercy and then he dies of hunger...if I were starving and on the brink of death, I would pray for a gift from the Goddess of Fertility.

The movie ended and then we went to participate in a bell ringing ceremony. I didn't fully understand the significance, but I did get to ring the bell. I felt pretty important. After we rang the bell 7 times, we went to a room that was used for worship. This beautiful, dark room had a statue of a Buddha in the middle, flanked by 4 other golden statues. The room was brightly colored, which I feel very much reflected a chief difference in Korean Buddhism compared with other Asian cultures. We did 3 prostrations, which is where a person folds his or her hands, falls to their knees and then lowers their forehead to the ground. The point is to lower oneself to the lowest point in the world in hopes of Enlightenment, according to my understanding of the monk's explanation.

After that, we chanted the Heart Sutra -- spelled phonetically in English. The Westerners, myself included, struggled to keep pace with everybody else because we didn't understand the pace. I think most of us spent the time silent. After we were done, it was probably 6:30PM. We were ALL hungry and looking forward to dinner...how quickly we were crushed.

We ate our food in the traditional Korean monk fashion. What that means is that they don't just serve food, they have rituals that we observed. One of my American friends told me at 3PM that he was hungry and wished he ate lunch...I couldn't contain my laughter as the food sat in front of us, his head buried in his hands, and the monk wouldn't stop talking. So this is how we ate:

1) They had these lunch-box like dishes inside a cloth knapsack. Contained inside were four bowls, a set of chopsticks, a spoon, a white napkin, a brown cloth and then the cloth used for the knapsack. The first step was to unwrap everything and put it in the right order, with the biggest bowl (called the Buddha Bowl because that was the one to use for offerings) on the bottom left and a descending order from bottom left to top left (smallest in the top left). Also, there was supposed to be no sound during the whole meal -- including no clinking of silverware. The monk loudly asked a few times, "what is the problem? Why is there sound?" It wasn't a mean tone, but meant to be a reminder to be careful.
2) We were served cold water used to wash the dishes. We all served each other with a different job, so mine was to pour cold water into the Buddha bowl. From here, we were to shake the water around in the first bowl and then pour it into the second bowl, wash it around and proceed from there. We ended by putting the cold water in the fourth bowl, where it rested for the rest of the meal.
3) The first food dish to be served was rice. It was put into the Buddha bowl.
4) Soup was next. It was served into the second bowl.
5) Next were side dishes. They included kimchi, bean sprouts, some green leaves and mushrooms. We were able to take whatever we wanted.

Once all the food was in front of us (growing cold because we weren't allowed to eat yet), we were to chant regarding trying to clear our minds. One important thing about the meal is that we had to eat everything we took, in order to teach us about being mindful of how greedy we are. Here is why this was so important:

The first thing that we had to do was take a piece of kimchi and wash it in our soup. The goal was remove all the red sauce and to have a clear piece of kimchi that would be used for washing our dishes. I didn't understand, at this point, why it was so important to eat every morsel of food. Don't be mistaken, when I was done there was no eatable food in any of my bowls, but the following tradition was absolutely awful.

When we were finished eating, they served us hot water in the Buddha bowl. At the time, I thought this was our drink during the meal because we were not supposed to drink the cold water. Using the clean piece of kimchi and the hot water, we needed to clean the Buddha bowl. That's fine and I am feel pretty economical at this point. The second step was to pour all the water from the Buddha bowl into the second bowl, which had the soup, and do the same. This was a little harder because the teeny tiny pieces of tofu at the very bottom were too small to get with chopsticks and impossible to drink, notwithstanding, I got my bowl pretty clean. Next was to pour the water to the third bowl, the one that had the side dishes, and repeat. This one was harder because there was kimchi sauce on the sides.

The final step was to drink the hot water.

Now remember, although this was all food I was eating before, it didn't sound tasty to mix little pieces of rice, remnants of soup, and kimchi-flavored water into a drink. Wow -- it was disgusting. I drank it and it tasted awful, but I didn't cough like some others in the room. We also had to eat the piece of kimchi that was used to clean.

Finally done! But I would have killed for a mint or anything that had taste.

...But Erik, what about the cold water in the fourth bowl? Ohhhh, that's right, that water was also going to clean the bowls. "What about the kimchi Erik, didn't you eat it?" Yes, we were supposed to. So this time, we used our fingers to clean the bowl. Not that bad -- we repeated all the steps except we used our fingers to clean.

Monks are able to go through the first step and have absolutely no food in the bowls. Some of us leave just a tiny bit of food from when we poured the water and the smallest piece of carrot didn't quite make it out. Anybody in the room that had "particles" of food left had to drink that concoction too. Anybody that only had oil was able to pour the water into a community bowl that would be inspected by the monk. I had a couple particles, so had to drink my second bowl of disgusting oil-and-kimchi flavored water. The monk inspected the bowl and said we didn't do good enough, but she caught the hint from our groans that whatever punishment she had planned was too severe for us.

We cleaned up by taking the food back to the kitchen, rewrapping our knapsacks and changing our seats to face the front. On a small tangent, I didn't sit in a chair the whole time there -- small pillows on the floor are uncomfortable after five minutes and even worse after six hours...

The final event for the day was practice meditation. We were supposed to try it for five minutes and then we were done with our day. This temple had us meditate with our eyes open, focusing on a point about a meter ahead, which I think led some people to laugh. And when I say laugh, I mean laugh during the meditation -- which was very distracting.

The coolest thing that happened to me during the five minutes is that my pupils contracted a couple times, making the room appear as if lights were dimming and coming back on. It was a little colorful and interesting at the same time. After meditation, we were sent to sleep -- it was about 9:30PM. We went to bed so early because the monks would wake us up at 3:30AM to start the day.

I slept awful. Everything was comfortable except that the light on the outside of our room was equipped with a motion sensor. Some of the men didn't want to sleep at 9:30PM so they went to smoke at various times, turning the light on and waking me up. I also coughed a lot for some reason.

When we woke up at 3:36AM, nobody was in a good mood. Notwithstanding, we had to be at the same room where we did prostrations the day before by about 4AM. According to our monk, Buddha said doing 108 prostrations would clear a person's mind enough to remove all negative thoughts. There is significance to 108, but I can't exactly remember what it was.

Doing 3 prostrations was very easy. Because we needed to keep our hands together, we couldn't use them to help us up and we also had to keep our feet together. I did like 5 on Saturday and felt okay. When we did 108, I was tired. Only about half the group did all 108. I was very sweaty at the end and a little embarrassed because there weren't many people sweating. During the process, I remember I wasn't thinking of much outside the immediate moment. I didn't really care how tired I was, or about how much I was sweating, or about it ending -- only about getting my forehead down.

Afterwards, it was time for our meditation. My understanding from the day before was we were supposed to meditate and then do the prostrations. I thought this made sense because part of the meditation was to make sure we keep our eyes open and our hands in the correct position -- something harder when fatigued. After the prostrations, staying awake and alert with the extra adrenaline was quite easy.

One thing that monks in Korea do is punish people that lose their position or move too much. The punishment is they walk in front of the person meditating and hit them on the shoulder with a large bamboo pole. I volunteered to be hit on Saturday night and it doesn't hurt very much, it is just loud and surprising. I could imagine that after getting hit a couple times your shoulder would be quite sore. Two people were hit in the morning and that was also very distracting.

Our next task was to go climb a mountain close to the temple. Let me clarify -- we were going to go climb a Korean Mountain, which translates to a hill with exercise equipment and trees. On top, there were a bunch of old people getting exercise. This part was extremely fun and funny at the same time, but I can't do justice to the humor in writing. There was this old man on a stage that was leading us all in callisthenic workouts. He put on this tape that was funny at first, mostly it was this man counting to a very happy song, but if I heard that song more than five times, I would kill myself. All the Koreans knew what to do and all the foreigners tried to keep up. Some points involved like arm swinging that came out of nowhere and the foreigners were confused and lost -- but all the Koreans were right on pace. A friend said that was the standard workout from elementary school.

We walked back down to the temple to make lotus flowers. We had thin pieces of paper and paper cups modified to include a small wire to hold our flowers. Here is a picture of me with my lotus flower, contemplating existence:
















Here is a picture of my lotus flower, next to what lotus flowers were supposed to look like:
















The monk told us that the way we twisted the petals reflected on our lives. If we twisted them tightly, small and they didn't come undone, then we will prosper in life. If they come undone and are bad, well, consider the opposite...If you click the picture and observe the details closely, you will notice that I am not very precise or talented in this area.

The monk came and lectured me on how to make a good lotus flower. The day before she mentioned how dirty and clean were only in our minds (she told us as we were preparing to drink the cleaning water) -- I told her that good and bad lotus flowers are only in our minds and that mine was just good and bad as everyone else's. She laughed at that.

They interrupted us halfway through the lotus flower to go eat. We all did not want to follow the ritual from the previous day, opting instead for a chance to quietly eat with a lunch tray and no cleaning water -- and also no waiting. It was like 8AM and we had all been up four and a half hours, we just wanted food.

We finished our lotus flowers and went to the meditation room to partake in a tea ceremony. I was so tired that I can't remember too much of it other than they didn't give us much tea. The first sip was supposed to be bitter, the second was to quench our thirst and the last to leave us with a sweet taste. I say sip because it was all the same tea...it all tasted bitter to me.

Here was a common scene during the tea ceremony:

















This is my name written on a lantern. They wrote everybody's name on these lanterns before we arrived, saying a prayer for happiness and success in our lives. I will get neither due to my failure at lotus-construction.

Random bits of information

1) Seoul has it's own dance. At first, I thought that was the coolest thing ever. I even learned how to do the chorus part! And just when you thought nothing bad could come from a city possessing a dance, Seoul decided to play the song everywhere. Before movies start, there is a 3 minute clip with the song and people dancing. On TV, there are 30 second commercials with the song and dance. At EVERY big event in Seoul, the song plays and people dance to it. I was at a festival on Friday on the steps of City Hall. During each change of acts, they had the Seoul dancers come out and play the whole song. The two people I was with, one American and one Italian, decided to leave and the song escorted us out...

2) Contrary to American women, Korean women in big groups are indecisive. I played tennis today and it took us 20 minutes to figure out where to eat. I understand and appreciate that they were trying to think of a place that had a vegetarian alternative, but it is quite hard to find one that doesn't. In general, only about three kinds of restaurants don't have vegetarian alternatives:
A) ShabuShabu (phonetically spelled). ShabuShabu is actually really good and unique when there is a vegetarian option. Essentially, ShabuShabu is a giant pot filled with broth (it usually isn't meat broth, but I have seen it before) that boils in front of you. The options for food involve ordering a plate of something to put inside the stew -- ranging from lettuce and mushrooms to pork to beef and so forth. The meat juices are too prevalent for me to continue eating after it has been added. Oh, also it is communal eating -- one pot on one stove for 4-6 people.
B) Although I don't know what this place is called, I could totally lead someone there. This place only had chicken...they didn't even have rice. I ate the small vegetables with my group and then stopped and bought some sandwiches.
C) Again, I don't know what this place is called, but I could lead someone there. It is like a buffet where there is a pan for 4-6 people that cooks whatever you put on it. In the back are various options of things to bring to cook. Although they have some vegetarian alternatives that I can eat, Kimchi for instance, the taste of the meat on the pan is too strong for me to truly enjoy my meal.

3) The toothpaste I have been using for the last couple weeks is Green Tea flavored.

4) A couple of the places that I visit regularly remember me.
A) The sandwich shop with a difficult name: I found this little place about three weeks after I arrived at Ewha. They had a sign advertising Egg Sandwiches so I thought I should try one, given I hadn't had bread for a month or so. I absolutely loved it! I went back at least once a week since. After my third trip, they knew what I wanted. The other day, I went to buy two sandwiches and said "two please" in Korean. The girl started to make two hamburgers and I stopped her, a little surprised. One of the other girls in the back came out and corrected the first one on what I wanted. It can be hard to learn Korean when I can be lazy and instead of saying "two egg sandwiches" I have started saying "two please." Just to clarify, they actually have a full menu and not just egg sandwiches.

B) The Bubble Tea place is humorously called bbbobbba. The card also says "funny beverage, uplus Beverage." You might get a headache trying to figure out how the beverage is funny or what uplus means. Anyways, I figured that bubble tea would be a common thing in Korea given that my Korean friends had told me American bubble tea isn't as good as Korean bubble tea...but alas, I had trouble finding my favorite drink. The first 10 times I went, the girl working there and I didn't really talk much -- she didn't speak English and I didn't know enough Korean. Probably the 11th time I was there, I asked the Korean friend I was with if the employee was the owner because she looked so young. As the conversation continued, I found out that this 23 year old woman was the owner and only employee of this particular bbbobbba tea store.

I started off slow, only going about three times a week. That was a one time thing because after that, it was 5 times a week. Now, I go everyday. Last week, Angie (her English name, closest name to her Korean name) asked me if I wanted to meet a friend of hers. I did and we had a fun time. On Saturday night, I met her friend again coupled with another friend. We drank bubble tea for a while and then went out -- and then Angie joined us later. I realized this the other day, but Angie is probably the only person that I see every single day. When I went to Japan, the first thing she said to me when I walked in was "You went to Japan?" (she said it in Korean.) I said yes and then wondered how she knew that...

C) The Pizza lady. There is this one pizza place that has a medium pizza for around $6.50. Given the normal prices for pizza in Korea (a medium between $15-$20), $6.50 is good enough to take me there every two weeks. Because there is only one pizza without meat, she also knows my order.

D) Cocktail guy. There is this guy outside the front gate that has a little kiosk selling cocktails for about $4.00. We always say hi to each other when I walk by. He usually gives me free drinks each night that I wasn't going to drink -- like weekdays. The nights that I am going out, he doesn't offer me one free. I can't turn down anything free, so I've started walking on the other side of the street and yelling hello to him. Maybe I could have myself sound a little better if I just said it was culturally rude to refuse a drink...

5) Naturally, there are some people that often test their limits of drinking. I am proud that I have only crossed my limit once and realized I never wanted to do it again. Notwithstanding, because I have successfully stopped before needing help home, I occasionally have volunteered to help somebody else get home.
Scenario A: One guy was having some problems with a girl and felt the best way was to drink his weight in alcohol. When I met up with him around 10PM, he told me roughly 8 or 9 times that he was glad to see me. The girl he liked was also with me, so he decided to leave his party and join us. We went to another bar and we stayed for about two hours. He drank a tiny bit more before we had to hide the alcohol so he would stop drinking -- which didn't stop him from quieting us all down at least a half-dozen times and thank us for coming to Korea. I was waking up early the next day and was about to leave -- and the group felt that he should probably come with me. The girl was going to stay, which meant that we had to find a way to get him to leave (he told us at least 20 times he was going where she was going). My plan was to tell him I was too drunk, didn't speak Korean and couldn't get home on my own. After much coercion, we convinced him to take me home -- but he vowed to make it back to the girl that night, despite her constant assurance she was going to be fine on her own. We walked home together, including one instance where he pulled me into traffic by saying that pedestrians have the right of way even if we aren't at a crosswalk and the traffic light is green...Notwithstanding, we made it to the dorm and I got him to his room. Actually, I convinced him to come inside his room where he promptly told me to leave and he was going back for the girl. Nobody saw him the rest of the night.

Successes on leading drunk people home when I had something to drink: 0/1

Scenario B: An American guy was having problems with a girl he liked and decided to drink his frustration away. He was pretty drunk on Thursday night and this was Friday night, where he was again drunk. I was going home somewhat early because I didn't want to sleep until the afternoon so I volunteered to take him home. I used the same story about how I had been drinking too much, how I didn't know the way home and how I didn't speak Korean (the first guy was Korean, the second was not. The speaking Korean part was added in because I was a little intoxicated, but he didn't notice at all). He vowed to make it back to the group at another bar and even ignored them when they said goodnight because he was absolutely sure he would make it back. We walked home and I got him to his room. I was with him as he laid down and tried to sleep. As an idea of how drunk he was, he asked me twice if he could brush his teeth -- I said no -- and he laid back down and called me mean. I listened to him snoring for five minutes and left the room. I showered, pretty proud of myself for successfully taking care of someone. As I walked out of the shower, two guys were running downstairs saying they saw the American sitting outside. I was a little confused how the hell he got there because I locked the window and the door, thinking that he probably had no idea how to work either at the time. Details are still a little fuzzy, but apparently, he either fell off the second floor balcony or he jumped off the second floor balcony. Nobody, including him, knows why. He broke one of his arms, sprained the other, had a couple cuts and...hmm...how to write this artistically...ok...think of sitting on a bamboo pole...now imagine jumping off a second floor balcony and landing in that position on the pole. He was in the hospital for 6 days, spending the majority unable to use the bathroom on his own. After the initial surprise, everybody thinks it is hilarious (including the American who was injured).

Successes on leading drunk people home when I had been drinking: 0/2. At this point, because of how quickly it went from missing to near death, I felt that if I led another person home it would be the last night that person was alive. I told my friends to never let me in a position of responsibility over a drunk person if I had a drop of alcohol in my system. Given that information...

Scenario C: Another guy had been drinking over girl problems. I was on my way home for the night when I saw him with three other people. He stopped me and started going on about how we didn't hang out anymore and if I didn't come with him for just one beer he would be very sad. I thought it would be the five of us going, making sure that I didn't have sole responsibility over him. After I said yes, the girls said they were going home. We had one beer and walked home. I saw him today -- he is still alive!!!! I nearly died from laughter as he walked head-first into a clear door two nights ago.

Successes on leading drunk people home when I had been drinking: 1/3.

6) Movie theaters are really cool in Korea. They have stadium seating and less seats, meaning there are pretty much no bad spots. When you buy your ticket, you also pick your seat -- so there aren't any cases of a a group of five people trying to find five open seats on opening night after previews have started. Their snacks are much cheaper and better. I have fallen in love with garlic popcorn!

7) I don't want to hurt my roommates reputation in writing or online, but I have many many many stories to tell you all about him. Okay, I have one story. Something like two weeks ago, on a weekday, I was naturally sleeping at 4AM when he loudly comes back drunk. I am able to get back asleep as he moves around the room. As he is about to sleep some twenty minutes later, he yells (literally) "goodnight Erik!" I shoot awake and sit up. Realizing what happened, I just say "goodnight."
"Oh, you're awake. I have something I want to ask you."
"Ask me...afternoon...sleep."
"No, this is really important."
I mumbled with a rising tone, trying to get our "what?"
"Erik, are you gay?"
"It isn't important. Night."
"Errrriiiik! I want to know" (he actually whined that to me).
He kept pressing me for some five minutes. I didn't ask a single question, but responded to him. He decided to change topics...
"Erik, who is the hottest girl in the dorms."
I threw out the name of the last female I talked to before I went to sleep.
"Really? Why?"
"She is really cool...like...seeing her..."

And so this continued until around 4:45. Important things we talked about that couldn't wait until the afternoon: my sexuality, hottest girl, hottest guy, my sexuality, who do I want to sleep with, why I don't bring guys back to the room, why I don't bring girls home, my sexuality, is the person I said really the hottest girl, what makes the hottest guy I picked the hottest guy, why I won't tell him my sexual orientation and finally concluding with...
"Errrrrrriiiiiiikk, are you gay? You can tell me, I am your roommate."

I heard snoring within two minutes and despite my best efforts to get to sleep as quick as he did, it took me another half-hour.

7) Sunburns hurt more in Korea than back home -- I don't know why. Koreans also get sunburned quicker and complain MUCH more than I ever expected. If you didn't catch it, I am currently sunburned.

8) Tell me what is wrong with the following text messages:

A) "hi eric~ i'm Jiyeon, jin' friend~~~do u have time in Monday~?"
B) "eric~~(^_^) what are you doing now? ;
C) "good morning eric~?^^; were we supposed to meet 11AM to 1PM?"

I don't understand why Koreans spell my name with a C. In Korean, my name is 에릭. That final character, ㄱ makes a G sound if it is the start of a syllable or a K sound at the end. I am thinking very quickly, but I don't think there is even a transliterated C character. Man, there are many many problems in the world...

Nothing new

I don't have too much new to report...

I have today off from school. When I was young, I would ask my parents why there was a Mother's Day and Father's day, but no Children's day. They told me "everyday is children's day."

Well that isn't true in Korea. In 2008, Children's Day is May 5th. There are also special events going on from last night until next Monday, which if I understand the time line correctly, is Buddha's Birthday. Hopefully I can find an event to write about between now and then.

Quick observation

Hair: In Korea, changing your hair means that things only look a little different. That could mean a bad hair day, that could mean not seeing someone for a couple weeks and hair growing, that could mean combing it differently and so forth. In the past two days, I've had pretty messy hair. Also in the last two days, I've had three different Korean friends tell me that they like my new haircut.

Take notice, I didn't cut my hair. In fact, it is longer. I am still not combing it. I still put forth no effort for consistency; all I do is wake up and make sure that I am not bald.

I remember Ada mentioning this to me once. She said that if she went to class without makeup, or with different makeup, all the kids would notice and ask her about it. I thought that might be something specific for women -- but it is in fact true for everybody.

Week trip to Japan

We had two options of getting to Japan: boat or plane. Plane tickets from Seoul usually run around $400-$500, depending on where you go and all the usual factors. A round-trip boat ride costs half the plane ticket, obviously takes longer, but also depends on where you go. Originally, we were thinking of landing somewhere in Japan and then taking a train to get to Tokyo -- however, amazingly, that would be more expensive than a plane ticket. Therefore, we decided on Osaka.

Or, in a more positive light, we decided on Osaka because it is the second largest city in Japan and really close to Kyoto, which is the cultural headquarters.

The ferry from Busan leaves everyday at 3PM, arriving at the destination the following day at 10AM. Because we needed to take a bus down to Busan, we had to leave Seoul around 8AM to ensure that we could make it in time. The day before we left, I needed to buy bus tickets to make sure that we could actually make it down there -- and ended up getting the 7AM bus due to the others being sold out. Factoring in the time needed to take the subway and walk to the bus station, we needed to leave Ewha at 5:45AM......so none of us slept Friday night. To add to the fatigue, I stopped drinking around midnight to sober up and make sure that I could guide us to the bus station -- but nobody else stopped that early. We arrived back to the dorms 45 minutes before we were leaving for the subway...

But, we made it successfully to the bus. I don't remember much of the ride down to Busan because I slept for nearly all of it. We made it to the ferry early and without any significant problems. The ship was really cool, at least for me, because it had stores, vending machines and a piano! Out of the 400 some passengers, there were 6 Westernerns -- our group and this guy from Hawaii. We all ended up hanging out together for most the trip, but it was pretty funny how easily we stuck out. We also met this great Korean woman that spent most of her time in Osaka with us. I don't think any of us were bothered by the boat ride -- one of our party members said she felt sick, but nothing fun came from it (I really wanted someone to get seasick so I could make fun of them).

The boat was about 3/4 Koreans and 1/4 Japanese (we made too much of a minority to count for anything). One thing that was great about this trip is the older Korean women. One would think, at least I did, that a boat ride such as this would witness the younger people being louder, drinking more and causing more mayhem. This was not the case. The loudest people on the boat, the people that drank the most, were the 40-60 year old women. Walking down the hallways, I could hear boisterous singing and clapping trumpeting through the thick doors. When the women wanted to talk to one another, their voices were only decibels below concert level...and waking up at 5AM to hear two yelling down the halls also put me in a sour mood. I mean, wow, how different than what I was used to.

We arrived in Japan the next morning with the world at our fingertips. Let me revise that -- we didn't speak Japanese and didn't have the slightest idea of where we were going. Luckily, one of the responsible party members booked a hostel for us to stay in and she also wrote down directions on how to get there -- quite contrary to my idea of walking around until we found a cheap place. We boarded the subway and started our trip to the hostel.

This hostel was tailored for international travelers. Two staff members were Japanese and the other 3 or so were international. The place was insanely cheap, only about $15 a night, which is possibly the cheapest place in all Japan. It also wasn't that bad, quality wise. We felt safe, left our valuables in our unlocked room for the whole day, and felt confident nobody would try to harm us.

The hostel did have a weird policy of shutting down between 12PM and 5PM for maintenance -- everyday. That wasn't too much of a problem because we didn't want to spend our day at the hostel, but made checking in a little harder. We had to drop our bags at the front desk and then leave. Our first stop was Osaka Castle.

Osaka Castle was a really cool place to visit. It has been around for 600 some years, so it has served 100 different functions based on the governing authority. I found the funniest part of this whole experience was how often the buildings burned down. Like a museum, each building had an explanation on the purpose and reconstruction to the origional form...and how it was rebuilt after burning down. The only building that didn't burn down was the treasury -- but that was destroyed in a war. My conclusion on Osaka Castle -- the guards were incompitent and accidently burned down the castle every 100 years. Seriouslly, it didn't say things like "this armory was destroyed in a war," it just said "the armory burned down in 1740." I was laughing too hard to breathe by the time I had read that 8 times.

We finished our day in Osaka by trying to find a bar. We were used to places like Korea, where bars are more common than restaurants (probably an exaggeration, but I am not 100% sure). In Japan, we were thinking that bars would be somewhat easy to find -- but surprisingly, we found that every business that would have been a bar in Korea was replaced by a sex shop (no exaggeration). It was astounding to see that the bright lights with beer mugs were quickly replaced with scantily clad women (if not naked) pictures on the door. Maybe it was just the area we were in...

Japan is possibly the most expensive place I have ever seen (although that isn't too big of a list). I spent the whole trip hungry because I couldn't justify spending $14 on dinner with only a small possibility of being filled. A meal that would cost about $3 in the U.S. would be about $8 in Japan, but with less food. The challenge of being unable to successfully ask if something had meat also severely limited my comfort and food choices. At the end of the night, we randomly met up with the other Westerner from the boat ride. It was dumb luck that he saw us when he did. That was our Sunday.

Monday was a day to explore Osaka. I was woken up around 9AM to the Korean woman calling our hostel with the hopes of spending the day with us. We planned to meet at a subway at 11AM, but we chose the busiest and biggest subway in all of Osaka. We couldn't find her, started asking for directions to get to her hotel, got to her hotel an hour after we were set to meet, found she was gone, and started the long trip back to the hostel to get the rest of our group. Oh, so me and the other guy went to meet her and left the three women at the hostel. We figured they would be pissed at us for taking so long and then they would be kicked out of the hostel for maintenance.

We got back to see that the Korean woman was with the other girls, just leaving the hostel. We felt pretty lucky to meet them when we did. We walked around the shopping areas in Osaka for the afternoon, grabbed lunch, and then were going to a Cherry-Blossom festival. The festival was interesting in that there were hundreds of Japanese people and a couple dozen foreigners walking slowly down a dimly lit path, taking pictures of the trees and in front of the trees. It took us a solid hour to make it 200 yards. Afterwards, there was a carnival-like event going on in a nearby park.

I call it a carnival because they had games, prizes, candy and so forth. But the prizes were not giant teddy bears or stuffed animals, but video game systems like Wii's and Playstation 3's, Airsoft guns, anime and pornography...it was very interesting...

On Tuesday, we went to Kyoto. We took the subway -- or maybe it was more like a train -- for about 45 minutes to arrive in central Kyoto. We didn't have any specific plans, but just wanted to see what we could see that was traditional. The Korean woman was also with us for Kyoto.

The first place we went was the Golden Temple. I don't think there were many signs in English, which made it harder to understand the significance of the place. It was beautiful, though. They also had this great idea of putting a small shrine with a bowl in the middle -- which led to people throwing coins to try to score it inside the bowl. There must have been a solid $100 at each shrine.

On that note, I hate Japanese currency. They have three bills that I've seen -- the 1000 Yen, 5000 Yen and 10000 Yen. The 1000 Yen is worth about $10, 5000 Yen is about $50, and $100 is the 10000 Yen bill. For all the rest, they only use coins. I hate change and people that have spent time with me when I bought food will attest that I hate change. Therefore, when I bought something worth 200 Yen with a 1000 Yen bill and received only coins back, I was pissed. I hate coins, but I had to keep these because 500 Yen is actually worth something.

We also got to see Geishas! I was reading a Lonely Planet book on Japan and the synopsis on the back made special mention of seeing three Geishas, so I am pretty stoked that we got to see some. Pictures below. They didn't seem very happy posing for the group that quickly swarmed them.

Japanese people are also very helpful to foreigners. We split up near the end of the day with half of us going to a Manga museum (Japanese comics) and the other half trying to find a traditional tea house. I went to the Manga museum because I promised the Korean woman earlier that I would go with her, despite my later hesitance, it was pretty cool. We didn't fully understand the bus routes, but we figured if we could make it to one stop, then we would be fine. As we ran to a bus station, we asked this guy that was getting into his car if we were at the right station. He said no and directed us to the correct place. We found it and started waiting. About 10 minutes later, he drove back to us and offered us a ride to our destination. He even said he would give us some Japanese candy...okay, the second part was a lie, but I would have been happier if he had given us candy. I mean, how cool is that to get rides from strangers?

We finished the night at a Karaoke Bar. The first song: Mr. Roboto...the song that taught us half of all the Japanese we know...

Wednesday witnessed us going to an art museum. There was an American we met at the hostel from Colorado that ended up joining us. Visiting back to the kindness of Japanese people to foreigners, we were trying to figure out how much it costs to get into the art museum due to the confusion of posting 10 different prices. Eventually, this older man saw us and had us follow him. He gave us all free tickets. It was pretty cool.

After the art museum, our group split up: four were going to an aquarium, one to a ceramics museum, and me. I didn't really want to go to the ceramics museum and the aquarium was too expensive. I ended up walking around Osaka and found myself, somehow, in another red light district. Maybe I am being presumptuous, but I have somehow stumbled to find more prostitutes in two days in Japan than the rest of my life combined.

We had some time on Thursday to shop a little. I saved my money for Thursday because I felt I would run out of money for food if I didn't. I quickly ran around and spent 2000 Yen, headed back to the hostel and gathered up to go back to Korea.

The only thing worth mentioning about the trip back was what one person in the group wanted us to be the "crazy alcoholic foreigners." When we boarded the boat, we wanted to celebrate with a beer -- as if saying goodbye to Japan. Time of first drink: 2PM.

Two hours later, we were playing cards and decided to finish the beer off. Time of second drink: 4PM.

Around 5:30, I decided I needed a nap. When I woke up at 7:50PM, I walked to the lobby to see the rest of the group playing a makeshift board game. They even had dice made out of paper. They also all had a beer in the lobby. Time of third drink: (probably) 7PM.

The boat offered entertainment from like 8:30 to 10PM. Following the really awesome show (the one from Busan to Osaka was a little boring), we all chipped in for bottles of whiskey and coke. Time of fourth drink: 10PM.

We sat down in the lobby and got ready to pour our glasses when one of the crew members gently suggested we go someplace else to drink our hard alcohol. I think it is really funny that most people on the boat saw us drinking from 2PM to 1AM and assumed we were alcoholics. But we were MUCH more sober than the older women, yelling, singing and clapping from their rooms.



This was the digital map that tracked our journey from Busan to Osaka. Once we got inside the islands of Japan, we could see the illuminated coastline.













Osaka Castle. Take notice of the trees that we can see -- the only thing that I can think of that Osaka has over Seoul. Seoul has no trees.












This was a market in Japan. It was more like an outside mall, but it had a roof. It was pretty cool.













When we got off the boat, we needed an ATM because nobody had any Yen. We walked into a convenience store that had "ATM" and some Japanese posted outside. As we withdrew money, we walked around to find this section. Oddly, the majority of these magazines are not pornography, but instead Manga. The old statement that "sex sells" rings so true here -- literally, inside one of these magazines, there are no pictures of women. All that is inside the majority of these is comics.






Golden Temple in Kyoto.














The Imperial Palace. We couldn't go inside because we were too late for the tour. They also had a bunch of weird rules like "There is no age limit for entering the Kyoto Imperial Palace, but a man below 18 years old should be accompanied by an adult." I think that means that women under 18 were fine to enter...









The nice couple that drove us from the bus stop to the central terminal.













Three Geishas that we saw. The person that is half cut off on the right was posing with them. They did not look very happy with the huge swarm of people that came to take pictures. We saw one earlier that was running down the street with people chasing after her, asking her to stop for a picture. Thankfully, foreigners made a minority of the people that were taking pictures and chasing these women.







I dare you not to buy a drink that looks like that.














Many bathrooms in Japan have the stalls numbered. They also provide these handy maps, just in case you get lost.












Our Japanese teacher...















Cherry blossoms in Osaka. The lighting was hard to get, but wow, these look beautiful.