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.
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Friday, April 25, 2008
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.
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.
Saturday, April 12, 2008
A needed update
The main reason that I waited so long to update was because after I finished doing something really fun, I was only like two days away from something new. For instance, when I went to the rice cake museum on Saturday, I had a visit to the Cherry Blossom festival scheduled for Wednesday. So I thought, "why update now when I can include both stories in one?" And then, on Monday, I learned about the tennis tournament, which led to similar logic.
But things have piled up a little too much so I am compelled to finally update.
1) Rice Cake Museum: One of the planned events from the PEACE buddies involved going to visit a rice cake museum, glorified by the opportunity to make our own rice cakes! Rice cakes are traditional Korean snacks (maybe deserts?) that only have the faintest sweet taste -- as in, nobody would ever say they were too sweet. I've had some really bad ones before...the dull taste can sometimes feel like I am eating rice paste. So I was a little concerned over how mine would turn out. But, the extra addition of love, made sure that mine were the best ones there!
The rice cake museum was in the outskirts of Insadong (the traditional Korean area. Also it is the only place where Starbucks is spelled with Korean characters). I was pretty tired because I only had about 6 hours of sleep, but the excitement was able to overpower the fatigue. When we arrived, we sat down in a classroom, facing a chef as she taught us the steps to follow to make the rice cakes. There was also a camera focused on the table with a TV in the corner so we could see what she was doing. I laughed when she grabbed the remote to zoom in and most the room gasped "wow..."
Anyways, she spoke in Korean and far too quick for me to really understand what she was saying. She did a really good job at hand motions, so I felt confident I would not burn anything down. We then divided into teams of six and started cooking.
The first step was to peel the skins off of sweet potatoes. Koreans really like these damn potatoes because I find them everywhere. Every coffee shop I've been to has sweet potato lattes complimented with sweet potato pastries. Let me just say, for the record, sweet potato lattes are really gross. It is like a sweeter milk with potato floating around inside. I only drank it because I already paid for it. Anyways, after we peeled the potatoes, we needed to crush them into a paste. After we did that, we needed the paste to be extremely fine by pushing it through a filter. It made me feel like I was digging for gold because I had to really crush those potatoes to get them through the small mesh bottom. When that was done, we put them inside this huge pot on the stove to cook them with steam (boiling water at the bottom). And then we had our food!
I may be missing a couple steps in the process. It took us about an hour (with six people), but we were also making something else. Additionally, those steps are only what I worked on because I was concentrating too much on my work to pay much attention to what the others were doing.
Finally, with the rice cake museum, I have to express my confusion about the names. I thought that rice cakes were the little colored pastries seen below, but all we did with those was try to get red bean inside. And everyone kept calling the cake-looking thing a rice cake. Anyways, I am not 100% sure which is which. Google suggested that rice cakes were the colored pastries.
Wait, I need a finally-post-script. We "made" the colored pastries as well. What I mean by that is that the dough was already made and our job was to flatten it out, add in the red bean, and then roll it into a good enough ball to keep the red bean from coming out. These were considered successful if you couldn't see the red bean on the edges, but instead only in the middle.
This is the cake thing that we made with sweet potatoes and some other things (God help me, I can't remember). With four groups, our cake tied for second place...but there was also a tie for first...
These were what I always thought were rice cakes. The tiny pink one was made by me when there was only a little dough left. The Japanese girls in my group thought it was weird that I was naming the ones I made. Actually, everybody thought it was weird. As you can see in the four surrounding Wilbur (the baby rice cake), the red bean is clearly visible on the sides, which means that we didn't do that great of a job on those. But mine was pretty amazing!
I did such a good job that the chef gave me a certificate of appreciation...
...Then I found out she gave one to everybody. That smile was hard to fake because it was covering my crushed spirit...
We had Wednesday off from classes for General Election Day. From what I can tell, whenever there is an election, schools shut down as well as some companies. With my Wednesday, I was going to watch the tennis team play in a tournament followed by an afternoon trip to see the Cherry Blossom Festival.
Tennis is essentially the same as back in the States with a few minor changes, most noted before. It was my first trip to the Yonsei University tennis courts -- let me just say, I do NOT understand why Koreans build tennis courts at the highest elevation on the whole campus. It took me 20 minutes of walking to the highest point to find the tennis courts, followed by getting lost because Yonsei posts no signs for the courts.
Tennis matches at the University level is fairly different than I am used to. There really aren't any 1 vs. 1 matches, but rather, an actual tournament with teams from each university. It is also fairly easy to be playing someone from your own school. Koreans are also very competitive, but maintain the image of respect. There was one instance where the ball landed close to the line and the team that called it out asked for the other players to come over and examine the spot where the ball landed. They sat for a solid four minutes talking about whether the mark on the clay court (I was so stoked to find that Koreans play on clay) was the right one, followed by if that mark was in or out. After one team won the call, the team that lost the point bowed and thanked their opponents.
Since I am on tennis, I will go over how the tournament went with me. It was in the same format as the one at Yonsei. I planned to play mixed doubles with a friend that studied abroad at Colombia University for the 2007 academic year. I got to play on clay for the second time in my life, but the first match of my life. All the Koreans are able to slide everywhere they go, but I really struggled with that and only slid when I changed directions quickly and lost my balance. I was expecting to slide much more and was ready to be injured by tripping, but it didn't happen.
We also were playing only one set with no-add scoring. We won our first match 6-3. The next team we were playing was really unique because the female played in men's doubles as well. I felt, as we went into the match after watching them destroy a really good team, that we were pretty much screwed. I was pretty happy when we won our first game at 0-3, then happier when we won the next two, and then even happier when we were up 4-3. I felt that we could actually win, especially after winning a match point at 4-5 and tying the set at 5-5 for a tiebreaker. We got down 1-5 and game back to sadly lose 5-7 on a really easy ball that I should have put away. It was very exciting and both my partner and I had huge smiles after the match. Our opponents really seemed beat and ended up forfeiting their next match from shoulder pain.
One thing that really bothers me about Korean tennis is the way that women play with men. What I mean by that is that the men never serve hard to the girls and, when it gets competitive, seem to sideline their female partners. In my match, the man served huge to me but barely lobbed it in to my partner. I asked my partner before the match what she thought of that and she said how women like it that way because it makes the man appear like a gentleman. I was having trouble doing that because it came off as so demeaning -- like saying that she isn't good enough to play with me at my best, so I will try to make it as easy for you as possible.
Additionally, when I watched the following rounds, the male would literally jump in front of his female partner to take a volley that she was perfectly capable of hitting. The matches were boring to watch as it was the two girls standing at the net as the guys played from the baseline, occasionally lobbing the girl at the net and then the women shifted sides. In the whole set, I couldn't imagine each girl hitting more than 20 shots (serves excluded).
Being the only foreigner at the tournament also served a huge advantage. Whenever anybody was hitting to me, they tried really hard to blast the ball or hit a winner on me. If I was at the net, the returner would just hammer the ball down the line (see also, right at me) but would blow the shot and miss by a strong 7 or 8 feet. I think they must have been very nervous around me. I did notice the trend that they seemed to want me to make the mistake...
At the end of the day (I was there from 1PM to 9PM), we celebrated Korean style (drinking). We went to this bar that was close by and ordered some food and alcohol. Part of Korean culture is for the boss, elder or host to pay for everything. After we ordered about $80 worth of food and drinks at our table, the captain of the host university came over, introduced himself, and said that everything was on him. He told us to enjoy our night. I looked around the bar and saw six tables of tennis players and I would guess that each table was probably close to what we were at...meaning that guy might be leaving the night paying around $500 or so.
As we were leaving, I started looking for him to thank him for being so kind. It was really interesting, but at each table I walked up to, everybody stood up and yelled "ERIK!" I kid you not, but every tennis player at that bar knew my name and who I was. It still feels weird knowing that I will see these people in the future, being unable to recall their faces or names, and they will completely remember me.
Last story: The Cherry Blossom Festival. Although spring is here, the weather does not really indicate that. It is slowly getting warmer, but sunshine is still a precious commodity as clouds taint the sky. Notwithstanding, I only know it is turning into spring because of the beautiful plants that are starting to bloom. Yeoido (I think that is the spelling) has a Cheery Blossom Festival each year--well, not really a festival. I really don't know what to call it because there are all these advertisements for the festival but it is only a park on the Han River that has really pretty trees and shrubs. I thought I may have missed the festival part. When I told people that I went, they were surprised I went alone. Because it is popular for couples to go, they thought that there was something wrong with me for not taking my girlfriend (not having a girlfriend seems to also be a problem).
I can't remember if I discussed how ordering delivery works in Korea. They, quite literally, deliver anywhere. We were talking about what to order and within twenty minutes, two guys on mopeds delivered this food to us at the tennis courts. They leave the plates and such and then pick them up at a later time. This is Chinese food. Localization of food is still entertaining to me; enjoying Chinese food in Korea and having everything taste different than American-Chinese food -- or even Indian food (I had some like two weeks ago) and noticing all the differences. As part of Korean culture, the captain would not let me contribute any money for the meal, but instead treated us all.
This picture was taken at Yeoido. This boat was on the Han River as these kids came off. I thought it was really cute. Additionally, the giant steps that they had to climb to get back on the main path were larger than their legs. I slowed down to watch them try to climb these stairs that were half their size. If all the kids had the orange suits the ones in the back have, this caption would involve juvenile detention while in Korea.
A Cherry Blossom tree in Korea. Look at the sky -- where are you sunshine?!
I was walking around with some time to burn and I really liked this picture. The place with the umbrella is a small newsstand, if I remember right. It is also common to see stores like that selling fish, produce, brooms, rice cakes and so forth.
I have midterms this week followed by a hopeful trip to Japan on Friday. I am not sure if anything eventful enough will come up before Friday, but if not, I get to write a long post about my trip to Osaka!
But things have piled up a little too much so I am compelled to finally update.
1) Rice Cake Museum: One of the planned events from the PEACE buddies involved going to visit a rice cake museum, glorified by the opportunity to make our own rice cakes! Rice cakes are traditional Korean snacks (maybe deserts?) that only have the faintest sweet taste -- as in, nobody would ever say they were too sweet. I've had some really bad ones before...the dull taste can sometimes feel like I am eating rice paste. So I was a little concerned over how mine would turn out. But, the extra addition of love, made sure that mine were the best ones there!
The rice cake museum was in the outskirts of Insadong (the traditional Korean area. Also it is the only place where Starbucks is spelled with Korean characters). I was pretty tired because I only had about 6 hours of sleep, but the excitement was able to overpower the fatigue. When we arrived, we sat down in a classroom, facing a chef as she taught us the steps to follow to make the rice cakes. There was also a camera focused on the table with a TV in the corner so we could see what she was doing. I laughed when she grabbed the remote to zoom in and most the room gasped "wow..."
Anyways, she spoke in Korean and far too quick for me to really understand what she was saying. She did a really good job at hand motions, so I felt confident I would not burn anything down. We then divided into teams of six and started cooking.
The first step was to peel the skins off of sweet potatoes. Koreans really like these damn potatoes because I find them everywhere. Every coffee shop I've been to has sweet potato lattes complimented with sweet potato pastries. Let me just say, for the record, sweet potato lattes are really gross. It is like a sweeter milk with potato floating around inside. I only drank it because I already paid for it. Anyways, after we peeled the potatoes, we needed to crush them into a paste. After we did that, we needed the paste to be extremely fine by pushing it through a filter. It made me feel like I was digging for gold because I had to really crush those potatoes to get them through the small mesh bottom. When that was done, we put them inside this huge pot on the stove to cook them with steam (boiling water at the bottom). And then we had our food!
I may be missing a couple steps in the process. It took us about an hour (with six people), but we were also making something else. Additionally, those steps are only what I worked on because I was concentrating too much on my work to pay much attention to what the others were doing.
Finally, with the rice cake museum, I have to express my confusion about the names. I thought that rice cakes were the little colored pastries seen below, but all we did with those was try to get red bean inside. And everyone kept calling the cake-looking thing a rice cake. Anyways, I am not 100% sure which is which. Google suggested that rice cakes were the colored pastries.
Wait, I need a finally-post-script. We "made" the colored pastries as well. What I mean by that is that the dough was already made and our job was to flatten it out, add in the red bean, and then roll it into a good enough ball to keep the red bean from coming out. These were considered successful if you couldn't see the red bean on the edges, but instead only in the middle.
This is the cake thing that we made with sweet potatoes and some other things (God help me, I can't remember). With four groups, our cake tied for second place...but there was also a tie for first...
These were what I always thought were rice cakes. The tiny pink one was made by me when there was only a little dough left. The Japanese girls in my group thought it was weird that I was naming the ones I made. Actually, everybody thought it was weird. As you can see in the four surrounding Wilbur (the baby rice cake), the red bean is clearly visible on the sides, which means that we didn't do that great of a job on those. But mine was pretty amazing!
I did such a good job that the chef gave me a certificate of appreciation...
...Then I found out she gave one to everybody. That smile was hard to fake because it was covering my crushed spirit...
We had Wednesday off from classes for General Election Day. From what I can tell, whenever there is an election, schools shut down as well as some companies. With my Wednesday, I was going to watch the tennis team play in a tournament followed by an afternoon trip to see the Cherry Blossom Festival.
Tennis is essentially the same as back in the States with a few minor changes, most noted before. It was my first trip to the Yonsei University tennis courts -- let me just say, I do NOT understand why Koreans build tennis courts at the highest elevation on the whole campus. It took me 20 minutes of walking to the highest point to find the tennis courts, followed by getting lost because Yonsei posts no signs for the courts.
Tennis matches at the University level is fairly different than I am used to. There really aren't any 1 vs. 1 matches, but rather, an actual tournament with teams from each university. It is also fairly easy to be playing someone from your own school. Koreans are also very competitive, but maintain the image of respect. There was one instance where the ball landed close to the line and the team that called it out asked for the other players to come over and examine the spot where the ball landed. They sat for a solid four minutes talking about whether the mark on the clay court (I was so stoked to find that Koreans play on clay) was the right one, followed by if that mark was in or out. After one team won the call, the team that lost the point bowed and thanked their opponents.
Since I am on tennis, I will go over how the tournament went with me. It was in the same format as the one at Yonsei. I planned to play mixed doubles with a friend that studied abroad at Colombia University for the 2007 academic year. I got to play on clay for the second time in my life, but the first match of my life. All the Koreans are able to slide everywhere they go, but I really struggled with that and only slid when I changed directions quickly and lost my balance. I was expecting to slide much more and was ready to be injured by tripping, but it didn't happen.
We also were playing only one set with no-add scoring. We won our first match 6-3. The next team we were playing was really unique because the female played in men's doubles as well. I felt, as we went into the match after watching them destroy a really good team, that we were pretty much screwed. I was pretty happy when we won our first game at 0-3, then happier when we won the next two, and then even happier when we were up 4-3. I felt that we could actually win, especially after winning a match point at 4-5 and tying the set at 5-5 for a tiebreaker. We got down 1-5 and game back to sadly lose 5-7 on a really easy ball that I should have put away. It was very exciting and both my partner and I had huge smiles after the match. Our opponents really seemed beat and ended up forfeiting their next match from shoulder pain.
One thing that really bothers me about Korean tennis is the way that women play with men. What I mean by that is that the men never serve hard to the girls and, when it gets competitive, seem to sideline their female partners. In my match, the man served huge to me but barely lobbed it in to my partner. I asked my partner before the match what she thought of that and she said how women like it that way because it makes the man appear like a gentleman. I was having trouble doing that because it came off as so demeaning -- like saying that she isn't good enough to play with me at my best, so I will try to make it as easy for you as possible.
Additionally, when I watched the following rounds, the male would literally jump in front of his female partner to take a volley that she was perfectly capable of hitting. The matches were boring to watch as it was the two girls standing at the net as the guys played from the baseline, occasionally lobbing the girl at the net and then the women shifted sides. In the whole set, I couldn't imagine each girl hitting more than 20 shots (serves excluded).
Being the only foreigner at the tournament also served a huge advantage. Whenever anybody was hitting to me, they tried really hard to blast the ball or hit a winner on me. If I was at the net, the returner would just hammer the ball down the line (see also, right at me) but would blow the shot and miss by a strong 7 or 8 feet. I think they must have been very nervous around me. I did notice the trend that they seemed to want me to make the mistake...
At the end of the day (I was there from 1PM to 9PM), we celebrated Korean style (drinking). We went to this bar that was close by and ordered some food and alcohol. Part of Korean culture is for the boss, elder or host to pay for everything. After we ordered about $80 worth of food and drinks at our table, the captain of the host university came over, introduced himself, and said that everything was on him. He told us to enjoy our night. I looked around the bar and saw six tables of tennis players and I would guess that each table was probably close to what we were at...meaning that guy might be leaving the night paying around $500 or so.
As we were leaving, I started looking for him to thank him for being so kind. It was really interesting, but at each table I walked up to, everybody stood up and yelled "ERIK!" I kid you not, but every tennis player at that bar knew my name and who I was. It still feels weird knowing that I will see these people in the future, being unable to recall their faces or names, and they will completely remember me.
Last story: The Cherry Blossom Festival. Although spring is here, the weather does not really indicate that. It is slowly getting warmer, but sunshine is still a precious commodity as clouds taint the sky. Notwithstanding, I only know it is turning into spring because of the beautiful plants that are starting to bloom. Yeoido (I think that is the spelling) has a Cheery Blossom Festival each year--well, not really a festival. I really don't know what to call it because there are all these advertisements for the festival but it is only a park on the Han River that has really pretty trees and shrubs. I thought I may have missed the festival part. When I told people that I went, they were surprised I went alone. Because it is popular for couples to go, they thought that there was something wrong with me for not taking my girlfriend (not having a girlfriend seems to also be a problem).
I can't remember if I discussed how ordering delivery works in Korea. They, quite literally, deliver anywhere. We were talking about what to order and within twenty minutes, two guys on mopeds delivered this food to us at the tennis courts. They leave the plates and such and then pick them up at a later time. This is Chinese food. Localization of food is still entertaining to me; enjoying Chinese food in Korea and having everything taste different than American-Chinese food -- or even Indian food (I had some like two weeks ago) and noticing all the differences. As part of Korean culture, the captain would not let me contribute any money for the meal, but instead treated us all.
This picture was taken at Yeoido. This boat was on the Han River as these kids came off. I thought it was really cute. Additionally, the giant steps that they had to climb to get back on the main path were larger than their legs. I slowed down to watch them try to climb these stairs that were half their size. If all the kids had the orange suits the ones in the back have, this caption would involve juvenile detention while in Korea.
A Cherry Blossom tree in Korea. Look at the sky -- where are you sunshine?!
I was walking around with some time to burn and I really liked this picture. The place with the umbrella is a small newsstand, if I remember right. It is also common to see stores like that selling fish, produce, brooms, rice cakes and so forth.
I have midterms this week followed by a hopeful trip to Japan on Friday. I am not sure if anything eventful enough will come up before Friday, but if not, I get to write a long post about my trip to Osaka!
Friday, April 11, 2008
Busy
I've been really busy lately. I have a lot to update on so this is what to expect this weekend:
1) My visit to a rice cake museum.
2) My visit to witness the blossoming plants to welcome spring
3) My first Korean tennis tournament
4) My first Korean tennis tournament that I played in
5) Anything that happens in the next 24 hours that is worthy of writing about.
1) My visit to a rice cake museum.
2) My visit to witness the blossoming plants to welcome spring
3) My first Korean tennis tournament
4) My first Korean tennis tournament that I played in
5) Anything that happens in the next 24 hours that is worthy of writing about.
Thursday, April 3, 2008
Interesting...
I was walking to class on Wednesday and heard two Korean girls speaking in English. I didn't really fully understand how surprised I was until today when I thought back about it. It has been so long since I last was able to eavesdrop on a conversation and understand the topic. This has been on my mind all day: when I arrive back in the states, what will be different for me and take readjustment? First answer: hearing English spoken by strangers.
Sadly, at the end of the month, I learned that I didn't receive the scholarship from the State Department. It was a little bittersweet. On one hand, I was looking forward to staying in Korea for the summer and learning Korean under the government's banner...but on the other, it would have kept me in Suwon until late August, binding me to a commitment of intensive daily language classes. I am still a little disappointed, nonetheless.
I went to talk to the Office of Global Affairs today about enrolling in the summer program. They made it sound fairly easy for exchange students already here, as in, I wouldn't need to reapply and the program costs would be paid to my home university. Additionally, they said that they only needed an "official" email from my university to show that they authorized my decision. I emailed my adviser today to request for that letter and for any clarification if I misunderstood the process.
If I enroll in the summer courses, I would stay at Ewha until the end of July. From where I am at now, I think I would take August to mid-September to travel around South East Asia. Also on my possible itinerary is Germany, but I am slowly becoming painfully aware of how much this all will cost.
On a much happier note, I discovered that my visa is a multiple entry visa! When I applied, I remember asking only for a single entry, thinking I may encounter some problems about coming to Korea before the school year started. Therefore, at the time, I wanted to request single entry until I figured everything else out. After my talk with OGA, I found out that my visa is multiple entry -- saving me about $50 and a couple hours at immigration (although I like to think of their employees as friends of mine).
One thing that I love about being here is the ease of visiting other countries. From what I understand about the academic calendar, I will have a Monday-Wednesday off of classes during midterm week. I think that midterm week at Ewha means there are no classes -- but we have Thursday and Friday classes because we are international. Or at least Korean language classes...
Soooooo, that means that I will have a five day weekend in late April. Already, I am trying to figure out what I can do. For about $105, I can take a boat from Pusan to somewhere in Japan -- giving me about four days in Japan. One of the international students from Belgium participated in a Rubix Cube competition in Japan over a Thursday through Sunday weekend. I mean, how cool is that to visit Japan for the weekend? Another option is to take a boat from Incheon to China, giving me four or five days in Beijing or Shanghai (Hong Kong perhaps?). I am pretty excited for that opportunity. If anyone has some input to share with me about what I should do with those five days, feel free to let me know (I could also skip my Friday class and get an early start).
Sadly, at the end of the month, I learned that I didn't receive the scholarship from the State Department. It was a little bittersweet. On one hand, I was looking forward to staying in Korea for the summer and learning Korean under the government's banner...but on the other, it would have kept me in Suwon until late August, binding me to a commitment of intensive daily language classes. I am still a little disappointed, nonetheless.
I went to talk to the Office of Global Affairs today about enrolling in the summer program. They made it sound fairly easy for exchange students already here, as in, I wouldn't need to reapply and the program costs would be paid to my home university. Additionally, they said that they only needed an "official" email from my university to show that they authorized my decision. I emailed my adviser today to request for that letter and for any clarification if I misunderstood the process.
If I enroll in the summer courses, I would stay at Ewha until the end of July. From where I am at now, I think I would take August to mid-September to travel around South East Asia. Also on my possible itinerary is Germany, but I am slowly becoming painfully aware of how much this all will cost.
On a much happier note, I discovered that my visa is a multiple entry visa! When I applied, I remember asking only for a single entry, thinking I may encounter some problems about coming to Korea before the school year started. Therefore, at the time, I wanted to request single entry until I figured everything else out. After my talk with OGA, I found out that my visa is multiple entry -- saving me about $50 and a couple hours at immigration (although I like to think of their employees as friends of mine).
One thing that I love about being here is the ease of visiting other countries. From what I understand about the academic calendar, I will have a Monday-Wednesday off of classes during midterm week. I think that midterm week at Ewha means there are no classes -- but we have Thursday and Friday classes because we are international. Or at least Korean language classes...
Soooooo, that means that I will have a five day weekend in late April. Already, I am trying to figure out what I can do. For about $105, I can take a boat from Pusan to somewhere in Japan -- giving me about four days in Japan. One of the international students from Belgium participated in a Rubix Cube competition in Japan over a Thursday through Sunday weekend. I mean, how cool is that to visit Japan for the weekend? Another option is to take a boat from Incheon to China, giving me four or five days in Beijing or Shanghai (Hong Kong perhaps?). I am pretty excited for that opportunity. If anyone has some input to share with me about what I should do with those five days, feel free to let me know (I could also skip my Friday class and get an early start).
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)