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.