the oddballs.

Ok, so in my travels, I often think about perceptions and misperceptions regarding culture. I think our awareness of the oddities in any particular culture become heightened when we are outside of our own culture or one we are familiar with.

Along the Tancheon River by my house recently, I've noticed a lot of older women down on the ground picking some kind of plant. I totally just assumed this was a weird Korean quirk. I snooped a little and then looked at the grocery store to figure out what exactly it was that they were picking. I figured out that they were picking Dandelion plants. Not the flowers, the leafy part.

On Saturday night, I had dinner with one of my students mothers and I asked her about this. She kind of laughed and said, "hmm, that's weird, I would think those plants are very dirty." My thoughts exactly! Think of all the dogs that have peed on those weeds. She even told me that a whole bundle of them only costs about $2.00 in the store. Which led me to believe that even a lot of Koreans find this behavior to be a little odd.

Anyway, the point of writing about this is that I think it's important to realize that there are really weird things and behaviors everywhere, but it does not mean that the whold culture is like that. Culture shock causes a hypersensitivity to the behaviors of those around us, and also I think often leads to a negative criticism towards that culture. Gosh, if there was somone visiting California, I really would hope they wouldn't group all Californians with some of the crazies we have there!! People can just be strange. Anywhere. And that folks, is my insight for the day!

Awesome Blossom

This time of year is absolutely beautiful here! I was going to try to go to a festival this weekend in Seoul to look at cherry blossoms, but apparently "festival" just means a very large crowd walking along a street to look at blossoms...and that just didn't sound appealing. The other day after school, I was on a walk since the weather has gotten so beautiful, and came across some pretty amazing trees. Here are a few pictures from the day:


















The only problem with them is that I think they make me intensely allergic. I've been sneezing and coughing, and have a terribly stuffed-up nose the past few days. Either that or I'm just sick--again. I'll be headed to the doctor during my break tomorrow to try to get over it, either way.

old classmates and learning Korean

I meant to write about this earlier, but a couple weeks ago, I got to hang out with some of my old classmates from JBU, David and Kyle. It was great and also a little surreal to see familiar faces from my past in a foreign country. We got some takgalbi--my new favorite Korean food consisting of chicken, cabbage, rice cake, noodles, hot sauce, and other vegetables, all cooked on a giant frying pan in front of you. Delicious. Then, David took us to an "international" party, where we met a lot of interesting people from around the world....actually no, most of the people we met were from Korea. There were also some other English teachers and some Army guys there. It was fun to talk to some new people.

Here we are at the party:

Anyway, David offered to connect me with a girl he knows who is studying to become a Korean teacher for foreigners. We've met 2 times now and Alicia, Mariko and I will start meeting with her weekly to learn Korean. I'm stoked about this! She was amazing last week. She had prepared flashcards of the alphabet and some basic words. I already have learned the basic alphabet and will start to be able to read words! yay! (Don't worry, this isn't actually all that impressive, as the Korean alphabet is pretty simple). Its good to have friends there also as motivation to keep studying. Thanks David! Oh by the way, David is also motivation to learn. Hyemin, my Korean teacher, said that David speaks Korean better than any foreigner she's met. Nice!

Cuteness Award

Bethany elected me for this cuteness award thing. I guess I will do it for lack of anything else I want to write about right now. I'm supposed to write 10 not-so-cute things about myself, so here goes:

1) I burp quite often after drinking orange juice. My burps are pretty impressive too. Not very lady-like and I'm sure they are very unattractive.

2) I tend to leave 1/3 of a glass left over of most things I drink. I find I just really don't like to finish that last little swig. It can be annoying for people who live with me and find lots of almost finished drinks laying around.

3) I have extremely flat feet. It means I'm a little awkward and not very cute in heels.

4) Like Bethany, I don't floss regularly(sorry for stealing that one)

5)I get annoyed very easily and let it show a little too often to the people I love.

6) I get very crabby when I haven't had enough sleep. My required amount is about 9 hours a night plus the quite frequent nap. I've always been this way.

7) I procrastinate with important tasks.

8) I can be lazy when it comes to my work. I'm working on this, honestly.

9) I like to share things, so when you are eating with me, I will want to try whatever you have. I try not to do this with strangers

10) I don't wash my sheets more than once every three weeks, more often than not, its less than that. If I'm the only one who sleeps in them and I shower every day, what does it really matter??

So, for those of you reading this, you can tell me if you agree. I now elect the following people to do this, even if you think its lame:

Marian, Angela, Jenna(you guys should do it on facebook)

oh the time...

How it fills up! I have been wanting to blog for awhile, but haven't gotten around to it. This week I will catch up. First with Insadong. Like I said before, Insadong is a touristy area of Seoul(about 45 minute subway ride from here) that has a lot of shopping, street vendors, and restaurants. Its super cool. There are a lot of unique artsy stores. I went with Alicia, a girl I met from home right before I came to Korea and her friend, Jenni. I bought some GREAT stuff I'm super excited about(warning--if you get a Christmas present from me, it will probably be from there). I bought myself a Korean print to frame and put up at some point, the awesome (handmade) necklace you saw in the previous post, some cool paper to put on my wall, a cute cheap leather purse, and a wallet made from eel skin(supposed to last for a very long time).

A picture of the main strip in Insadong, yes, it was as cold as it looks:



We also came across a vendor that sold traditional Korean candies. It's easier to explain if you just watch the video(sorry it's sideways):





I haven't eaten a ton of Korean food outside of the school lunches that are provided for me, so this also gave me the opportunity to try something new. We had some SoonDubu, which is a spicy tofu soup(dubu=tofu), Kimchi fried rice, and a spicy dumpling soup. It may have been a little bit of an overkill on the spicy food, but it was delicious, nonetheless. Korean's sure like their spicy food! I guess I better get used to it.

Lastly, we went to a cute little teahouse. The teahouse seats were old airline seats, and there was a train track in the middle. We had some delicious tea and relaxed after a long day of shopping.

Here's Alicia and me and the tea house:





This is the only Starbucks in Korea written in Hongul(the language). Pretty cool:



Looking at some of the cool pottery:




"Mandu" is dumplings in Korean. The restaurant we went to in Insadong almost got the English translation right:) :



After Insadong, we took a trip to E-Mart, the Walmart of Korea. It's always a cultural experience seeing all the Korean families out on a Sunday afternoon, but I HAD to get a picture of these glittery toilet seat covers they had for sale. Gotta love it.


And that's all for now. I have lots more to write about, so another post will be coming up soon!

new layout

Hey everyone. I decided to try a new layout. Let me know what you think. I lost all the pictures and links on the side, but I can get those back I think. I like the simple, unique and classy look of this one.

Also, this weekend I went to a cool town called Insadong with Alicia. More on that later, but here is a picture of an amazing necklace I bought there. I have a jewelry-purchasing addiction.

subway seats

In Korea, there are about 9 seats on every subway car reserved for seniors, pregnant women, or people with disabilities. Unlike the U.S., its a definite faux paus to sit in these seats, even if no one needs them at the time. I was on a not-so-crowded train yesterday, with a long way to go, and an older woman saw me standing and moved to the reserved seat so I could sit down without shame. It's things like that that make my day. So far, Koreans have been nothing but generous and kind. Why can't more people decide to give up there seat on a daily basis?