Weddings, Ferry-Riding, Caving, and Hiking Bukhansan

So I promised to blog about the Korean weddings we went to and our last Adventure Korea trip, and here it is (although a bit late)! Two weeks ago we went to my Korean coworker Jeff's wedding in Seoul. I was surprised how modern the weddings are. Weddings here are usually held in a big hall that is specifically designed for weddings only. The wedding ceremony and banquet are held in the same building, and the entire event only lasts about 2-3 hours in total. Much shorter than the all-day events in America right? Jeff's wedding hall was decorated with flashing lights and huge projector screens next to the ceremony platform. I almost felt like I was in Vegas. The brides dress in glittery white flowing gowns with princess crowns on their heads. The slideshow on the projector screen was really nice...it flashed professional wedding photos of the bride and groom that made them look like models in fashion magazines. They also played a video slideshow about how the bride and groom met...Jeff and his wife met in elementary school and dated for 10 years! So overall, there was no bridesmaids, no groomsmen, no flower girl or ring bearer. That cut out a lot of time! Also, the women who usually catches the bouquet in America is pre-selected and she only catches the bouquet so the photographers can get a good photo. After the ceremony, the few hundred people at the wedding rush into the banquet hall for a buffet dinner. The buffet was really fresh and delicious, but they only give you about enough time to eat two platefuls before they usher you out to get ready for the next wedding. Most guests leave after that, but we stayed for a few minutes to see "pebek," which a traditional ceremony in which the bride and groom don traditional hanbok and bow to their parents. The following weekend we went to Danny's Korean coworker Michelle's wedding. It was virtually the same, except that her ceremony hall was a little classier. Oh and I failed to mention the gift-giving process! In Korea it seems only acceptable to give straight up cash as a gift. Yup - that means no gift registry at Bloomingdales or Bed Bath & Beyond! At the first wedding, Danny and I placed our gift in a card with pretty pink envelope. Before you even enter the wedding, you must hand your gift to a table of men that collect and record the amount of gifts, and then give you meal tickets. We handed the pink envelope to them and they looked a bit confused, since most people were handing in cash with no cards!

The day after our first wedding we went on an Adventure Korea "caving & ferry-riding" trip. It was just a day trip to the largest and cleanest man-made lake about 2 hours south of Seoul. I didn't realize until after we got home that night that the lake was man-made. It looked so natural, and the water color was the turquoise blue-green of the Mediterranean! We rode 2 ferries around the huge lake and saw some beautiful hills around a valley and land formations. We went inside a large limestone cave, and then took the bus to another location which featured two famous natural rock formations. One was three peaks in the middle of the lake where it was believed nobles used to spend time and another was a "gate" or hollowed out piece of rock that gave a beautiful view of the lake. When we returned to Seoul we hit up the great vegan buffet restaurant in Gangnam again.

Last weekend we celebrated "white day" (second Valentine's Day in Korea) by going to our favorite middle eastern restaurant called Petra in Itaewon. Everything there is so fresh and tasty! We had hummus, baba ganouj, yogurt dip, roasted eggplant dip, pita bread, felafel, and roasted chicken with cous cous. The falafel is by far the best I've ever had. We also saw Alice in Wonderland in 3D last weekend. I knew I would like it because it's a Tim Burton film, and it was good. But the original Disney version is still my favorite.

This past Saturday it rained, so we just spent the day studying Italian and watching an entire season of Californication. Saturday night we had dinner at the Korean vegetarian restaurant Sosim in Insadong. Good thing we rested up Saturday because on Sunday we had quite the adventure. It was a beautiful sunny day and close to 50 degrees, so we decided to invite Danny's college friend Cormick to hike Mt. Bukhan with us. Bukhansan is a range of large mountains bordering the north of Seoul city. Hiking is the most popular sport here, and you can see tons of middle-aged and older Koreans riding the subway in hiking gear everyday. We started at Gupabal station in the northwest of Seoul near us, and took a short bus ride to one of the most popular entrances to the mountain. Along the base of the mountain, there are tons of casual restaurants serving hot Korean food, snacks, and alcohol. We bypassed those and headed up the mountain in our running sneakers. The "trails" aren't really marked at all and you can barely call huge piles of rocks a "trail," so we just followed our instincts up the mountain. We saw some temples and a fortress wall on our way up. It was really fun and we got really warm when we started. As soon as we neared the top, it naturally got colder. We thought we reached the highest peak when we witnessed an incredible view. But sure enough on our way "down," we reached 2 or 3 more peaks. Each one felt higher than the one before! I have to admit it felt quite dangerous at some times, and we slipped and turned ankles a few times. This middle-aged Korean guy made fun of us for hiking in sneakers, but we beat him up a big rock using a rope to climb up. He stopped criticizing us after that and even took my picture at the top. We finally found a steep and rocky way down and made it to the base. Unfortunately the base was on the outskirt of the city along a highway. Luckily there was a city bus stop on the highway and it turns out we ended just north of the school I work at. The hike took a total of over 4 hours and we know the trail down was about 5 kilometers. So I'm guessing we hiked over 10km total to a peak of 800m! Danny and I were starving after because we only brought 1 granola bar each for the trek. We headed to Insadong for dinner at Oh Sae Gye Hyang, another Korean vegan restaurant. This restaurant features mostly mock-meats in their dishes. Danny had vegan "tang-su-yuk," which is fried Chinese sweet and sour pork with fruit, vegetables, and cashews. Obviously his dish wasn't made with pork, but rather with soy protein and mushrooms. I had spicy chili mushroom rolls served over perilla leaves (sesame seed leaves). When I say mushrooms I'm sure you are thinking of the tasteless button mushrooms we have in America. Korean mushrooms are so flavorful and chewy. They could easily pass as meat, which is why vegan restaurants often use them. My dish could have passed for tender spicy chili chicken wings. I can't wait to go back to that restaurant...if only it was closer and open later!

Goodbye to Friends & Uljin Snow Crab Festival

Our second term at CDI has ended, and the spring term started this week. We've been busy prepping new lessons, so I haven't had a chance to blog in awhile. My students gave me some cute birthday and goodbye gifts at the end of the winter term. You can see some pictures of my students and Danny's students on my Picasa photo page. This term I am teaching more upper-level classes than usual. I taught my first Par Reading class on Thursday and I felt a bit confused. The structure and material was so new to me compared to the simple lessons for the younger kids. I can't believe how smart these students are. They read these long passages and then pick out the thesis, major details, and minor details. They seem to understand the exercises better than most American high school students would. Hopefully the upper-level students will also be more well-behaved than my younger students in the past.

Last week we said goodbye to 3 of Danny's coworkers. Two of his Korean teachers were getting new teaching jobs and his coworker Daniel was returning back to the the U.S. It was sad to see them go, because we hung out with them a lot the past 2 terms. Danny's school had a farewell dinner for its 3 teachers, and I met up with them at a norebang after work. We sang karaoke there for nearly 2 hours. Afterwards, we went to a bar and the casino. Luckily I didn't have to teach the next day until 4pm. Three of the teachers from my school finished their contracts last week too, and my school had a farewell dinner too. Unfortunately, I couldn't join them because Danny and I had to wake up crazy early for another Adventure Korea trip.

Our second Adventure Korea trip was called "Uljin Snow Crab Festival & Wilderness Trekking." Uljin is a seaport town on the east coast of Korea. It took about 4-5 hours to drive there because we had to meander through small villages and around mountains. It seems that most terrain in Korea is mountainous, which is so different than what I'm used to back home. The town of Uljin was having an "international festival" for the snow crab that the region is famous for. There were markets, music and dancing shows, ferry rides, cooking shows, and of course restaurants and stalls everywhere offering tastes of fresh snow crab. First we went to the festival publicity building where we could touch, hold, and take pictures with the giant snow crab. If you've eaten king crab legs, the snow crab's legs look similar in size. After we got to explore the market. We stopped to witness a cross-dressing drum troupe dancing to Korean pop music. We eventually met up with our tour group to take part in a Guiness World Record attempt at making the longest kimbap. Kimbap is one of Korea's most famous foods. It looks similar to sushi rolls, but it tastes nothing like it. Instead, kimbap is made of salted, dried seaweed that is stuffed with seasoned white rice, pickled vegetables, ham, egg, and usually meat or fish. Naturally, the kimbap we made at the festival was stuffed with fresh snow crab. Since the festival was trying to attract international publicity, they allowed our mostly foreign tour group to stand right in front of the news cameras at the tables and roll the kimbap. We were given aprons, chef hats, and gloves and assisted by Korean staff in rolling the kimbap. I couldn't understand what the announcer was saying, but I'm guessing we beat last year's world record. The Korean visitors to the festival all lined up to taste the giant kimbap that we made, and of course we got first dibs on tasting. Next, we went on an hour-long ferry ride around the seaport. We boarded an older-looking ferry with life jackets that were too small for us foreigners. The first 15 minutes or so were exciting, because the boat kept jumping up and down from the waves. It was an overcast day, and although it didn't rain, the waves were pretty rough. For the remaining part of the trip, nearly everyone from our tour group felt seasick. Danny and I rested on the floor in an inner cabin to avoid getting sick. Afterwards we got a private tasting of fresh snow crab at the festival site. I couldn't even think of food after getting off the boat, but once I tasted the crab I felt a hundred times better. I've only really tasted king crab legs and bits of crab in sushi before. But this crab was incredibly fresh and full of flavor. We moved on to our hotel after, which featured bedding on the traditional heated floor again. We had barbecued pork belly for dinner. The past few months I've been trying to eat vegetarian, which is somewhat difficult because meat is so popular in Korea. Luckily there were tons of vegetarian side dishes that I feasted on. The next morning we woke up early to use the hotel's free spa facility. The Uljin area is famous for natural hot sulphur springs. The spa was indoors, but the water had a slightly sulphuric smell because I think they use the water from the nearby springs. Danny and I have never been to a "jimjilbang," the famous Korean bathhouses here. But we decided to try it while there were other foreigners around. At a jimjilbang, the men and women use separated facilities. The spa in the hotel was very tiny, consisting of just a hot, medium, and cold bath and a few saunas. I went into the women's locker room, stripped down to my birthday suit (which is necessary here to use the spa), showered, then took a dip in each of the three pools. I hadn't eaten anything because it was 7am, so I actually started to feel lightheaded in the hottest pool, and I left after maybe 20 minutes. I didn't realize there was a sauna room, so I didn't try that. Overall, being naked in front of a bunch of Koreans wasn't as scary as I thought. I will have to try one of the big, luxurious jimjilbangs in Seoul (where you can all day for only about $10!) After a PB&J breakfast (my favorite!), we headed to the mountains for a 2 hour hike. It had rained the week before, so our original trekking area in the Shinsun Valley was flooded. We instead followed a relaxing hiking course in the mountains. The area is famous for its pine trees, and you could smell them in the breeze as we hiked. We watched a really good Korean movie on the bus ride home called "Castaway on the Moon." It was the first Korean film I've ever seen. When we arrived at the bus station in Seoul, we tried an organic vegan buffet in Gangnam called "New Start." Everything was so fresh and tasty, and they served homemade bread and jams too.

Today, Danny and I are going to the wedding of one of my Korean coworkers. He invited all of the teachers at my school too. Coincidentally, Danny was invited to one of his Korean coworker's weddings too. Hers is next weekend though. I have still never been to a wedding in America, yet I have been to 2 in Italy and now I will have been to 2 in Korea. I will let you know what a Korean wedding is like in my next blog entry, although I think they are similar to Western style weddings today. Tomorrow we are going on an Adventure Korea day trip to a big lake in central Korea, where we will go on a ferry ride and explore caves.

It's been a long winter...spring where are you??

Wow so I realized I haven't blogged in over 3 weeks. Sorry to keep you all waiting! First of all, my school's Winter Intensives are finally over! It was only 9 days of 10am-1pm classes spread out over 5 weeks, but waking up early was killing me. Plus, the 16 kids in my classes started out cute and quiet and then got crazy! I guess it was because they were on winter vacation from school. When the morning class was over, I had a 3 hour break for lunch and lesson prepping until my regular classes started. So some days I was at work for over 13 hours! Over the past 2 months I have also been having the same foot problems that I had last spring. The problems seemed to start the week after the race that I won in Seoul. I've been seeing a nerve doctor who specializes in feet near my school to treat my feet. In Korea they don't have podiatrists, so you go to a bone, muscle, or nerve doctor for musculoskeletal problems. I've seen the doctor 4 times so far for "prolotherapy" injections, which are quite painful. He said my issues stem from a combination of genetic structural problems, overuse, bad shoes, and the way I walk. So I have been wearing sneakers and leopard-print Crocs to work every day.

Ok on a lighter note, let's talk about the fun things that have happened since I blogged last. I think about 3 weeks ago Danny and I checked out Insadong in Seoul. Insadong is a touristy neighborhood, but it is famous for traditional Korean buildings, food, and handicrafts. I walked around the area for a few hours while Danny was at school on a Saturday making up his snow day. I loved Insadong, and I want to go back to walk around its art galleries and shops in warmer weather. When I met up with Danny, we had a great Korean vegetarian meal at this cute restaurant called Sosim. It was actually a pescatarian meal because we had a small serving of perfectly grilled fish. Afterwards we went to see the popular Korean dance musical Sachoom. The title translates as "Dance When You're in Love" (yea I don't see how a two-syllable word means all of that either). There wasn't really much dialogue, but there was some narration displayed on a screen (that was unfortunately only translated into Chinese, Japanese, and Cambodian!?) Luckily the dancing was awesome, so there wasn't much need to understand the narration. After the show we went to one of the most popular traditional teahouses in Insadong. I ordered persimmon tea and they accidentally gave me flavorless green tea. So I took Danny's "five-taste tea" by accident thinking it was the persimmon tea, and he drank the green tea thinking it was what he ordered. I was wondering why my tea was a delicious blend of sweet, spicy, sour, bitter, and hmm I can't think of the fifth taste....

The following weekend we went to Dongdaemun Market, a huge area in Seoul famous for its fashion shops. Dongdaemun is made up dozens of massive shopping malls, buildings filled with tightly packed shops, underground shops, and open-air shops. We went in search of hiking gear for our upcoming trip to the Taebaek mountains with Adventure Korea. And we were also hoping to find some nice coats, because Koreans wear the most beautiful coats and they are fairly inexpensive (most of them have animal fur trim though...eeek!) Well Dongdaemun is in fact renowned for its fashion shops, so we were not lucky in the hiking department. We didn't find the perfect coats we imagined either. We finally found Danny a nice wool scarf though. And for me...I sadly came home empty-handed. I just got frustrated because the clothes are mostly one-size-fits-all and my arms and torso are apparently too long for them. And Korean shops usually have annoying overbearing owners and no fitting rooms. Boo. The only plus of the night was the amazing meal we had at a vegan Korean buffet before our shopping trip. It cost under $10 and was in Insadong, so I will definitely return more often.

So this past weekend was pretty eventful. Danny and I signed up for a trip to the Taebaek Snow Festival with Adventure Korea. AK is a well-known tour group among the English teacher and expat community in Korea. About $80 covered the tour bus, accommodation, meals, festival entrance fee, and tour guides. The only thing we had to buy were snow cleats (spikes to wear over your shoes) for our hike in the mountains. We had to wake up crazy early at 6am to get across Seoul to the bus station on Saturday though. About 30-40 people went on the trip, and almost all were English teachers from the U.S., Canada, Australia, the U.K., and South Africa. It was cool to meet other people and hear about their experiences in Korea. The bus trip to Gangwon province east of Seoul took about 4 hours. We slept most of the time and enjoyed the mountain scenery. We first stopped at Yongyeon, one of the largest caves in Korea. We had to wear helmets to protect our heads from the narrow parts of the cave. The cave was huge and the walkways inside covered about 1km. We saw the usual natural formations like stalactites and stalagmites, but nice color-changing light fountains were also installed. Thank god for the helmets, because my skull would have been beat up pretty badly. After we rode several minutes to the snow festival site in Taebaek city. The area we stayed in was more like a very small mountain village though. We were given 3 hours to explore the festival, so we bundled up as much as possible and headed out into the below 30 degree weather. The festival mostly featured snow and ice sculptures, and there was also sledding and a performance stage. Unfortunately we couldn't find the sledding and we did watch about 5 minutes of cute kids dancing on stage. We rushed through the sculpture area to take photos because we were freezing. We stopped to warm up with a delicious hot roasted sweet potato and headed back out to the festival area. So many families and hikers came out for the weekend (probably from Seoul) to enjoy the festival, so it was quite crowded. Once we couldn't take the cold any longer we popped in the coal museum nearby. The first floor featured rocks, minerals, and fossils, which were actually neat. We met up with our group around dinner time to head to our accommodations. We stayed in a hostel/empty youth camp building right on the festival grounds. I've never stayed in a hostel, so it was kind of cool to share a room with 5 other people. Danny and I stayed in a room with a German couple who was working for the German embassy in Seoul and 2 female English teachers. We slept Korean-style on mats on the heated "ondol" floor. We had dinner first in the basement on the building and it was actually delicious, mostly vegetarian Korean food. We didn't want to head to the room at 6pm, so we braved the cold in search of a bar or someplace to hang out with other roommates. We couldn't really find anything so we stopped in a convenience store to pick up some snacks and drinks and headed back to our room for card games and talking. We went to sleep at almost 2am and had to wake up at 7am or our hike up Mount Taebaek. To most people's dismay, we had PB&J for breakfast, but of course I was thrilled about having peanut butter! I had 2 whole sandwiches to give me energy for our 8km hike up one of Korea's tallest mountains. I have only been hiking once before (a relaxed 9 mile hike in Pennsylvania's Appalachian Trail with my cross-country team), but I don't think Danny ever hiked before. I wore about every layer I had brought with me (3 pairs of pants, 5 shirts, a jacket, 2 socks, 2 hats, and 2 gloves!) Thank god we bought the snow cleats, because we would have slid down the mountain in only our running sneakers. So the entire hike up to the 1,560m peak (almost 1 mile high) and back down took about 3 hours. The way up was so steep and snowy, but Danny and I were actually up front near our tour guides. With all the layers we were actually sweating. Within the first 1km my camera battery stopped functioning because of the cold, so luckily Danny's worked. As we neared the top, trees became sparse and the sky was so gray and it got colder and windy. We visited two shrines at the peak, where we made a wish and prayed to get down the mountain as soon as possible because it was freeeezing!! The trip down was also very steep, so we were grateful for the hand ropes on either side of the trail. Strangely, the trip down featured blue skies, no wind, no snow, and greener trees. We ended the hike back at the festival site and went back to our hostel for another good Korean vegetarian meal. The bus ride home took even longer because so many people were driving back to Seoul after a weekend in Gangwon province at ski resorts and snow festivals.

I am thrilled because my crazy intensive class is finally over and I got my new iPod Touch in the mail from my mom! My students are so jealous because it costs so much more in Korea. It's basically like a mini computer...you can surf the web, Skype, read books, watch movies and TV, oh and of course listen to music.!

It's been awhile!...

So I just realized I haven't posted in like 3 weeks. That's because not much has happened since our eventful field trip with Danny's school! The weekend after that Danny and I both got really sick. I thought I had the flu, but it was just a really bad cold. We went to a doctor that's in the same building as Danny's school, and the doctor actually spoke English. I was really impressed with the office, because it was so modern compared to doctor's offices back home. The doctor used some weird probe to view the inside of my nose on a big screen and they gave me medicine for my cough using this respirator machine. I don't have health insurance yet, but even without insurance the visit only cost me about $10. I had to pick up a prescription, which cost me only another $5. I will try to get health insurance, but I have to wait until my 3rd month here since I'm a foreigner. Most of the country has health insurance coverage through the government, so that's why it's so cheap. And most people seem to be pretty satisfied with it too. Let's see what else has happened in the past 3 weeks....Last Friday my school had a dinner to welcome me and another new teacher and to celebrate the departure of one of our other teachers. We all went out for galbi (Korean barbecue) after work. When Koreans go out together, they tend to drink alot, especially when there's something to celebrate. So naturally I had to be polite and accept toast after toast of soju liquor. Well let's just say I had a little too much to drink that night. I called up Danny to meet me and some of my coworkers at a bar in Hongdae after my company dinner. I didn't feel well from all the drinking and galbi, so my night was cut short. The next day Danny and I went to see another FC Seoul soccer game at World Cup Stadium. It was their last home game, and they tied. It was a good game to watch though. Every day before that soccer game had been unusually warm, but we were freezing for the first time at the game. The next two days after were so miserably cold. It went from being in the 60's/70's to 30's in one day. After only 3 cold days, it went back to 60's/70's. Since today was supposed to be 70 degrees and the last weekend with autumn leaves still on the trees, Danny and I were going to hike Mt. Bukhansan (the highest peak in Seoul) with his friend from work. Unfortunately Danny felt sick again today, so we rested instead. But it rained anyway so I guess we lucked out. I guess we will have to wait for spring time when the cherry blossoms bloom....that's another popular time to hike. Hiking is ridiculously popular here. On any given day you will see senior citizens decked out in hardcore hiking gear on the subway to their favorite mountain. Apparently some of the hiking trails are pretty treacherous, so I'm amazed at the shape some of these older people must be in to hike. Danny and I were going to try a hike of about 10km to a peak of 800+m. It's supposed to be the most popular because there are lots of historical landmarks and buddhist temples along the trail. Tomorrow is raining again, so while Danny is getting better I guess we will be relaxing again. Oh I completely forgot to mention teaching....this past week I had to administer "Level-Up" tests to my students. The poor kids had to take 2+ hour tests to determine which level they will be placed in next term. I guess I felt bad because I couldn't even sit through 3 hours Regents exams or SATS in high school. Anyway we finished week 10 of the term and there are only 3 weeks left for the Fall Term! There are 4 terms at CDI, and each term is 13 weeks. Alright I'm going to bed now...I will leave you with a funny YouTube video that gives you an idea of what a Korean apartment is like for an English teacher...Enjoy!