Friday, June 2, 2017

Korea Life: Adopting a Cat in Korea

Before I moved to Seoul, I was constantly watching all these posts about cats that needed to be adopted. I wanted one so bad, but I knew that I would be making a move soon. I kept telling myself to wait and wait. After I moved to Seoul, I knew I would be here for awhile. I decided it was time to add an extra member to my one member family. I had a cat in mind, I wanted a middle aged cat, preferably black (I wear all black and the hair wouldn't be as noticeable).

There are some cat rescues in Seoul. I researched all the places to adopt a cat from in Korea. Google is your best friend here and there are lots of helpful websites about adopting. I decided I couldn't handle the rescue houses. How do you pick out just one cat from all the cute cat's that need homes??? For me, this wasn't an option. I would be weighed down by guilt. I was kind of hoping a needy cat would just fall into my lap one day. 

This didn't happen. So, I found this site (rescuekorea.org) where you can find cats that are in need of homes and can directly email the current foster parents. I stalked the website daily for a few weeks, unable to make a decision. Then one day I saw the cutest cat. He was nothing like what I had wanted. He was only a year old (I was honestly thoroughly against a kitten before this). He was ginger and white in color with the cutest pink nose. I tried to talk myself out of it because I had really wanted to take on an older cat.... but I loved him just from his picture.

The process was easy. I emailed the foster mom, whose email was provided at the bottom. The foster mom was the nicest person and she was really helpful. She answered all my questions and let me come and meet the cat before I decided to adopt him. So, one weekend I went to her house to meet the cat with my friend. This poor kitty was too scared to even come near me or my friend. He hid in the bedroom the whole time. You would think this would turn me off from adopting him, but it was the opposite. This made me want to take him home even more, so that I could love him and keep him safe. 

The next weekend, I spent the whole day shopping and preparing the pick up my new kitty. The next day, with everything ready for him, I went and picked him up. He was thoroughly scared and it didn't help that we had a 30 minute or so subway ride with him in a carrier. When we finally got back to my place, he refused to come out of the carrier, but this was expected. However, unexpectedly, that night he climbed into bed with me. He made himself comfortable pretty quickly and now owns my apartment (and my heart). 

My experience adopting a cat in Korea has been pretty easy and pain free. This is due to a great foster mom who was easy to talk to and really nice. There are lots of cats out there for adoption and even though the rescues are sad, this is still a much better option than a pet store. There are so many pet stores here that only cater to kittens and puppies. It is a really sad because when they get too old, either they become breeders or go to a shelter. So, putting any money into these businesses is something I am thoroughly against. I could go on forever on that topic. The rescue homes have a much more complicated process than what I went through but it is understandable. There are people out there that adopt for the year they live here and then decide they don't want to take the cat/dog back home with them. Which is another topic I could also kick off on. Anyways, if you are looking for any sort of animal, please go the adoption route and know that it may be the more tedious route, but so much more rewarding. 

In conclusion this is my new cat 부끄 and I am obsessed with him. I highly recommend adopting if you have the time, money, and maturity for adding a pet to your household.  



Friday, May 19, 2017

Korea Life: Moving from Cheonan to Seoul

I recently (read almost 3 months ago because I post everything ridiculously late) decided that it was time to make the move to from Cheonan to Seoul. I wanted to live in Seoul originally but....  when I moved to Korea, I didn't have any previous teaching experience. Seoul is a much bigger city with a much more competitive market for English teachers. I knew if I wanted a good job in Seoul, that I would need experience first. I picked Cheonan for a lot of reasons; it was close to Seoul, it was a transportation hub (I could get anywhere pretty fast), and it was a great place to save money. I loved living in Cheonan and it's a great city to live in. But I am from a big city and I wanted to be back in a big city surrounded by lots and lots of people. When my contract finished at the end of February, I made the move to Seoul.

First things first, the actual move. Due to the situation of having no time off between jobs, I had a very limited window of time for moving. I ended work on a Friday night, moved to a new city on Saturday and started at a new job on Monday. To say it was stressful is a complete understatement. My school helped me hire a truck for Saturday to take me from Cheonan to Seoul. It was supposed to cost around 120 dollars, which isn't bad for a city to city move. Well, I specifically asked for a moving truck because the amount of clothes I have was in definite need of a full on truck. Unfortunately, something changed last minute and the truck was unavailable. A medium sized van pulls up in front of my apartment right on time, but I looked at it and said "not happening, my stuff can't fit in that thing!". The grumpiest faced old stepped out of this van. He looked just severely pissed from the onset. Luckily, I wasn't going through this alone (my male coworker, who is a worrywart, wouldn't hire the truck unless he knew I wasn't going alone). We moved all my stuff down and out of my apartment and into this truck in maybe 10 minutes. We had to tetris my stuff in and the grumpy faced man kept sighing and asking why there was so much stuff. Once we loaded all the stuff, he said he wasn't going to drive for the same price. He wanted 60 more dollars because there was so much stuff. I had no choice but to say yes because my stuff was already in his truck. We all piled into this van and were off on the long ride to Seoul.

No joke, it took 5 hours.... 5 hours!! The trip is usually 2 hours but the traffic was horrible and my new apartment was on the Northern most edge of Seoul. Janelle was blogging the whole way and the van was hot. It was miserable. We were all whining and annoyed in the car. But the absolute worst part was how bad  I needed to pee. I needed to pee so bad. I cannot even begin to explain this pain. I should have gone before we left, but I didn't, I was stupid and my bladder, kidneys, whatever... it paid for it. I was literally crying by hour 3. I wanted to ask the man to stop but we were in such bad traffic, it wasn't moving, and I was scared of the driver because he was grumpy. I thought I was going to pee in the back of this man's van. Since, my friend was vlogging the whole thing, she caught the crying on camera. I wish I could say it was funny now, looking back... but it wasn't. The pain of needing to pee that bad will haunt me for the rest of my life.

Anyways, I made it and unloaded my stuff faster than it was loaded because the man was rushing us. But I was finally moved and I was in my new apartment. My friends went out to dinner with me for my first night and then they went back to Cheonan.

That was my moving experience in Korea. It was pretty bad. From the wrong truck, to the grumpy old man, to the bladder infection that I thought I would get.... it was rough. But I guess I successfully moved with all my stuff... so it's not as bad as it could have been. I could have been dropped off in the middle of nowhere and had all my stuff stolen or something. (I don't know, something definitely could have gone very wrong).

Adventure Time in Korea: Vivaldi Park (Skiing for the First Time)

Working at an academy (aka Hagwon) in Korea doesn't come with a lot of vacation time. There are lots of holidays with 4 day weekends but actual vacation time is minimal. Usually, you will get a week in summer and a week in winter. So, those of us working as teachers at Hagwons tend to take these weeks very seriously, you must get EVERYTHING you can in in in this short week. The sqrew and I decided to check out one of Korea's hottest spots for skiing, Vivaldi Park.

DISCLAIMER!
Now, I am from Texas, I didn't actually see snow until I moved to Korea, so you can already guess I have never, ever been skiing in my life. I was accompanied by two other people who had never been skiing before either. We knew this was going to be an interesting, maybe dangerous, experience.

We had help from one of our Korean coworkers in booking everything. Vivaldi Park is not a big tourist place for foreigners. Many Koreans were surprised to find out we were going there because apparently there are more foreigner friendly (read English speaking) places to go. But our coworker said this was the best skiing and that we should go here. She helped us book the house and gave us an itinerary with a break down on how to do pretty much everything.

DAY 1
Heinously early on Christmas Eve (and wearing couple clothes ;)), we got on a bus to Seoul then on a bus to Vilvaldi Park. The bus from Cheonan to Seoul was easy, because we had made that trek a million times over. But the bus from Seoul to Vilvaldi was a little harder and actually we almost missed it because we were confused. The bus driver was also very grumpy. There were much louder people on the bus but he kept telling us to be quiet and that we were too loud. (Note this actually happens to us a lot, we are not being particularly loud. We think it's the language difference that makes it sound like noise, so it's more bothersome). We weren't really sure what to expect pulling up but we went winding through some mountains and came up to this amazing resort. When we got there we had to call our pension man to come pick us up. He pulled up in an unmarked white van and just motioned for us to get in (can you say sketchy). He was very kind but his English was very minimal.

Maybe 10 minutes later we pulled up to the cutest set of pension houses. He helped us with everything and tried to explain everything as best he could. We had a kitchen with everything we would need (minus food). There were two big beds and lots of bedding under the stairs to make a bed on the floor (that was my bed). Our bathroom was huge and the floor was heated. This was a big deal, because it was really cold and floor heating usually stops at the bathroom. Going to the bathroom in the middle of the night in winter is not usually a fun experience. So, the floor heating in the bathroom was a BIG deal. We had a hot-tub on the back porch (it had a lock and we didn't have the code though). There was a grill out back for grilling our own food if we wanted to. It was great butttt it was a little far from the main stuff happening. That being said the owner is always available to drive you wherever you want to go.

30 minutes later we loaded back in the car and the man drove us up the road to a shop to rent our ski gear. The place we went had everything you needed. There were levels of clothing and we chose the cheapest. We probably could have gone eccentric, but we decided to dress in all black because we were all pretty sure we were going to die anyways. The people at the shop were really helpful and although they only spoke korean, we got through everything with no problem. They kept laughing at us because we were always confused because we had never worn ski gear before. Once we looked the part, we loaded back in the car and we were off.

We drove back up to Vilvaldi Park and got out. This is when we realized we made a rookie mistake. Everyone was walking around in regular shoes and were carrying their ski boots. We found out there were lockers inside and we could have left our regular shoes in those. It was really unfortunate because it's hard walking in ski boots and we looked like a group of slow penguins waddling everywhere. We were half hoping to get a lesson when we got there and half thinking maybe we could wing it on YouTube videos. When we looked at the prices, we decided we were winging it and would have to hope for the best. (For future reference, for half a day of skiing it costs 88 just to get in and the lesson costs 100 extra for 2 hours).

Here is where the fun begins. Vivaldi Park is a big man-made snow ski park. There are lots of different hills to choose from and a stage with performances down at the bottom. There are soooo many people. so you are bound to crash with someone eventually (if you have no idea what you are doing, read us). We took it slow and just tried to get used to skiing around. We were doing well on the ground. Little baby slants were fine and we were gaining confidence and making it work. But then I got cocky. I blame myself completely for what happened next. I suggested trying the slope after we had been practicing for a little while. Now I didn't say an actual slope, just the smallest one. We cued up to take the baby lift up to the top of the baby hill. We thought we would be okay because we only saw children and instructors on this baby hill. First the lift was a struggle bus of its own, we kept ramming into the people in front of us and we almost fell just trying to get on the lift. We should have known then to turn back. Getting off was a whole nother struggle. I couldn't stop and almost died getting off, Janelle immediately fell, and the golden child, Cassie, was just fine. We could have stopped then but we kept going. So, we try to practice at the top a little and I felt like I was getting the hang of stopping and it was going fine. We were hovering around people taking lessons and trying to copy what they were doing. However, Janelle immediately went spiraling into the mesh wall and splatted like a bug. She got stuck for the longest. Cassie and I died laughing, which caused me to start going down the hill too fast. I didn't know how to stop, so I just fell to avoid crashing and dying. Janelle tried to get back up and went maybe two feet before she was back tangled in the wall. I tried to get back up but couldn't. I was stuck on the ground. Cassie was doing fine and looked like a professional skier.

At this point, Janelle and I were both flailing in the snow but we were too far apart to help each other. People were watching us like we were crazy but no one was helping us. Because I couldn't stand back up, I slowly "skied" on my butt down to Janelle. We tried to take off our skis to walk down but realized we didn't know how to take them off. Finally, I got one ski off but it turns out the other one was broken, so we continue to flail in the snow trying to get our skis off. At this point, people were pointing and we were about to pee ourselves laughing because the situation was so ridiculous. I had to take off my ski boot with my ski. Janelle had gotten both skis off successfully and we walked (I hopped on one shoe) down the hill. Cassie was waiting at the bottom, having become a master skier in no time. Janelle and I were done skiing forever. We took some pictures to prove we did it. But we walked over to the stage to watch performances from whoever and let Cassie keep practicing her newly acquired skill. We decided to hang up our skis and go inside for some coffee. (Note: It may seem like we were upset at this point, not at all. We may have failed but it was fun and we were still in good spirits and having fun.)

We were wiped by the time we got back to our pension and Christmas Eve dinner was instant noodles and some chips. Champions of the day, we decided to call it a night early.

DAY 2
Christmas Day, we decked out in our tacky Christmas sweaters and decided to hit up the mall we saw. We walked around and ended up in the arcade. There were lots of games to play and some fun 4D rides. . There are lots of restaurants and some shopping but if you are not skiing, there is not much to do. We had fun exploring anyways. Christmas dinner was a nice restaurant by our pension but walking in the dark definitely gave off a scary movie vibe because we were surrounded by trees and fields.

DAY 3

The last day we went to Ocean World. Ocean World is an indoor swim park located at Vilvaldi Park. The outside part looks like it would be AWESOME for summer but the inside was the only thing open for winter time. There is a lazy river that takes you outside for a little bit. That was fun because we got to swim while it was snowing. There are a few slides and a wave pool. There were some games you could play, but it cost extra money. There are also some hot-tubs and saunas near the changing room that are sectioned off by gender. We spent most of time floating the lazy river and sitting in the wave pool.

We left early the next morning and headed back to Cheonan. All in all, it was a really good experience. We had a lot of fun. I will never ever ever ever ever ever suggest going skiing without some sort of instructor. Vivaldi Park was great and was a fun place to go skiing and hang out. We didn't stay at Ocean World long, but it was worth the day visit. So, if you are looking to go skiing in the winter or to a water park in the summer, this is a really great option.













Saturday, April 8, 2017

Adventure Time in Korea: Namsan Tower Visit

Namsan Tower
One weekend in Fall, we decided to make a Friendship Lock and make the trek to Namsan Tower. Namsan Tower is a tower in Seoul. Traditionally, people put "Love Locks" along the top of the tower. When you lock your love into the top of the it means that your love is forever. A lot of people put friendship locks up or they will put their names with their favorite idols (We put our names with sharpie on the wall with our favorite idols).

We bought a ridiculously cute lock, covered it with stickers and our intitials. We had a general idea of where we were going, however we were a little lost. We just kept trying to follow signs. Eventually we found the cable car that takes you up to the top. You can walk or take the car up and down. We opted to cable car up and then walk down. The weather was lovely but we didn't want to be sweaty on the way up. The cable car cost about 15 each..... possibly.... maybe.... something along those lines.

When you get to the top of the tower, there is a lot to do and see. There is even a movie theater there. First things first, we went in search of a spot to put our lock. There are literally millions of locks everywhere on around this place. There are lock trees and lock balls and lock benches. Just everywhere. We put ours along one of the paths that seemed a little less crowded. It was  fun to read some of the locks and see all the colors.

Love Walls
We then went exploring around the top. Most of the attractions are dedicated to "love." There are lots of cute things to take pictures with. If you walk up and down the layers, there are some great photo ops. There are even places to set up your camera to take the couple photos. There are some cafe's and food places inside. We found some really fun photo booths. We had a great time taking pictures and you are able to stick the pictures on the wall after you are done. A lot of people are making out in the photos on the wall. We were making guesses of which couples were still together or not.


Photo Booth Fun

After taking a million couple photos with eachother and thoroughly exploring the top. We decided to make the trek down. Fall is a great time to make this hike, it's not as hot as summer and the colors during the walk are stunning. The trees were all red, yellow, and orange. It was really a beautiful site.There are lots of stairs on the way down, and we saw a lot of girls walking up in heels. The hike up would not have been too bad, but the cable car was also a fun ride. We did the "basic" thing and took photos of the leaves on the ground. There were some great views and if you are good with a camera, you could probably get some great photos. (Note: Take a charger with you because my phone died on the way down because of all the pictures and videos at the top T.T)

View from the top of the Tower

Korea Life: Halloween in Seoul

On Halloween weekend, we wanted to go see zombies at Everland, but we didn't end up making it. However, that night we decided to dress up and go out in Hongdae. Halloween is not a big holiday in Korea. We had all come from countries where people our age go all out on Halloween. But it is a lot different in Korea. There are not many Halloween costume stores. You have to order online or get creative with your own costume to dress up for this holiday. If they do have costumes, it is usually for children. Nothing compared to the giant stores we have back in the U.S.

Halloween Squad in All Black
We made a visit to the local costume store and bought a few props and were ready to go out for the night. We had read that Itaewon and Hongdae are the best places to go in Seoul for Halloween because they have the most foreigners. So, with our dinky costumes we went out for the night. When we first walked out of our hostel... we were a little embarrassed because there weren't a lot of people dressed up and people were staring. Every once and awhile we would see someone else, but we definitely felt quite ridiculous. We headed for where the foreigners usually go "The Park" (I have mentioned this place in a previous post and once again I know how to walk there but not actually what to call it). When we got there, there were tons of other people dressed up. We actually felt under-dressed when we got there because everyone had gone all out with their costumes.
Probably shouldn't be out at this point....
We met up with friends there. We saw a lot of our favorite Youtubers filming for their channels. We took pictures with some of the best costumes. It was strangely cold that night, so we were decently whiny from the cold and decided to drink until we couldn't feel it. We ducked into a bar close by, and kept drinking and were those ridiculous people that maybe should have stopped drinking or gone home. Then we ducked into a shady club and decided poles were the thing to be on....

Eventually we stumbled home, one by one between 5-8am or 9am. I think I slept maybe 2 hours before I had to drag my insanely hungover self off the floor of my hostel to catch a train back to Cheonan. It was a great memory and a fun weekend. Maybe next year I will try Itaewon so that I can write a post on the differences between the two places.

Saturday, February 11, 2017

Adventure Time in Korea: Trick Eye Museum and Love Museum

One weekend the crew and I decided we wanted to go to Everland. Everland is an amusement park in Korea and during Halloween time they have a zombie exhibit and we really wanted to go. But because we are all bad at time management and didn't plan things through properly... we never made it to Everland.

We were in Hongdae for Halloween weekend (post about that later), so we decided to check out the Trick Eye Museum that we had passed by a few times (also at any and all hostels, there are tons of flyers). So, after a little bit of wandering (and getting lost a little bit). We found it, the infamous Trick Eye Museum.

Actually, the Trick Eye Museum, Love Museum, and Ice Museum are all connected. On the ground floor, you walk straight into the Love Museum. You pay 5 or 7 dollars for something you would never ever expect from Korea. Korea is a decently conservative country, but when they decide to make something sexual... they go all out. We were all shocked and surprised when we first entered the museum.

Cassie giving birth to me
Anyways, first stop... the Love Museum. This museum is filled with great photo ops. By great, I mean disturbingly hilarious photo ops. The whole museum is dedicated to sticking your face on top of sex scenes and dirty scenes. You just move from one picture to the next. We actually saw a lot of couples taking pictures there and giggling. Everyone was giggling as they take the pictures. To be honest.... it did feel a little uncomfortable being surrounded by people and taking a picture on a giant squirting penis. But if you are into that, this museum is for you. We had fun, but I didn't show anyone the pictures from this museum... because well.... sorry Grandma.

Fee-fi-fo-fum
The Death of Janelle
When you walk out of the Love Museum, you have the option to leave or go down the stairs. If you go down stairs you go to the Trick Eye Museum. You buy a ticket outside, it's some price that I don't remember and you get a free ticket into the ice museum. The Trick Eye Museum is solely dedicated to taking pictures that are meant to trick the eye. There are instructions for every picture zone. There are written instructions but I don't remember if they were in English as well. But there are photo examples, so we just tried to copy the example photos. There are painted marks on the floor that tell you where to stand to take the picture. If there are lots of people there, then you may have to wait to take pictures at the places that you want. But it was decently empty when we went on a Saturday afternoon. There are tons of fun photo opportunities. I definitely recommend going as at least a group of three or more. Because you will need to switch out taking the pictures and a lot of the photo ops are for two or more people. My friends counted and I posted 22 photos from the Trick Eye Museum on to my instragram.

That Igloo Life
When you leave the Trick Eye Museum, there is a Carnival thing on the side. There are games to play and prizes to win. We went in for two seconds, but after the Trick Eye Museum, it wasn't that fun. But around the corner, there is a giant freezer door. You show the lady your ticket and walk into the coldest room known to man. There are lots of ice sculptures and a big ice slide. (This ice slide is decently slim, so if you have big hips... you may not fit. None of wanted to test it out because we were too frightened of being "that" person that got their butt stuck on the slide.) There are more photo ops in here. However, I will say it's superrrr cold and we were not dressed appropriately for this, so we were in and out pretty quickly. But it was pretty fun for a free side museum.

All in all, this was a really fun place to visit. I highly recommend going. We had a lot of giggles and fun. If you like taking pictures, this is a great place. It's not too expensive and there is a lot to look and do between the 3 museums.

Saturday, February 4, 2017

Adventure Time Korea: Fishing in Boryeong

In October, the hagwon I work for gave us the opportunity to go fishing as a group in Boryeong. We signed up to wake up at 4 in the morning and take a two hour bus ride to Boryeong. The information about what we were doing was skimp at best. We were told a day, a time, the word fishing, and we would be eating the fish raw. Most of us signed up to go because... well... you move to Korea to experience life right?

We boarded the bus at 5 (maybe) in the morning, Unfortunately, our bus driver got lost on the way to our harbor and the 2 hour bus ride was extended to 4 hours (not an exaggeration). But we did make it to the boat. We loaded onto this small boat with a friendly captain and the sun had finally come out for the day, things were looking up.



A little back story, I used to go fishing every New Year's Day with my grandfather when I was young. We would take the boat out and everything we caught we would fry up later. This fishing was nothing like that.... absolutely nothing like that. There were no fishing poles, we had something I don't know the word for. It looks like the thing you let string out for a kite with.... if anyone knows the word feel free to inform my ignorance. There were weights attached to the end as well as hooks. We put on gloves and were told not to let the string cut or take off our fingers (not sure if this was a joke but it didn't feel funny). We had to put live bait on our hooks, too. (I am not sure the impression of me that this blog portrays. Maybe because I am always climbing places and seem up to most things, you may think I am the outdoors type..... wrong, very wrong. I do things because it is more fun that not doing them. But I detest bugs and the like and having to put live fish on this bait.... it was a no a big no from me). I made everyone else bait my hook for me. Then we had to.... well catch fish because that's what you do when you are fishing. I was the first to catch a fish (what what) but had little success after that. Also, I was scared every time I caught a fish, screaming and screaming to get it away from me. Between all of us we caught a decent amount of fish. We caught a few other things too, a baby shark and tiny octopus.


Then we were asked if we were hungry. We said yes, assuming it meant we would dock somewhere and a meal would be prepared for us. Once again wrong, the thought was wrong. The boat captain took out a rusty knife, cleaned it and started slicing up the fish we caught on the middle of the boat.  He served it to us on the little cutting board he was using, bones and all. Now this is a western thing, where we don't really eat fish with bones in it. I have had to get over that here. While I wasn't a fan(read traumatized) of watching him slice the fish alive, it tasted pretty good fresh. We dipped it in a little spicy sauce, which gave it some flavor. Next he sliced up the shark. I never, ever thought I would try shark, this is not something I ever set out to eat or was like a goal to try one day. But fresh shark is really delicious. I felt terrible because usually I don't catch my animals and watch them die.... so I was in a moral dilemma. However, I got past it and ate because if I didn't then it died for nothing.

Next we decided to stop for a full lunch. The captain took us to his house on this tiny island. The island seemed a little scary. Like a bad horror movie where they take people to kill them. And there was this creepy looking house that I swear was haunted. We were told it would be an hour before the food was ready. We decided to take a walk.... this is where things started going downhill for me. While walking we saw dead wasps all along the road. But they were like giant mutant wasps. They were no joke the size of my fist. All of them were dead but with so many dead ones there was bound to be a live one. As we walked I was really scared of the wasps. That's when it happened... I felt the back of my head because I thought I felt something hit it. There was something in my hair. I started screaming and having a tantrum in the middle of this deserted road thinking there was a wasp in my hair. My friends had stopped and said there was something in my hair. Fear... massive amounts of fear. (Quick back story, earlier on the boat, the captain had tried to throw a small dead fish bait over the side but it hit me in the head before bouncing off and into the water... or so I had thought. ) When I finally stopped screaming and pulling out my hair, with tears running down my eyes, my friend (thanks Cassie) pulls something from my hair... it was the dead fish from the boat. I had a dead fish in my hair for maybe an hour or two. It was funny after the fact... but I thought a giant mutant wasp was going to sting my head and kill me... and that's not funny. An old Korean lady had watched the whole thing and probably thought I was possessed by the devil or something.

We had a spectacular meal prepared by the captains wife and had some coffee afterward. When we were going back on the boat to get back to our bus the temperature dropped drastically. Then it started to pour on us. We got back on the bus for a 3 hour bus ride soaking wet and freezing. That bus ride was hell. But we made it home and no one got sick. But the dead fish in the hair incident has never been forgotten and I am scarred for life.






Thursday, February 2, 2017

Korea Life: Seoul Fireworks Festival

Once upon a time, a Korean coworker told 3 foreigners about this amazing fireworks festival in Seoul. She told them that they should go but she didn't tell them when it was or where they should go to watch it. So, the three foreigners got on a train on the weekend that they learned it was happening. The train was a little too full, so the foreigners sat in the luggage area of the train. Bending and contorting their bodies to fit in the tiny cubbies.

When they arrived in Seoul they looked up where to go and headed toward the fireworks on the subway. They didn't quite know what they were getting into. They finally arrived at their stop and saw the massive crowds of people shoving and pushing. They got really excited because there were sooooo many food stands. They decided to try all the delicious street food and ate along the way to the river.

Once they got to the Han River, they found everyone had already taken all the spots in the grass. They also realized that everyone had blankets to sit on. So, they bought a blanket and sat where they thought they could see the fireworks. Lots of people walked by them, a few stepped on them and a few dropped food on them. Finally the moment arrived, the fireworks were going to start. A flood of people ran forward and tumbled over them as everyone pushed and shoved holding their phones up high to take a picture. They were so scared, they didn't know what to do, and they had lost their blanket under all the feet. They realized they were also in a place that they couldn't actually see the fireworks.

After walking around for awhile, the foreigners became frustrated with all the pushing and all the people. So, they jumped back on the subway. That's when the magic happened. Their subway stopped at the best view of the fireworks, so that they could watch from the train. The fireworks were beautiful and the foreigners ooed and ahhed at the beauty.

They went home happy but once again sitting in the luggage racks.

Moral of this story: There is a fireworks festival in the summer in Seoul on the Han River. Get there early if you want a good spot along the river. Be prepared for giant crowds and pushing. Ride the subway back and forth for the best view of the fireworks.


Sunday, January 29, 2017

Cafe Life: Make Your Own Phone Case Cafe

Seeing as I need all the coffee, I am always on the lookout for new cafes. My friends and I recently learned about a new cafe where you can drink coffee and make your own phone case. This was a must as soon as we learned about it and I plan on going back a million times to make a phone case for every season.

DB Story is a cafe in Hongdae, Seoul. It's a small cafe that you can find on google maps but could easily miss if you don't look up (ALWAYS LOOK UP). You walk up some sketchy stairs to the smallest room known to man. For us, it was packed and we couldn't really move around. You can't just sit down, you have to go up to the front and put your name on a waiting list for a seat (a mistake we made by trying to sit down first... whoops). Seating is very limited and it can take awhile to get a table. But, they give you a tray to start picking out what you want on your phone and this could take forever as well. So the time balances out. They have lots of styles of phone cases to choose from but if you have an uncommon phone, you should probably bring your own phone case (my friend has a Sol, the shittyest phone on Earth and there are no phone cases for it). I have an I-phone and there were lots of options for that phone case.

Once you pick out your case, it's time to pick out the decorations. There are hundreds of pieces to choose from. You can go with any style you want for your phone. It can be super cutesy, or a little punk, and even really sporty. There are shelves with lots of little bowls and you can pick out anything and everything you could imagine for your phone. There is also a large selection of decorative glues in lots of colors. But if you don't want decorative glue, they provide super glue when you go to pay.

After you have picked out all the decorations you need and don't need. You go up to the front counter to pay. All my decorations, black glue, and phone case cost around 15 dollars. (none of us actually ended up ordering coffee, so I cannot tell you if the coffee is good. We were too excited for making the phone case). They provide tweezers and you can pick out a nozel for your glue, depending on how you want the glue to turn out.

We all had a blast laughing about how terrible we were at making our phone cases. We honestly had no idea what we were doing but we loved every minute of it. I also am totally in love with how my case turned out. When you are done putting everything on, they stick it in a cake box to dry for a few days. Then you can pop it out and put it on your phone. If you have time, I highly suggest giving this cafe a visit, especially with friends (you can make a game of making phones cases for your friends).

Saturday, January 28, 2017

Adventure Time Korea: Bukchon Hanok Village in Seoul

Accidental shot from my selfie stick
Just because you are living in Korea and even in Seoul, doesn't mean you shouldn't take the time to do the touristy things. I think a lot of the time people want to be distinguished as a local rather than a tourist. But.... there is nothing wrong with being a tourist. It's fun to see things and do the tourist thing every once and awhile. It's great being a local and knowing the best dives and having the ahjumma at the kimbap restaurant know your favorite roll. However, it's also fun trying new things and going to the popular places that the tourists are flocking too.



This brings me to one of our many tourist weekends in Seoul. This weekend's focus was the Bukchon Hanok Village, which is a small area filled with Korean traditional houses. If you take the subway line 3 and get off at Anguk Station, you walk right into the village. It does take some walking but you can follow the crowds of people or just wonder around until you find something. There is a lot of walking with this and many hills to go up and down but these are well worth a look. You can roam up and down the streets looking at traditional houses. There are shops along the way and if you would like you can even rent a hanbok (Korean traditional clothing) to wear as you walk around. Great for pictures and the experience. When you walk up to the top you get some great views of Seoul.


There are a lot of museums in the area. One of the best is the Traditional House Museum. It gives you the opportunity to walk through a traditional house and yard. You can read the history and use of each room. It was really interesting to look through and had a beautiful garden. I couldn't tell you how to get here though... we literally happened upon it while we were exploring the houses. (You are going to read that a lot in this post.... actually in this blog). You can't actually walk through the rooms in the house. But you can look into the windows and doors like a peeper. The museum is free. You can walk right in and start exploring. (Pro Tip: It's also the only free bathroom in the area, so you get a free museum trip and a free bathroom. Complete score!)


Must have shot of our coffee
When we came down from the Village, we needed coffee because well we always need coffee. There is a road with tons of restaurants and coffee shops. I'm not going to lie, most of the places in the area are overpriced because it is for tourists. The word bougie went through my head when we passed by a lot of the shops. But we did end up finding this really cool coffee shop. It was up a steep stairway and the name is definitely what drew us in. The shop was great with tons of paraphernalia and cool artifacts around the shop. The guy behind this counter was super nice and his English was great. It is mainly coffee and juices, we were actually hoping for smoothies, but the coffee was not a disappointment.It was a great break from the heat because we were sweating like pigs.

We did it! Yeah!
I don't know if I should be in here
After our coffee break (read air conditioning break because summer in Korea is death), we went on with the exploring. Once again.... this is one of those things where we just kept walking and happened upon a mountain. We decided it was a must to climb up it. Samcheong Mountain was the name and we were determined to see what was at the top. There were a million trillion bijillion stairs. I love exercising.... however I was dying up these stairs. We had to take so many breaks (embarassing side story, I sweat from my knees pretty bad.... I know it's weird. Anyways I was wearing red jeans that day and it looked like my knees were faucets leaking water. My friends haven't let my knee sweat go to this day). I wanted to give up a lot but it was well worth the climb because the top was amazing. We ended up on a wall with cubbies (sniper holes that we don't know if we were supposed to climb in... it didn't say not to go in.... please don't deport me) to climb in and views of Seoul that were amazing. Apparently if you keep going you need your ID or military clearance... I don't know... We stopped because we had left one friend behind because she was scared of heights and crying on the wall.


Once we came back down, you would think we were done. But no we kept walking and found the Korean Folk Museum (once again, happened upon... it's a pattern). This is also a free museum you can walk through. There are restaurants and lots of other museums in the area. There are some beautiful temples and more historical things to look at. There is a kids zone with fun crafts to do. You can see men and women walking around in traditional clothing. We had fun walking through it and taking pictures and reading the signs (all of these were in Korean and English). There were some statues of the Chinese zodiacs that you can take your picture with, so of course we did that.

After walking through the Folk Museum, we were officially done. Our feet hurt, we needed a shower, and we stank.... like super stinky foreigners walking around. We decided it was time to head back. But if you want to keep going, there is a lot more to see. You don't have to know the way or use your phone to find anything. We only knew the first stop and from there we were constantly "lost". We did lots of fun things and all of this was just happened upon while walking around. Don't forget to be complete tourists and take lots of pictures for the gram. And definitely don't forget your selfie stick, you'll need it and you won't be a proper tourist without it.








Friday, January 27, 2017

Adventure Time Korea: Being a Hongdae Tour Guide

A few months ago (read like 6 maybe 7 months ago), I found out that my friends hadn't been properly introduced to Hongdae in Seoul. For anyone who has ever read anything about Seoul, Hongdae is mentioned A LOT. Hongdae is known as one of the places to go to party. There are many great places to go to party in Seoul, but if you want a crowded place with a lot of English speakers and other foreigners (that's not Itaewon) then Hongdae is for you. I took it upon myself to properly introduce them to Hongdae.... By properly, I do mean I took them to exactly the same places that my predecessors at work showed me.

We stayed at a great hostel that we have stayed at a few times since then. It was close enough that it was maybe a 5 minute walk to the main street. But far enough off to the side that the noise and drunk people didn't effect us. The owners are really nice and the beds are comfortable. Also, they have kpop posters on the wall and usually some band is singing on the TV. The showers are always warm (see previous post). We stayed in a 6 bed dorm for all girls. (Family House Tel Hongdae shout out).

First, I took them down the main street in Hongdae to look at a few of the murals and explore the shops. There are lots of street vendors and places to get cheap clothes and accessories. You could spend hours walking up and down the streets shopping and eating. A trip to Hongdae isn't complete without stopping to watch the street dancers. There is usually a few groups of competing street dancers. They are usually promoting something but they speak too fast and I can't understand them. However, I have gotten free coffee a few times while standing there. They are usually there from late afternoon and then leave to the clubs at maybe 10ish. There are also singers and magicians. Depending on your Korean level, you may or may not like the magicians. But most of them are really funny and entertaining to watch (magic is it's own language).

In the middle of shopping we stopped to try the latest rage here, Light Bulb Drinks. They are ades but they put them into light bulb shaped cups and the straws have lights. We went to one of the vendors with the longest line because there was a whole ritual the vendor had while making it. (You can see a video on my instagram). They don't taste any better than a normal drink and are actually quite small for their price. To be honest, it's just an experience to have. We enjoyed watching it being made and taking pictures with our cups (we did it for the gram) (see gram photo below).

This street is packed and sweaty as the depths of hell in summer (which is when we were there). But you can dip in and out of shops and cafes all day. You can see the sweaty sheen in all the photos (aka that glow life). We had to take quite a few showers over the course of the weekend.

Anywho, once you hit dinner time, there is a plethora of restaurants to choose from. You can get anything your heart desires. But as anyone who has lived in Korea for more than a few months will tell you, LOOK UP! There are so many restaurants and cafes on the second and third floors of buildings. You are cheating yourself if you don't look up and try the restaurants above eye level. Word to the wise, don't try to eat dinner too late, you won't have many options. I have mentioned before that most drinking places also serve food. But this is not proper dinner food, it is usually snack foods. If you want a proper meal, you need to go out at dinner time.

Speaking of drinking places, there are tons where you can sit and drink for hours with friends and meet new people. However, if you are a foreigner or want to meet foreigners, there is a place known for it's abundance, The Park. Do I know the name of this park.... no.... but I know how to walk there(hashtag foreigner life). But, honestly, I have not met anyone who has been to Hongdae more than once that doesn't know what you mean when you say The Park. Since it was my friends first time, I had to take them there. Now, let me paint a picture for you. There is a graffiti covered park with trash stacked up all around the sides. In this big open place, there are tons of people standing around with soju, beer or maeggoli(spelling is hard) bottles, just drinking. There is usually a group having a rap battle in one corner and maybe a few singers performing off to the side. You will see lots of foreigners just getting tanked. Soju is really cheap from the convenience store, so this is a cheap place to go that you don't have to buy food to drink there.

From there, many people (I think... maybe.... so I've heard) go to one of the millions of clubs in Hongdae. I decided to take my friends to one of the most popular (or was one of the most popular.... I may not be "with it"). NB2 is a hip hop club. Usually clubs in Korea play EDM music, but NB1 and NB2 both play hip hop. NB2 is a giant club but it's always packed to the point of sardines. The line stretches way out to the street. (Pro tip: go to NB1 first, they will give you a wrist band for both clubs and leave your stuff at this much smaller club across the street. Then you can skip the line head into NB2 and by head in I mean try to push into the pit of people). Summer time in this club is stinky and death. The moment you step in, you are in a sauna of sweat and there is no relief. (Note: Winter time it's a nice warm place to dance). If you go onto the stage, there is an air conditioner and there is a back way onto the stage by circling the outer corners of the club buttttttttt the stage is still hot and packed. That being said, we still danced for hours and it's always a blast even through the uncomfortableness.

The next day we went to Sinchon. This is actually one stop over from Hongdae. There is every makevup brand you can imagine on this street. For any make up lover, this is the place to go. There is lots of shopping, cafes and food places as well. On the back streets there are a lot of drinking places for later at night. There is also usually some sort of singing or dancing exhibition going on. We happened to go on the day the Summer Water Festival was happening. There were blow up water slides and blow up pools with floaties. It looked like a lot of fun but unfortunately we were not dressed appropriately to play in the water. We took a few pictures and then went to a cafe to cool off. One of the best parts of summer in Korea is bingsu. Bingsu is a bowl of ice flakes filled with fruit and other sweet things. It is a great way to cool off on a hot day.

After lunch and desert we headed to Ewha Women's University. Also just one stop away from Sinchon. Ewha has great outdoor shopping in all of the latest styles in Korea. The clothes are really cheap but the quality isn't great. However, it is good shopping if you want to keep up with Korean fashion without breaking the bank. You can buy a whole new wardrobe without being too broke to buy food for the next month. I could write a whole "How-To" post about shopping in Korea. But I digress.....

After our millionth shower, we went back out that night and did it all over again. We called it an early night because we had to go back to Cheonan the next morning. My friends said that it was a great introduction to that area of the city and we got to do all of our favorite things. I can't speak for all the foreigners (duh) but from what I've read and heard (and learned from predecessors) this is a pretty normal introduction to Hongdae.





Thursday, January 26, 2017

Adventure Time Korea: Going Down to Gwangju

Hello, my name is Amy and I am going to tell you about the Great Chuseok Adventure 2016. During the Chuseok holidays some friends and I decided to take a trip down to Gwangju. A couple of friends and I packed up and took the long bus ride down to Gwangju. Before I tell you about the trip, I'll give you a short background as to why we decided to go there.

When I first decided to move to Korea, I was between two job offers. One was in Gwangju and the other was in Cheonan (where I currently reside). Gwangju is one of the larger cities in Korea and I was tempted to take that job offer. However, Cheonan is a transportation hub and a lot closer to Seoul. But I was always curious what I was missing from not moving to Gwangju. I finally decided that I should see what I missed by moving to Cheonan. I by no means know for sure what my life would have been like if I had moved to Gwangju and the short four days there by no means gave me the most proper look into life there. But curiosity killed something that one time and I thought maybe it would spare me, it didn't.

As I mentioned, Gwangju is one of the larger cities in South Korea. It is known for its art and beautiful scenery. My friends and I were really excited to see the new city and did a lot of research into what we should see when we went there. We went there armed with a list of things we should do, see and, most importantly, eat.

First things first, the bus ride was an hour longer than expected. I think this was due to the holiday traffic, it was a total of 4 hours sitting on the bus (note to self by train tickets months in advance for holiday trips). We made the most of it, taking pictures and eating snacks along the way. When we arrived, we had no idea where to go from the bus station. We were a little confused because near our bus terminal back in Cheonan, it's like the downtown of the city. But it was quite empty around this bus terminal. We came to the conclusion that this was probably because of the holiday. Most of the big cities are empty on Chuseok and the people are at home with their families. Once we found a taxi stand, we spent a good amount of time trying to explain to the cab driver where we wanted to go and he kept pushing the address away when we tried to give it to him. Eventually we convinced him we could give him directions in Korean and he didn't need to use the translate on his phone. We got dropped off close to our hostel..... however.... I don't know how to put this in great terms. I was the one who booked our hostel, it was cheap but had great reviews and photos. But I may not have chosen the best location. We were dropped off around a lot of abandoned buildings that look like they had been taken down by fire or just fallen into disrepair. The area was probably one of the shadiest areas I have seen since I moved here (shady being a relative term, South Korea is one of the safest countries and even through the rough looking surroundings we never felt unsafe enough to walk around at night. Although ghosts seemed like a fair assumption of something that would attack us).

The Gwangju Adventure Crew
On to more positive things. After our trek through the ghosts and ghouls, we found our hostel in the middle of a lot of love motels. But our hostel was a beacon of awesomeness. It was super clean and seemed to be recently updated. The owner was really nice as well, he was always trying to feed us all the food all the time. We were not too far away from most of the things we wanted to visit. However, upon talking to coworkers, we were located on the wrong side of the city. I totally recommend it though, I Am Guesthouse in Gwangju.




Ducks falling into soup pots T-T
We had read that Gwangju was known for two different types of foods, Duck Soup and Galbi. We were very close to a road known as Duck Soup road. There were supposed to be tons of soup restaurants. We decided that this should be the first thing we did because we love food. We immediately found the marker for it, it was a statue of ducks falling into soup pots. It was funny but we felt a little bad for standing and laughing at it. We walked around the streets and got lost. We found a restaurant in a back alley where no one was walking and no other people were eating, This is always a good decision.... not.... not always a good decision. We order the Duck Soup. It came with barbecue duck before the actual soup. It was very delicious. But we were getting a little full by the time the soup came out in this huge pot. The soup was quite tasty. The texture was different than anything else we had tried in Korea. It was creamy, except it was lacking any sort of cream. It had a lot of leafy greens and big pieces of tender duck. The sides (because you always have a million sides at any korean restaurant) were a bunch of types of kimchi. They all had a unique flavor and were interesting to try. All in all  it was a pleasant experience and the food tasted great going down..... Fast forward to a few hours later when we were all laying in bed feeling nauseous. One of us (not me) was puking her life away in the bathroom. Two of us (this included me) were just nauseous but not as bad as the third. Now, this cannot be blamed on the restaurant. Duck is a much greasier meat. None of us usually eat  very greasy food (although there are many fried chicken restaurants in Korea, we just tend to avoid them). And the puker.... well she did admit that she has puked every time she eats duck.

Our Gwangju adventure wasn't having the best start. We woke up the next morning with new hope. However, it was shortly dashed when we learned we didn't know how to use the hot water and we all had to take cold showers (the whole weekend was a slew of cold showers.... other people took warm showers and we asked how it worked but time and time again we could never get the showers to work. On top of this it was a big community shower, none of us are exhibitionists. So we were all running into the showers when we were sure everyone was asleep and trying to shower as quick as possible so no one else would see our lady bits.) After a cold awakening, we decided to go back to the bus terminal, where most the life seemed to be. We got coffee and plotted our day.

Pungnam Lake
World Cup Stadium
This whole build up has brought me to what we did and what I recommend you go and see in Gwangju. We started the day going to Pungam. It is a lovely lake with a lot of hiking around it. It gives some great views of the city and is a wonderful place to have a picnic. We wondered around the park having photoshoots and stopping to eat the millions of pounds of bread we brought for our picnic. There were some really fun exercise parks there as well, with some equipment we have never seen in Cheonan (we stop at every exercise park to play on the equipment). A short walk from there, you can visit the World Cup Stadium. It's worth taking a quick look at and there are some stairs that are good for a quick photo op. But now came the hard part, getting a taxi back to our hostel. We couldn't find a taxi for ages and did a lot of walking. But hey, cardio.

View from atop a random trail
Art Street Photo Op
That night we went looking for the famous art street. We had tried to find it our previous night but only ended up getting lost. Finally, we found it, it was very quiet at night and made for an interesting view. We made note of a lot of cute coffee shops and brunch places to visit the next day. Finally, and I do mean finally again, after being in Gwangju for almost two days, we found the people. We finally found the people. Everywhere we had gone, the people had been so scarce. We were getting worried that the zombies had taken the city. Around art street there are lots of cool statues to look at and a few murals. We found lots of excuses to stop and pose for the camera. Our walk back to our hostel that night was filled with running and screaming. We all talked about how if we had been back in our home country walking in a place that looked like it did around our hostel, we would have DEFINITELY been robbed. But we were never bothered and our pockets were unscathed.

Coffee Made by a Handsome Man
Angry Bear Cookies
By day three we were desperate for our two favorite activities, sitting at cute cafes and shopping. We had read that there were some really artsy cafes and great street shopping in Gwangju. One of these was not a disappointment. We had coffee at the cutest cafe named Full House Coffee. The shop was filled with knick knacks that were all for sale. It was covered wall to wall with notes and pictures from people all over the world. Our coffees were delicious and made with love. We also got the cutest cookies as service with the coffee. The owner was chatty and easy on the eyes ;) . Fueled by coffee we decided to go down to the underground shopping we had seen the night before. There were lots of little stores filled with things we usually see in the underground in Cheonan. There were a few resale shops and trendy shops that had some really unique pieces. But overall, the shopping was nothing special.

Cutest of the Cafes



We decided to go out that night since we had finally found the people. We went to a drinking place. People in Gwangju seemed friendly enough. We enjoyed sitting around and chatting and went home much later through insane amounts of rain. We slept in the next day(read hungover) and lounged around because it had been raining on and off our whole trip.

Graffiti with a message?

After four days in Gwangju we finally made our way back to Cheonan. The bus station was starting to fill up again as people came back to the cities from their hometowns. Gwangju was an interesting trip and it was great to see what life could have been had I moved there instead of Cheonan. I would recommend it. But if you are planning a trip to Gwangju... make sure to stay in the right area of town. And don't go when it is raining all weekend. And maybe go when there are more people (if you like people, if you hate people then Chuseok is a great time to go). But a few suggestions 1) make sure to have an itinerary, even down to the restaurants 2) contact a person who lives there or has traveled there to find out what is good and bad 3) have some sort of knowledge of how to read a map.