HolyShitKorea!

Well, my birthday has once again come and gone, and I had a spectacular time! The birthday itself was a surprisingly easy day at school, and we were even able to head home a couple of hours early. Then that evening I went out with my general teachers class. They treated me to Gamja Tang (my new favorite food) and beer, and then took me to a karaoke room for singing and cake. You have not lived until you have seen middle aged women vamp and preen and dance while singing korean pop music at the top of their lungs STONE COLD SOBER. I have never seen anyone sing karaoke sober.

The next day was yoga followed by a trip to the bathhouse with Stephanie and Sunny. I met another nice old lady in lacy underwear who scraped all the dead skin off my body and washed my hair, with the bonus of seeing the oldest woman in the world getting the same treatment. She was ancient. She was a crone. She had more wrinkles than I have ever seen on anybody ever. It was actually kind of great. Then I moved on to the salt baths where another older lady sidled up next to me in the pool to discuss whether or not Americans really like hot water. She kept putting her hand on my knee and shoulder and gesturing at my hair. It was hard not to laugh at the ridiculousness of the situation.

Saturday was long and lazy with bike rides and beaches and coffee shop conversation, and visitors from afar (thanks Nate and Josh). Then in the evening we all got together to eat “pumpkin duck,” which is a duck (big surprise), cut into cubes and baked inside a butternut squash. Then the squash is cut open into petals, with the duck served in the middle. It is incredible. From there, we headed to the beach where we had a sneaky bonfire complete with s’mores and cheap fireworks. It was a lot like home, and I was left feeling happy and lucky and full. I wish you were here.

I am terrible with photo posts, but I figured even a poor photo post is better than no photo post. Also, you can head over to Mike’s blog when you’re done here for a better effort.

The first two photos are from our first weekend in Gangneung, hiking with our friends Mihyun and Ben. We climbed Ulsanbawi in Seoraksan National Park. The climb was gorgeous, but the last leg was 880 stairs (I counted). I was the weakest link and had a fantastic view of the rest of my party’s rear ends the entire time.

The next two are views of my lovely little city from a hill behind our apartment. It looks a little smoggy, but this place is insanely humid and down in a valley, so I think (I hope) it’s just hazy. Actually, I’ve noticed the haze a lot less now that the weather is cooler. In the second photo, if you look closely at the building just right of center, the short one, you can see that it says 101. That’s our building! Our balcony faces away from the camera.

The next five photos are from Mike’s and my second trip to Seoraksan over the long holiday weekend. The place was packed, so we ended up clambering up the (mostly) dry riverbed to avoid the crowd. More gorgeous views, more stairs. Mike is posing with the giant Buddha at the bottom of the mountain, sporting the patch job done on his shin by a kindly old Korean man.

The three photos with the beautiful foliage are from last weekend. We went with Mihyun, Ben, and Su Jong to a smaller mountain (the name escapes me) in an area famous for its salmon. We spent the afternoon climbing and then had some really fresh, really RAW fish mixed with all kinds of veggies and sauces. It was incredibly good.

The final two are in memory of my Korean man-pants, which were cheap and could not withstand the sharp rocks I was slithering over. By the time I made it down the mountain, I was only wearing half a pair of pants. I had to cover myself with a sweater so they would let me in the restaurant. It was extremely classy, and I was a proud representative of my country (as always).

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Here are a few things I’ve learned about Gangneung in the last week:

1. Buying jeans in my size = difficult and depressing.  After a searching in three different stores and only coming up with offerings that were too short and/or too tight, I finally asked a shop girl if there were any larger sizes I was missing. She made the negative Korean “X” symbol at me and pointed ominously to the men’s section. At least boy jeans are kind of hip here.

2. Buying fruit on the street = cheap and easy. I stopped and bought a big basket of tomatoes and some bananas on my way home. The stooped, toothless old lady selling them grinned at me and packed them all up very nicely, but was apparently rudely familiar by using the shortened version of “thank you” (감사 “kamsa”), rather than the complete one (감사합니다 “kamsahabnida”). Maybe she figured I wouldn’t notice.

3. Fermented rice wine = sweet and delicious. I’d heard about makalee and thought it sounded horrible. When it was served it looked exactly like brown rice milk and I was trying to think of reasons not to drink it all through the toast, but it turned out to be fantastic! Apparently the hangovers are notorious, but it was good enough that several teachers poured the leftovers into plastic water bottles to take home. Yes, even me. Korean teachers = sneaky.

4. Not having a Korean social security number = inconvenient and annoying. In person, you just flash your ARC (alien resident card) to prove you’re legal and everything is fine. But online it can be a problem. I just tried to register on a snowboarding forum to see if I can find some used equipment and discovered (after painstaking translation) that my foreigner ID number won’t cut it. It was almost a problem when I signed up for my cellphone plan too. I wonder what getting a credit card would be like (not that I want one)?

5. Ashtanga yoga in Korean = humbling and hard. It felt amazing to get back in a studio, but I’m sadly out of practice. My new teacher is scary and tough and speaks no English beyond “ok” and “relax,” but she seemed to have no problems manhandling (ladyhandling?) me into position. The class is tiny and she’s already pinpointed some problem spots I’ve been working on (or have been avoiding working on) for a while. Huge workout for the body, even more for the ego. I’m going back tonight.

As for this afternoon, I plan to take it extremely easy. We have a half day because of midterm exams, and it’s raining and cold. I’m lazy and it’s quiet and someone in the office is playing Bob Marley over her computer speakers. This bodes well.