"Only in Korea"

There are some things that happen in this country that just don't occur in other places. I started to keep a list of events that I witness which make me think to myself "only in Korea":

+ Small children (age 7ish) walking or playing alone in a dark park in Seoul and no one sees reason fro concern.
+Complete strangers approaching you in the shower room (where we are all naked) offering to scrub your back for you because it's one of those hard-to-reach spots.
+ A woman passed out on a bench in the apartment lobby with one shoe on and her purse lying upside-down on the ground next to her (completely unbothered ofcourse)
+Employees try to quit their job and their boss simply tells them they can't....and they listen.
+It is ok for kids to take candy from a stranger on the subway.
+you can purchase designer wallets of the street.
+ Drunk men will pass out anywhere...even the middle of the road.
+ You can always count on someone trying to help you within 45 seconds of looking lost.
+Kids probobly work harder than their parents.
+You go in coffee shop planning to relax and read util you hear the latest dance mix blasting through the place.

Rachel and I started a weekly event call "Discover Korea Thursdays". On our first Thursday we went to a Buddhist temple called 조 게 사 (Jogyesa). It was like a sanctuary inside the city, with Buddhist chanting and the smell of incense. I actually felt as though I was back in Nepal or Thailand and not in Seoul. The locus picture is from that day.

A Very Happy Chusock in Seoul

The past week all of Korea has been celebrating the Chusock holiday, which is a little bit of a mixture between Thanksgivng and Day of the Dead. It's main purpose is to celebrate the harvest so people all go home to their parents/grandparents houses for a huge feast. Another part of the tradition is to bow to your ancestors to show respect.
Our original plan fro tehe week off of work was to go check out the national park North of here that we have been dying to see, but our school bribed us with a lot of money to stay and work over the break...and we gave in. It ended up workng out well though. Our classes were really great (other than starting at 7 am), some of the top students in Korea. They are all prepping to get into the very elite highschools. My job was basically to talk to them about writing and brainstorm possible essay questions about current global issues...I was in heaven. These kids blew my mind though. They are highschoolers who write better than most first year college students in the US do. It always does make a me a little sad though because I doubt they actually had a childhood outside of school.
Our Busan girls came up to Seoul for the holiday and we decided that we should have a practice run for real Thanksgiving in celebration of Chusock. We decided to boil chickens since there are no ovens or turkeys in Korea. At the store, the whole chickens were really whole, head and all. Rachel and I looked at each other and discussed what you do if the chicken still has a head and you don't have that sharp of knives. Luckily the butcher caught our look of concern and tried to point us to teh pre-cut breasts. We told him we wanted this and asked him to chop the head, he looked at us a little crazy, but chopped it for us. Headless chicken dinner went great and we had even found pumpkin pie at Costco! I had about 12 people in my studio apartment and I was feeling thankful and content for all of the wonderful people I have met here.
On the real Chusock which was Tuesday, our Korean mom's brought us over tons of tradition Korean Chusock foods. 상 평 (Songpyeon) is a rice cake stuffed either sweet bean, sesame or sweet potato. It is a Korean myth that if a woman can make pretty songpyeon she will have beautiful children. We also ate many fried pancake-like things with different things in them. It was so nice of them to come over, it really felt like family coming and making sure we were not celebrating the holiday alone. We decided to have them over for dinner the following night, so we cooked them pesto past with sundried tomatos and spinach. Mrs. Im brought over a 한 박 (Han-Bak) which is a Korean traditional outfit. She had me try it on since we are about the same size. She explained to me that it is a hanbak that you wear to bow to your husbands parents when you get married, which she taught Rachel and I how to properly do. I took it off before dinner and folded it up to give it back to her and she said "no, this is a gift". I did not really know what to do, I thought I might start tearing. She gave me one of her wedding dresses! So I promised if I do ever get married I will bow in the Korean dress. I just cannot get over how generous and friendly people in Korea are. They are also so proud of their culture and absolutly love to share it with us.
As the Chusock holiday comes to an end I sit in my apartment quite happy.

Have any of you ever seen the show The Office (American version)? I am not a TV watcher as most of you well know. The last time I actually had a TV in my house was when I lived with parents, but somehow I have become totally addicted to this show. I have realized it's because now that I work in a cubical-style office I can relate to this madness. The weird assortment of people, the pranks, the things done instead of work. We have ongoing pranks and games in the office, including fantasy football (which I am losing miserably at because I know nothing about football) and world geography challenge which I have been no champ at either. One would think that when there free time in the office I would be marking one of those 100 essays I get to read a week...but don't be fooled, I play games. My friend Jon and I spent about a week creating BANANZA, the best office game ever (argued by many). Basically you have a string of paperclips with a heavier paper clamp on the end. The object of the game is to hit the cardboard head as far as possible. You get three tries (like baseball). It's much harder then you may think which is why you have to say "bananza" before you take a swing so everyone knows you are actually going for it. Ah yeah...I could have graded about 25 essays in the time I wasted trying to break Jon's record.
It's time like these that I realize how different my life is here. Sometimes it really freaks me out that I live in a city and work in an office, but it is my life right now and if I have to do ridiculous things like play banaza in order to have a great time...well I have no problem with that.

Another Great Weekend
Last weekend I we went out climbing with the Korea on the Rocks crew. Unfortunatly Typhoon Nari decided to make an appearence as well. The weather was pretty insane, I have never seen rain in Korea like friday night. I got out of work at 10 and it was raining Korean style dogs (with pink ears and booties) and I decided I was tired to I would take a taxi instead of the subway. Well, I think everyone heading my direction must have had the same thought because it took forever to find one. When I finally found one and told the driver where I was going he gave me a big X with his arms. (I think people may get joy out of giving the X here) He told me he was going the other way and kicked me back out into the rain. When I did finally make it home there was pumpkin pie from Costco waiting for me which made it all ok. Wow that was kind of a tangant.
By Saturday morning it had stopped and we made our way down to the climbing area. By about 4 the rocks had dried off enough not to be soaking wet, but it was definitely not optimal climbing conditions. I didn't care though, I was happy to be out climbing with cool people and didn't mind getting wet and dirty. We had a potluck burrito bar for which explains the smirk on the new Mexican's face. Saturday we got a few routes in before it started coming down pretty hard again.

Life has been really good in Korea. I am feeling pretty stoaked to be here right now. Last week my friend AJ and i went out to smack the ol' tennis ball around a bit. Both times we went out we were challenged to doubles matches by older Korean couples, and both times we lost. In my defense, I have not played an actaul match in at least 5 years....but yes we lost of 50 year olds...all in good fun though. This is part of what I love about Korea though. The people are so outgoing and interested in doing things with forgeiners. The wierd thing is that my experience has been opposite of everything people complained about in Korea. I don't understand why this place has such a bad reputation. My only explanation is that a lot of the forgeiners here are a little strange and are just socially akward people. Poor Korea, their reputation has been resting upon all those people who were akward and unable to survive in their own countries.
Anyways I have been slacking on the blog, and all communication for that matter. I will try and "get my ass in gear" as my father would say.
Pictures include dark gloomy climbing, burrito eating and dorky posed pic.

Biking in Korea

When I was in Thailand I met a British boy who carried a picture of his friend in his wallet. I made the comment that if I carried a picture in my wallet it would probobly be of my bike. That said, it may not seem so weird that I knew that today was the 1 year anniversary of the last time a rode my bike. I decided that I would go on a bike ride to mark the day. So off I went on the river trail, where I experienced some interesting things in Korean biking culture. At the beginning of my ride there was quite a head wind, and that combined with my heavy bike (I think it may weigh half my body weight) and no clipless pedals made for a little bit of a work out. At one point I looked back to see a Korean man, on a nice road bike, decked out with bike racing attire and clipless pedals drafting me. At first I just found it a bit entertaining, but after 25 minutes of busting my ass, while he continued drafting I was a little thrown off. It's so bizzare to me that you can have all this hardcore gear and then draft off a white girl who has a $100 Chinese bike (that quite possisbly could fall apart at any time).
After riding for awhile I stopped to get some water at a park and just sat on the grass and observed for awhile. One of the best things I saw was a guy and a girl on a tandem bike. The guy was peddling his heart out while his girlfriend, wearing a dress and heels, sat with her legs up taking in the views. I guess if you are on the back you don't really have to do anything because the poor guy on the front will never know. (When am I ever going to learn that you shoudl never go anywhere in Korea without a camera...you always witness picture worthy events) After I drank my water I decided to use the porta potty before heading on my way. I was so confused when I walked into a porta potty cleaner than most public toilets, and used the toilet to the relaxing sounds of classical music. I am not even joking, the porta pottys in the park play classical music for your enjoyment. It was a really great day, not quite the same as a bike ride at home, but fun nonetheless.
These are just some random pictures from around the city.