Thanksgiving in Korea

Happy Holidays!!

There aren't many options for a Thanksgiving meal here... especially when you live in the middle of nowhere miles away from the city and supermarkets. On Thursday I took a trip to E-mart and came back with a huge bag of food and drink that I couldn't even carry on my own. With the help of a friend I dragged my purchases back to campus and stocked them away for use later in the night -- at the "Thanksgiving feast."

I went over to another American's place and we improvised Thanksgiving dinner by making chocolate chip pancakes, bacon, and mimosas.

Although not traditional, it was still really fun and not much is more American than a plate of flapjacks and bacon.

Korean Face Masks

One of the things I really love about Korea is the extraordinary variety of beauty products they stock in their shops. Makeup here is pretty inexpensive, and shops will sell some weird beauty enhancement items. My favorite thing to do on girls' nights now is slap on a korean face mask.

Although they make you look like a ghost/ cadaver with melty skin, after finally peeling the mask away from your face you are left with skin softer than a baby's butt wrapped in cashmere. 

Jimjilbang - Korean Sauna

I forgot to post about this in all the excitement of traveling to Seoul and abroad, but my last Thursday off before vacation I went to a sauna, AKA jimjilbang with Anna. I was expecting an experience like a Japanese onsen, but it was definitely different than I imagined. 

We paid 9,000 won (about $9) to get in and that allowed us access to the saunas, baths, and upstairs relaxation room. It also got us some swiggity swag prison-orange chic pajamas to wear around the relaxation room on the third floor.

First thing we did was bathe, which was challenging considering the jimjilbang didn't provide anything other than bar soap (unlike onsens which usually provide shampoo at least), and there didn't seem to be any kind of shampoo/ soap/ conditioner/ body towels for sale anywhere. 

It was really nice to relax in the pools after bathing. There were three different temperature hot pools and then a cold pool at the end of the room. There were also a couple saunas. We sat in the "cooler" sauna for maybe five minutes and sweated our asses off. It was horrible. 

Many of the women in the sauna were walking around with sucker welts on their skin. At first I thought it was some strange skin condition but I guess there's a therapy where people vacuum suction their skin and it makes them feel healthier. It's an Asian therapy. I looked it up when I got back from the sauna, but I don't remember what it's called. Regardless it left large circular welts on these women's skin and it looked scary. I bet those bruises last for at least a week....

Once we were done bathing, we went upstairs to the relaxation room and bought snacks, sat in the massage chairs, attempted to do yoga, and laid around. The jimjilbang provides mats for people who want to stay the night or just lay around, so we dragged some mats into one of the warm rooms and properly passed out. 

Even though it was pretty cozy, it wasn't a good night's sleep because there were other people in the room, particularly men, who kept coughing and moving around and snoring. Also the warm room became less cozy and felt more like a sauna as the night progressed. But it was a good experience that I'm glad I didn't pass up. Can't wait to go again! ...But maybe not spend the night...

Our stylish orange PJs 

Chilling in the bone crushers.... I mean massage chairs....

Seoul 4 - FOOD

Seoul has some of the best food of all the places I've been. Not only because it's delicious, but because it is omnipresent and inexpensive. I gorged on so much street food including hotak (fried dough filled with melted sugar and nuts), custard egg tarts, baked sweet potatoes, spicy rice cakes, and potato swirls on sticks. OMG. 

We also went out to eat quite a lot and since Seoul is so international we were able to try a variety of food options that aren't really available on Jeju Island. 

Not to mention -- KOREAN BBQ. I ate more Korean BBQ in that one week than I ever have in my life. Thankfully it's pretty much my favorite thing ever so I didn't get sick of it. On our last full day in Seoul we went out to lunch at an all you can eat Korean BBQ place and just got impregnated with massive tons of grilled meat and octopus. We stayed there for a good hour and a half just gorging ourselves until we felt like we'd explode with food. 

Seoul 3 - Trick Eye Museum

Right in Hongdae (the university district), where we were staying, they have a place called "The Trick Eye Museum." It's good for bigger groups of people but it's not really a place where you can go alone because the whole point of it is to take funny pictures with your friends. It's full of all these paintings that are set up to look 3D so that you can interact with them. 

First, though, we were shuttled into a freezing cold room with ice displays. They had an igloo and dolls frozen in ice (???) and an ice house with an ice toilet and ice bed. They also had an ice slide we could use. The funny thing was that before we went in we were handed blankets to wrap around ourselves. It looked super stupid but it was necessary after a few minutes in the sub-zero room. Kinda cool though !

The rest of our time there we spent wandering through the trick eye museum displays. Some of them were based of of famous works of art and others were just silly. Honestly it was so much fun. I definitely recommend going even though the price is a tad bit steep (15,000 won). It's especially fun if you go with people that have a good sense of humor.

Seoul 2 - Drinks

On one of our nights in Seoul we went out to Itaewon, aka foreigner town. It was really cute. They had different flags strung up crossing over the streets and there were a lot more people from different countries walking around. We went out for Mediterranean food and then hit up a bar with REAL BEER. Like nothing I've ever experienced in Korea. I was able to have real pumpkin beer from the tap, but unfortunately I couldn't even really enjoy it because I was sick and so congested :( Whatever, my body has been imbued with pumpkin beer goodness *__*

We also went to Insadong, the arts district, and wandered around. There were a lot of foreigners and street stalls in the area, along with cute shops selling tradition and non-traditional goods. My favorite part was the giant Psy they had outside of a cosmetics shop. Loooove him !

On our third night in Seoul we went to this interesting bar called "Apple Tree." It was in the basement of this building and had some cool mood lighting. You walk in and there's a big, fake tree in the middle of the room, strung up with wooden apples. We had the option of sitting at tables in the middle of the room, but instead opted to sit along the walls in this curtained off space with cushions and a low table. We sat on the floor with pillows and candles and sipped on appletinis.

Seoul 1 - Cultural

While in Seoul we had some cultural experiences. We walked around a neighborhood full of houses with traditional Korean architecture. We also went to a palace and for a walk down the Cheonggyecheon River. 

Jeoji Oreum and Beach Day with the House

Today the whole of Jeoji House took a trip to our namesake oreum and the Hyeopjae Beach. Once again the weather was wonderful -- clear and sunny, without a cloud in the sky. There was a slight cool breeze playing around us when we reached the top of the oreum for lunch and a rest.

The beach was also very nice, albeit windier. I went swimming in my clothes since I managed not to bring a bathing suit, but a lot of the students ended up doing the same. We had a recklessly fun time just running around through the water and sand. I felt so free, being off campus. It was nice to bond with some of the girls in the house outside of a boarding/ academic context.

To see more, go to our house blog.

Norebang 노래방

This week for our day off I suggested that we go into the city to do Norebang, as we could also get some shopping done at E-Mart. This was a good idea. We spent the afternoon belting out hits from the '90s and '00s, and dancing around like freaks. 

Unlike Japan, apparently norebang is primarily a nighttime activity, so it was a bit more challenging than expected to find a place open in the mid-afternoon. I remember being able to go into karaoke in Japan after 1pm or so and we could stay there for five hours for just 5,000 yen (about $5) a piece. We could even order beer while we were there. This place didn't serve alcohol, but we didn't need it. We cut loose. Singing is such a stress reliever, and it's so nice to get off campus each week. 

The karaoke room we were placed in had a small stage at the back, flashing lights, and mirrors. The technology wasn't too advanced--we had to look up song numbers in a song book--but the sound quality was pretty sweet and they provided us with TAMBOURINES. Heck yes!

Following our time at norebang, we went to Wa Bar, a western-type bar, for a beer or two, and then later went home for Hawaiian pizza <3

Hwasun Beach and Sanbangsan Temple (화순금모래해변 & 산방산)

This past Thursday was a prime example of things not always going exactly how you think they're going to go, but still working out for the best. We went to Hwasun beach thinking that we'd kayak, but quickly learned that the weather was too windy and the water too rough to paddle out on the sea. Instead Anna suggested we take a walk along the closest Olle trail, and so we found ourselves trudging along the beach, scrambling over rocks, climbing countless stairs, and pulling ourselves up a steep gradient using a rope.

Once we reached the start of what looked like an actual trail through the woods, we encountered a Korean man and his family. In English the man told us, "You can't go that way. There's a big spider on the path." And we stood there thinking, this must be one massive spider to turn away a big Korean guy and his family. Although I was wary, Anna was undeterred. The two of us scouted a little father into the brush, leaving Oli and Reesha behind. We quickly came across the spider, which was brightly colored and hanging out on a web crossing the footpath, so Anna took a stick and moved the spider out of the way. No big deal. 

I've noticed that many of the Korean people I meet while hiking Ole trails are incredibly well outfitted with all the right brightly colored hiking gear, but when it comes to getting their hands dirty they're fairly inexperienced with the outdoors. 

Anna and I reached a viewing platform at the top of the cliff, but since Reesha and Oli didn't follow us, we had to turn around and go back the way we came, making a detour around the cliff, we reconnected with the olle trail on the other side and continued our hike through a rolling field and then along the coastline.

From our perch on another seaside cliff, we looked out and saw gorgeous hidden beaches lining the coastline.

Some of the cove beaches were closed to the public, but we found one that we could walk onto. Nobody kicked us off at any rate... We sunbathed and swam for a couple hours. The sea was so warm and the rocks on either side of us kept away the worst of the wind and waves. 

We moved on, walking along the beach, continuing towards distant Sanbangsan. The beach was riddled with interesting rock formations and caves. The rocks looked almost like plastic, the were so odd. It was like lava flow trapped in time. 

Apparently at some point we had separated from the olle trail, which was above us, and we were below on the beach. We could see stairs leading up to a viewing platform, but had to get up to them somehow. I know it's terrible, but we ended up scrambling up a giant sand dune in order to reconnect to the trail. After our haphazard ascent, we reached a viewing platform where we could look out on the beach we had just crossed, and we could even see our original starting point, Hwasun Beach (next to the industrial park in the photo below).

 

The olle trail eventually led us to the base of Sanbangsan, which is a huge, very steep oreum that is visible even from my room at NLCS Jeju. Since the sides are so steep, it's impossible to climb to the top of this oreum without ropes and equipment, but there is a Buddhist temple set into the south side with stairs leading someways up the mountain and ending in a grotto.

As soon as we stepped foot onto the temple grounds, we were suddenly assaulted by a group of Korean men, who were keen to show us around. One in particular was especially enthusiastic, waving his arms around pointing at things and speaking to us very loudly in Korean. We were a bit annoyed by this and managed to escape his attention eventually. We climbed up many stairs...

And more stairs...

Forever stairs...

Beautiful photo by Row of the inside of the temple

...Until we reached the very top of the temple, which was basically a big Buddah set into a cave in the side of the mountain. In fact, I learned recently that Sanbangsan means Mountain Room Mountain, named for the grotto room called Sanbanggul.

At the top, we came across the Very Enthusiastic Korean Man once more, and he convinced Oli to go up to the Buddah and pray. It was a hot day, so we took a rest on the benches near the grotto and were approached by yet another Korean man with a ponytail. So excited to see foreigners, he immediately dialed up his wife, a Korean teacher, and handed his cellphone over to me. I chatted with his wife on the phone for several minutes, and she told me about her husband being in Jeju on vacation while she was back at their home on the mainland.

On our way back down the mountain we quickly made our way past Enthusiastic Korean Man, and encountered a new person: Short Korean Man, who was so impressed by Anna's height that he struck up a mainly Korean conversation with her. The two of them took a picture together and we moved on.

At the ticket booth at the base of the mountain we ran into the other half of our group, who had left later in the day after having a lie-in. They had just arrived by taxi and hadn't yet seen the temple, so we made plans to meet up again in an hour, and we went for a quick lunch as the other group climbed the many stairs.

Then, WHO DID WE SEE AT LUNCH???? Why it was Very Enthusiastic Korean Man and his friends. As soon as we walked into the restaurant they called out to us loudly in old man Korean, with a lot of deep loud voices and saliva flying everywhere. They had already had a bit to drink. By this point we accepted that this was our fate -- too many chance encounters to call it anything else -- and sat down at the table next to them.

They poured us drinks and we toasted many times and ate seafood pajeon (Korean chive pancakes). Just as they were about to leave, Ponytail Korean man saw us at the restaurant and came in. He told the other men about our previous encounter up on mountain near the temple, and explained to them about me chatting to his wife on the cellphone. Of course then we had to toast to THAT too. But we were all laughing and having a good time, even though I speak 10 words of Korean and they spoke even less English.

After lunch we met up with the other half of our group, who had finished their hike up to the temple. We walked along the beach, and sat briefly to appreciate the view of Sanbangsan from afar:

After a beer at the cafe, You and I, we called it a day and headed back to NLCS, recounting our unexpected encounters and discoveries along the way. 

[Some photos courtesy of Row, Anna, and Reesha]