Summer in Korea

Summer in Korea is quite different than summer Victoria. First off, it gets hot here, much hotter than I'm used to and it's not one day of hot, it's all the days, all the time. Right now I think it's at least 25 degrees and it's after 12 am. The second strange thing about summer weather is the humidity, this is because Korea has a monsoon season in July. It feels pretty deceptive to me because it started to get warm (summer weather by my standards) and I was all like, yesss summer is finally here! Fun times! But then, it started to get cloudy and rainy and glum again, which wasn't very fun. My mood immediately shifted and my energy dropped. 

Next it gets hot, everyday, like about 30 and it still is a bit humid, with some random rain thrown in, although monsoon season is pretty much over for now. The other thing that happens are typhoons, although Korea doesn't seem to get hit that hard, at least it didn't this year. We really only got one, it was stormy and windy for the whole day, not just a few hours. It also rained a lot. I couldn't even get delivery because they wouldn't deliver in the poor weather conditions. 

Not it's just hot, and apparently could get a little hotter, although I don't think that much. My coworker has told me that at the end of August there will be a second storm season which will last into september. I can neither confirm, nor deny this since I don't know Korean weather patterns, but I really hope it just stays warm. It's like being in a sauna always. It's very tiring mixed with the humidity but I'm adjusting to it. The air conditioner helps

There are also special summer foods in Korea. The first and I think, most traditional, is samgyetang which is a whole cornish hen (or some other kind of small bird) and ginseng soup. You get served a ceramic bowl with a whole chicken in it. The chicken is stuffed with rice, ginseng, chestnut, jujube and other spices or nuts. The soup is serve pipping hot and bubbling. It also comes with a lot of side dishes. I love this dish, it reminds me of a chicken soup, but more chicken and more yummy. The chicken is so soft and tender you can break it apart with your spoon. 

Now, I know what you're thinking, it's a little strange that chicken soup is a summer food in Korea... that sounds more like something you'd eat in the winter.... what's going on here? Well, due to the very hot and humid summer you feel slow and tired so you definitely need a pick-me-up. Ginseng is considered very healthy in Korea so the soup is viewed as a health food rather than just a chicken and rice soup. 

For your health you're supposed to have the soup three times during sambok (삼복) the three hottest days of the summer. They have special names: chobok, jungbok and malbok (beginning, middle and end). The days vary every year because it's based on the lunar calendar, I'm not sure what days they were this year, but I think they've already passed. 

The other popular summer food is a special kind of noodle soup (so much soup). These noodles are called naengmyeon (냉면). The most popular varieties are mul naengmyeon (water) and bibim naengmyeon (mixed). This noodles are served cold and not just cold, but icy cold, literally, they put ice in the broth. They usually have a tangy, strong flavoured broth, lots of long noodles made out a variety of things, a hard boiled egg, cucumbers thinly sliced, sesame seeds, and some pickled radish and sometimes red chili paste. It really depends where you go though because everyone seems to have their own variety of this dish. There are two main types, the water cold noodles which comes with broth or the mixed cold noodles which just come with a spicy sauce and no broth. 

I honestly love this dish. It's so yummy, it sounds strange and I didn't think I'd be a huge fan of cold noodles (the idea seems a little strange still) but they taste so refreshing and good! The tangy, spicy, flavour, chewy noodles and noodle broth go so well together. I really don't think this dish would taste good warm. The other day my coworker took me to a special naengmyeong restaurant across from our school. It was super busy and we had to wait for a bit (which is unusual in korea) but it was worth it. The noodles were not the buckwheat ones which naengmyeong more commonly has, but a white variety, the broth was more delicious which a more complex flavour than I was used to. Also, this naengmyeong had meat on top (just a couple of slices) which I'd never seen before and the pickled radish was especially tasty and fresh. 

The soup is the perfect thing for cooling yourself down in the middle of a hot summer day. The other thing Koreans seem to do in the summer is a lot of beaching. I haven't gone yet, but from what I've heard the beaches in Busan get crazy busy, especially their most famous beach haeundae (just google it and you'll see what I mean). I haven't had a Korean beach day yet, but I'll go this weekend and report back to you'll! 

Anyway, Korea summer is very different from home and I can't say I'm in love with it. I kinda felt a bit like I was waiting, waiting, waiting for the good weather then it came then the rainy season started, then the hot weather arrived, which can I get something in the middle?! Well, in all honesty, despite the sweatiness and humidity the hot weather brings I still prefer it to the cold winters, still I do miss swimming in the ocean at home and beach days with my friends. Soon though, soon! 

Tongyeong, City by the Sea (or my almost Korean Home)

So I will start with this story, because I think it encapsulates what Korea can be like sometimes (especially in a work environment). When I first got my job in South Korea I got a position at a all girls Middle school in a city called Tongyeong. Naturally I wanted to know everything I could about my future home and did all the necessary research. There's wasn't that much other than the normal tourist info about the city. I only found one informational video by another teacher and she basically just showed off her apartment. Still, I'd lived in a smallish town my whole life and I wanted to be somewhere near the ocean so I accepted this job and began mentally preparing for it.

One week before my departure my recruiter called me and told me the position I was supposed to fill was already filled. Apparently someone had got there wire's crossed somewhere along the line and the schools request for a teacher was false. But! Good news! They found me another position, this time at a high school in Yansang. I was obviously not in a position to reject the new position (even though teaching at high school sounded a bit scary). So I was still off to Korea. Thank goodness too cause I'd already bought my ticket!

I finally arrived in Korea and everything seemed to be running smoothly for my orientation. I got there early, I was wearing the right kind of outfit. I met another Canadian right off the bat (and from Vancouver too!). It all seemed too good to be true. Then the orientation started. Co-teachers began to arrive, mingle, introduce themselves to people. I wait for someone to introduce themselves to me, but nobody showed up, no co-teacher appeared.

Finally the actual orientation started and this when I really started to worry because the school board officials seemed worried too. They all spoke on their phones in hushed voices in Korean as I sat there fiddling and watching. I wondered if they'd made a mistake and there was no school available for me. I wondered if they would just send me on the next flight home without a second thought. I couldn't help feeling a tiny bit relived at this point, to go home, the soft comfort of familiarity, but - oh! No, some new development had taken place. The guy who hired me finally explained that the high school I was supposed to go to had kept there previous teacher and not informed the school board.

Finally, luck was on my side. They found a school in need of a new English teacher. I was so relived. It was also in Changwon and I was so tired at this point I didin't want to go to yet another city.  So that is how I ended up living in Changwon and not Tongyeong.

Well when you put in all the effort to learn about a place or a city you want to visit it! And I finally got visit Tongyeong.

It was a pretty cool city, right by the water and surrounded by islands. The first thing we saw when we got there was a naval base and Sebyeonggwan Hall. The museum we'd wanted to see was closed, unfortunately, but there was still lots of cool buildings to look through and many of them had workshops for arts and crafts set up. My favourite was the blind making (called daebal in Korean). There were three ladies just sitting and making these bamboo blinds which are traditional to that region. Apparently Tongyeong has a lot of arts and crafts, I'm not sure if that is traditional or they've just marketed it that way for tourists. Either way they are neat. They do the blind weaving, abalone inlays and beautiful furniture with inlays, I also saw some interesting metal work there.

After the museum it was time to see the famous turtle boats. You see models of these boats everywhere in Korea. I'd already seen one in Seoul at the war memorial, but the one in Tongyeong is special because it's actually on the water and you can walk around in side it. It turned out there were actually 4 different boats, three of them in the style of the turtle boat and the fourth a different style.

I should briefly explain what a turtle boat is, since I'm sure you are all wondering. Basically it's a naval ship from back in the day. They covered it with spikes so if the enemy tried to land they'd get stabbed. Apparently, they also covered the ship with hay so you couldn't see the spikes. The ships sort of look like giant turtles due to their shape and the pattern of the top part of the ship (hexagons with spikes in the middle). The top is curved like a shell as well and a sort of oval shape. They used these boats to defend themselves against the Japanese countless times. They are also famous because a famous Korean naval commander, Yi Sun-sin. I don't really know a lot about him so I don't want to write a huge amount, but basically he was able to use a small amount of boats against the Japanese and defeat them using his genius strategies (he was actually considered a tactical genius in naval battles and one of the best naval commanders in history). He also ressurrected the turtle boat and used it which is why it's so famous in Korea (there are also many statues of Yi Sun-sin and Tongyeong has a mock battle every year to celebrate one of Yi Sun Sin's greatest victories (Hansan Naval Battle). 

The boats were really neat looking inside too. The wood work was beautiful and simple. They looked very sturdy and strong. You could see all sorts of different chambers and the first boat had lots of weapons in it. The other boats had fewer weapons and the last boat, which was the larger one had food storage in it's hull as well as clothes you could try on. The backs of the boats were really beautiful too they had giant things sticking out of their sterns, but I'm not sure what they were called.

After the boats we had a kimbap called chungmu kimbap which is native to the area. It was delicious. It came with a soy bean soup and radishes. So yummy. There were mixed reactions to it in our group. Personally,  I loved the spicy, salty flavour and the little rice and seaweed wraps. Also they had one of my favourite kinds of radish kimchi. For some reason I find it overwhelming to eat a lot of it, but I still think it's delicious.

After lunch we wandered up to the art village which is a special part of Tongyeong artists have painted all over the buildings and other things. It's like an out door, free gallery with many interest, beautiful and thought provoking pieces. On the way up the hill to the village we walked along a street lined with shops selling another Tongyeong speciality, honey bread. This is basically a little ball with a honey sauce, sesame seeds and some kind of paste-y filling. I had several samples because the girls kept shoving them at us (and who's going to say know to free bread samples, not me!). Finally I caved and decide to buy a cute looking yellow bread. It had a sweet citrusy flavour and I think sesame paste on the inside. It was also a pretty yellow colour which I liked.

Finally, we went through the live fish market, up a hill and made it to the art village which was really really neat. Basically they have artists free reign to paint all over the walls of this village. It had all sorts of paintings from the fun, to the pretty and whimsical to the political. It was definitely my favourite part of Tongyeong. The high light for me was the secret garden paintings. Someone painted all over an abandon house re-imagining what it would have looked like when it was inhabited. It was magic. I wrote a bunch about it on facebook with the pictures so check it out there!

After we finished with the art village, which was surprisingly quick we went and walked through a tunnel. It was supposed to be an underwater tunnel, but I'm entirely sure if it actually went underwater. We all thought it would be much cooler than it actually was. It was pretty boring actually. Other than being an interesting architectural achievement it was pretty much just a regular old tunnel. It was super busy though, it seemed like the locals like to take walks there or use it as a short cut possibly? (Korean's are really big on walking).

After the tunnel we decide to go to the top of mount Mireuksan. Unfortunately we hadn't thought about the weather. As soon as we got going up the gondola we realized we were heading straight for a giant cloud enclosing the top of the mountain. When we got off it was damp and chilly, with a bit of a breeze, still we ventured up to the observation deck and admired the pure whiteness surrounding us. We were pretty tired at this point and it didn't look like the weather was going to let up so we decided to head back. I wish I hadn't been so tired by this point or I'd have stayed longer and explored the mountain, but as you can guess from the amount of things I've already mentioned we'd spent a lot of time running our already. 

We headed back to the bus terminal and managed to get there just in time for a bus to Changwon. Then we headed back to Changwon, it was fairly short trip and we all agreed we should grab some dinner when we got back. We ended up going for Dak Galbi which is basically a giant chicken, veggie and rice cake stir fry with gochujong (korean chili paste) and some other things (to make it more tasty). Basically they bring out this huge pan with all the raw ingreidents and you cook it at the table then eat it while it's still sizzling hot. After, there's usually lots of sauce left so you can order some fried rice and they will come and make it for you at the table (usually, although some places make it in the kitchen). It is a filling meal and we managed to get a table at one of the best dak galbi restaurants in Sangnamdong (downtown). We all drank beer and soju with it which was the perfect way to end a long day.  

Gyeongju: Korea's Ancient Capital

Gyeongju was flat and open and wide. It is the most 'Korean' Korean city I've visited.When I arrived there I was surprised how open and wide it felt, there were no giant apartments towering above the city, most of the house were lower and slightly more old-fashioned.  It had an atmosphere like a museum or an park that encompassed the entire town. There were giant burial mounds everywhere, which came out of the flat ground without warning, gently sloping upwards. There were also parks everywhere with small, neat forests, beautiful gardens and fancy pavilions. The style and feel of the town felt old. It felt like going back in time a little bit, but it still had all the modern day features and the downtown area was similar to normal Korean cities.

I think I need to back up here and explain why Gyeongju is special. It is the ancient capital of Korea, during the Silla dynasty (a few dynasties ago I think). There was a giant palace there and you can still see the beautiful pond. This is also where they discovered the burial mounds of ancient rulers which apparently were discovered by a man working on his house, he found a gold crown in one. The people of Gyeongju seem very proud of their history, of the history of Korea, as most Korean's do and they rightfully should be. The parks were amazing in this town, larger than ones you usually saw for temples and palaces. They were also very peaceful, even with lots of people they were so spread out and calm it was hard not to relax in them.

The first day we arrived in Gyeongju it was Saturday, we decide to start by going around and exploring some of the parks they were wonderful, as I just described. Honestly, it's hard to do them justice in a written description, but they were just how you imagine Korea before all the industrialism and development, well a little, they were to well curated, clean and neat to be real in a sense. Still, they were probably my favourite part of Gyeongju.

After we explore most of the parks and the old palace site we went for lunch (by this time we were starving). We got a local speciality which is called ssam bap which just means rice wraps. It had many many side dishes as well as rice wraps. It had lots of dishes I'd never seen and was delicious.

During lunch another friend of mine met up with us at the restaurant and said we should visit Yangdong Folk Village, a traditional style village just outside of Gyeongju. We thought that sounded awesome so we agreed to go. We had a little trouble with the buses because we couldn't seem to find the stop for the bus that was supposed to take us there. We finally ended up getting a cab, which wasn't too expensive when split between four of us.

The village was another highlight for me. It was so big! And people actually live in it! Amazing. It had traditional style Korean houses, lots of them even had thatched roofs. There were plants and gardens everywhere and people too, not just tourists visiting, but people just living there lives. Since people lived in the houses you couldn't go inside any, although there were a couple cafes and restaurants around. The village was all over the hills, not just flat as Korean cities often are. We ended up walking up a hill near the edge of the village and we had a lovely view of the surrounding area and the village.

Earlier,  before going into the village we'd all stopped at a convenience store for some snacks and crystal ate some ramen. While she was eating the little boy at the table next to ours was watching us curiously, he came over and we all all fawned over him. His family seemed fine with it, until Crystal put on her sunglasses and for some reason that scared him and he started crying. She attempted to show him the glasses were harmless, but he was still scared, so we left the family alone after apologizing.

Later, when we were climbing one of the hills inside the village we found the same family sitting at the top of the hill eating some traditional Korean candy. We said hi to them again and Crystal went over to greet the little boy. The mom kindly offered us all some candy, which was very hard, it was a kind of white taffy like stuff, it sort of melted in your mouth and then became more chewy. It tasted like pure sugar. I made the mistake of taking a larger piece and was stuck with it for awhile.

When we were walking in we also saw a beautiful school, you couldn't go inside it because it was a operating school, but Crystal said she had a friend who worked there, gosh I envied her in that moment. The school had a more traditional architecture style and wasn't the regular three block of cement that Korean schools usually are. Also, her friend go free entrance to the folk village (which cost 4,000 won).

After we finished at the village I was pretty much exhausted from the full day of travel and walking. We headed back to Gyeongju and Crystal headed back to her town of Pohang. When we got back we decided we needed to stop off at the hostel first (where we'd dropped off our bags earlier) and then head out to find some food. The hostel was a big, two story Korean style home. It had a beautiful little garden and court yard area when you went through the gate (typical of Korean houses, especially more traditional ones). There was a lot of beautiful wood work inside and it felt really comfortable and homey to me, it was comfortably cluttered inside the house, but the room we stayed in was simple and clean, it had beds rather than the ondol style sleeping (sleeping on a mat on the floor) which many guest houses and hostels I've stayed in have so that was nice.

The bathrooms were outside though, which was a little annoying and the showers were the kind where the whole bathroom is a shower (ie they don't have a stall) this is pretty normal in Korea, my own place doesn't have a stall. The whole bathroom is just tiled and there's a shower head.

We went out for jjimdak (steamed chicken) which is a great, cheap meal to get when you're hungry. I might have complained about all the walking a bit because the first place we went to find the restaurant it wasn't there! Disaster. Michael asked someone about it and she told us the actual location of the restaurant, which was luckily near by. The food was delicious. Jjimdak has a spicy, soy sauce sauce, pieces of chicken, potato, glass noodles, and other bits of veggies. We also got rice with it because it has a ton of sauce to soak up. You get it on this giant plate and it looks like an endless about of food and it pretty much was, even with the three of us eating we still didn't finish everything.

After dinner we decided we wanted to try the local Makeolli (kind of traditional rice wine) since everywhere in Korea makes there own (it doesn't travel well I've heard). We found some in a CU (convenience store, Korea is handy that way). Then we headed back to the hostel. It was actually a beautiful night but a little chilly now. When we got back we set ourselves up in the living room with our makeolli and some cards, we never actually played cards (although michael played solitaire for a bit). I discovered a whole stack of beautiful photos someone had taken in and around Gyeongju. I spent a good long time looking at those and then we saw some of the other hostel guests and Lori began chatting with them so we all sat around comfortably talking to different people from around the world. As I thought, the hostel had a really good vibe. We met a girl from the czech republic (I think?) who was there for a conference, but she had finished and was now traveling around. She was an anthropologist. We also met three guys form Singapore who were traveling around Korea (and I think asia) it was cool to compare all the places we'd been. We also met a student from Seoul. Part of what makes hostels so awesome is the people there and the hosts (who were also great). There were a couple little boys around too who say me and started saying 'waygook' (foreigner) to their mother watching me with wide eyes. I laughed at this and the mother realizing I understood tried speaking to me in Korean, which was a bit of a lost cause since my Korean isn't that good. We had to finish drinking by 11pm so we went to bed around then too (hostel rules). The next day we were going to Bulgoksa a famous Korean temple.

The bus trip to the temple was a bit long, but it was pretty beautiful. It went by a really large lake (river?) and through a resort area with tons of beautiful buildings. We saw a temple under construction as well. When we arrived at the temple it was super busy. This is one of the more popular temples in Korea. It was a short walk up to the temple and as with most things in Gyeongju we had to pay to get in.

The temple was huge, I think it was the largest one I've been too. It is also special because it houses some ancient pagoda's. Michael asked us if we had 50 won on us (which is about 5 cents and a coin) Lori had a couple and he said we should have them ready. When we got into the main courtyard of the temple he said to get out our coins and hold them up to the pagoda, it was the pagoda on the coin! So funny Michael. Unfortunately one of the pagoda's was under construction and had a huge building built around it to protect it so we couldn't get a look at it easily. As I said the temple was huge, it seemed to not end. There were tons of tiny, little temples all around the main building. The main entrance to the temple was probably the most spectacular part with giant stairs going up to it and a beautifully decorated building, stretching across the entrance (I can't do it justice here, please see my photos on facebook from Gyeongju!). I ended up taking tons of pictures of the temple because it was so beautiful. I loved it there, I only wish it had been less busy there were people everywhere.

After the temple we were getting hungry so we went across the street to a small strip mall type complex to look for food. I guess not that many people go over there because it was near lunch time and the place looked deserted. As soon as we walked up a korean woman came over and tried to get us to come to her restaurant. It was uncomfortable. We told her we weren't interested, but as ajuma's do she followed us and continued to try and get us to her place. As we walked further we say more and more ajuma's hanging around outside their restaurants or stores. The atmosphere was strange because nobody was around so we decided to leave. I felt a bit bad, clearly business wasn't that good, but being stared and followed was pretty uncomfortable for us in that situation.

So we headed back to Gyeongju. By the time we got there I was starving so I told the others we needed to stop for some food. I'm glad we did. We found a cute little hole in the wall kind of place with one other man eating there. He spoke fairly good English and chatted with us while we order. The food wasn't the most amazing I'd eaten, but you can't complain when you were as hungry as we were. Lori ordered some kimbap (seaweed and rice rolls) and Michael and I got some ramen. Kimbap is a kind of snack food or side dish in Korea, usually you have it with something else. So when Michael and I didn't give Lori some of our ramen (she didn't actually want any) one of the ajuma's came over and gave her some of her own noodles.

The man we were chatting with left part way through our meal, but he bought us patbingsu (shaved ice with sauce and toppings) before he left so we were very happy and grateful towards him. The patbingsu was delicious, but it's a pretty hard dessert to mess and so good that you can't really go wrong with it.

After lunch we headed to the museum, which was huge. There were about 4 large buildings full of artifacts from Gyeongju and the silla dynasty. It had some beautiful things in it. I especially liked the crowns and jewellery (you should google the silla dynasty crowns they are very unusual looking). There was also an art museum with many statues of buddha, it was interesting to see all the different ways he was depicted. The whole thing was very simple and, I thought, well curated, you didn't feel overwhelmed even though there was a lot of stuff to see.

Eventually it was time to return home, we walked from the museum to the bus station. I remember on one of the walks by the giant burial mounds there was a family hanging out on a blanket on the grass. I think they were eating too, but I honestly don't think I was close enough to tell. I couldn't help imagining that my next trip to Gyeongju would be something like that. Sitting under the shade of an ancient burial mound with some good friends and a role of kimbap.

We also caved to our hungry and grabbed some of the special Gyeongju bread, which looks like small buns but they're filled with red bean paste (which I love, but is a bit of an acquired taste for some people). They were the perfect snack to take on the long bus ride home (which ended up being a lot longer than the bus ride there because it took a different route and hit up a bunch of other cities along the way).

Arriving 'home' in Changwon still feels strange to me. I still feel like I'm on an adventure even though I know I'm just going to catch the bus home and sit and watch tv and make food. It still feels a bit foreign and overwhelming when I get off that bus and see the strange landscape, but still at the end of the day, I feel most comfortable in my little room writing or watching tv or reading or cooking. It's all quite comfortable now.

Namhae Weekender Trip and Buddha's Birthday: Part 2

Alright, I promised the Temple visit and the rice terraces were coming up next so here we are. I felt surprisingly well rested when I woke up Sunday morning and definitely ready for walking around and looking at some beautiful scenery. First we visited Geumsan Boriam Temple which is high in the mountains of Namhae island. To me it seemed like the classic mountain temple people associate with China or really any Asian country, although of course the architecture and scenery are quite different depending where you are. 

The walk to get up to the temple was a long one, since there were so many people visiting it for Buddha's birthday weekend there were tons of cars. Our driver finally gave up driving us all the way to the top and dropped us off a little further from the shuttle maybe 1 km or so, it wasn't a long walk up or anything. Once you got the the main parking area you have to take a shuttle to the trail and walk the rest of the way. This didn't take long, not even an hour. We walked the rest of the way up to the temple. By this time it was getting hot so it was a little tiring and it was all up hill.. 

The temple was nestled into the mountain side with amazing views going all the way out to the ocean. You could see rolling hills, then after that, islands as far as the eye could see. It was a perfect, clear day for a good view of the island as well. You could also see one of the islands many small towns spread out in the bay below. The temple was really busy with people coming to pray. There was a constantly line into the temples of people praying as well as outside in front of the main large buddha statue. 

The atmosphere was nice though. Korean's tend to behave more touristy than western's do in their own country. Korea is so much small too, so it's easier to travel around to different cities. We also tried sticking a coin to the rocks. Apparently you were supposed to lick a coin then hold it to the rock while saying a pray, if the coin stuck to the rock then your prayer would be answered, but if it fell off then you were out of luck. My friend had no luck the first time we attempted it, but later I found a larger rock with a bumper surface. The trick is to stick the coin along a little ridge on the rock's side so it balances there and doesn't fall off. It worked well so lucky me my pray was answered, although I have to wonder if the work is still there... 

The temple was pretty similar to most temples I've seen now, you can see all the photos of it in my Namhae album. After the temple we went back down the mountain and caught the shuttle back. We had to wait for a bit for everyone to get down, but then finally we were off to the rice terraces. They were beautiful. It was a whole area, right by the ocean, with old terrace's going right down to the sea. It took us awhile to get down to the bottom. We ended up stopping for lunch, twice. 

There were restaurants dotted along the path down. The first place we tried looked promising, it was busy and had the cold noodles we'd been craving (or at least I had been). We grabbed a table and set about translating the menu (it wasn't in English). There were a few things we could read, but most of it were words we didn't know. My friend went over and grabbed us some water, then went to the counter to order. She came back a couple minutes later looking confused. The owner had ignored her. She tried to order in Korean and he had just moved onto the next person. Confused, she let them go ahead of her and then finally came back to the table when she heard he speaking about her in Korean (although she couldn't understand everything he said). 

Shortly after this happened, as we discussed what to do, another girl from our tour bus came over wondering if the owner had served us. We said that he hadn't and she said her friends and her had experienced similar discrimination. After a second attempt to order food we finally left, leaving our used water glasses and water jug on the table. Unfortunately this is a thing that happens in Korea to foreigners from time to time. This is the first time I experienced direct discrimination of this kind from an establishment in Korea. It is not the norm, usually people are friendly and helpful, usually they want you to eat in their restaurant and help you order and often they will give you service (pronounced more like serbisue) which means they give you free stuff such as a free drink or side dish or extra portion (this is a really common practice in Korea. It's just to show they appreciate your business and hope you return). It also seemed really strange to mean that they wouldn't serve foreigners in what was clearly a popular tourist destination. That has to be a huge loss for their business especially consider a foreign patron or even a Korean one could see that behaviour and go online and complain about it (like me!). 

After the disappointing experience at the first restaurant we went across the path to a different restaurant who I'm happy to say were more than happy to serve us and a bunch of other foreigners who were already eating there. The place was much better and well I can't say if the food was better than the first place (since I never ate any of there food) I like to think that it was better. I ended up ordering bibimbap which just means 'mixed rice' it is a dish pretty much synonymous with South Korea. Usually bibimbap has a variety of vegetables, rice and a sauce, sometimes some meat as well. The one I got at this restaurant was nothing like that. It had four kinds of seaweed in the bowl and the rice was on the side. In the centre of the seaweed was some soft, creamy, orangy-yellow stuff. I had never seen anything like it. Great, mystery seafood. I do admit, it looked pretty intimidating and perhaps at another time in my life, when I was less hungry and hadn't been exposed to many strange new things over the matter of months I may have not ate it, or picked at it delicately. 

This was not that time. I was starving by this point, having barely eaten anything since that morning (okay, maybe starving is too strong, but you get the idea) so I dumped the rice in and gave it a good mix around and dove right in. It was pretty tasty, generally I like seaweed, given the taste isn't too strong and fishy (but honestly, I've mostly gotten past that) and the texture isn't too strange (mostly gotten past that too) this was neither and the mushy, creamy sea creature in the middle seemed to make a nice, mild, sauce for the bibimbap. It was pretty tasty after all. I felt fairly proud I'd conquered such unusually dish and enjoyed it too. 

A couple weeks later I was sitting at a bar with a group of Korean's and foreigners, we were talking about strange foods or something and I told them about my bibimbap on Namhae. I described the mystery seafood in the middle and immediately they knew what it was. At first it was fish eggs and I said, no it was that, I've had those lots of times, they're not like this. Then one of the them said it was a sea egg which just confused me... what exactly was a sea egg? By this point, I started to get an inkling of where they were going. I thought about it for a half a second, remembering the soft orangey-yellow colour and the creamy texture... I'd seen that before somewhere on Tv... yes... on a japanese cooking show. Sea urchin! I exclaimed, they looked confused but we managed to translate it and it was indeed sea urchin. It was one of those things I could see older and less adventurous family members cringing in shock at and I do admit the first time I heard Sea Urchin was a popular delicacy I was surprised and kinda grossed out. 

The sea urchin I had was definitely not gross, nor was it surprising to find in a coast town in a country where they aren't afraid to use every bit of everything edible, something in North America we don't tend to do. 

After this adventure we headed back to our beach and the camp site to relax on the beach. There is another cool feature of Korea society that came in handy for us. We kinda forgot about getting dinner and it was getting kinda late. I Korea you can do this magical thing were you can order take out the beach. It was very nifty. We had  Korean girl with our group so she called them just and ordered us a bunch of Chinese food and then we waited and they brought us delicious foods, right to our spot on the beach. A guy showed up on a scooter, with his giant carry case on the back and brought us dinner. Magic, now that is something I could get used to. 

The next day, and our last day on Namhae, we spent the day at the beach exclusively. It was beautiful and warm and sunny. There was one thing that was less beautiful though, the beach covered in garbage from the previous nights festivities. Not from us, I hope. I know I had been very care to gather up all my garbage before I headed back to my hostel. No, there were tons of people on the beach and people had had fires the night before so of course we'd spent some time hanging out and drinking around the bonfires, it's like a beach tradition or something (at least in north america it is). So we spent our first hours on the beach cleaning up garbage. 

After cleaning I was hungry and went and got food with another girl in our group. After we ate it was time to go kayaking, paddling boarding, snorkling or whatever else our hearts desired. I ended up going kayaking with Julianne until we saw the banana boat go by, which was basically a long banana shaped blowup tube being pulled behind a seado. Well we decided we had to try that. We got back in just as another group was about to go out, but what was this? They happened to need two more people before they could go? Perfect! It was really awesome and fast and there was lots of leaning involved so we didn't capsize. 

After that, snorkelling, then packing up the rest of the camping gear and finally we headed back to the bus and rode back to Changwon and Busan. It was a really great, early summer weekend trip. I would definitely do it again in a heart beat. I do hope to go back to Namhae for another weekend trip. It is definitely one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen and I loved the atmosphere of the group. 

Don't worry, more adventures to come, next I'll probably write a little about MERS so you guys don't have to worry and I can tell you all what a strange experience it is. So until next time! 

Namhae Weekend Trip and Buddha's Birthday

This past weekend I went to an island in the south of Korea, a little west of my city Changwon. It is called Namhae and also known as Treasure Island. It is the second largest island in South Korea after Jeju Island. I went with my friends from a hagwon and we paid for an inclusive tour targeted towards young people with Enjoy Korea. We'd previously gone on trips with them and really enjoyed ourselves. It's just easier when you live in a country where your first language isn't their first language... planning certain kinds of trips can be a little bit more tricky than it is at home.

So our weekend started with a bus trip to Namhae, Changwon is only about 2 hours away so we didn't leave until 10:30 which suited me perfectly. Since our friends were camping they had a ton of gear. We arrived at the pension after 12 and set up everything, then it was off to find a convenience store, this is when I got my first view of the beach. Our pension was really close to the beach and when we walked down you could see tents set up everywhere. Campsites are different in Korea than in Canada. There was no space between the sites, everyone just set up their tents next to each other, it looked crowded.

The beach was long and sandy, I think the sand must've been brought in because none of the other beaches in this area had sand like that. It was beautifully soft and wide so their was lots of room to relax above the tide line. We were in kind of a bay so it almost felt like you were on a lake since it curved around on both sides then there were some little islands out in the middle. There were tons of other foreigners around because another tour group was also staying at that beach, that and it was a long weekend.

On our first day we were going to the beef and garlic festival, yes, that's right, a beef and garlic festival.. Korea has festivals for almost everything. When we were driving to our pension/campsite we passed the festival and were impressed with the amount of garlic we saw. I hadn't been paying as much attention to the scenery as I could've been, but my friend informed me she'd been seeing garlic since they arrived on the island and then I started to notice it too. Field after field of garlic and their stalks laid out to dry in the hot spring sun. I guess it is garlic harvesting season in Korea, what better time to attend a beef and garlic festival!

The festival had a lot of garlic, like everywhere. There were garlic sculptures, sacks of garlic, black garlic (I believe fermented garlic), garlic for sale, garlic blow ups floating in a lake across the street, two garlic statues, one giant one and another carved out of stone. They take their garlic very seriously here apparently. We also lots of evidence of beef, but I honestly think they just added the beef onto the title to make it sound more appeal. I mean, who doesn't want to go to a beef and garlic festival? Right? Just a garlic festival, well I'm not so sure. I mean, I'd go, but I can see how it sounds less appealing.

As we walked around we could smell delicious food cooking everywhere and started to get hungry. We'd been told by our tour group that their would be cooking demonstrations in the main tent and they would be handing out samples so we headed that way. On our way there we saw one of the sources of the delicious smell. An out door bbq place. They had flat topped grills set up under tents and people standing around grilling meat. I told my friends we had to try that... little did I know what was to come...

The next interesting thing we saw was a group of performers all wearing white and bright blue dressy/trendy clothing. They were playing the traditional style korean drums (a variety of them) but with a bit more upbeat song. A few of the guys were sporting dreads or short, tight curls so I don't think they were full Korea or they were visiting (it's extremely rare to see Korean's with dreads or anything of that kind). They also had Capoeira performers which is a style of martial arts they do in Brazil... it's usually done to music. The guys performing looked Japanese, which makes sense because there is a large Japanese population in Brazil. I guessed that some of the performers were perhaps visiting Korea or touring-- anyway, it was very strange to see a demonstration of Brazilian martial arts at a Korean garlic festival... but still cool nonetheless, plus the drummers were really good, like really really good. Everyone was swaying along.

After we saw them we finally reached the main tent were the food was cooking...When we walked in we saw there were tables everywhere with grills in the middle. People were running around putting coals in the fire as people arrived. There were tons of people sitting around eating. We saw to the left of the tent there were vendors selling beef and sides for bbq. A couple of people in our group went over to check out the prices. We sat and watched the cooking, debating whether to go stand in the sample line. Finally, after much debate about the cost and how much to pay we had to large packs of beef and two trays of side dishes, beers and a bottle of soju (the popular korean booze of choice).

One thing to note about Korean beef is it's a lot more expensive than I'm used too. You cannot but a steak for under $10 as you might in Canada, maybe with beef from outside Korea, but Korean beef, no. Actually you probably can't find the standard cuts of beef we're used to in the west that easily anyway.

Basically, this bbq experience taught me why it's more expensive: It's really really freaking* delicious. I don't know if we just got really fresh beef, or it was more high quality than usual or what, but I can honestly say I have never had beef that good in Korea before. I think my friends can attest to this. It was literally just a thinly cut steak of beef with nothing on it that we tossed on the grill (because that's how you do things in Korea) and it was super tender, juicy, the fat that marbled our cut basically melted away, but added really nice flavour. It didn't have an old beefy taste or anything, it was so good. I'm getting hungry thinking about it. We mostly just ate it on it's own or with a little salt, and of course with some grilled garlic. There were also lettuce leaves to wrap it in (standard for korean bbq) and some onions in soy sauce and something else which is also common at bbq.

The bbq set up was also really neat. There were tons of tables with the grills in the middle set up around the tent. It was the main tent so it was larger than the ones we'd seen previously. There were little stools to sit on and people would bring you charcol and you could grab the grill top yourself. It wasn't a restaurant at all, it was literally a place to buy meat, grill it yourself and eat. There were people giving away sauces and of course garlic to go with the meat in the centre of the tent.

Then there were some people cooking. They were two or three foreign guys from our Enjoy Korea group. They made some mexican style beef (I forgot the name, but it's a fairly popular one) and empanada's which were amazing. The line took a little long so during our second trip three of us went up and we kept trading places so one or two of us could go back to our table and grab a chuck of beef. After we finished the first to packs of beef we grabbed a third (it was that good, guys, really!)

After eating we wandered around the festival a little bit, taking some pictures with the giant garlic statues... yes that was also a thing. Some how we stumbled upon what looked like a drag show? It was a guy dressed up in makeup and women's clothing singing songs that had a traditional / old-timey vibe to them. There were a bunch of ajama's and ajashee's watching (elderly folk) and they seemed really into it. The singer invited us to sit and listen when my friend went up to get a photo. It was really fun and relaxing after being in the noisy tent, although we couldn't understand the words the music was good.

Next we went back to the main tent because they were release balloons with LED lights in them. Personally I'm not a fan of these balloon release that they like to do at Korean festivals (so far I've seen it happen twice) it really isn't good for the environment and my west coast heart goes against it, but it did come with the festival and as they when in Korea do as the Korean's do... well maybe not, but you get the idea.

The balloon release was fun, despite what my heart said about it. After we released the balloons they also let a giant floating lantern go. It was a little bit scary, it didn't get very high up because the lantern caught on fire and fell back into the crowd. Luckily it fell pretty slowly and everyone just moved out of the way. I do admit I'm a little afraid of fire and I may have rushed off to the side when it started to fall....

The last part of the evening was more dancing, the drummers from earlier in the afternoon played on stage and sang some popular songs. I was really surprised everyone was sitting down listen, but then they got the drummers out again and people began dancing. Especially the ajama's (older ladies) they really know how to party over here haha.

When we headed back to the bus everyone was still pretty pumped up from the music, dancing and drinking so we decide we needed some music for the way back to the beach. Our tour leader couldn't get the music to work so one of the guys from my group offered to sing. Apparently he'd either drank enough to have no qualms about it, or he wasn't the nervous type. Anyway he got up there and belted out some songs, he got everyone singing and by the time we got back to the hostel we had music playing and half the bus dancing. It was one of those random, crazy things that happen with these kinds of trips when you have a bunch of like-minded young people together.

The very last part of the night was spent on the beach, hunkering down with one last drink before we headed to bed.  The next day was going to be long with both a temple visit and walking around the rice terraces. So I'll save that day for post two because I just noticed how long this one's got. So Temple and Rice terraces coming soon! Promise. 

An Update and Jon's visit

So I know I haven't blogged in awhile and I'm sorry. Honestly I've just been too busy! Busy with friends, my boyfriend visiting, korean class and everything else under the sun.

I hardly ever have a weekend off and I'm woefully behind on my other projects such as finishing all the tv shows I'm behind on, colouring, letter writing and writing, I know, I know important stuff.

So I do plan to update you on a few things you're probably wondering about, I know the last post I wrote was about korean and my korean class so I'll pick up after that with my Guest English Teacher workshop.

This event was amazing. Before this I'd only met one other public school english teacher so I was super excited to meet other teachers and I did! I met a bunch of really cool people who have since then introduced me to other really cool people and etc. One of the guys I actually already knew, but I didn't realize he also worked at a public school.

The work shop also went over what our roles were supposed to look like, ideas to use in the class room and other interesting stuff about Korean culture (a lot of it I already knew). It also provided free lunch and snacks which was nice.

Finally I had some friends with the same schedule as me which has been amazing. There really isn't much else to say about the conference. For me, the most interesting part was just meeting the other teachers and talking about our experiences.

Other cool things I've done since then has been just hanging out with friends, going on the standard trips and stuff. We went to the art gallery one weekend which was really cool, I saw the new avengers movie which I loved then proceeded to go home and watch all the other avengers movies in that same week... I know I know, life goals, right?

Basically I spent a lot of time counting down until Jon got here! I was very nervous and excited to have someone to show around and hang out with. Nervous because I wasn't sure if he'd like Korea or how we should spend our time or where we would go or if he'd like my friends and etc. Also because I hadn't seen him in so long. It felt like two worlds were colliding.

I know my world at home and my world here are both very real, tangible places with very real and important people in them, but honestly it always feels like this world is separate from that world. I feel like a different person here, I have so much freedom and free time. I am so much more financially independent than I've ever been before and independent in other ways too, there's no family or circle of old friends to rely on and though that sounds like a bad thing, it's actually sort of great too. It gives you that extra push to move outside your comfort zone and make new friendships with people you ordinarily wouldn't or to do things you normally wouldn't. It really allows you to have a lot of freedom in a way I hadn't experienced before.

So basically that made the whole thing feel strange, but I was also excited because who wouldn't be after not seeing their boyfriend for 7 months? Also, I realized that week that was arriving on our anniversary which was pretty cool.

Luckily we found plenty to do, we went to the other two neighbourhoods in Changwon, Jinhae and Masan and we ate lots of yummy korean foods and walked all around the city looking at neat stuff. I was most worried about what Jon would do while I was at work, but it ended only being a few days we were separate because I had a along weekend and then the second week he was here I got sick and had to stay home.

I also impressed myself with how much Korean I understood and could use. Reading and listening, it was a relief. I thought I'd be fumbling around the menus and not understanding more than I was. It definitely made the Korean lessons worth it. Actually, I would forget Jon couldn't read the Korean and we'd be looking at the menu and ask about something I'd be like it's blah blah blah and then see it says beef right there and he'd just look at me blankly.... oh yeah, you can't read the Korean, sorry... haha. I'm used to spending time with people who can read Korean fairly well so it was easy to forget.

I also, showed him how to get around and where all the cool stuff was near my house so he had places he could easily find while I was at work, He seemed to manage quite well and went all over the place while I was working which I was happy about.

The only crappy thing that happened was getting sick. He had a cold and then I got a fever or flu or something the last week he was there, it was a blessing in disguise though because I felt so crappy I ended up taking two days off work and could spend more time with him, although I was too tired to do very much which sucked, I mostly just felt like sleeping. I finally felt completely recovered at the beginning of this week (I also got a cold at the same time and my allergies had been dreadful).

Some of the stranger/funnier things that happened were when we'd go out to eat and not understand what the Korean's were saying to us. One place we went to we were pretty sure we got some free meat, but not 100% because we weren't sure what we'd ordered to beginning with (only that it was samgyapsal) then we also tried to order some citron soju (a popular Korean drink) but the lady didn't know what I was talking about... I finally showed her a picture on google and she understood perfectly.

Another time we went for soft tofu stew at a place I'd never been to and the lady showed us how to make tea from our rice crusted on the bottom of the dish (I forgot what it's called, but yes, it's a thing here). She got so worried that we weren't making it (I think because the dishes were getting cold) that she came over and started scooping our rice out... then she saw I hadn't started eating right away and was worried the soup was too spicy for me (she had to write the word down because I couldn't understand her) I tried desperately to convey that the soup was fine, but she didn't seem to believe me and then brought us an extra side dish of fish, which we weren't even able to eat... there was already tons of food. It was pretty awkward.

When you order spicy food in Korea they always tell you that it's spicy... for some reason they don't believe us when we say it's fine. It's kinda funny actually. My favourite dining experience was when we went for ramen and they had a show with cute kids hanging out with their dads on the tv. It was right in front of me so I ended up watching it the entire time, also, Korean kids are ridiculously cute. They have really round, chubby faces with cute pink cheeks and it's completely adorable.

I was pretty sad by the time Jon had to go, it was so fun having him here! It made me miss everyone at home more too. Still, I love it here and I want to finish my time before I head out on my next adventure hopefully somewhere else equally amazing and fun.

So lots of other great things have happened as well, but I honestly don't want to make this any longer since I think it'd be annoying to read. Hopefully you guys all enjoy this! Next weekend I'm going to Namhea for the holiday long weekend here (Buddha's birthday, yes that's a thing) so I'll have lots of adventure and fun to write about. '

Korean 101

I recently started studying Korean. Properly, I mean. I tried to study on my own, but I'm a terrible self-starter and I really enjoy collaborative environments so I knew taking a class would be a better option for me. It is definitely the right choice.

First, I want to introduce a little bit about Korean to you guys because I know you're reading this and feeling pretty impressed with my mad memorization talent and language skills. First thing first the Korean alphabet is actually called Hangul (Korean's don't even actually call themselve korean or the country korea... it's a bit weird if you think about it). It was invent by Sejong the Great a Korean king. He invented a phonetic alphabet because most common people did not have access to the education of the rich. Before this Korea used Chinese characters. Chinese is still used in Korea today, but to a smaller degree than in Japan. It's mostly just used for news papers and when they wanted to save space. Lots of Korean words are derived from Chinese words because of this. Anyway Sejong the Great is on all Korean money and they even have a holiday to celebrate the alphabet. To say the least Korean's are pretty proud of their alphabet. 

Okay, so I know some of you are going wow isn't Korean like really really hard? You must have to remember so many characters, it is an asian language after all. Not the case at all. Korean is phonetic which means all it's characters combine to make different sounds, thus making different meanings, pretty similar to English. And no there are not thousands of characters like in Chinese there are only 29 letters which can be broken down a number of ways. They have consonants and vowels just like English as well. Of course, also like English vowels and consonants can combine and make new sounds which makes even more characters, but I won't get into that. In their more basic form there are 29 characters. 

The reason Korean looks sort of similar to Chinese with the block-y looking 'characters' is because you write Korean in block form rather than in a row. You also read Korean left to right like English. But Terri, what about these block things? What's that about? So basically each block is a syllable. It's easiest to illustrate using a word. I'll use the word love today because it's pretty easy with only two syllables. Love in Korea is salang or sarang: 사랑 so the separate syllables are 사 (sa) 랑 (rang/lang) if you write it out without the blocks it looks like this: ㅅ ㅏ ㄹ ㅏ ㅇ so you can see where the blocks are. Pretty neat huh? Also, when you type in Korean the computer knows when you're trying to make a block and automatically puts the characters into the correct block as you type. 

So there are some rules about blocks... it's a bit confusing and I haven't learned everything yet but basically you cannot start a word with just a vowel you must put either a placeholder or a consonant. The place holder is: ㅇ. You may have noticed I also used it in the word 사랑 in this instance it is at the end of the word. How do I know it's at the end? It's at the bottom of the block. When it's at the end it makes a ng sound, but at the beginning it is silent. For example you cannot write ㅏ (a) you must write 아 (which just means 'oh' in English) but it's pronounced 'a' not 'nga'.

Another thing you may have noticed about 사랑 is I romanized it too ways. In Korean there is no 'l' sound or 'r' sound (actually most Korean letters only sound vaguely like there romanized counterparts, but this one is special). ㄹ is the character in Korean and it can make different sounds depending what is beside it etc. It doesn't make a sound I know how to describe, sometimes you hear it and think L then in a different place it sounds more like R, but often it doesn't sound like either. It is tricky trying to romanize any Korean words or sounds because even though a lot of the sounds in Korean seem similar to the English counter part they will have more than one sound depending what characters they are combined with or depending where they are in the word. For example there is a city in Korea called Busan (부산) which used to be romanized as Pusan simple because the 'ㅂ' sound is somewhere between a 'b' and a 'p' sound, I think it also depends where it falls in the word. Sometimes you also see kimchi romanized as gimchi because 'ㄱ' falls in between the 'k' and 'g' sound, but sound different at the end of words. It gets even more confusing when you add double consonants to the mix. 

Hopefully this isn't a confusing explanation. I want to write this simply without overwhelming everyone, but there are many differences in Korean and English so it takes a little explanation. 

Okay, enough Korean lessons. I want to talk about some of the differences in mean which I think gives interesting insight into Korean culture. First hello in Korean is annyeonghaseyo (언녕하세요) which if you translate it in google is literally hello, but actually in Korean it means (roughly) are you at peace. When you say goodbye there are two ways one for the person staying and one for the person going they both start with annyong, but end differently. Their rough translation is 'go in peace' and 'stay in peace' (there are various other ways to say goodbye and hello as well, but these are the most common).

I know some of you who are familiar with other Asian cultures or other Asian languages may be wondering about polite language and yes, Korean does have polite language. The the greetings in the last paragraph are all polite language. Polite language is used in various situations. Such as, talking to strangers, talking to people who are older than you, talking to superiors at work and etc. You can talk to your friends in informal language and there is a slightly different way to say things or different words to use. Mostly I've learned polite language because it is the safest to use. In certain situations where you are unsure which language to use you should always revert to polite language (I believe). I don't know much about it, but in some instances there is very polite language. 

The very last thing I should mention, that you've probably heard about around the web is Konglish. Now from my understanding (but don't quote me on this) Konglish seems to refer to two things. 1) Badly or Koreanized English translations and 2) Koreanized English words used in Korean. And there are a lot of them. The most common one I hear all the time is 커피 romanized as keopi. Can you guess what it is? Try saying it out loud a couple times. It kinda sounds like copy, right? Well it's not copy... it's coffee! That's right! Korean's love their coffee. There is no 'f' sound in Korean so 'f' are changed to 'p'. Similarly with 'v' so if you say elevator it is 'ellibeiteo'. Another thing that happens in Korean is because you cannot put two consonants together at the beginning of words you have to add a sound in between and sounds often get added to the end of words as well. Bus because 'beosue', sunglasses -> seongeullaeseu. You get the idea. The last thing that happens is Koreans take English words and the meaning changes slightly. I learned that the word 'hunting' has a slightly different meaning in Korean. It means to pick up girls or guys. So I guess you're hunting for guys or girls, I asked my Korean friend about it and she said it isn't as common now, but it sure sounds funny to me! 

So now you (hopefully) know something about Korean. I hope I didn't overwhelm you all with all this information! This is honestly just the tip of the iceberg. Please don't think this is a guide to learn Korean by, this is simply what I know and hopefully it can give people some knowledge about some differences in the languages which makes communication, interesting at times. I want to talk more about other things, but I honestly don't know enough about them to do them any justice! I don't speak Korean well at all. I can say a few words well (which is a great way to impress your coworkers apparently) and I can understand more than I can speak. Right this second I heard my coworker saying something I understood at least two words of. Reading and learning the alphabet is honestly the easiest part of learning Korean, but don't think for a second if you can read the sounds you are going to have any idea what it says. According to my friends who've learned Korean the grammar and verb conjugations are the trickiest parts (I've barely learned basic vocab). 

Personally I think learning a language when you're living in a different country 

(and teaching English) is a great way to connect with the people there, learn more about their culture and have a better understanding of how the kids feel learning English. Also, the kids love it when I can understand their Korean. I've surprised a few kids by answering them when they said 'teacher' in Korean (seonseangee) and I really surprised them today because one of them asked if I spoke Korean in Korean and I said no I don't speak Korean. The students were pretty confused by that one! Haha. 

Okay, really wrapping this up now. I'm enjoying learning a little bit more about Korea by learning the language and plus language learning is fun and useful. I recommend trying to learn the language of the country you're living in if you ever live abroad. Seriously. Do it. Okay, really, that's it. 

Jinhae Gunhangje Festival (진해군항제)

The Jinhae Cherry Blossom Festival is world famous, and trust me there is a reason for that. My pictures do not do Jinhae justice at all. There were trees everywhere and they looked amazing.

We had decided the festival was a must to attend and it was definitely the right decision. We left early from Changwon (also a good decision) because we were (rightfully) worried the traffic would be bad. When we got to Jinhae we got off the bus a little before the downtown area on the top of a hill. You could see Jinhae stretching out before you dotted with beautiful pink blossoms poking up between the green trees and the sea in the distance framed by the land nicely (refer to my photos). It was breathtaking. I immediately took a hundred pictures (okay, not that many but I took a bunch). I was really surprised by how many cherry blossoms there were. Everywhere you looked you could see them poking up from between the green trees. All over the hills, down the road and stretching right to the ocean. I hadn't known their would be that many cherry blossoms.

We walk down to the festival and took pictures the entire time. The day was beautiful, not a cloud in the sky. My friends had bugged me about wearing my coat and scar and they both came off as soon as I got off the bus. It was warm for the morning too. A perfect day. Finally we reached the famous stream and main festival area. If you google Jinhae Cherry Blossom festival you will see a pictures of the stream. It's got walkways going down both sides, then a bank down and more walk ways along the bottom. It was very green and fresh looking. There are spots were you can cross it on a stone path. The part that makes it really spectacular are the cherry trees lining the top of the bank on both sides so you're walking right under them. It would be beautiful even when they aren't in bloom.

There were also tons of people, even though it was still before 12 pm. There were also lots of food carts lining the street beside the stream making it feel even more crowded. It was impossible not to get a person in your photos everyone was there to admire the blossoms. We walked down the stream, ate some snacks and just enjoyed ourselves. It was really nice, although by the time we got to the bottom we were all starting to get sick of all the people as the crowd was getting bigger the further we went. Finally we went to a cute little park with some really interesting art work and a cute tree fort/platform thing made of large branches (again, see my photos). Another friend who lives in Jinhae met up with us and we decided to go eat lunch. We went to a popular Chinese restaurant and had jjajangmnyeon a popular chinese-korean noodle dish. I also got some dumplings with Lori and they were really yummy and crispy, not like ones I've had before.

After lunch Min had to go to schools so the rest of us walked down to the navy base which was open for the festival. It also had lots of cherry blossoms and was huge. It's very easy to forget sometimes that South Korea is still technically at war with North Korea. There were tons of people at the base to check it out and the option to bus down to the boats and water, but we decided to walk once we saw the line for the bus.

I need to interject here about something. All week at work my coworker told me how I shouldn't go to the festival because it would be sooooo busy and that if it rained all the blossoms would fall off the tree (it did rain and have a little wind storm thursday, but the blossoms were still intact Saturday). She also warned me it would rain... I didn't really believe her that morning, but I checked the weather anyway and sure enough they were predicting rain in the afternoon so I took an umbrella just to be safe... when I got to Jinhae the prediction of rain sounded ridiculous... there wasn't a cloud in the sky. While by the time we got out of the restaurant and started walking down to the navel base there were a few clouds around.

We got down to the ocean and saw that you could go on one of the ships and there was a war memorial set up on the pier (landing strip? Not sure what you call it). There were even a few pictures of Canadian soldiers helping out during the Korean war (or at least we presumed they were Canadian's because there was a Canadian flag). When we realized we could line up to go on the boat for no cost we immediately did. And then I felt it, the first of the raindrops. It was just a little sprinkle then... barely a sprinkle even. I just felt a tiny cold spot on my face or a hand a clear indication it has started raining.

By the time we reached the top deck of the ship it was full on raining. We had really good timing though because they had a little air show just after we got up there. It was cool to feel closers to the planes like that and I hadn't seen an air show in a long time. Unfortunately only two of us brought umbrella's so we were all trying to huddle under the two of them... or some of us anyway.

Since the rain started we decided it was time to go. We started back up the navel base kinda taking our time since the rain was a little off and on. It actually stopped by the time we got back into Jinhae so we were less worried about it at that point. When we got back we attempted to find a bus stop because our plan was to bus home... apparently this was a bad plan. First off, there was an insane amount of traffic everywhere and also a lot of the streets were closed because of the festival. They were using some of the streets as parking and other streets were set up as a market so you couldn't drive down them. We quickly realized all the buses at the stop we were at said 'delayed' so there wasn't much chance of getting a bus there. Instead we decided to walk further up the road, away from the festival to see if we could catch a bus there instead (there were also lots of people at that bus stop).

It wasn't any better. The rain started when we were walking up. First gentle, then it was pouring and we tried to huddle under umbrella's. I gave up pretty quickly it didn't matter which way you went about it there were only two umbrella's and 7 of us so at least 3-5 people were going to get wet. Unfortunately this is not the worst of the afternoon, oh no. It got worse than this.

I think it was around 3:30-4 when we first start attempted to leave Jinhae. We could see the traffic was bad and there were tons of people at all the bus stops. We eventually came to one where we thought we could catch the bus, unfortunately everyone else had the same thought and it was really busy.  The good thing about this bus stop was the gas station beside it so everyone who didn't fit into the bus shelter just stood under the gas station awing. We had high hopes for this bus and planned to dash for it when we saw it turning the corner.

When the bus finally came you could see it was already pretty packed, the windows were steamy and there was definitely a large number of bodies visible. We dashed for the bus anyway, feeling hopeful (or maybe that was just me) and everyone else at the bus stop dashed too. People getting on the bus in Korea is already a little rougher than I'm used to. Korean's do not worry about pushing you, bumping into you and cutting in front of you. Well now imagine that people are stuck in the rain, there only hope to get back to Changwon is this bus and who knows when the next bus will show up, so to say the least it was a little aggressive. You definitely had to be forceful to get on that bus. I attempted at first but when i saw how full in was and how many people were literally hanging off the entrance to the bus attempting to pull themselves on I gave up. Even if I could get into the bus there was no guarantee the bus drive would even let me stay on.  I am happy to say one of our group was aggressive enough to get her way onto the bus. The last I saw of Lori that day was her green jacket getting shoved down the bus by someone else shoving their way on.

The rest of us were abandoned in Jinhae. In a thunderstorm, no less. Oh I forgot to mention that, didn't I? Not only did it start raining, but there was thunder and lightening and then showers. It was unpleasant to be in no matter how positive you attempted to be. I kept trying to cheer Julianne up because she wore a really thin jack, didn't bring and umbrella and got soaked to the bone...well honestly I think we were all soak at this point. Finally I pointed out there was no reason to stand in the thunderstorm and wait for a bus we had no idea when would come and be cold and miserable.

We decided to find a coffee shop or restaurant to sit it. For some reason the part of Jinhae seeemed to be lacking in coffee shops. I'm not sure how this is possible because there are soooo many coffee shops in Korea and you're usually not 5 minutes away from one. Finally we found a Japanese Soba restaurant and one of the girls, Mina, went to check it out.

Oh, I should also mention three of Michael's students were with us for English practice. I think they had quite the experience with the rain and we joked that it was a bonding experience for us which somehow made me feel better.

Of course the restaurant was super busy, but luckily when we walked in a table cleared. It was very steamy inside. Both from the food (mostly noodles and dumplings) and from the damp people. We got warm soba noodles which were perfect for the rain day and some dumplings (Julianne got chicken katsu and then I proceed to eat all her fruit side dishes).

We attempted to dry off in the restaurant but it was hard because there wasn't anywhere to put our wet outerwear to dry it. I think I felt a little drier after, but not that much. After we ate we debated what to do about the buses. We decided to try another bus stop (which had almost as many people and the buses were still super full).

There was an awkward moment at the bus stop where we got confused and attempted to catch a bus we thought went to Changwon, but every time we asked the bus drive they said Changwon, no and we couldn't figure it out until we realized we were trying to catch it on the wrong side of the street.

After this and seeing the bus we had been trying to catch all afternoon go by full again we came up with a new strategy which was this. We would cross the street and catch the emptier bus going into Jinhae, catch it to the end of the line and then just stay on the bus and go back around to Changwon, a long trip, but it was our only option. And yes, we did consider a taxi but they were all full. They kept coming up to the gas station when we were there (earlier) and the owner was checking, but every drive said they were full.

Things were a bit chaotic so when the bus we wanted to catch came we got on, but the Korean students didn't understand what we were doing and they check where the bus was going and then said we had the wrong bus, wrongfully trusting them (although they were right in all other cases) we got off the bus... then realized what had happened and had to wait for the next bus, which luckily (and amazingly) came right away.

Finally on a bus going the right way we were so realized. We actually had seats and everything. It was great. I think after we got out of the restaurant it was around 6:30-7 (forgive me if this time line is painfully off. I can't remember what it was exactly).  We catch the bus to the end of the line without a hitch. While on the bus Michael re-checked the buses and he realized we could catch a different bus back to Changwon rather than the one we were on. So we would by pass the craziness that was the cherry blossom festival (and yes, traffic was still bad at this point).

So we finally got off the bus and had a little confusion about were we should catch the other bus, and also were a little disappointed because we saw the bus we wanted as we were pulling into the bus stop, but then it was gone when we got off our bus. Although my rational mind knew this was a sound plan, I have to admit I was a little worried because what if the bus we wanted didn't show up for another hour and we were stuck in the rain, or what if it never came to the stop or what if it had stopped running? I think at this point getting home was almost seeming too good too be true. I should also mention we were sort of out in the sticks. There was not much around us, just a convenience store and a few other random buildings. I think one was a restaurant.

But I had nothing to fear, the bus showed up pretty soon after we got there and we were some of the first people on the bus. It also seemed like the rain was clearing up while we were at the bus stop it stopped had almost stopped raining. On the bus ride back the bus got really full so we were all happy to get on at the first stop. During the drive back there was a loud explosions sound, apparently more thunder, but it sounded closer and louder than any thunder I've heard (at least in many years) and it I thought it was fireworks near by until I remembered the rain and saw some lightening.

I'm pretty sure we didn't arrive back in Changwon until 10 or 10:30. I honestly can't remember the time. The only thing I wanted to do was change, have a long, hot shower; then drink tea and lay in bed. Julianne and I fantasied about this the whole time we were trying to get home haha.

The day was long and the afternoon was definitely an adventure, we took soo many buses to get home and it took way longer than the 15-30 minutes it should usually take (I'm guestimating here I've only been to Jinhae once before). I'd say the cherry blossoms alone were worth it, but I definitely think I would catch the train back or stay the night in Jinhae next time. It's was sooo crazy. Also, because I've now been to the main part of the festival I think I would just skip it any maybe go durning the week or on a less busy weekend and enjoy the trees, although they only have limited blooming time.

Anyway, it was an adventure worth having and I definitely felt like the group bonded because of it, also I will remember it for a long time.

So that was my latest adventure. I have much more that happened recently I want to write about but right now I'm late for dinner with my friend so I'll save it for next time!!

Jindo Sea Parting and Holi Hai at Haeundae Beach

A few weeks back with our Social Group we decide to attend the Jindo Sea Parting and Holi Hai. Since they were both happening in the same weekend we ended up signing up for a tour with a group based in Korea. It was a really good decision in the end. Not only did we end up going to two awesome festivals in one weekend, but we also didn't have to plan any bus routes or book and hotel which I thin made the whole trip even more enjoyable and it was only 105,000 won so it was a pretty good deal.

The trip start in Jindo then we spent the night in Boseong then went to Busan early in the morning on Sunday. Everyone got to the bus station early Saturday morning... and by early I mean before 9 am, so early for me. We had a 4 hour bus trip to Jindo. It went really smoothly I thought. Although it was awkward with the pee breaks. I went almost every time we stopped, but still ended up having to go really badly at the end of the trip. Still, it was really fun. I sat with Julianne and we get along fairly well so we just chatted or did our own thing the entire time and we were both content.

When we got there we immediately went to look at the ocean. It was a foggy day, but not too cool and still pretty sunny. I guess I should interject here and talk about the festival. Each year when the tide gets really low the sea 'parts' in this one area where there's a kind of sand bar or underwater spit and you can walk across to an island called Modo. The distance is about 3 km.  Thousands of tourists come every year to walk across to the island and enjoy cultural festivities. Sounds pretty neat, right?

So when we arrived the tide was still in and it wasn't much to look at. They have a whole festival when the season for the low tide starts with tons of food, drinks, and cultural activities. There were jindo dogs which is a famous korean dog breed from the area. If you google jindo that's pretty much the only thing that comes up. Apparently they are known for their intelligence, they were beautiful looking dogs too.

We got some boots to walk out into the parting right off the bat, or at least I did and Michael. I wasn't sure what the boot situation would be like inside the festival so I decide I should get something right away. If you saw my pictures then you saw how ridiculous looking these boots were, but they worked great. Despite being thinner than a rubber boot they didn't leak at all and despite my lack of belt looks to attach the suspenders to (I wrapped them around my thighs) they stayed up really well. And everyone was wearing them looking ridiculous so it really didn't matter.

We wandered around for while, not sure how far the festival went or what to do first. People kept offering us samples of seaweed, turmeric and booze which we happily accepted. I found out that jindo is famous for their turmeric, not a spice I usually associate with Korea. We tried to find the dog show that was supposed to be happening, but ended up getting distracted by food and a ssireum (korean wrestling) demonstration. Julianne and I found  some yummy Japanese food with eggs, some cabbage, batter of some sort, bbq sauce bacon, octopus and various other tasty things. It wasn't like anything I'd had before, but it was so so delicious. I forgot what it's called, but I'd have another one in a heart beat.

We also found puppies when we were walking around. Jindo puppies. They were extremely soft and cute looking. Really adorable faces  and super relaxed, but friendly little guys. There were a ton of cute Korean kids in the pen to add to the cuteness. Jackie and Julianne kidnapped one little puppy and smothered him with love (not literally, but almost). The puppy was sooooo soft and sleek. I was in love. I sorta want a jindo dog if I were ever to get a dog, but my friend said they were expensive so it probably won't happen. Still, they are beautiful dogs.

They also had singing, dancings, skits and activities like painting. We watch a few of the performances. They were all pretty awesome, there were girls dancing and singing in traditional costumes, a short, but funny skit of a mean guy and his servant teasing him then drummers playing traditional music in traditional costumes and last soldiers doing army drills to k-pop songs and dancing a little sexily which was hilarious. I think my friend took a video. We got some visors when we were at the performance and wore them like all the older ladies around us, they were difficult to keep on until we realized we had forgotten to fold one of the flaps down.

After watching the performances we went and found some food. I got a gukbap which just means soup and rice which is a type of traditional korean meal (I think) it was a beef soup with a bunch of veggies and rice in the soup which I hadn't had before. We also had some magkoli, a korean fermented rice wine. It is delicious, I recommend trying it if you can get your hands on some. So tasty. This stuff was especially 'smooth' as my friend put it.

After food we wandered around a bit more then it was finally time for the sea parting. Everyone got their awesome thigh high boots on and we followed the crowd out into the water. The water hadn't gone out completely so it was really great that we had the boots because it allowed us to just wade through the parts where there was still water. Although I felt sorry for the people had chose to wear their own shows or boots.

It was pretty cool being that far out in the ocean. It kinda felt like you should be on a boat or small island, although at the same time it took me back to hanging out at the beach at Deep Cove when the tide goes out really far. It felt both very familiar and strange at the same time. The scenery was beautiful. It was foggy still, but the sun was starting to get lower and looked hazy through the softened sky making everything feel a little surreal. There were boats off in the distance and the water seemed to merge into the sky when you let your eye go that far.

There were thousands of people at this event, lots of them foreigners. For all of us from Changwon it was definitely strange seeing that many foreigners in one place and hearing that much English spoken. Normally in Changwon if you're in a group over ten foreigners that's a lot, but at this festival the foreigners were definitely in the thousands. It was fun to see the stuff some people dressed in to. Someone was dressed as moses (of course) but I didn't see him. I did see a couple dressed like waldo and another one dressed like the guy from the Steve Zissou from the Aquatic life, although I don't know if that's what they were going for.

My favourite part of this festival was definitely walking out for the sea parting. I found out after why they do the walk and I thought it was really sad, but beautiful. Apparently there's a story about the island Modo, that it used to be inhabited with tigers, well there was a family living there and the tigers drove them away except the grandmother who stayed on the island. Well another creature (I forgot what it was) felt bad for her and showed her a route to get off of the island were the water was shallower. She followed the route to find her family, but because she was weak and old she couldn't make it all the way across. Luckily her family was also looking for her and walking along the same path, unfortunately she collapsed before they got there and ended up dying in her family's arms. So to this day Korean's walk from both Modo island and Jindo and they meet in the middle. They take two different coloured ribbons from each side then tie them in the middle. ribbons looked really cool stretch out into the spit of land. And yes, this is the story of the old lady and tiger statue I posted... in case you were wondering.

When we were doing the sea crossing there were tons of older Korean's out on the beach harvesting seaweed and lots more out along the sand bar harvesting clams. They didn't seem to give a shit when the guy announced that the tide was coming in. Lots of them brought bags and were filling them and as it's isn't a one time phenomena I had to wonder if they came every low tide to collect seaweed and clams.

After we finished the walk, which I unfortunately never made to Modo we had some time to kill before our bus left so we hung around the food tents and got some snacks. Julianne and I split a giant deep fried squid which has apparently become a thing here. It was pretty tasty, like a giant calamari  on a stick, but spicier and whole. The other people in our group wanted food from Turkey's booth (there were international food booths) but the line was really long so we ended up giving up on that. Still, we all went away happy and full.

After the sea parting we hopped on our bus and headed to Boseong where we would stay the night. Boseong is apparently really famous for their green tea and beautiful landscape. We were just staying the night then moving on so we didn't have time to spend a lot of time there. The trip from the festival to the hotel was about 2 hours, why so far you ask? Because we wanted to get closer to busan so we wouldn't have to travel so far in the morning when we were all sleepy, thus allowing us to sleep in more as well.

The hotel we stayed in was fairly nice and luckily we were able to pick our group for the hotel room so it was just everyone in our group, plus two other people who got assigned to our group. Since the tour we'd singed up for had over 200 people going from different cities in the country it was a little crazy at the hotel. They only had the convenience store open by the time we got there (sometime after 9 pm) so it was crazy. We all wanted to get some proper food in us, but only thing they seemed to food-wise was instant ramen. I know that doesn't sound really appealing to most westerners, but instant ramen is different in Korea. First off, it is a little bit higher quality and second it just tastes better and they have lots of different kinds. It's also really popular. Like I've seen Korean's in the grocery store with huge flats of their favourite ramen. So that's a thing here. I didn't get ramen in the end, because I wasn't really that hungry and needed to get some rest for our 6 am wake up call.

Back in the hotel room, after surviving the crazy line, getting some juk (rice porridge) then realizing I needed to go back to the convenience store to heat it up I finally got to relax, drink and beer and discuss the day with everyone. It was the perfect end of a long, but very memorable day.

The next morning we were up at 6 am to leave at 6:50 for Busan since we needed to be there before noon for Holi Hai. Luckily the night before Sujin and I had made hard boiled eggs so we ate those and then got back on the bus, there was a lot of busing this weekend, yet some how the bus ride was pretty relaxing and not that stressful (for me anyway). I think it's because Korean buses are really comfortable with nice comfy, large seats. My friend told me that Korean's like to sleep when they travel so I think that could explain the comfortable seating.

The bus ride was pretty fun. As we left Boseong we drove by some of its famous valleys and tea fields. It was so beautiful in the misty morning (mist was a thing this entire trip). It looked like another world from the crowded cities full of high rises and neon lights. Korea is like that. One minutes your looking at rows of apartments and the next your watch rolling hills and fields go by. It's kind of awesome. Anyway, this was one of the most beautiful places I've seen in Korea. The valley seemed endless and untouched. Apparently it's known for it's beauty and I definitely need to go back there.

When we started to get close to Busan the trip coordinator brought out some face paints and some how Jackie got roped into painting everyones face (she was the only artist in the group... I still owe her a beer for that one!). Most of us went for neon coloured dots, but I also got some swirls added into the mix. It looked pretty festive. Everyone had been instructed to wear white for the festival so the colours would show up better. And you should definitely 100% wear something you don't care about staining cause the amount of paint you get on yourself is insane, especially if you're like me and keep heading back into the crowd.

I was really excited to be going to Haeundae beach because it is a really famous beach in Korea and super popular in the summer. We all agreed after we got there that we would be coming back like everyone other weekend. Seriously. It was also so warm I had brought a sweatshirt I didn't want in case it was cool, but the temperature got up to around 20 that day, possibly a bit higher. When we arrived at the festival they gave us a pack of colour powder to throw and apparently rub all over everyone, and a free samosa and drink. The samosa's were really tasty.

We had a bit of time to kill before the festival started so we just hung out by the water, of course we all had to test how cold the water was. It was pretty cold. After eating, Jackie, Dave, Michael, Sujin and I all decide to go to the convenience store, unfortunately when we got there the line was huge with all people wearing at least one piece of white. I guess everyone else had the same idea. We finally gave up waiting or we were going to miss the opening of the festival. We got back just in time. I was so relived.

There was a count down and everyone threw chalk in the air at the same time. It looked really pretty. I wanted a picture, but honestly I doubt it would've shown up the well and I didn't want to get powder on my camera. The powder was scented so when everyone threw their powder in the air the whole area smelled like perfume or flowers. It wasn't a bad smell at all, but I'm not sure what it was.

After the powder throwing was when the fun really started. There was dj and people were just hanging out, dance and throwing powder at each other on the beach. Unfortunately I didn't know to save some powder and threw all mine at the beginning so I had no powder to throw on anyone, but that didn't seem to stop people from throwing powder at me.

It was really funny because my friends and I were off to the side a bit so we ended up only getting each others powder on us and we all had the same two colours: green and yellow. So at the beginning I only had green and yellow powder on me, but ended up with every colour under the sun by the end of the day. Some of us wanted to hang out and dance while others wanted to chill on the beach. We attempted to enter the crowd with everyone, but it fell apart pretty fast. I went back in for another round and it was pretty fun, just dancing and laughing and having some random dude rub paint all over your face... yep, that was a thing. I ended up with far more paint and powder on me than in the beginning. Also, for some reason people kept starting conga lines and every time I got swept up in it.

Finally I escaped the crowd and the endless conga lines. I hung out in the beach for awhile and for some reason decided it was a good idea to run into the ocean with a jackie and another girl... I will admit that beer and soju may have played a part in this decision. One thing about Korea that I still find a bit strange is public drinking is not illegal so you can just have a beer at the beach... quite a few people were doing this. It was pretty cold, but really refreshing...expect when it was too cold and I was gasping for breathe for about 20-30 seconds, that wasn't really that fun, but after was good and it was nice to get some of the paint off, especially my face cause it was getting hard to move the face muscles.

After the ocean dip everyone was pretty cold and we left the beach not long after. We changed and scrubbed our faces in the bathroom with mul tissue some girl was kind enough to give us. Finally, we went and got some yummy bibimbap and soup. I think it was around 4-4:30 at this point and our bus wasn't leaving until 6. Since most of us were tired from the early morning we decide to go catch a regular bus back to Changwon. I was pretty happy with this decision because I was about ready to fall asleep.

Michael and Lori opted to stay behind because they wanted to check out a lighthouse, I was tempted to join them but my tiredness won that time. The other guy with our group had already left with some new friends for India food. The rest of us headed home. We all just really wanted hot showers and sleep by this point, although I did feel a bit guilty to leave the beautiful sunny day behind me and when I got back to Changwon it wasn't nearly as warm. I realized this when I jumped off the bus in my shorts and tee shirt and immediately regretted not putting on tights and a sweater.

Surprisingly my biggest worry about the colour not coming out of my hair was unfounded it washed out beautifully, although I still washed it twice to make sure and rinsed it extra well. I don't know if you can tell from my photos, but my hair and face got the brunt of the colour attack.

In all it was amazing weekend. The Jindo Sea Parting festival was definitely an amazing phenomena to see. Even though I'm an island girl and I've seen some pretty awesome beaches that was definitely and unique experience and the festival just made it more fun. Holi Hai in Busan was a crazy, colourful mess and I loved every minute of it. Plus Haeundae beach is my new favourite place and I just want to spend the whole summer there soaking up the sun there. I will definitely do more of these types of festivals they make this year in Korea so memorable and it was a great way to bond with my friends here and create some really lasting memories together. Oh gosh, this is sound cheesy I better finish up here. Anyway, I hope you enjoy this post and it sheds some light on how Korean cultural events are hosted. I hope to go to some more awesome things in the coming months. Apparently spring and summer is the time of festivals for Korea. I'm excited for the summer season!