Seollal in Seoul part 1

First, I want to comment that it has been six months since I came to Korea (in October!) Wow! Can you believe it? I can't. At the beginning it felt like I had eternity in Korea, the whole year stretching out before me and now it kinda feels like wtf I still want to do/see so many things! Where did all that time go I had 6 months ago?! Where is it? So yeah, I am stoked that I only have 6 months till I get to be at home on the wonderful island with my family and friends, but I'm also super sad that in 6 months I'll be leaving this awesome country and all the wonderful people I've met here, that will be really difficult.

Okay, so moving on to Seollal and Seoul! First, I guess you're wondering what Seollal is. It is Korean new year. It happens at the start of the Lunar calendar much like the Chinese, Japanese and Vietnamese new years do. It is a time when Korean's go home to spend time with there families and eat yummy Korean foods. They also wear hanbok which is the traditional Korean clothing. They are really pretty looking. So for new years because everyone needs to travel home and it's an important holiday. The day before and the day after Seollal are also national holidays (at least I think that's why? Correct me if I'm wrong about this guys!) This year Seollal was on a Thursday which meant I got the Wednesday and the Friday off as well, which leads perfectly into the weekend giving me five days off! 

So, I did almost go to Japan for this holiday with some different friends, but I decide for the sake of the bank account that Seoul would be the better trip. I was very happy with my choice. I went with my Canadian friend Julianne. We booked a hostel near the Seoul station (so it would be easy to get around) and decided the KTX (railway) would be the fastest and most comfortable way to travel and to us North American's it is fast, I think it took around 3hrs, maybe just under? I wasn't sure. It was super easy to book too. You just go online and book everything for the train you want and then take the information in with your passport to the ticket office on the day of your departure and they give you the tickets. So easy! 

The train also had clean washrooms, comfortable seating, wifi (but only if you downloaded the app which I couldn't get on my phone for some reason) and snacks if you wanted to eat something. The only mistake I made the first day was forgetting to bring water so I was really thirsty by the time I got to Seoul. Seoul was pretty empty when we arrived because everyone was busy heading home for the holidays. The train station was crazy though, in both Changwon and Seoul station. So many people traveling that day. 

Our hostel was really cute and had kind of a school theme. I liked the hostel immediately, it had a really home-y, comfortable feeling and the staff was really helpful and friendly. In order to save money we got one room with a double bed which was perfect for us. The only thing I would've changed for next time was getting the bathroom attached to the room because the bathrooms in the hostel were down the hall and really really small so you had to either hang your clothes on the door and risk getting them wet or leave them outside and risk someone seeing you. And no, you couldn't walk down the hall in a towel because in Korea they just use hand towels, not the giant ones we're used to. 

The first day we were there we quickly dumped our stuff at the hostel and went in search of food. We decided to try a popular Japanese fast food chain called Lotteria it is owned by a huge company that has pretty much everything, it's huge in Asia. The burgers were tasty as fast food usually is and after we took a rest at the hostel and then went to meet Julianne's friend. We ended up eating again then going to Myeongdong which is a really popular shopping area. It is insanely crowded with stores, mostly clothing, beauty and shoes stores, but some other things thrown in for good measure. It is a shoppers dream. Also, when I say beauty stores I mean there was one every other store... it was actually insane. There were beauty stores for one brand (usually more than one in that area) then there were also beauty stores for multiple brands...but they were usually the same brands as the other beauty stores that were for brands... so you basically had the same beauty products everywhere. 

Plus every time you walked by the beauty store there was a girl trying to get you to come in. Lots of them had free samples, but you only got them if you went inside. I managed pretty good self control and only went in one (which happened to be having a 1+1 sale on my favourite hand cream!) After the craziness of Myeongdong we were exhausted so we went back to our hostel via subway and got some snacks then holed up with some television and food to prepare ourselves for Gyeongbokgung the royal palace in Seoul! 

Thailand: Chiang Mai

I think I am well overdue for a post and I apologize for that.

Anyway, I still need to talk about Chiang Mai. In my last post I left off on a train ride with three other girls from Massachusetts. My hostel set me up with them because they happened to have a spare bed in their bunk and we were all around the same age. They were really nice and fun to hang out with, but they were really close friends so it made me miss all my close girl friends at home. One day I want to travel around South America or Asia or Europe with a couple friends (or sisters! Jo, Gabe, Sam, Ashley f? Everyone else, you reading this?)

Anyway, back to the train ride. It was a night train so I didn't have to leave for the station till around 6 pm (I think). Then we got a bunk to sleep in and blankets and pillows and stuff. The train station was really busy since trains are still a really popular form of travel in Thailand (and Korea too, I'm taking one this week, but that's a different post!). We found our bunk no problem then just hung out and talk and ate some snacks. Finally we all tried to sleep. The train was fairly quiet, but the movement did keep me awake a bit. Still, it was cool to wake up in the morning and find I was in a different place. The countryside was really beautiful in the morning, all misty and cool looking. Lots of green plants I'd never seen and rolling, open fields. It was magical.

When we arrived in Chiang Mai we caught a kind of cab to our hostels, this is where the girls and I parted. The 'cabs' in Chiang Mai were basically small pick-ups with covered back, benches in them and they had an open door at the back. But very comfortable and cheap to travel in. I made it to my hostel and was happy to find friendly guests their. The first girl I met was an American and immediately invited me to go see a temple with her and some other girls. Unfortunately we didn't make it to the temple that day, but I wandered around the edge of the main city and saw some really beautiful temples. Chiang Mai (apparently) has over 200 hundred temples. Suffice to say I will be returning there. It also has a million scooters, even more than Bangkok. Scooters were the main mode of transportation. My favourite temple in Chiang Mai was definitely the first one I found which was done in the lanna style architecture (I believe). It was different than the temples I'd seen in Bangkok, there was a lot less gold, but it was covered in beautiful, intricate carvings everywhere (photos on facebook). It was all done in a dark wood and it had huge sloping roofs. It was amazing.

I wandered some more, following the canal that surrounds the city and found one of the old gates that surround the city, it was pretty neat too, clearly in decay, it was all made from a red brick. I wish I remembered how old it was, but my memory is failing me here.

Next I returned to the hostel and met a British girl named Fabby, who was from Jersey, no not New Jersey, just Jersey, yeah I'd never heard of it either. Anyway she was in my room and invited me to dinner with a bunch of other girls, it was kinda funny because there were three girls from Australia, a girl from New Zealand who was traveling with a girl from Germany, a second girl from Germany who was traveling alone and then Fabby and I. I thought there were 9 of us, but I can't remember who everyone was now.

The hostel I stayed at was really cool. Lots of the people were traveling in small groups or alone so it was really easy to meet people and go out and do stuff. I met some really interesting cool people there and it really felt like a community. There were, of course, some bad apples, but the majority of the people were really friendly and nice.

The hostel also planned neat day trips, I didn't actually go on any because the first day I arrived everyone had already left for the lake and the second day I was sick (so sad). So I just rested at the hostel, everyone else went hiking. Luckily a few people stayed behind and later new people showed up. Including an American girl for somewhere near Pittsburgh I believe. She was only 18 and traveling alone, which I found fairly impressive. I doubt I could've done that (or would've for that matter, well I don't know, maybe I'm selling myself short here). Anyway, strange despite our age difference and stuff we actually had a lot in common and ended up going to check out some old ruins together that afternoon. They were really amzing, like the giant they were all brick and there were tons of them. We kept thinking our tuktuk driver was finished then he would take us somewhere new. It was so fun.

After, we go back to the hostel we hung out and rest for a bit (I was still not feeling great) then we went to find some food. Jessielle, wanted to go to this smoothie place near the south Giant of Chiang Mai, which was sort of across the city from us. When we got there were found tons of street food, it was awesome. We got our smoothies, well we were waiting for them another guy was getting his and he said, these are the best smoothies in Chiang Mai. They were pretty delicious. All fresh fruit and you could chose to have it sweet or sour, I got sour, naturally. After the smoothies we wandered and got some other foods then headed over the the nigh bazaar. It was sorta like the weekend market in Bangkok, endless booths of stuff. As I was walk over my flip flop broke so I had to immediately find some new ones, luckily the first stall we found sold sandals and flip flops, lucky!

The market was overwhelming and seemed to have a lot of the same stuff over and over again, still it was really neat and I enjoyed it a lot. By the time we had looked for awhile it was getting late so we went back to our hostel, but not before I got some yummy fried noodles. They were delicious. Thick and chewy with a kind of salty, spicy sauce and some veggies with them. The next day I had signed up for a cooking class in the afternoon, then in the evening the hostel was hosting a bbq for one of its staff members because he was leaving.

The cooking class was really cool. They picked me up from the hostel and drove me there. I met the other people in my class in the truck on the way there. The first guy I met I was a Korean guy, I immediately was excited because we had something in common. It was really funny though because I asked him where he was from in Korea and he kept saying oh you won't know it, you won't know it, well, what do you know, but he was from Changwon as well. I got really excited and was like I live there! He was so surprised. The he asked which part of Changwon and I told him and he said he grew up there, what are the chances of that? Unfortunately he had moved to Seoul for university, but it was still cool to meet someone from my city in Korea.

There were also three Chinese girls one from Shanghai, one from Toronto and one from California, they were really cute. They met online and all decided to travel together. I thought it was cool. It was also nice to meet another Canadian. Later, at cooking class I also met a girl from Vancouver. Such a small world.

The class was really simple, you just chose four dishes to make (one of them a curry paste which you then made curry from) and the cooking instructor took you to different stations to make the food. The first thing I made was a papaya salad, it's a kind of famous Thai dish, you can google it. It was really yummy. It had a spicy sauce and you made it with a mortar and pestle, which is really different. The second thing I made was a green curry paste and I realized I'd been using all the wrong ingredients! Oh no. Also, the teacher only used the roots of the cilantro rather than the leaves which is what I'd always done. So I definitely learned a thing or two for my own green curry recipe. I'm excited to try making it when I get home (unfortunately cilantro and some other Thai ingredients are a little hard to find in Korea). Next, we made a curry from our paste and I kept getting the teacher to add extra paste, I think I was the only one who thought it wasn't spicy enough.

The last thing I made was a sweet and sour veggies dish, it had ketchup in it which kind threw me off, but I think they were just trying to use ingredients available to their primarily western students. Everyone has chose Pad Thai for their second dish so I was the only one making sweet and sour stir fry, still, it was delicious. After we finished cooking we got sit down and eat our meal. They also provided rice and some snacks for us as well as a really, yummy sweet tea that you added lime to and it changed from a dark blue colour to a dark purple colour (photos on fb). It tasted delicious as well and really complimented the food.

After we had ate and were relaxing the teacher came over and offered us a shot of Thai rice alcohol to help with digestion. Then she gave us a cook book with a bunch of Thai recipes (which I'm really excited to try out on my friends here at some point, given I can find the ingredients for the dishes. After that they drove us back to our hostels. I rested up before the BBQ that night.

The BBQ was awesome, there was tons of grilled meat, salad and mashed potatoes. It was so tasty. And almost everyone staying at the hostel attended so there were tons of people. Someone also made jungle juice which is basically a mixture of booze and juice that doesn't taste that boozy, it's usually pretty strong so it can be dangerous stuff. During the BBQ I met a lot of cool people including two Quebecois girls, another girl from Vancouver and a girl from Edmonton, awesome more Canadians.

After the BBQ a bunch of us went out for a bar crawl and to do Karaoke. It was pretty fun. Lots more drinking, some kind of creepy guys and lots of terrible singing made for an awesome night. When we went back to the hostel, me and one other guy (who had lived in Korea for a bit too so we bonded over that) were really hungry so we wandered down the street looking for some late night food. We found a fairly busy looking soup place with a really yummy looking beefy noodle soup, of course we wanted it. The lady seemed hesitant to sell it to us so we thought she was closing and we were going to leave, but then she seemed to change her mind. She warned us it was spicy, but we persisted that we wanted it (it smelled really really good). Well it was spicy, really really spicy. I think it was the spiciest thing I ate it Thailand and I can usually handle spicy food better than most westerners (no offence guys).

It turns out this soup not only had noodles, but cubes of congealed beef blood (yummier than it sounds) and blood in the sauce, but it was mainly really really spicy. I think it was also something about the strong beefy, flavour and the blood as well as the spice that made it hard to digest at 2 am so neither of us were able to finish our soup. It was really flavourful and tasty though, I don't think I've ever had anything else like it, maybe next time I'll go for a less spicy version (I can't believe I'm saying that!).

The next day I was supposed to leave for Bangkok, but due to the fact I couldn't get the night train I decided to instead stay an extra night and catch a plane to Bangkok on Saturday morning. Yay, an extra night! I spent the morning sleeping in, but during the afternoon I went and found food with Jessielle and we wandered around Chiang Mai looking at random places. I think the last night was the best though, or at least when I had the best food. I went out with a few of the people from the night before and we hit up the street food places. Immediately one of the guys I was with found a yummy looking pork place, we weren't going to chose it right away, but on our second pass he realized it was actually a really famous pork place that had been featured on a travel show that we'd both seen, well that decided it for us, we had to try the pork. It was super flavourful and came with just some rice and an egg. The only problem was the portions were kinda smalls so we were still hungry after.

Next we tried a really delicious kind of coconut soup/puddling thing with tapioca balls and a quail egg in it. So so so good. It was the best thing I ate there. It was really creamy and deliciously sweet, but  also had a rich salty, savoury flavour in it. I still crave sometimes. After that Rob and I (the guy who lived in Korea and also really liked food) wanted something else to eat so we ended up sharing some greens as well, which were also delicious. I almost forgot, to start my street food feast I had a pork bun as well. After stuffing ourselves full of delicious foods we went to the nigh Bazaar again. I also ran into the Korean guy from my cook class again and then we just wandered around looking at stuff. We were all still pretty tired from our night out the day before so we ended up heading back early, grabbing some beers and hanging out at the hostel to watch a movie. It was just chill night.

The next morning I packed up and caught a flight to Bangkok, then from Bangkok to Shanghai. The only thing about my trip I kind of regret is not getting a better flight home. I had an 11 hour lay over in shanghai over night. It was so boring. I sat in really uncomfortable airport benches and tried to sleep, but you couldn't. A mother sitting beside me got angry at me at one point cause I grabbed a bottle of water her kid knocked over. She didn't speak to me or anything, but gave me the coldest glare and grabbed her kid. It was a strange night. Finally, morning came and I got my flight to Busan, thank god!

I honestly loved my time in Thailand, but there was definitely a lot of stuff I didn't get to see. I really want to go back there and see more, learn more and experience more of that wonderful region. I know it's a bit of a cliche to travel to South East Asia in your 20s, but it's a backpackers paradise with young people everywhere, amazing food to eat and a wonderful, ancient culture to explore and learn about. I have to admit it still fascinates me and I long to go back to that region. I can't wait to see what Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam have in store! I will go back. I will. 

Thailand. Bangkok

I thought I could write just one post about Thailand and fit everything, but I think I'll break it up by city or something? I'm not sure. Anyway, here's the first one.
The whole trip was a bit surreal, it was my first real 'vacation' I call it that because it was so short, but it was also more of a backpacking vacation than the regular stay in resort and lounge on the beach sorta deal. Anyway, part one Bangkok and stuff. I don't even think I have all of my adventures there listed yet!

I've wanted to go to Thailand for a long time. And I almost didn't go.
I found myself sitting my friends apartment the weekend before my winter break obsessing over what I should do (as I do) and basically being talked out of it by my friends. I went home in more doubt than I'd been in before and feeling sad about the whole situation. I imagined staying in Korea for the whole winter break. Sitting at home everyday (as I'm prone to do) watching hours of travel shows and movies and wishing beyond hope that I was somewhere beautiful and warm as well. Well that pretty much did it for me, I had to go.

I literally booked my ticket that night and despite the closeness to my departure date I managed to not get an awful price. Then I found a hostel and all was right again. I was going to Thailand!

The pessimist in me is still surprised the trip went off with a hitch. I made it to the airport in plenty of time, had no delays or trouble with my flights and arrived at the hostel with no problems either. The first day I was there I was pretty tired and overwhelmed, it probably wasn't the best day to go see Thailand's largest and most famous tourist attraction, but honestly I didn't even think it through. I asked the front desk what I should see and they said go to the palace.When I was about to leave I overheard the receptionist talking to someone else about going to the palace... well here was my chance! I told a bemused british guy that I was going to the palace as well and would he like to go together? He agreed. I briefly worried he had a girlfriend somewhere who would view my intrusion as something more than friendliness, but the guy (Rob) seemed pretty chill and unconcerned about a jealous girlfriend popping up so I figured that wasn't something I needed to worry about.

So he showed me how to take the sky train (best thing ever) and also the ferry (also very helpful) and we went to the busiest tourist attraction I've ever seen. Now, I will offer my advice here for any of you planning on going to Thailand. If you visit the palace and Emerald buddha, do not do as I did and go at the height of the afternoon. No, definitely get up early and go in the morning. As well as being insanely busy with people. Literally everywhere you also have to keep your knees and shoulders covered up, I actually didn't know this so I wore shorts just above my knees and a tank top. Oops. Luckily I brought a long sleeved top and we found a lady selling long, wrap-around skirts near the palace entrance (no doubt making a bundle of ignorant tourists like me). You can also rent or buy (?) clothes to wear around the temples inside. I wasn't concerned about it though, pretty pink wrap around for a 100 baht? (approx $3 cad), well you can't go wrong with that anyway.

The temple was insanely beautiful and decorated with colourful, shiny stuff and gold. It was insane. Everywhere you looked you saw something beautiful, interesting or old. The only complaint I really have about the whole thing was how busy it was. You couldn't look at anything without five people standing in your way or trying to get by you or whatever. Unfortunately all the temples I visited in Bangkok were like this, although the palace and emerald Buddha were by far the busiest. The other thing I wished for a lot while there was some sort of information about the buildings, artwork, architecture...anything. I guess having stuff to read everywhere would slow down the immense movement of people through the grounds, but still, it would've been interesting and enriched the experience.

Actually, now that I think about it, there were people offering to be tour guides, but as with all things in Thailand you should be a bit weary of Thai people approaching you and offering you services so Rob and avoided what we assumed was a tourist trap. Another thing to avoid in Bangkok were the Tuktuk's although I did end up riding in one after a night out. Apparently they try to scam tourists by taking them to various businesses and getting them to buy stuff they don't want, a guy at my hostel had an experience where they took him everywhere but where he wanted to go and he finally ended up at a suit shop so he just bailed, not the best situation to be in.

The other temples I saw were sorta similar to the first, not identical by any means though. The reclining Buddha was definitely impressive and I enjoyed the atmosphere at that temple more than the Emerald Buddha temple, but it was also less impressive in other ways. When you went in to see the Emerald Buddha you couldn't take pictures and the guards asked us to sit down. There was something about sitting on the floor like that, with a bunch of other tourists, just being quiet and admiring something so stunning and old that I will never forget. It wasn't even the Buddha itself, but just the sense of sacredness and holiness that came over the room. Despite everyone there as a tourist just to stare and gape at the statue. It still didn't lose it's power somehow.

Wat Arun was still my favourite temple though. You could climb up the side and get a wonderful view of the Chao Phraya River which winds through Bangkok's old city. It was stunning. Some of my favourite moments in Bangkok were definitely going down the river on the ferry. They were crowded with tourists (everywhere was) yet some how very relaxing for me. I guess just being on the water is relaxing in a general sense.

Besides visiting temples in Bangkok I also went to Khao San Road, which was basically a bar lined street (from what I saw of it) and the atmosphere sort of reminded me of Canada day in Victoria in the Inner Harbour...I don't know, maybe that's an exaggeration, but it certainly felt crazy. I may have tried scorpion well there, it tasted awful, like burnt paper or egg shell, without the stink. I didn't eat very much though. I also had a delicious wrap (middle eastern and Indian food is popular in Thailand).

I also visited Chatuchak weekend Market which was seriously the most insane thing I have ever seen, well shopping wise anyway. I got lost in it for over an hour (maybe two). It's a weekend market too, I honestly don't understand how that works. I feel like it's one of those things where they say it is a weekend market, but it really isn't. Anyway it's really hard to describe how massive this place is. You enter a maze when you go inside, no metaphor. A literal maze. I tried to imagine trying to find your stall in it and had trouble. It didn't feel real, but also felt like a living thing, constantly changing and evolving as I was there. I definitely saw people put up new stalls as I wandered around. I was surprised, even shocked when I saw the same places more than once, second guessing if they were actually the same place (well that's a bit dramatic, but you get the idea). They sold everything you could want there. So many cute, cheap clothes, knick knacks, both touristy and not. It was a shoppers paradise and possibly someone else's hell.

When I was taking the sky train to the market I looked out the window and saw a massive array of buildings and wondered if that was it, row upon row of roofs all crunched up close together, it looked sorta like a slum from the roof, but nicer.

I also visited a floating market, it was small and less interesting to me. Still really neat to see the women on their boats making food. I wanted to go to one of the larger ones,but unfortunately they were further out of town so I would have had to plan ahead a lot more. Still, I got some really yummy food there and enjoyed looking at the stalls. The market I went to was about a 30-40 minute bus ride away from the hostel so I also got a nice view of the city that way and there were lots of locals on the bus.

I should mention here how the fair system was very different on the buses and ferries. They had a woman with a long tube case full of coins and tickets go around and ask each passenger for their fare. I couldn't help but think it must get confusing when a lot of people got on the bus or ferry. I never did see the ladies miss anyone though, they're probably used to large crowds anyway.

Bangkok was super fun and busy I met some really cool people there, including a French girl who'd been studying in Hong Kong, a Hispanic guy from Porto Rico, a fun Norwegian girl, lots of Germans, two guys from the same neighbourhood in New York City who were strangers before I told them about each other and a few other really interesting people. I was really worried about traveling alone in Thailand, but there are seriously so many backpackers I had absolutely no trouble meeting people to do stuff with. I think it's a great country to travel alone in as long as your safe and take care of your belongings. The backpacking community there was amazing and so fun to be a part of, even for a brief period.

After Bangkok I took a train to Chiang Mai and met some interesting girls from Massachusetts, but I will save that for my next post about Thailand! If there is anything else you want to know about, any pictures on facebook you have questions about or anything your confused by please feel free to comment! I love getting some comments. Anyway, enjoy. 

Oh the foods you will eat (Korean food part one, the intro)

I know I've probably mentioned in a couple posts that I like Korean food. You know, maybe.

Well I do. I love it.

Korea has some of the most delicious, unique food I've ever eaten. They love two popular flavours sweet and spicy, those flavours often go together. Although it is not only sweet and spicy foods here, they have many kinds of food you could never experience outside Korea. An array of different kinds of soup and fish, a billion side dishes. My favourite are the ones that have green leafy veggies and lots of sesame oil on them. Yummy.

Of course there's also kimchi, which is most westerners image as only be pickled cabbage. It's not. There are actually different types of pickled vegetables, not all called kimchi, but some them are. My favourites are the radish kimchi and the sweet pickled radish. Radish kimchi is super crunchy and juicy. It's not sliced like you'd imagine, but the radishes are cut in half with the tops left on in most cases and pickled with left over kimchi sauce. Or they are cut into fairly large cubes. Either way they are delicious.

Another thing that you probably already know about Korea food is the BBQ. There are different kinds of BBQ meals like bbq'd pork slices called samgyeopsal and then bulgogi the Korean classic. Both are delicious as they look. Usually when you eat Korean bbq they give you lots of side dishes, soup (there is soup and side dishes with every Korean meal traditionally) and various leafy greens to make wraps with for the meat. Seriously, the leafy greens are the way to go. So delicious. You gotta put some garlic and a Korean bean paste called doenjang in them and maybe a little kimchi. It is seriously so tasty.

The last thing that most people know about Korean food is the street food. It's very popular here. Any market you go to is gonna have dumplings (called mandu in Korean and my personal favourite), tteokbokki which is basically rice cakes (not actually cake, there's more like a chewy noodle made out of rice flour) and fish cakes (again not actually cakes) in a steaming hot, spicy and sweet red sauce. Koreans at work were worried this dish would be too spicy for me, but I handled it fine. The last really popular street food is fish cake soup. It has fish cakes on sticks that boil in broth. you eat the cake off the stick and drink the broth. It sounds kind of strange, but it's really good, I wasn't a huge fan of it the first time I had it but, since trying it again I've come to love it.

Moving on the some lesser known Korean foods... there is duk galbi which is a chicken dish cooked at the table. I've posted a few pictures of it. Actually, I've probably posts a few pictures of most of the dishes I've mentioned. It is spicy and has a variety of veggies, rice cakes and chicken in it. Most good places make it at the table in a large flat pan so you know it's freshly made. After eating all the chicken and veggies they will bring you steamed rice and seaweed to sop up all the yummy sauce left in the bottom of the pan. Be warned though, this dish is spicy and can mess up your clothes cause if it's too hot then the sauce splatters.

I feel like I could easily dedicate a whole blog to Korean food, but I think I will only high light one more dish for today. There are still many many things I haven't even mentioned and many more that I haven't tried. Korea actually has a lot of regional cuisines, which Koreans are fairly proud of. This past weekend three of my friends and I went to Jinju, a city about an hours drive from Changwon to see a castle. According to my Korean friends we had to try this special bibimbap (a mixed rice dish, it's very pretty and fresh) with thinly sliced raw beef on top and a yummy soup with it., The meal did not disappoint. It had the yummy red chili sauce that is also a little sweet and a bunch of veggies, carrots, mushrooms, bean sprouts... and on top of it all in a neat little mound was pile of thinly sliced, small slivers of beef. The soup with the meal was also pretty good. It had some blood cubes in it which didn't really taste like anything to me and liver which I actually don't like that much.

All in all Korean food is good. Really good. Don't be fooled into thinking it is just BBQ and rice dishes. I mean I didn't even talk about bean paste soup, Korean pizza, the fried chicken, soondubu jjigae, Korean Chinese food (yes, it's different, yes, it's good), kimbap (rolls that look like sushi rolls, but taste nothing like them) and many other things. I think this post will have to be part of a series? This can be Korean food part one, the intro. So look forward to Korean food part two, jiggae, kimbap and regional cuisine. 

Update of sorts and western holidays in Korea

I know, I know. I have been a lazy blogger. Very lazy, my last post was about a month ago. Sorry about that guys.

So I guess I should update you on the happenings here in Korea? 

Well, December, as it always is for me, was a rather busy month. Classes got a little more intense because we were wrapping up for winter break, then there was Christmas to think about and finally English camp. 

So I guess I'll start with holiday's in Korea, in the order I wrote the title. I'll try to keep this brief. 

Western Thanksgiving is non-existent, unless you are of course, western. 

Halloween was just another day, unless you are a foreigner, then you feel it lacking in your life. I don't know if I spoke about this before, but it was the worst holiday for me so far. First, I was barely a month into my contract and second, nobody celebrated it. Nobody. The most that happened was I played a Halloween themed game with the kids. That was it. None of the kids dressed up, no teachers gave out candy, there were no pumpkins, nothing. It was a sad holiday for me. 

I wasn't really sure how I felt about Christmas though. Since working in retail I've had a love hate relationship with Christmas. Pretty much it's like I love food, family, presents and goodies, I hate getting up early, Christmas shopping and all the small talk. I always get stressed out around Christmas. Do I buy that person a gift, what do I get them? Who do I give cards? Should I have a Christmas party? etc etc. 

Then there was work, basically if you work in retail your working everyday and full shifts, no sweet little 4 or 6 hour shifts during the Christmas season! Those shifts are also really busy cause there are soooo many shoppers, just where do they all come from? I don't know. 

Also, I hate seeing the sheer about of crap people buy for Christmas. It's frustrating. Do you really need Christmas balls every year? or is it necessary to buy your kids a billion and 1 presents? (I mean I do like presents, but the amount of gifts I've seen some people buy is ridiculous). I just don't really get it I guess. I mean I like the holiday, but after seeing it from the other side, so to speak, it looks a lot less about family and a lot more about blind consumerism. 

Well there's my rant for the week! Now, in comparison, let's look at Korea. First, Koreans always seem to be shopping, yes there did seem to be a slight upturn in the shopping around Christmas, but it was nothing shocking. I could go into the stores and see just as many people shopping as usual. 

Second, there are very few Christmas decorations. While I can remember in my store we had the entire Homesense side of the store dedicated to just Christmas stuff for at least two months of the year in Korea it was much less in your face. There would be displays of seemingly random Christmas decorations in the front of stores and then maybe something small inside, nothing like Canada. Nothing taking over the entire store. Also, Koreans just take Christmas day off, at least in my job. They don't seem to worry about Christmas a lot. 

Another thing I noticed was going out on Christmas day, the streets downtown were the same as they usually are. No different. Just as many people walking around. It was different. I'm used to empty streets on Christmas, closed stores where you're lucky to find one or two things open. It was just a casual holiday for Koreans though. 

In my classes I tried to ask the kids what they wanted to for Christmas and I got a lot of confused looks, although Koreans do exchange Christmas presents, it was way less exciting. I heard of only one truly ecstatic little girl. My coworkers 4 year old daughter was stoked for Santa to deliver presents. The kids in my classes just seemed to get comic books for Christmas, they also didn't seem to know what flavour candy canes were and they had no idea that you're supposed to kiss when caught under the mistletoe!

I had a small Christmas dinner with some friends who work at a academy together, it was really relaxed. We sat around drinking makali (Korean rice wine), wine, and homemade eggnog; eating pizza, chicken wings and delicious homemade cookies my friend Jackie made in her toaster oven (I don't know how she managed it!) 

New years was a little bit less different for me, Koreans actually seemed to have a new years tradition. The bars were busy when I went out with a different group of friends and we even counted down to midnight at the foreigner bar O'Brian's which was packed with people, I honestly had never seen that many foreigners in one place until new years eve. I'd say my new years eve and the day following were pretty much perfect. 

Despite the late evening my friends and I dragged ourselves out of bed in the morning and caught a bus to Busan, the neighbouring city, and second largest in South Korea. Apparently (as I found out later) many Koreans gather on the beaches of Busan at sunrise to welcome the new day and send off lanterns with hopes for the new year. I was a little sad I missed that, but I had such a fun New years eve with my friends it was okay.

So that's basically the western holiday's I've experienced in Korea so far. I was here for one Korean holiday, but as I didn't know anyone at the time I didn't do anything. It was alphabet day, which happened soon after I got here. 

As I stated in my facebook post I am happy to be here. Korea is beautiful and travelling to see just how big and small the world is has been wonderful. Still, despite my cynicism of the Christmas season, I'm not ready to abandon it altogether. The thing I did miss most was having a delicious, family dinner and spending time with everyone at home. 

Hopefully the new year is full of hope and happiness for everyone! 

Hiking in Changwon

Since I first saw the mountains in Changwon I've been dying to climb and hike in them. 

Finally that day came on Sunday. I decided to go in the afternoon, I heard the hike up a near by mountain (Mt. Jeongbyeong) was only about 4 hours round trip (the way I went up was much less than that) and a beautiful hike. The first thing I realized when I left my room was I forgot to check the weather and it was in fact wet and dreary out, but my main concern was the wetness. I decided to persevere because I really wanted to get up into those hills. 

The hiking trail is fairly close to one of my schools so it wasn't that hard to find, luckily and it was also pretty clearly laid out with a giant map at the beginning of the trail. Despite the weather there were quite a few people hiking up or coming down the trail. I wasn't too sure which way to go to get up to the top of the mountain, but I guessed and ended up being right. 

Not long after I had started up the trail I passed a middle aged man (honestly everyone I saw hiking was middle aged or in their 30s at least). Just after I passed him he must've realized I was a foreigner because I heard him say hi behind me. This actually happens to me quite often where people will randomly greet you in English or make conversation with you because they want to practice English, but I also think sometimes they're just being friendly. For some reason a lot of the Korean's I've met seem worried about me (mostly my coworkers, but still other people too). They seem to assume you need help all the time so sometimes they were help you out without you asking. 

The man asked me where I was from, a pretty normal question and he told me a little bit about the trail, mainly that it was difficult and steep. He asked if I was going up jeongbyeong mountain which I was and asked if I knew how to get up there, which I didn't. He offered to take me so since we seemed to be going the same direction anyway off we went. Now, I know what you're gonna say here going off with strange men in the woods! Anything could happen. Actually, despite being in the woods the trail was fairly busy, even for a dreary, wet day. I don't think I walked 10 minutes without passing someone. 

Also, if we were walking the same way I'd be walking up the mountain with him regardless so I decided to go for the less awkward route. It was the right decision in the end. He just had a lot of questions about Canada and what I was doing in South Korea, which was pretty standard. He also told me a bit about the area and seemed genuinely concerned I wouldn't make it up the mountain due the the steep hike (and my god it was a steep hike, for the last 15-20 minutes or so it felt like it was going straight up!).

The hike was gorgeous, even without the views of the Changwon below. Some how the fog and clouds all around made the landscape more beautiful and mysterious. I couldn't help stopping to stare down into the fog, wondering what was below. It was also kinda creepy not being able to see very far because you didn't know how far those steep hills actually went down. The top of the mountain definitely would've been more exciting on a clear day where I could see the view, but it was still nice to get up there. The air felt fresh and clean and the hike was strenuous but relaxing. 

After hiking down the mountain together my guide offered to show me a restaurant to get pajeon at the bottom of the mountain. Who can say no to that? He even bought me pajeon even though I insisted he didn't have to, I think it's a Korean thing? I'm not sure, can someone tell me if this was weird? (oh and the food was delicious, hard to explain but pajeon is like a green onion pancake similar to the kimchi pancake). Mostly I think he was happy to have a hiking buddy, as was I and he wanted to practice speaking English and here about Canada which, to be fair, is pretty interesting. 

I can't wait to go up into those hills again and do some more exploring. From the looks of the map (I posted it on facebook!) there are lots more trails to explore around Changwon. 

Also, mom, I will look into geocaches, just for you. And you would've loved this hike, it was a shorter hike than you usually do, but I also think the trail continued along the ridge for awhile, I just couldn't see it in all the fog! It was steep though so I got a good work out, my legs are so sore today! Anyway, if you ever want to come see me in Changwon, just know that the hiking is really good here, so worth it and very beautiful. 

Also, 

I think I must still be recovering because I just posted this on the wrong blog. 

Being a Foreigner in South Korea (from an attractive, white females perspective)

Okay, so this is something I may have already mentioned or briefly talked about, but I thought I'd do a post in a little more depth today. I also want to note that this post will purely be from my perspective. I do not know what other peoples experiences are like and I do not want, in any way, imply that everyone will have or has the same experience. I don't know for sure, but a guy, or a POC may have a very different experience in Korea. Also, people's experiences might be different depending on where in Korea you are. I'm sure someone in Seoul will have a different experience than me, since I am in a much smaller city. Also, my generalization of Korean's are simply of the Korean's I've met. I don't want to generalize too much, but it's hard not to generalize at least a little to save some time and space and whatnot.

Anyway, moving onwards. First, I'd like to say, my experience has been mostly positive, although I do have some advantages, mainly the advantage of blonde hair and big blue eyes, which, lets face it, are usually held in some sort of esteem in many other parts of the world as well. So do people treat foreigners differently? I guess so. Apparently I get stared at more, but I honestly was oblivious to this for a while until a foreign friend pointed it out to. And I do get stared at, quite a bit. People definitely openly stare at me sometimes, but I'm actually pretty used to this due to my stunt with a full head of red hair a couple years back. That gets you pretty stared at in Canada as well.

The other thing Koreans love to do is tell me I'm pretty or beautiful, which is fairly awkward, it is pretty cute to hear an 8 year old go, 'teacher,' points at your face, 'blue eyes, beautiful'. Korean's also love to stare into my eyes, especially the kids. They also love to look at my and go, blue eyes, pretty or beautiful. My land lady  has said this too me, also the other day at work my coworker took my photo so she could show her four year old what I look like. I presume since her daughter isn't school aged she probably hasn't seen a foreigner yet. Little kids and elderly are usually the ones who stare the most as well.

Last thing Korean's do that I think is actually kinda cool, in the right circumstance anyway, it would get creepy if random dudes were hitting on you by doing this. Koreans love to speak to you in English. Random hello's on the street to full blown conversations asking where you are from. I think they just like practicing English, they're being friendly and curious. I don't mind it. One day I had a guy come up to me at the bus stop and ask where I was from and we had a short conversation about it. I think he had a relative in Vancouver or Victoria or something.

That is another thing about Korean's they all seem to have relatives in North America somewhere and they always tell you this, or they've been to North America. I are just being friendly and trying to relate to you, which is cool, but it's actually sorta predictable now when they immediately tell you about there cousin in Toronto or there son in Vancouver or Minnesota or whereever as soon as you say where you are from. This literally happened to me yesterday when I went to the doctors to get a prescription (don't worry mom, it was just for allergy medication!). The Doctor told me all about his son in Toronto.

Okay, last thing I want to talk about here, not so nice occurrences. Now, lucky for me I haven't really had any bad experiences with Korean's yet. Of course there is the language barrier which can be pretty frustrating, but there's also something else, sometimes, just randomly, you'll a cold look from someone or a hard stare that seems to say 'why are you here' and it kinda sends a shiver down your spine. I'm sure I could be reading these looks wrong and the majority of Korean's I've met are friendly and nice to you, even if they can't understand you and vice versa. I feel like I definitely have an advantage being a young, white female so tell me about your experiences in Korea! I want to know about other people's experiences as foreigners. Or what you think of mine. :)