The past few weeks here have been extra busy for us – mostly due to a lot of fun things, but also some hectic work weeks with special events and upcoming winter camps to prepare for.
Since our last post, we celebrated Thanksgiving with an impressive potluck dinner hosted by one of our fellow American teachers. (We had turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, turkey, macaroni and cheese, broccoli casserole and good old stovetop stuffing – just goes to show you, where there’s a will, there’s a way.)
Then we celebrated my 26th birthday – the first birthday I’ve celebrated in a long time where I didn’t look back on the previous year feeling like I could have and should have done so much more. And my sweet husband worked so hard to make it a special day, by somehow finding birthday decorations and hanging them all over the apartment while I was sleeping. And that night I had dinner with some friends at a restaurant downtown I had been hoping to try. It was pretty low-key, but good.
My birthday was on a Wednesday. That Friday, Christina came all the way from North Carolina (well, technically from Pennsylvania at the time) to visit us. I took the KTX up to Seoul right after school on Friday and then the airport express train out to Incheon to pick her up. We spent the night at a guesthouse in Seoul (Itaewon) and hardly slept at all because we had so much catching up to do.
We spent all of Saturday in Seoul trying to cram as many sights and experiences as we could into a short time period. We ended up buying tickets for a hop-on-and-off tour bus to help us get around more conveniently and make the best use of our time. This ended up being a good idea – we were able to see a traditional folk village, Changdeokgung Palace, Seoul Tower, and Insadong as well as a quick look at various memorials and monuments.
Pretty garden we found behind the Korea House in Seoul…don’t think we were supposed to be there.
Sneaking.
Traditional Korean House
Inside the palace
View from Seoul Tower
Insadong shopping area
On Saturday night we took the train back to Daegu and showed Christina our home sweet home. Since we bought a queen-size bed last month, we moved the twin bed we used to sleep on into the extra room and Christina had her own bed and room to stay in while she was here. Christina was super sweet and brought an entire suitcase full of American goodies we requested as well as presents from family and friends. She also brought a kit for an entire gingerbread village which we all built to get us in the Christmas spirit. We also put up our Christmas tree. And felt compelled to take memorable Christmas photos. (The one on the bottom right is me trying to figure out if I was making a peace sign or not).
On Sunday we were able to take Christina to a Korean wedding – a teacher from Jonathan’s school was getting married and as he mentioned in his last post, weddings in Korea are very different from weddings in the United States in that it is not at all strange for people who barely know you to attend the wedding. This wedding was almost exactly like the one Jonathan and I attended in October, which further confirmed the stereotype of the “Korean wedding factory.” It was cool that Christina was able to attend an event like this during such a short stay in the country, so we were excited that the timing worked out so well. And afterwards we got to enjoy the enormous buffet, so Christina was also able to sample a wide variety of Korean dishes in one place.
She looks like a doll.
Sadly, Jonathan and I still had work as usual during the week that Christina was staying with us. But thankfully, she was able to do some exploring on her own and with our friend Laura who lives in Daegu, but is not working right now and had some free time to hang out with Christina and show her around. While we couldn’t do too many touristy things during the week, we tried to make the most of our evenings and took Christina to all of our favorite restaurants, shopping areas, and parks. She even got to attend a stage production of the Sound of Music that was entirely in Korean. We also made sure Christina experienced the great Korean cultural tradition of the norebang (like karaoke, but you get your own private room). I have discovered that I rather enjoy the noraebang because you are only in a room with other people you know and nobody cares how bad you sound. Though singing with Josh and Laura is a bit intimidating since they sound like superstars.
This was before the main lights went off and the disco lights came on. Also, Jonathan was there, he was just taking the picture. Being the photographer did not get him out of singing a captivating rendition of ‘Oops I Did it Again.’
The following weekend, Christina, Jonathan and I went to Busan. Despite being only 45 minutes away by train, this was the first time we had made it down to Busan. I understand now why people love it so much. Busan is the second largest city in Korea, so it is significantly bigger than Daegu with more skyscrapers and more of a big-city feel to it. It’s also located on the coast and the beach and water are gorgeous. The weather is milder there and the coastline is stunning.
Near the beach there were walls designed for you to pose and take pictures.
Busan is home to the largest department store in the world Shinsegae Centum City, so of course, we had to check that out. We had dinner in their huge food court and had scrumptious mandu (dumplings) and cooked-to-order seafood noodle stir-fry. (I’m pretty sure Christina was really impressed by my ability to sort of read the menus and order in Korean). Next we checked out the Hobbit movie at the movie theater up on the 7th floor of the department store. Then we headed off to our next adventure, our first stay at a jimjilbang in Korea.
The jimjilbang (Korean bath house) is an entirely unique experience from anything you can find in the US (or most of the western world). The jimjilbang is a series of baths and saunas (separate floors for men and women) that everyone enjoys together. In the nude. For some unknown reason the jimjilbang is open 24 hours and there is a common area separate from the bathing areas where anyone can spend the night if they wish to (not in the nude.) Access to the spa facilities and the overnight stay at this jimjilbang (Haendae Spa Center) was 10,000\ per person, about $9.
Being new to the jimjilbang experience, we weren’t entirely sure how it all worked, so here’s the run-down. First we went up to the lobby area and checked in at a desk, paid, and received a ticket. Then Christina and I went into the women’s locker room and Jonathan went upstairs to the men’s floor. As soon as we walked in the door we were treated to the sight of many a naked Korean woman. There were women getting things in and out of lockers, drying their hair, doing their make-up and some even sitting on benches watching tv. Totally naked. We gave our ticket to an attendant who gave us a uniform to wear when we finished in the sauna. It was like a pair of loose scrubs except the bottoms were long shorts rather than pants. We put all of our stuff in lockers and then headed into the bath room.
The bath room was basically a big open space with showers along one wall, and pools with water of various temperatures in the middle. Along the back wall was a cool pool and along the sides of the room were long rows of counters with individual stations that had mirrors and shower heads. Off of this main room were several small saunas made of different materials and of different temperatures. (There was a clay sauna and a wood sauna and maybe some others). The idea seemed to be to shower off and then move to one of the stations and scrub yourself (and your friends) down with an exfoliating mitten as hard as you possibly can. After all the scrubbing you move through the various temperature pools and saunas.
Sure, being naked in a room of a hundred other naked women was kind of weird. And I didn’t have a bunch of fancy bath products with me so I wasn’t able to exfoliate as fully as I was expected to. But now that I know what’s up a little more, I think it’s something I could get into it. It’s relaxing. Though I think it would be boring if you didn’t have anyone to talk to.
After bathing we changed into our uniforms and headed upstairs to the room where everyone sleeps. This was one of the strangest experiences I’ve ever had. We each grabbed a blanket (or 3) and a pillow that both feels and looks like a small brick. Then we laid them wherever we wanted on the stone floor of this big room that more or less looked like a hotel lobby. People were just sprawled out on the floor sleeping everywhere. It was one of the most uncomfortable nights I have ever spent…besides the hard, hard floor digging into your bones and making you wake up to change positions every 30 minutes, it was almost impossible to get away from people snoring. The Korean people seemed to have no trouble sleeping.
The next day we got up and headed to the Haedong Yonggungsa Temple, a seaside temple in the northeast part of Busan. We took a bus right from the beach area up to the temple. It was the coolest temple I’ve been too so far in Korea. I highly recommend a visit to this temple anytime you are in Busan. We went on a Sunday morning and the bus ride only took about 20 minutes from Haeundae Beach.
Buddha by the sea
We figured we’d better rub this belly now while we had the chance, but hopefully these powers can be put on hold for a few years.
This buddha was called in the brochures the “Santa Clause Buddha.” I suppose you get to ask him for things you want and he gives them to you? I was just disappointed you didn’t get to sit on his lap.
The goddess of the sea
The pigs of wealth and prosperity
Finally, a picture we are all in!
After a few hours at the temple we caught a train back to Daegu for Christina’s last night with us. It was so great to have her visit and to show her around Daegu and a few other bits of Korea. In some ways it made me feel more at home here because I was the one showing someone else around instead of being new to everything myself. It also made me pretty homesick when she left since she will likely be our only visitor this year and we are only four months in. Eight more months is a long time to go before seeing the people we love the most. But I am so thankful she was able to come and that we could cram so many fun things into a short visit. Now we have a few weeks of winter camps and desk-warming before heading out on our next adventure – winter vacation in China, New Zealand and Australia!