Beaches and beaches and beaches (plus an anniversary!)

Hello everyone,  Jonathan here. It has (again) been awhile since our last post, so I wanted to pop in and let you know what’s new with all the Dunns in Korea. Our biggest piece of news is surely that we’ve begun the process of renewing our contracts, and short of failing a drug test (UPDATE: we didn’t!) it seems likely we’ll be in Daegu for another year. I’m pretty sure time here passes differently than in America, so it’s hard to say now whether that feels like a long time or a short time (or, in other words, it frequently feels like both), but while we already miss our friends and family a lot, the opportunity to spend one more year doing things we both like and think are valuable (teaching, traveling, making money) was hard to pass up. We’re both excited and a bit melancholic about the whole thing.

But this is burying the lead, isn’t it? I know what’s most important to you, and I don’t disagree. How lucky you all are to have another year’s worth of blog posts.

It helps fight off the melancholy a bit to know we’ll be coming home to the States in August for two weeks to spend some time with both of our families, and afterwards going to Bali for four days of vacation. Once we return and settle into a new year’s routine, with the prospect of seeing our families another year away, and the weather getting colder, we might battle a little more homesickness, but hopefully then our love for Korea will be enough to overcome. I’m sure we’ll have quite a bit more to say about that, and our larger travels, in the future.

In the meantime we also took a smaller trip two weeks ago to the island of Namhae, on the south-central coast of Korea. We had a three-day weekend on account of the Korean version of Memorial Day, so we went with a large group of other foreign teachers down to the island, mostly to hang out and relax at the beach. Unfortunately the weather, which had been blazing hot, cooled down considerably and we didn’t exactly have ideal beach weather, but it was still overall a nice time.

Namhae is famous for a village called Daraengee and its terraced rice paddies, i.e. rice paddies cut directly into the side of the mountain like stair steps. And sitting right on the coast as they were, it was especially scenic.

We also spent quite a bit of time at the beach, a five minute walk from our hotel, and on Sunday went kayaking. While the weather could have been nicer, it was great to see yet another new part of Korea, and get to spend some time with a bunch of our fellow teachers.

Classic…

The following weekend was our four-year anniversary, and while we didn’t necessarily have the time or energy to do something huge, we did go back to one of our favorite cities, Busan, and spend an afternoon/evening at the aquarium and along the coast. Busan has a well-known bridge, the Gwangan Bridge, which connects two peninsulas and lights up quite nicely in the dark, so we had a nice anniversary dinner and scenic walk along the beach to celebrate.

We also discovered that the lighting in this part of the aquarium was conducive to Lily making the most hideously terrifying face of all time.

We spent as much time being fascinated by the divers as the fish.

 

 

Korean pose (sort of) (no offense Lily)

Apologies again for the delay between posts. With the end of our school year coming, things are beginning to get busy for us, but hopefully we’ll have the time to do something interesting and write about it again soon!

PS from Lily: Today is Jonathan’s birthday! So everyone should tell him how awesome he is! Ok? Ok!

My Parents’ Visit to Korea: In Which I Almost Become a Human Kite

Sorry we’ve been silent for so long! My parents came to visit for almost two weeks and we’ve been so busy hosting them and showing them around Korea that we didn’t have much time left for writing.

We had a long weekend off of school at the beginning of May because of three separate holidays that just happened to be back-to-back. May 1^st was Labor Day and although school was still open, certain types of government workers were given the day off, including the foreign English teachers. May 5^th was a holiday called Children’s Day (basically what it sounds like – a day celebrating the value of children) and May 6^th was Buddha’s birthday, both of which are national holidays where schools and businesses are closed. It worked out so perfectly that we had all of this time off while my parents were in town visiting. Many schools made May 2^nd a temporary holiday so their teachers could have a 6 day holiday, but neither Jonathan’s nor mine did. There is a similar holiday situation in June where we have holidays on a Wednesday and a Friday and many schools are making the Thursday in between a temporary holiday. Again, neither Jonathan’s nor my school are. Frown face.

We spent my parents’ first few days in Korea seeing Seoul and eating tasty food that we don’t normally have access to in Daegu. My parents were still getting over their jetlag so we didn’t do a comprehensive tour of Seoul, but we did try to hit the highlights. We went to Changdeokgung Palace and Seoul Tower, ate fantastic Western food in Itaewon, window-shopped in Insadong and stayed in Myeongdong, where I took full advantage of the 3-story Forever21 to stock up on clothes that actually come in my size.

Because of the holidays, everywhere we went was exceptionally crowded. My parents flew into Incheon Airport near Seoul and I took a train up there to pick them up. Normally we don’t worry about reserving train tickets in advance because the high-speed KTX train runs every 15 minutes or so all day long and even if you can’t get on a train immediately, you can be pretty sure there will be tickets available within a few hours. In fact, the longest we’ve ever had to wait for a train was about an hour, even on holidays. Because of this we were completely unprepared for what happened when I tried to get my parents back to Daegu and found that all of the tickets were sold out for the entire day. We ended up having to buy tickets for 5:50 the following morning and find a hotel to stay in that night.

Eventually we made it back to Daegu, where we showed my parents around downtown and in our area. On Children’s Day we took them to Palgongsan, the highest mountain in Daegu, and did a short hike up one of the gentler sides.

For Buddha’s birthday we traveled to Gyeongju, which is about an hour from Daegu by train. Gyeongju is the ancient seat of the Silla dynasty and has a lot of special meaning for Koreans. Much of the significance was lost on us since we don’t have the sense of Korean history that we do of our own country, but we still enjoyed a truly gorgeous day exploring Gyeongju National Park and the Royal Tomb Complex, the very old, but not very tall Cheomseongdae observatory and the Anapji royal pond garden.

Royal Tomb Park. The hills behind us are burial mounds.

This tomb had been excavated so you could enter it.

World’s shortest observatory.

Anapji Royal Pond

On Wednesday, Jonathan and I had to go back to school, so my parents hung out in Daegu for the next few days while we worked. On Friday my parents actually came to school with me and observed/participated in my classes. I was able to do a special lesson introducing them and then talking about Mother’s Day and Father’s Day in the US. It was perfectly timed because in Korea people celebrate Parent’s Day on May 8^th (the day before my parents came to school) and Mother’s Day in the US was May 11^th, so it made for a perfect topic.

The following weekend, we all trekked out to Busan to check out the Yeongdo Lighthouse which Jonathan had read about. It was a bit of a hike to get out to the peninsula, but well worth it. The scenery was stunning (I’ve always had a thing for rocky coastlines), the water was this gorgeous color I didn’t know existed in Korea, and the weather was perfect. When we got out to the point the lighthouse was on it suddenly became insanely windy. Like, I was actually afraid I was going to be picked up and carried off the cliff. It was equal parts terrifying and exhilarating.

The wind was insane, but the coastline was stunning.

I legitimately thought I was going to picked up by the wind and carried off this cliff.

King of the Rock

Other than that, we spend the rest of our time enjoying each other’s company and introducing my parents to the BBC’s Sherlock which they’d been missing out on. They left on Monday which was bittersweet. It was wonderful to see them and to get to share our world with them, but it also reminded me of how very far away we are. Saying goodbye this time wasn’t nearly as hard as when we left in August though. We are planning to visit home for a few days this coming August, which is really only a few months away. We’re trying to squeeze in a brief but good visit to both my family and Jonathan’s in our two weeks of summer vacation because, BIG NEWS, we have officially decided to renew our contracts and stay in Korea for one more year!

Top 10 Things the West Has That Korea Should Get on Board With

*****OK, here is my disclaimer. Not all of these things are present everywhere in the West, but I wanted to title to have a nice symmetry with my previous post about the Top 10 Things Korea Has That Everyone Else Should Get on Board With. Also, please excuse any generalizations about how “all Koreans” do certain things. There are obviously always exceptions and I have only been here a short time. But for the sake of this post, just go with it, ok?*****

1. Fully-functioning, sanitary toilets. I have really wrestled with this one. I have really tried to look at the things that Korea does differently without judgment. I understand that just because I am used to things being a certain way doesn’t make that the right way or the best way to do them. I have tried to keep an open mind about many of the new things I’ve encountered here and have often found myself able to understand why things are done a certain way in Korea or what function something serves, even if it’s not my preferred way of doing things. However, after many weeks I have yet to come up with any kind of  meaningful reason for the toilet situation in Korea. There are several sort of related issues here:

• squat toilets: I have really tried to embrace that this might be a preference thing, but there are so many what I would consider “universal negatives” about the design of the squat toilet that I just can’t understand why we are still using them and using them prevalently. In case you don’t know, this is a squat toilet. You drop your pants, face that hood and squat as low as you can over the trough. The problems with this are as follows – it is hard to squat that low AND do your business. Sometimes using the muscles you have to use to squat really low and balance makes it hard to get your pee going. It is hard to balance without grabbing hold of some really icky things to help you stay upright. I don’t know how all of the old people do it! If you pee too softly (and you are a girl) you get that trickle effect where the pee goes gently down your leg or off in crazy directions rather than straight down. If you pee too forcefully, the pee will go straight, but it will splash pee and toilet water onto your feet and ankles.
  

  In Korea these are not called Japanese-style toilets because Koreans have very negative associations with all things Japanese. But this is still a helpful diagram.

• inadequate plumbing: In Korea, you cannot flush your toilet paper (except maybe in your own apartment). This is presumably because the plumbing situation is inadequate for the amount of people/paper that needs to be disposed of. Instead you throw your toilet paper into a blue bin in the bathroom. Which, of course, reeks. I understand that it would probably be a massive and expensive project to fix Korea’s entire plumbing system, but it’s just hard for me to grasp how you can be ranked as the 12^th most developed country in the world (according to the UN) ahead of the UK, France, and Singapore, and not be able to flush your toilet paper.
• unavailability of toilet paper: Here’s the other thing about toilet paper – In many public restrooms there is no toilet paper – not “they are usually out of toilet paper,” but there are actually no dispensers. The places that do have toilet paper often have one dispenser on the wall in the main part of the bathroom, so you have to pull off whatever you think you need and bring it into the stall with you. I can think of absolutely no logical purpose this serves except for someone somewhere laughing maniacally when they thing of all those suckers who got didn’t take enough paper in with them and got stuck.

2. An understanding of how western foods are meant to be enjoyed and which foods are meant to be salty vs. sweet. There are a number of western foods that have been adopted into Korean culture: Pizza, spaghetti, hot dogs/corn dogs, Doritos, and a variety of non-rice-based cookies. However – Koreans don’t seem to have a grasp on how these things are traditionally enjoyed, or even what it is about them that makes them enjoyable.

For example, you can get a hot dog or corn dog from a street vendor easily. The vendor will prepare your tasty morsel, even putting some good old Heinz ketchup on it, and then proceed to roll it in sugar.  Who looks at a hot dog and thinks, this large chunk of meat (debatable) should probably be coated in sugar?

Doritos. We were glad to see the friendly face of Doritos, however Korea’s flavor offerings are as follows: rib flavored (probably our favorite once you get over how sweet they are), yogurt flavored, and garden salsa flavored. Each one is loaded with sugar the way BBQ potato chips are, but sweeter.Pizza. We have had pizza several times since being here from several different places. Not only are you always served pickles with your pizza, but random toppings make their way onto your pie. Frequent invaders include corn, shrimp, bulgogi (thinly shaved beef), and sweet syrupy drizzle. And lastly – Korea has a wide variety of packaged cookies. Jonathan has made it a personal mission to try every variety available.

Mmm…cheese cream. The perfect dessert.

When we found these bad-boys, we assumed that the “cheese cream” was a poor translation of “cream cheese” filling in the middle. Yum, we thought. A vanilla cookie with a cream cheese filling. Sadly, no. This was in fact a sweet vanilla cookie with a cheddar cheese filling.

3. A better method for trash disposal. I actually greatly admire that Koreans are HUGE recyclers. Even if you go somewhere like McDonald’s they will have separate containers for your food trash vs your cups, your trash-trash, and your recyclable fry sleeves. The issue is more the chaos created by having no formal trash system. Unless you are in a large apartment complex, there is no dumpster area to leave your trash in, so everyone just leaves it outside of their building. The trash is separated into regular trash, food waste (which obviously reeks), plastics, paper, cans, and glass. So each household is potentially generating 6 bags of waste. Now multiply that by however many families live on the street and imagine how smelly it gets down at the bottom of the building. The trash is not collected on specific days, just whenever the trash people feel like coming by, so while it is usually picked up fairly quickly, there are people putting out new trash every single day. And it SMELLS!

4. Access to non-refined starches. Not only is rice eaten with every meal here, but it is white rice. And many treats are made out of rice flour. There are rice cakes and rice dumplings for soup and jellied rice gummy candy things. The only bread is white bread and noodles are often rice noodles or special ones made from sweet potato starch. I have yet to see brown rice, wheat bread, whole grain pasta, or any sort of carbohydrate that might provide some sort of nutrition.

ddeokbokki – a popular street food made of rice.

Tteok-Gyeongdan. Gummy cakes made of rice.

Makkoli. Wine made of rice.

5. A clear way of giving your address. Unlike most places where it is common to know and give your street address where you have a building number and street name, Korea’s system is a bit more fluid. Some buildings seem to have actual addresses like this, but some simply give the name of their neighborhood (or Dong) and a number within that. Not sure if that is just what building it is in the neighborhood or what. Even taxi drivers often have no idea where things are even if you give them an exact address. To get to our apartment in a taxi (which is a new building on an alley, so it’s understandable that they might not know exactly where it is) we have to direct them to a nearby high school and then get out and walk 5 minutes to home. In spite of having precise addresses written in Korean and being able to show on a map where we want to go, we have still been taken to the wrong place multiple times.

6. Less ridiculous banking. To set up internet banking in Korea you have to go to your bank and specially request it. They grant you access, but when you get home you have to download a bunch of special security programs that basically only run on Internet Explorer (which no one uses anymore). Then you have to register your account and create a password. Then you have issue a digital certificate which is downloaded to your computer and which you unlock with a password. Each time you want to complete a transaction  you must access this certificate. In addition to that you must have a security card with a variety of codes. Each time you do a transaction the bank will ask for a different combination of codes from that card. The whole thing is insanely and unnecessarily complicated.

7. Buses that are not rattling traps of death. Public transportation in Korea is cheap and plentiful. If you don’t mind taking your life into your hands every time you ride the bus. Often you have to stand on the bus and it is really difficult to balance while this metal cage of death careens around corners and goes from full-speed acceleration to fully stopped over and over again as quickly as possible. Additionally I have several times been on a bus that was so packed, you couldn’t get to the door to get out at your stop. That is utterly terrifying. It feels exactly like that circus trick where they put 17 clowns into a VW Beetle.

This is not my photo and it is of a subway and not a bus, but it is pretty accurate.

8. Some sort of parking laws. Or road laws in general. Cars do not yield to pedestrians here and I have heard multiple stories of people being hit by cars here. Cars park wherever they want to including in the road and on the sidewalk (which might be a good thing if you are the car owner, but is kind of annoying for pedestrians). Scooters, which are often used for delivering food and things, are everywhere and they obey no laws whatsoever. They frequently zip on and off sidewalks, around cars, into the street, out of the street, through the park, through the red light, etc. Apparently a scooter has to obey neither vehicle nor pedestrian laws. They are the gods of the road.

Please note that this is only mildly weird parking.

9. Screens on windows. The windows in our apartment do have screens, but the windows at my schools do not. The schools are not air conditioned, so opening the windows is essential. Since the windows are open all day long without screens, all manner of enormous bugs come in and join us. Or, as was the case for me last week, giant birds. A HUGE bird flew in the window while I was teaching, started squawking like crazy, ran into a bunch of things, flailed around, and then flew out a different window. I naturally hid under my desk and screamed. Screens people.

10. Skirts/shorts that cover your butt. Here is a weird thing about Korea – there is an extreme emphasis put on modesty. Women here do not wear anything cut below their collarbone and they rarely show their arms. I am talking turtle necks, crew neck shirts, button-ups or polos buttoned all the way to the top. Nothing remotely resembling cleavage will ever be seen here. (Which is funny considering that Korean women are generally very flat-chested). If you were to wear a V-neck without a high undershirt people would look at you like you were a complete slut. However, legs are no big deal. We have been told that “legs are not sexualized in Korea” the way they have been in the West, so as a culture, they don’t think of showing too much of your legs as a sexy thing. I think that’s bull. I don’t think men are attracted to various body parts because they’ve been sexualized. I think men are attracted to whatever they are naturally, physiologically attracted to. Sure, the sexualization of women’s bodies in Western media has contributed to more of an obsession with various parts of the female body, but I just don’t buy that men weren’t into butts and legs at all and then they became sexualized and all of sudden men started being attracted to them. It’s like back in the 18^th century when showing your ankles was considered super seductive, but having your boobs pop out the top of your dress was no big deal. There are certainly differences in what your society deems acceptable, but I don’t think there are huge differences in how men physiologically respond to breasts or legs or whatever. Anywhoo. Here is a woman I saw in the subway recently and another photo that is pretty typical of what you see around town. I unfortunately don’t have a picture of the one girl whose leopard underwear I could actually see poking out of the bottom of her skirt. Keep in mind that these women are considered perfectly modest because their chests are totally covered.

I had to be sneaky so she didn’t notice me taking a picture of her which is why it is so blurry.

High heels are also super common with the itsy bitsy skirt.