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!

Meanwhile in Korea… what we’ve been up to while you’ve been doing your holiday stuff

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 26^th 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 7^th 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!

Seoul Searching Part Two: Through the Gate of Suchness

As Lily mentioned earlier, we’ve broken our trip to Seoul into two posts, not only so we both could have the opportunity to say a little something, but also because we came away with so many pictures that it would’ve been imprudent to cram them all into one update. Seoul is a truly enormous city and we saw only a fraction of it, but we still left with 400+ pictures (perhaps partly from my shotgun approach to photography), and out of those we’ve scraped together 30-40 actually worth showing. For Days 1 and 2 of our trip look here; the rest are below.

Day 3

By Friday we were starting to feel tired from two heavy days of sightseeing, but knowing we had only a short time left in the city we girded up our loins, ate some doughnuts, and headed out for another day on the town. Our first task was shopping-related: Lily’s shoes are wearing thin and she needed a new pair of Toms. They are apparently hard to find in Korea but are sold several places in Seoul, so we went to an address that supposedly had some. It turned out to be some sort of mall, but after a lot of failed exploration we determined that the store was either closed or not there, and eventually we gave up and left. This portion of our trip mostly involved walking confusedly around a Korean mall, so there aren’t any pictures.

After leaving we headed over to Bongeunsa Temple. Unlike others we could have visited, the temple is still active, meaning there are monks who live on the grounds and people coming in to pray, though they also welcome tourists. We walked through the Gate of Suchness and onto the grounds, surprised again by the presence of something so old and well preserved in the middle of the city, sections of the temple standing side by side with skyscrapers. Aside from the many buildings with their many functions, there was a large statue of Buddha near the back corner of the grounds, and as we walked up to see it, a gaggle (that’s the term, right?) of monks came over to pray. It felt a bit like we were encroaching, so we stayed to the side while they prayed, then watched in amusement when they finished and all pulled out smartphones (from where, I’m not sure) to start taking pictures of each other and the Buddha. I guess they were visiting from somewhere.

Buddha.

Posing with the Buddha.

Also posing with the Buddha.

After leaving the temple we went back to Itaewon and ate dinner at a popular Korean-Mexican fusion restaurant called Vatos Tacos (which was delicious), then headed back out to take an evening trip up Seoul Tower. Seoul Tower sits on top of a small mountain that happens to be in the middle of Seoul, so it theoretically offers an unobstructed, panoramic 360 view of the city and beyond. At the base of the tower is a restaurant, gift shop, etc., and up the tower is apparently a revolving restaurant (one revolution every 48 minutes) and observation deck. But I say “theoretically” and “apparently” because we didn’t actually make it up the tower, but just to the base. There’s a cable car that runs up the mountain to the base of the tower, a point that (being on a mountain) still provides a nifty view of the city, and is the place from which you can buy tickets to take the elevator up the tower itself. But sadly we weren’t the only ones who thought this would be a nice Friday evening activity, and the place was packed. We waited in line for the cable car an hour and a half (fun fact: it turns out Lily is terrified of cable cars), and by the time we arrived at the base of the tower it was already late, and there was a tremendously long line to buy tickets up the tower, another line to actually ride up the tower, and a third line to ride the cable car back down when you were done with everything. We figured we had another two hours or so of lines ahead of us, so instead we opted out and enjoyed the base of the tower. There was still a lovely view of northern Seoul.

Seoul Tower.

One very, very small portion of Seoul.

Day 4

On Saturday we had train tickets to leave Seoul at 4:30PM, but this left us the entire morning to fit in one last activity, which we did by joining a tour group going up to the DMZ. For those who need a refresher, the DMZ (Demilitarized Zone) is a strip of land about 4 km wide running between North and South Korea that includes the border and a little buffer on either side. Despite it’s name, it’s actually the most heavily fortified border in the world (another fun fact: North and South Korea are technically still at war; the Korean War ended with a truce, not a peace treaty.). The first shock for me in visiting the DMZ is how close it runs to Seoul, no more than 45 minutes by bus to the first sight of North Korea. I can’t imagine how strange it would be to live that close to so much tension (to say nothing of having your nation’s capital there, like Iran or Syria being just outside of Baltimore).

Entering the DMZ.

Our first stop on the tour was a tunnel dug by North Koreans during the war to sneak across the border, which we were allowed to walk down into. Some in my group were too cool for the hard hats they gave us, but thankfully I grabbed one, as the tunnel wasn’t taller in places than 5’2” or 5’3”,  and I hit my helmeted head on the ceiling like fifty times. This was (for some reason) a strict “no photo” zone, so there aren’t any pictures.

After the tunnel we went to Dora Observatory and peered over into North Korea. On the ride to the observatory our tour guide repeatedly stressed that photos are only allowed from certain places which are designated by their bright yellow lines, but honestly I was only half paying attention, and when we arrived and the group rushed to the edge to see, I took a whole bunch of pictures without a second thought. Only later did I realize that the bright yellow line was 20 feet or so behind me. Thankfully I wasn’t the only one (and in fact, no one seemed to notice or care, dire warnings aside). So now we have several potentially illicit photos of North Korea.

North Korea. To the right you can see the border fence.

We were told that on this hill in the middle is a North Korean guard post.

Our last stop was a brief one, as we visited the last South Korean train station before the border (the northernmost train station in SK), an actual working station within the DMZ. If I understood our guide correctly, the train line was recently connected with the line that runs all the way to Pyeongyang, the North Korean capital, though for now it’s a purely symbolic gesture, as no trains actually cross the border.

When we returned from the DMZ it was time to catch our own train. One swift ride south and we were back in Daegu. There’s one more story worth mentioning, however, and that’s our dinner experience that night. Having started the day early in Seoul and being on the move for most of it, we were hungry and tired when we got home, so we decided to go out for dinner. There’s a busy area not far from us with a bunch of small Korean barbecue restaurants, so we took the bus down to look around. It was Saturday night, and the street was packed. Most of the restaurants seemed full up, but we found one with a table that was open and walked in. Our previous experience with Korean restaurants, and Korean barbecue specifically, had been very positive, but I realized later that we had usually gone during odd hours or weekdays, when the restaurants weren’t busy and the owners/waiters were generally very patient with us. Here the place was crowded and the waitress, while not unfriendly, was in no mood to help us slowly sound out the menu. Under pressure we tried to communicate non-verbally that we needed a recommendation. She pointed to something and we said sure, sounds good, then frantically pulled out our phones when she left to see what we’d just ordered. The first word I translated came up as “rectum,” and that’s when I knew we were in trouble. It turned out we ordered a triple serving of makjang, which is large intestine (in this case, a pig’s) sliced open, cut into strips, and grilled at the table in front of us (further research told me later that makjang is especially popular in Daegu, though I had no idea beforehand). It was…how shall I say this…not good. And out of embarrassment and politeness we felt compelled to eat as much as we could stomach. The taste wasn’t great but could be masked by other things; what unfortunately could not be masked was the texture, or its remarkable chewiness.

So, as usual, we intersperse our victories with defeats. It’s become our standard. But at the very least we’re having new experiences, and hopefully ones we can laugh at later (or now, why not now?). Also here’s a picture Lily took of our meal: