The Four Gracious Plants

When I visited Damyang Bamboo Forest with my friend Hyun Ju, I picked up some coasters depicting the Four Gracious Plants. I had heard about them from Hyun Ju before, because they are a popular theme in traditional Eastern paintings (she was an art student in college).

They are also called the Four Gentlemanly Plants, because traditionally they symbolized the four characteristics of a gentleman or learned man. Today they are more commonly associated with the four seasons. I had always thought they were beautiful and I just liked the idea. Here are my coasters:



Clockwise from the top left:

The plum blossom symbolizes courage in a gentleman, as well as spring.

Bamboo symbolizes integrity and winter.

Orchids symbolize refinement and the season of summer.

The chrysanthemum symbolizes productivity and the fall.

The first picture is from this website: http://en.cbf.net.au/Item/386.aspx which also has some interesting info and quotes about the four plants in Chinese culture.

Final post from Korea - some odds and ends

The last month was a whirlwind, and I remember very little of the last two weeks. It's been absolutely ridiculous, and I'm still not quite sure how it all came together and how I'm actually sitting here blogging, ready to go in less than two hours. The fact that I'm leaving is just so surreal - I'm still half-convinced that I'm just skipping off for the weekend again and I'll be back in this apartment Sunday night and at my desk on Monday morning. I haven't had time to really get excited for this trip, or even plan for it (oops). I've been so stressed and busy, and feeling really resentful of all the school work I have to do and all the odds and ends I have to take care of for leaving Korea and planning my trip. AND I got pink eye last week.

But in between the lack of sleep, never-ending lesson plans and worksheets, difficult goodbyes, and mile-long to-do lists, I've been trying to curb my complaining and keep in mind the reasons I'm doing all this work and going nuts right now. My 'problems' are like this:

I was so busy with school and summer classes, but I had a job right out of college and actually made a decent amount of money for a year. Also, I was paid extra to do the extra work.

I was so busy with packing my stuff , closing up my apartment, stopping all my utilities, and paying the final bills, but it's because I lived abroad for a year and had an amazing time. Oh, and by the way, I did it in a FREE apartment.

I was so stressed with planning, packing for, and getting immunized against my trip on top of everything else, but holy shit! I'll be backpacking around SE Asia for seven weeks! I haven't had the time or energy to get excited about it yet, but damn! I know that once I'm doing amazing things in SE Asia everything will have been worth it.

Saying goodbye to coteachers and friends this weekend was really difficult, but I think I went out in style! I met friends for dinner on Thursday night, went out with two of my coteachers for dinner and drinks on Friday night, met another coteacher for coffee on Saturday afternoon, stayed out with friends until 5am on Saturday night, had dinner with Hyun Ju this (Sunday) evening, and met up with Bosun for a midnight movie tonight! I pulled all-nighters Thursday (to finish my school stuff) and tonight (movie and finishing packing) but I had an awesome weekend nonetheless.

I don't know my exact itinerary off the top of my head, (thank God I'm traveling with people who are more organized and sane than I am right now!) but between August 16th and October 3rd, I'll be in and out of: Vietnam - Camodia - Laos - Malaysia - Brueni - Singapore.

Maybe it's silly, but I'll probably blog a little bit more about Korea even after I leave it! There's some stuff I want to write about, and pictures I want to post, and I'll have my computer with me as I travel so I might as well. And I'm sure I'll have no shortage of things to say about my backpacking trip, so there should be new posts coming out long after I'm back in Wisconsin. And from there, who knows?

Yongmunsa Temple Stay

Last weekend I checked another goal off my list of Things to Do in Korea: participated in an overnight program at a Buddhist temple. I went to Yongmun temple in Gyeonggi province, east of Seoul on Yongmun Mountain.

Getting there was rough – I had to be at the temple at 2:00 on Saturday afternoon, and I was too cheap to shell out for the expensive express train tickets. That meant waking up at 5am to catch the 6:30 Mugunghwa train (Korean for "slow as molasses and stops at every damn station") from Daegu. I was in Seoul by 10:45, and from Seoul station it was over two hours on the subway (I had to go to the very last station on one of the commuter lines). Then there was a fifteen minute bus ride to the mountain resort area, and then a 20 minute walk up the mountain, and I finally arrived at Yongmun temple a few minutes after two.

It was a really beautiful area – the trek was worth it. The temple is quite a ways up the mountain, surrounded by really thick gorgeous lush trees, and judging by the background noise, several streams as well. It was so nice and cool, even in the middle of the day. The temple itself is over 1,000 years old but of course the buildings have all been rebuilt several times. The area is famous for gingko trees, and Yongmun temple is especially famous as the home of the “largest tree in the East”: a gingko tree that’s over 130 feet tall and 1,100 years old!!! I can’t even fathom a thousand-year-old living thing.

The program was in Korean but everyone was really welcoming, and the hostess and a few of the other participants spoke English. We changed into our temple clothes, just loose grey pants and a grey or white t-shirt, and started off with a lecture on the history of the temple and a tour of some of its buildings. We took a brief walk through the woods to a little clearing, where we did some stretches and learned some tai chi (I think that’s what it was) from a really incredible old guy who put the rest of us to shame. Before dinner we also had a lecture and lessons on chanting and bowing (I think I was the only one who really needed this). Then we could ring this huge bell. It’s rung regularly throughout the day at certain times, and we were each allowed to ring it once with the help of one of the monks (apparently this is a really special thing, because it’s supposed to be rung the correct number of times at the correct time of day, so by allowing us to do this they were throwing off their schedule!).


Dinner was vegetarian of course – rice and lots of vegetable side dishes, eaten in silence (we’re supposed to talk as little as possible around the temple, because even walking and eating can be a meditation. But we didn’t get in trouble if we wanted to talk, and I made friends with a young Korean woman who spoke really good English and helped me a lot).

After dinner we had a tea ceremony and a chat about tea. I don’t know what kind it was, but it was really good! Then we had a lecture about meditation, and then it was finally time for bed. I’m not sure how everyone else slept, but we had four people in a room, including my new friend, and our own bathroom. I was dead tired after getting up so early and having a full schedule all day, so I slept on the floor really well.

The big bell started going off at 4am for the morning chanting and 108 bows. The ‘bows’ are actually more like prostration - getting down completely on the floor and back up again, without using your hands! It wasn’t as difficult as it sounds, and I found that it actually went pretty quickly if I didn’t count it.

My memory of this morning is pretty foggy because I was so tired and it was so long, but our schedule included cleaning our sleeping areas, breakfast (almost identical to the dinner) and a nice chunk of free time, during which I both passed out on the floor of the meditation room for awhile and made arrangement with a wonderful family to drive me back to Seoul, saving me the bus and two-hour commuter train ride. Before lunch we walked a ways back down the mountain, sweeping the road, and then near the stream we made the little piles of rocks that Koreans use to make wishes. I don’t know what they’re called but I’ve seen them around temples and in the woods all over Korea. We walked back up to the temple barefoot in the little ditch running alongside of the road. ‘Ditch’ sounds dirty but it wasn’t – it was man-made and paved with big stones on the bottom, and the stream water was so nice and cool and clean enough to drink.

The last thing before lunch was supposed to be some meditation, but the monk who was supposed to be help us just lectured the entire time so we couldn’t actually meditate! I was a little disappointed because I had been looking forward to trying it, but this monk was really funny and interesting anyway, and my friend translated a lot of what he said. All of the lectures were difficult – I couldn’t understand them and so was bored, plus we were supposed to sit still with our legs crossed so I was also uncomfortable. On Sunday night and Monday I was in so much pain - sitting like that and bowing so much is just as hard as real exercise!

All in all, though I wish the program had been in English of course, it just motivated me to maybe try another one. It was cool to be ‘at home’ at a temple – I’ve visited dozens of them by now, but usually I just tiptoe around awkwardly sneaking pictures and wondering what the hell is going on. Feeling so comfortable with the place and the people there, and having a hand in taking care of it and the daily routine, was awesome.

More pictures:
http://picasaweb.google.com/kristin.laufenberg/YongmunTempleStay?feat=directlink

Damyang Bamboo Forest

The weekend after the Boryeong Mud Festival, I spent time with my other Korean friend, Hyun Ju (the one who lives down the hall in my apartment building). We visited the Damyang Bamboo Forest, also part of a tour group, though much more organized than Daegu Pockets. It was a Korean company, so I was the only foreigner. We left early in the morning, drove south-west and arrived in Damyang, in the province of Jeollanam-do, several hours later. It was a gorgeous drive - we were only on the highway for a bit, and then mostly on smaller roads going around and through beautiful green mountains. The cloudy weather and fog made it even better - just breath-taking. Hyun also packed a bag full of snacks and juice, which didn't hurt.

The bamboo forest was sweltering hot, but gorgeous. It's mostly bamboo of course, but there are also patches of pine trees, as well as a gift shop. I bought some coasters, and Hyun Ju got some more (bamboo-flavored) snacks. We also bought bamboo wine, packaged in an actual piece of bamboo! The forest, although beautiful, is totally typical of Korean tourist sites - as cheesy as possible. For example, there are eight paths going through the forest. They all intersect one another and are impossible to tell apart, but they're all named like they're different and special - the Way of Good Luck, the Way of Old Friend, the Way of Endless Love, the Byway of Recollection...I could write a book about sickeningly cute Korea tries to be!

Here's an abridged tour for you:

It's the Way of Endless Love! No, wait, it's the Way of the Scholar! No, no, it's the Go Up Way of Sengin Mountain!

We went down several paths, but the heat was really getting to us so we headed to a nearby restuarant for some lunch. There, in Damyang, we ate what was possibly the best Korean meal I've had this year. That's really saying something because I LOVE pretty much all Korean food. It was a traditional meal with lots of side dishes, but there were a few bamboo-themed twists: the rice, mixed with nuts, was served in a bamboo stem; we had bamboo in our soup; and there were two different bamboo-shoot sides. I can't describe how delicious it was and how Hyun Ju and I gorged ourselves...we were sitting on the floor and I could barely stand up when we were finished, because I had been so busy stuffing my face that I didn't move the entire time, and had been sitting with my legs crossed for the better part of 45 minutes. I'm seriously going to dream about Korean food, and especially that meal, when I'm back in Wisconsin.

As is so often the case with Korean meals, I couldn't fit it all in one picture. The black pot of soup is the half-way point.

After rolling ourselves back on the bus, we visited a nearby road. I can't remember the name of this road, but it's famous for being really pretty and scenic. There are lots of big trees on either side, and a scene from some movie was also filmed there. It's short enough to walk in twenty minutes, so Hyun Ju and I tried to work off our lunch, while I noticed (and laughed at) all the different ways that people were paying to get themselves down this tiny stretch - you could rent a bicycle, a carriage-thing, or even, apparently, a Big Wheels.

Peace!

Wow...this woman's somewhat excused because she's with a little kid, but I promise you I saw adults riding these things up and down this road ALONE.

Our last stop for the day was the only weak point of the tour. The original schedule had been to visit some other site, and the original tour price was 44,000 won. However, the government decided to subsidize the tour, cutting the cost down to 15,000 won, on the condition that we visit a traditional market instead. These markets are slowly going under as more Koreans visit stores like E-Mart and Home Plus, their answer to Wal-Mart. This market was similar to the one I visited in Seogwipo - like a huge warehouse with dozens of little stalls. You could probably find anything in these places but they're best for fresh seafood, fruits and vegetables. As you can probably imagine, the markets are generally dirty, crowded, and reek like fish and motorcycle exhaust (scooters and motorcycles can drive through them like normal roads). There were more cats than customers.

Sorry to end on a negative note, but I have to say it: the heat in this city is sapping my will to live. I honestly can't stand it. The sweltering humidity, stale air, and glaring sunlight day after day make me CRAZY. Even at night it doesn't cool down - the temperature just flat-lines at about 90 degrees for a solid six weeks every summer after the monsoon season. Luckily my school is more generous than others about using the AC, and they were also kind enough to install it in my apartment. Not all of my friends are so lucky! Anyway, ranting aside, I hope to keep the blog posts comin' as I approach the end of my time here. I have so much to say about this place, but most of it will probably be irrelevant after I leave, so I'm going to try hard to squeeze out a few more posts!

I have air-con AND bamboo wine in my apartment.

Boryeong Mud Festival!

July 17th and 18th was the opening weekend of the Boryeong Mud Festival. Several of my friends, including Diana and Bosun, and I joined a poorly-organized and over-priced Daegu Pockets tour that took us four hours west to Daecheon Beach.

There is nothing traditional, or even especially Korean, about the Boryeong Mud Festival (Korea seems to jump on any excuse for a festival!), and more than half of those in attendance are foreigners. So is should come as no surprise that the event is mostly an excuse for expats and GIs to binge-drink in the daytime. The mud itself is supposed to be very healthy and full of good stuff for your skin, but no one really cares about that when the festival comes around!

The crappy tour arrangements (over 3 hours of waiting on a bus over two days) and shady sleeping arrangements (drunks from our tour group trying to break into our room all night, even attemping a window entrance, to use the bathroom) aside, the festival itself was pretty fun! When else do mostly-responsible adults have an excuse to play in "therapeutic" mud, as well as climb through a muddy obstacle course, be painted with different colors of mud, go down a mud slide, and engage in a good old-fashioned mud fight?!

Mud slide. The line for this was always ridiculously long, so we never tried it.

You can see, from the left, Diana, Bosun, and I. We're smiling and having fun, but those smiles are just masking our fear.

Some people are VISCIOUS mud-fighters, and that stuff really stings when it hits you!

Daecheon Beach is also wonderful. The best thing was to get absolutely filthy, and then run into the sea to scrape it all off and jump around in the waves.

Diana and I, taken through the protective shield of Bosun's vinyl bag.

Bosun and I, through the muddy camera bag.

Most of these pictures are stolen - I had a plastic bag for my camera but I was usually too afraid to take it out and use it. The top picture is mine; the mud fight scene is from Diana's blog; and the rest belong to Bosun. They're pretty tame compared to what you can find if you search for this festival on Google Images! And I usually provide a link to my full album, but in order to protect the dignity of a few people I won't be making this one public!

Pat Bing Soo

Here's a blog post for my favorite Korean dessert: pat bing soo. It's Korea's response to the ice cream sundae, and much better in my opinion! I've had dozens of varieties of this stuff, and I think every place does it a little differently. The basics are shaved/crushed ice with milk and a scoop of ice cream; red beans are also pretty standard, and there's almost always at least one kind of fruit, usually more. I've also had tomatoes, corn flakes, nuts, different sauces, jelly candies, and rice cakes in my PBS.

The genius of PBS is that you can get it absolutely ANYWHERE in Korea - nice cafes, bakeries, ice cream shops, and even fast-food restuarants like Burger King, McDonalds, or KFC. My co-teacher, Carrie, recently took me a new (to me) cafe in Daegu with the best, fanciest, and most expensive PBS that I've yet to see. I don't think any of the four flavors are exactly traditional, but they're so damn good. I made it my mission to sample each one, and last week the mission was accomplished.

Strawberry

Sweetened azuki beans with 'four berries' sauce

Green tea...and a random piece of cake

Milk tea

The verdict: it's a toss-up between the strawberry and green tea. I feel disloyal saying that because green tea is my favorite flavor of anything in Korea, but the strawberry was just fantastic. I think that, besides a rice cooker, I may need to invest in an ice-shaver when I get back to the States (yes, that's a Christmas present hint!).

Can you blame me? picture from Google Images

Jeju Island Part II: It's Time to Ride

While my sleep-deprived students were pulling their hair out over final exams earlier this month, I was able to sneak back to Jeju Island for another four-day weekend! It was equally amazing the second time around, but quite a different experience.

The difference was mostly due to the weather and my chosen mode of transportation. First things first: I rented a scooter! A pink scooter! It was definitely illegal (I have neither a motorcycle license nor any kind of international license, which in turn mean that I coudn't get any insurance) but SO fun and liberating. No more hop-on, hop-off buses for this girl! It was definitely the best way to see Jeju - the roads are good; other drivers were (mostly) nice and let me have my own lane; and everything is well labeled so even with my crappy tourist map I found my way pretty easily. I saw lots of beautiful little spots just by pulling over for a break, and driving again after so many months felt great!

I had to feel bad for the guy who rented it to me - he was so nice and politely listened to my b.s. ("...no, I don't have a license....um, no, I've never driven one of THESE exactly") but I could tell he was worried. He must have warned me a dozen time to be careful and drive slowly, and he drove me to a parking lot so I could practice a bit before hitting the streets. I was a bit shaky at first and surely inspired no confidence, but got the hang of it quickly - it's like a cross between a bicycle as far as balance goes, and a snowmobile as far as acceleration and braking go.


As far as the weather goes, Korea is in the middle of the monsoon season, which means: constant and crushing humidity, a lot of rain, cloudy skies when it isn't raining, and little direct sunlight. I was VERY lucky with the weather though - it was cloudy and really really foggy almost the entire time, but it only rained twice in four days, and both times it was just a sprinkle for about a half hour! Somehow there was even enough sun to give me a weird scooter tan - on the back of my neck and tops of my arms and legs only!

So for four days I mostly just puttered around Seogwipo and the southern half of the island, did a little beach-hopping, and saw some new nooks and crannies that I missed last time when I was just out to see the major tourist attractions. Check out my pictures if you want to know exactly what I saw! http://picasaweb.google.com/kristin.laufenberg/JejuIslandPartII?feat=directlink

The Beginning of the End

The blog posts are sure to be few and far between for the next few weeks. I need to write about my most recent trip to Jeju, but other than that I don't know if there will be a chance to write down everything that I want to. Which is a shame because there's so many things about Korea that I want to share with everyone and remember for myself, too. I'll do my best but I don't think I'll be taking a breath between now and October, much less doing a lot of blogging.

This coming week is the last week of the semester! I'll have some first- and second-graders in my summer camp and summer classes, but there are so many students I'll never see again after next week! And one of my co-teachers is leaving on the 17th for some training in San Diego, and I won't see her again at all before I leave Korea. So depressing.

Another reason to be upset over the end of the semester: I'll be doing summer camp and classes for the next four weeks straight, with no more breaks until I leave Korea (which I can't complain about, because my school has been more than generous with my vacation). However, these classes will require...drumroll please...69 LESSON PLANS AND 159 WORKSHEETS. All made from SCRATCH. Starting in 8 days. And on top of that I'll be planning a major backpacking adventure, emptying / cleaning my apartment, stopping utilities, transferring money, looking for a job at home, saying goodbye to friends and the place that has been my home for the last year, etc.

I feel like I'm in college again and it's finals week; but in college I was always dying to get off campus, and now I tear up everytime I consider that I have to leave this place in five weeks. I STILL don't know whether leaving Korea now was the right decision or not. Everybody here is just so good to me. The English department from Jeil had dinner together the other night, and I got these gifts - the tea set is from my co-teachers (I had mentioned to Carrie that I wanted a Korean tea set as a souveneir) and the mirror is from my principal. And that same night Hyun Ju gave me a book that she had specially ordered for me, just because she thought I would enjoy it.

I must be an idiot to leave a place where I'm showered with gifts and free time off on a regular basis.

On a more cheerful note, I realized just in time that the U.S. government is jacking up the price to add extra pages to your passport. The service has always been free and I decided that it would be a good idea for my up-coming trip. I probably could have made it with the pages I had except for stupid Malaysia: some provinces there are semi-autonomous, which means they stamp your passport each time you exit or enter a new province! There's a crazy story in my guidebook about traveling overland from one Malaysian state to another through the country Brunei, and this half-day trip will add 10 stamps to your passport!

When I checked the Seoul embassy's website, I discovered that the price is jumping from $0 to $82 on Tuesday! $82 just to staple in some empty pages! I bundled off my passport to Seoul with a courier service and they added the FREE new pages overnight. Pretty ridiculous...if I have to get extra pages added AGAIN before my passport expires and pay for them I will not be happy.

Seoul, the DMZ, and Cheonan

A few weeks ago four of us visited Seoul for a USO tour to the DMZ. Our tour was scheduled for Saturday the 5th, so we took the KTX up on Friday and stayed at Jin Guest House. The next morning we grabbed breakfast on the run and were at Camp Kim by a few minutes after 7am. We checked in, boarded the buses and set off for the northern border.

We signed our life away (the first sentence in the Visitor’s Declaration wavier: “The visit to the Joint Security Area at Panmunjom will entail entry into a hostile area and the possibility of injury or death as a direct result of enemy action.”) and started the tour. Here’s an overview of what we saw:

+ The Joint Security Area, or Panmunjeom, the only place in the DMZ where North and South Koreans face off on a daily basis. It is where diplomatic talks take place and we could see things like the Bridge of No Return, where POWs were returned after the Korean war; the site of the Axe Murder Incident; and the ‘world’s most dangerous golf course’, a one-hole course surrounded on three sides by live minefields. South and North Korean civilians are not allowed inside the JSA so we were escorted on this part of our tour by an American soldier stationed in Camp Bonifas (which is in the JSA).

+ Dora Observatory, which is the closest you can get to the North – you can use the coin-operated binoculars and see North Korea’s propaganda village, Kijong-dong, and the city of Kaesong, where North and South Koreans work together in the joint industrial complex.

+ Inside the Third Infiltration Tunnel, one of four tunnels that have been discovered so far (it is believed that there are several more undiscovered tunnels) that were dug by the North for use in a surprise attack on the South.

+ Dorasan Station – “Not the last station from the South, but the first station toward the North” which was used for transporting supplies to Kaesong in the North and the finished products back to the South. The border is closed now but in the event of reunification Dorasan Station will be used again.

Even given the recent tensions between North and South Korea after the sinking of the Cheonan warship, this tour wasn’t really scary, just very surreal and a bit tense. We had to observe a dress code and even behavioral codes in some places – walk in two straight lines, no pointing, waving, or other gestures, and no pictures allowed in several places, even from the bus windows.

I was left with two main impressions from the day. One is that North Korea is just weird. Some of their judgments are just so screwy. Like the constant attempts to one-up South Korea and prove how much better they are: South Korea builds something in the JSA, and the North adds a faux third story to their own adjacent building so that it’s taller. The South puts up a flag pole in their village in the DMZ, Daeseong-dong, and the North puts up a taller one in their village, with a flag so big that it can barely wave even in a gale (it’s the world’s tallest flagpole, at 160 meters, and the flag itself weighs 600 pounds!) Anyway, this village – called Kijong-dong but better known as Propaganda Village in the West – is weird enough even without that flag. North Korea maintains that it is fully inhabited with schools, hospitals, etc. but no one actually lives there. Lights regularly go on and off and people clean the streets but the buildings are all completely empty! They face loudspeakers toward the South and deliver Communist propaganda for hours every day. And those tunnels – the North denied digging them, but structurally it’s obvious that they were built from North to South. And when we visited the Third Infiltration Tunnel, we could see places where North Koreans had painted the tunnel walls black to support their story that they were mining coal, even though there isn’t any coal in the area! And finally, a South Korean I know told me something that he saw when he completed his military service in the DMZ: the North can’t afford tractors for their farm work, but to keep up the pretense that they’re a rich country, they would have one tractor come out once a day and make a lap around the field! There are so many weird stories like that.

The other impression that I got from the DMZ, and also from the Independence Hall we visited later, is just how sad it is that this country is split. I’ve always thought about them as two separate countries, and I guess right now that’s what they are. But only a bit more than 50 years ago they were one country, with one homogenous population, until they were divided by outside powers. Especially considering how far the South has come in the last few decades, both economically and democratically, just imagine how powerful it would be today as one country twice its current size, with twice the working population and resources. It’s really depressing to compare the two now and imagine what could have been.

We arrived back in Seoul around 3pm (the border is only an hour away from the capital). We headed straight for the Changdeok Palace complex. Since we got there so late in the afternoon we didn’t have nearly enough time to see everything. We made a beeline for something called the Biwon Secret Garden, and arrived at the entrance just in time to buy tickets for the last tour of the day. A tour is the only option for seeing the Garden so we didn’t even care that it was in Korean. It was different than we expected – not really like a Western garden, but more like a huge grotto. We had a two-hour tour through beautiful roads and enormous ancient trees. There were also a few old buildings used by the royal family and a really pretty pond. We kept walking and walking, saying ‘Where’s the garden?’ and didn’t figure out until the end that we were in it the whole time.

The next morning, Sunday, we got on the train and headed south to a suburb of Seoul called Cheonan. We spent the entire day at the Independence Hall of Korea. This is a huge history museum – there are eight buildings plus several outdoor memorials and statues. One building was closed when we were there, but we managed to get through all seven of the others before almost missing our train back to Daegu. One exhibit was about prehistoric Korea up through the end of the Joseon dynasty in 1910, but all of the others dealt with the Japanese colonial period (1910-1945) and Korea’s movement for independence from Japan. It was a really good museum – at least as interesting and informative as the DMZ – and I’d definitely recommend it to anyone visiting Korea. This part of Korean history is really interesting because it’s still relevant, and affects feelings between Korea and Japan even today. I won’t write it here, but if you’re curious, email me and I’ll tell you what one of my middle schoolers said to me about Japan.

So that was probably the most productive weekend I’ve had in a long time – we knocked out three major touristy things and I had a lot of fun hanging out with my friends the whole time. I’m so lucky to have an awesome huge group of fiends here; even when we have insane long hot weekends like that we’re always laughing and having a good time. This post is long enough so I didn’t include pictures, but here’s the link if you have the time! http://picasaweb.google.com/kristin.laufenberg/SeoulDMZBiwonIndependenceHall?feat=directlink

World Cup Fever aka 대한민국!

Korea’s first World Cup game, against Greece, was Saturday the 12th. After a big dinner downtown, a big group of us set out looking for a bar where we could sit down and watch the game. However, every business that we passed that had any kind of TV screen – from bars and restaurants, to cafes, bakeries, ice cream shops and clothes retailers – was packed. People were sitting on folding chairs, shelves, countertops and floors. So we proceeded to the main stage in the heart of downtown, where there’s a huge outdoor screen. The area was absolutely wild – the main road was blocked off and people were sitting on the street; the ones near the front had probably been there for hours. Every time the Red Devil’s scored a goal, the crowd went crazy. Our huge group got split up, and Jeannine and I watched most of the first half there and then slipped off for some ice cream. We were lucky enough to find an ice cream shop with some seats and a TV, so we watched Korea kick Greece’s butt in air-conditioned and seated comfort.


After the game we re-grouped and enjoyed some celebratory drinking. The streets were full of people yelling and car horns blaring out the rhythm to the Korean chant 대한민국 or dae-han-min-guk, and everyone was dressed up in the Red Devil’s shirts, bandanas, blinking devil’s horns, and the Korean flag. I’ve never seen so many people riled up over the same thing; I can’t think of anything to compare it with in the States, except maybe New Year’s Eve in NYC. Certainly none of our sporting events even come close.

We attended the second game, Korea vs. Argentina, on the 17th at Duryu Park. If possible, it was even crazier than the downtown area had been. We arrived two hours early to find a spot on the grass in front of the big screen, and when the game started people were still coming in and the park was full of thousands of people. There were lots of vendors with chicken, beer, water, and all the necessary accessories – t-shirts, bandanas, flags, various horns and noise-makers, and temporary tattoos. There were so many people moving around that sometimes it was hard to see the big screen, so we watched parts of the game on our awesome Korean cell phones that come with free TV channels!

Unfortunately Korea lost this game. However, they tied the next one against Nigeria, which was at 3:30am yesterday (I didn’t stay awake for it, but a lot of my students did. Way to make me feel old, guys). That means Korea is advancing to the final 16, so the excitement will continue! If only I were as well-informed or excited about the American team....

Weekend Goings-On: Jirisan Edition

I'm so busy using this blog to write about the fun stuff I do on the weekends, that I don't have time to write about my day-to-day life in Korea. Stuff like my work, the food, Daegu, the culture, etc. just gets left out. I'm gonna have to work on that, but probably not anytime soon because I have too much to catch up on (sorry to get your hopes up, haha). Here goes:

My last post was about the Seoul Lotus Lantern Festival, which is sort of a prelude to Buddha's birthday. So Buddha's actual birthday was on Friday, May 21st; since it's a national holiday, we had a lovely three-day weekend on our hands. On Friday morning seven of us met bright and early at the bus station. We bought tickets for the two-hour bus ride to Jirisan National Park, only to find that the bus was full. Our options were to stand on the bus, or wait almost two more hours for the next one. We decided that it was all part of the adventure and chose to stand for two hours. We passed the time by playing Twenty Questions, trying to keep our balance and not topple onto any seated Koreans or annoy anybody too much.

We arrived in the town of Namwon and decided that the easiest way to reach the park was by taxi (traveling in groups like we do has its advantages, like splitting the cost of everything!). It was a beautiful ride into the park - curvy and hilly roads, trees and greenery, and the best air I've tasted since visiting Jeju Island (I think I probably complain about this a lot, but after living in Daegu I will NEVER take fresh air for granted again). Jirisan National Park is huge - the biggest in South Korea - and with over a dozen peaks it is famous for hiking, camping, waterfalls, several temples, and even a population of wild bears!

We were dropped off in a little parking lot and after a few minutes of hiking, found Guryong Waterfall. I think the original plan might have been to do some hiking that day, and even find a temple and pay our respects (it was Buddha's birthday, after all), but the weather and location were too perfect for us to resist. We ended up sitting at the waterfall all day, eating kimbap and drinking beer, playing games, soaking our feet, and exploring the area (which for a few of us included some awesome climbing - Mark, Dave, Jayson and I decided to explore downstream a bit, and it was so much fun to climb up and over all the rocks).

At the end of the day we made a quick detour to explore some of the nearby hiking trails, just for a few minutes, and it was SO beautiful. I didn't want to leave - I really like hiking and climbing, and the scenery was just breath-taking. I'd love to go back and hike the mountain properly, and even stay overnight in a tent or something to see the sunrise on the summit. Between the weather, the scenery, and the company, this was easily one of the best days I've had in Korea.


The first two photos here are mine; the rest are from the talented and generous Jeannine. To see the rest of mine, click here: http://picasaweb.google.com/kristin.laufenberg/JirisanNationalPark?feat=directlink

Seoul Lotus Lantern Festival

Early in the morning on Saturday the 15th, I headed up to Seoul for the Lotus Lantern Festival. Unfortunately I don't know many details about the festival's history or how it started, but it's an annual event held one week prior to Buddha's birthday (Buddha's birthday is a national holiday in Korea and was on Friday, May 21st this year. We had the day off from school). My impression is that the Lantern Festival sort of kicks off Buddha's birthday celebrations.

The Festival was huge - there was a set schedule with different things going on all weekend. It centered around Bong-eun-sa Temple and the Insadong neighborhood. There was a small 'Festival's Eve Celebration' parade on Saturday night, a Buddhist Street Festival all day Sunday (lots of arts and crafts, food, traditional performances, and Buddhists from all over the word) and the main event, the Lantern Parade, on Sunday night before the Closing Celebration. Everything was beautiful, of course; it was the probably the most colorful festival I've seen yet. I won't bother trying to describe it, just look at my pictures! They also really catered to foreigners - besides the English-language website, there were English-speaking volunteers swarming around with pamphlets and suggestions for things to do and places to go. And at the street festival there were a few tents just for foreigners to do stuff like make your own lotus lantern.

Saturday night I stayed in a hanok - a traditional Korean living area, usually with a courtyard and the ondol underfloor heating system. They're sort of an endangered species now, but in Seoul there's a really beautiful neighborhood of hanok, called the Bukchon Hanok Village. I highly recommend it - I stayed there overnight, at the Seoul Guesthouse, and also rented a bike on Sunday morning and pedaled around taking pictures.

I was completley exhausted by the end of the weekend; I had to check out of the Guesthouse early and had just walked around all day Sunday. Also, I've been trying to save money and I had to work Monday morning, so I took the late night slow train back to Daegu and arrived home around 3am....just in time to get four hours of sleep and teach five classes on Monday!

You can see my pictures from the festival here: http://picasaweb.google.com/kristin.laufenberg/SeoulLotusLanternFestival?feat=directlink

My camera doesn't take very good pictures at night (plus I have no idea what I'm doing with it) so I tried making videos instead. They didn't turn out very well either but you should be able to get the general idea!