Us exploring the night life in Seoul. Just a short video of what some of the streets look like at night.
Enjoy!
~Jen
I was supposed to keep it under wraps until all the family had been told, but now I can shout it loud and clear.
ERICA AND TERRY ARE GETTING MARRIED!!!
Congratulations you two! (Though I'm not sure either of them read the blog... ) We're so excited for you both. Terry - welcome to the family. I can't wait to have you as a brother-in-law!
Jeff and I are coming home for a week (from the 16th til the 25th) in February to make sure that we're around for the wedding. We're sad that we're going to miss all the pre-wedding stuff, but VERY excited that Erica and Terry were willing to swing a winter wedding so that we could be there.
Congrats lil sis, you picked a great guy!
~Jen
For the most part I would have to say that Koreans are fairly reserved people. They are not overly boisterous or outgoing. This is a huge generalization, but it is something that I've observed over the past three months that I've been here. In their jobs and daily life Koreans seem reserved. Throw some alcohol in the mix (mostly at the men) and that will quickly change - it's quite enjoyable! It must be worth noting too, that I don't have very much contact with "young" Koreans. I have heard that the younger ones (like my age or younger) know how to party, and that things in this culture are changing....
Koreans know how to laugh, but are not boisterous. This is something that I seem to struggle with a bit. I am not always boisterous, but I can be energetic, and I do like to laugh and have a good time. There has definitely been some adjusting here. (In Uganda I fit in well. The people there were joyous and laughed a lot despite their hardships.)
There is, however, one woman here who makes my day. She is the parent of one of the kids at my school (I'm not sure which one) and she has such energy. When I pass her on the way to school she almost jumps with excitement and greets me with a huge "GOOD MORNING". I love it. It makes me so happy to see someone with such a zest for life. On our school walking day she was one of the parents who was stationed along the route and when we passed by she was SO excited. Again, so happy and joyous. I think that's what I'm missing here - the joyousness (is that a word?! Maybe jubilation is a better word...) that I found in Uganda.
I am quite happy when I chance upon this mom in the morning. She definitely brightens my day. I just wish that there were more Koreans here who outwardly demonstrated their excitement for life.
~Jen
Attempt number two… Grr!
I would politely ask that if you ever make your way over to my house (and you are very welcome) that you remove your shoes before entering. I don’t like to vacuum, and taking off your shoes means that there is less dirt flying around my house (or in this case, apartment…)
Koreans believe the same thing. Many restaurants require that patrons remove their shoes (and sometimes even don sandals) before entering. Every morning I make my way through the children who have stopped at the front of the school to remove their outer shoes and put on their indoor shoes. I too am expected to remove my outdoor shoes (unfortunately I rarely do… I like my shoes to match my outfits and can’t be bothered to carry a different pair of shoes to school every day…. Shhh!)
Lesson 14 for my grade sixes utilizes the phrase “Don’t take off your shoes”. Now, I don’t know about you, but most of the people that I know (in fact, all of the people that I know…) request that their visitors remove their shoes before wandering around their homes. Upon teaching this lesson I proceed to tell my students that if they ever come over to my house they are required to take off their shoes. I try to instill in my students the idea that almost all “Westerners” will require that they remove their shoes when they visit – just like they are expected to do so in Korean culture. My co-teacher, however, doesn’t agree. She lived in Seattle for a year. During that time, her landlord came over to her condo and entered the house without removing his shoes. She also mentioned that there is no spot to leave your shoes in a “Western” home. In Korea there is a step down in the front hall, a spot for people to leave their shoes.I tried to explain to her that often times service people don’t remove their shoes, but everyone else does. Still, my co-teacher would proceed to tell the students that it depends on the family.
Now, I know that not everyone removes their shoes before entering their homes, but my feeling is that the majority of people do. So, I’m conducting a poll. Please leave a comment to tell me whether or not you (and your family… friends…) remove your shoes before (or upon) entering your home. Am I crazy (well, don’t answer that…)? Do Westerners really NOT remove their shoes upon entering their homes… ? Am I really not the norm?
~Jen
[edit: The girl who says "Oh, don't take off your shoes, we don't take off our shoes in the house" is white. She is clearly from America or Canada, hence my co-teacher's belief that this statement is true of all North Americans...]
Apparently chunky knits are in this year....
Can you just imagine carting those needles around in your purse? Madness!
You have to check out this website! So crazy, a cat that steals stuff...
A few weeks back (October 27) we went to the DMZ (demilitarized zone). It was a really interesting trip, and even after having crossed into North Korea itself on another tour the subsequent weekend, I'd still say that it was a worthwhile trip, since we were able to visit the JSA (joint security area) and learn about some Korean history. We've got lots of pictures here. But for those of you who are too lazy (you know who you are!!!), I'll post a selection of them here.
The blue buildings are the UN negotiation rooms and they actually straddle the border between the South and the North. You can see a horizontal line just beyond the middle ROK's (Republic of Korea soldier) head. That raised concrete is the actual border between the South and North. The two ROKs on the sides are half behind the buildings for cover if the North decides to do a little target practice and I guess the guy in the middle is just out of luck and has to take one for the team.
Vanessa, Becky, myself and Jen standing next to a ROK in one of the UN negotiation rooms. We're actually in North Korea in this photo! This guy's standing guard (see the door behind us?) so that soldiers from the North don't storm the room and kidnap any tourists.
A view of check point 3 (which is no longer in use) from check point 4. This is where the Axe Murder took place in 1976 (2 US soldiers and 1 Korean national were killed) when the UN tried to cut down a poplar tree that was obstructing view between CP 3 and CP 4, where we are standing. If you look closely at the very lower left of this photo, you can see the stump to the said poplar.
Also, to the right of the CP 3 in this photo is the Bridge of No Return, where Koreans at some point had to choose on which side they wanted to reside (decision was final - no further border crossing was allowed, hence the name).
Gijeong-dong in North Korea, a propaganda village. It used to broadcast propaganda messages over a loudspeaker system telling everyone in the South how great the North was. It no longer broadcasts. Also, the village is not populated.
The flag pole is supposedly the tallest in the world at 160 meters, and the flag is so gi-normous that it's dry weight is 600 pounds!!!
____________________________________________
Yeah, so lots of neat stuff. Go check out the rest of the photos. We had an awesome time and if any of you ever make your way to our neighbourhood, we'll take you for a look-see. How many times in your life are you going to get to visit a demilitarized zone where there are thousands of armed soldiers all around you ready and waiting to fight? Ok, it sounds more dangerous than it really was... though, we did have to sign a waiver saying that our tour operator (USO - United States Overseas) could not guarantee our safety and that we understood that we could be killed on this tour. Hmmm....
I promise that the next time we post it will be Jeff's writings not mine!
On to the content. (Please note... boring photo right now, will be replaced at the end of the week with a MUCH better one... But Richard is wearing the Nanta hat....)
This past Saturday we went to see Nanta. Nanta is Korea's longest running performance show - it is a non-verbal performance, this means that we didn't need to worry about not understanding what was happening. It was started in 1997 and has been quite successful both in Korea and in 135 cities worldwide. The Tour2Korea website describes the show:
NANTA storms into a huge kitchen where four capricious cooks are preparing a wedding banquet. While cooking, they turn all kinds of kitchen items - pots, pans, dishes, knives, chopping boards, water bottles, brooms and even each other- into percussion instruments.
I was quite excited to see this show as I love percussion shows, the drum beats pulse in my body - I wish I could drum - but I digress.... Richard, Kelly, Sara, Vanessa, Dan, Becky, Jeff, and I headed to the Nanta theatre for a Saturday matinee show. The theatre was small (but cosy) and the audience was quite mixed - both Koreans and foreigners. At two points during the show the chefs required audience members to join them on stage. Lucky for us both Dan and Richard made their way to the stage to be made fools of - but it was all good fun!
Although I enjoyed Nanta I was a bit disappointed. I saw the Blue Man Group when I was in Boston a couple of years ago. I LOVED the Blue Man Group and was expecting Nanta to be of similar quality. I wanted more percussion, more drumming... it was just too tame for me.
Today I went to see B-Boy Korea with my school. I wasn't supposed to go, but I asked, and it turned out we could go (for free) as chaperones for my grade 6s. The grade 6s thought it was quite funny to see me outside of school with them on a trip. When I walked down to my seat some of them reached out an touched me like I was a rock star or something... quite odd!
B-Boy Korea is another non-verbal performance, but this time there was break dancing instead of cooking. The show (had a lame) plot - essentially two rival groups battle it out in a dance-off. I was really looking forward to this show too. Up until the last half hour the show was kind of slow. The drumming was awesome (I want to find a place to take lessons...) but the dancing was kind of.. well, not great - amature. During the last half hour (or less?) the boys (there were about 8 of them) pulled out all the stops and really danced, but up until then they were not wonderful. I must say that perhaps they were saving their energy until last bit of the show but I was a bit disappointed....
Jeff just asked if I was writing a novel... so I'll sign off here. All in all, the performances were interesting, but I guess I'm a bit of a snob. I like lots of energy all the way through the shows I see. We're thinking of seeing The Importance of Being Ernest (Oscar Wilde) next, we'll see how that goes.
K, I'm off.
~Jen
P.S. The other 3 teachers all had their "v"s up then bailed at the last moment so I'm the one looking like a dork... geeze!
Dear Bike Thieves,
It was not very nice of you to try and steal my bike. I had it locked up at the bottom of the stairs for a reason. It's heavy to carry up the stairs to my apartment... it was easier to leave it downstairs!
I'm glad that you were unsuccessful in stealing my bike, but unfortunately you made a mess of the lock. My husband had to work very hard to untangle the lock after you tried to use my seat as leverage to break the lock. If you had been smart you would have gone to E-Mart and purchased a $5 pair of pliers to cut the lock like we did.
Before we could do that though, we had to try and communicate with our landlord. You and I both know that I don't speak Korean and she doesn't speak English. This means that any conversation we have will be lengthly and difficult. Next time please take this into consideration and steal someone else's bike.
My dear bike thieves, it was not fun going to E-Mart at 8:30pm last night. I was tired and sick and did not want to try and find bolt cutters. Again, not speaking Korean it was difficult to find the bolt cutters. Luckily we were able to find the bolt cutters beside the locks.
Next time please leave my bike alone. I have already had 2 bikes stolen, I've given up my fair share of bikes to the bike gods. Enough is enough.
Thank you kindly,
Jen Dawson
P.S. Your actions also affected my husband as he attempted to eat the lock. This is not good for his health!
Jeff began to blog about North Korea, the restrictions and the things that we experienced whilst there. Although there were tons of restrictions with regards to what we could and could not take pictures of when we were travelling from one spot to another, when we hiked the mountain and around the lake we were fairly free to take as many pictures as we wanted. So we did.
Due to delays at the border on Saturday morning (there were 2,700 people crossing the border with us to visit North Korea. Our group had 80 foreigners, the rest of the people heading into North Korea were South Koreans.) we were late arriving in the North. So, the initial itinerary was thrown out the window and we all hiked Kumgansan Mountain instead. This mountain was gorgeous. After spending about 30 minutes in a small bus that drove us part way up the mountain (oh my, I thought I was going to die on this trek... narrow, windy roads and the driver taking the turns rather quickly, I expected that we would end up at the bottom of the mountain some how...) we got out and began the trek up to the top of the mountain. The view from the top was AMAZING!!! (Check out our pictures page for the link to some of our pictures.)
After climbing the mountain we went to see an acrobatics show. The acrobats were amazing, but as Sara put it, it seemed as though the equipment they were using came from Russia in the 1950s. It was old and didn't look very sturdy. There were quite a few times when I was scared for the acrobats. Most of the show was done sans nets... they were brave - or maybe just following orders... needless to say the show was very impressive.
After that we headed back to the hotel and crashed for the night. We fell asleep around 8pm and woke up ready to hike at 6:30 the next morning. Sunday was a light hike around a lake. We also visited the ocean (it was GORGEOUS!) but were forbidden to take pictures of one of the cliffs for security reasons.
The rest of the day was spent in a Jimjibang - a Korean spa. Now, when I think spa, I think massage, pedicure, maybe a mud bath, cucumbers... Korean spas are very different. You must get naked, yes, stark naked, and go and sit in hot and cold pools/tubs of water. After much giggling and hiding in our lockers (don't worry, Jeff was in the men's area... it was just us girls!) we managed to drop our towels and run into the bathing area. After a bit of uncomfortableness we finally managed to overcome our embarassement and were able to thoroughly enjoy the spa experience. There were germanium pools, jade baths, hot baths, cold baths, baths outdoors (overlooking the mountains - it was beautiful!), dry saunas, wet saunas, and showers. By the end of the experience Kelly Sara and I were standing around the water cooler, naked, just chatting. Sorry, no pictures of that experience. Kelly and I did decide, however, that a jimjibang would be a great place to knit. It's warm and there are lots of adjumas (old ladies) around who would be interested in our knitting. Next Stitch and Bitch? In the jimjibang!
I will leave you with a picture of me and Kelly knitting in North Korea (this is knitting content for you Maja!) She is just learning how to knit (and doing a great job..) so I was helping her a new stitch - brioche, it's all the rage here!
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