This week has been hectic. To start where I left off, the Seoul Tower was amazing. Completely breathtaking. We took the hard way up to the mountain (walking up the millions of stairs) through a big park. On the way, we stopped into the Memorial Hall of Patriot Ahn Choong-Keun, who played a big role in the overthrow of Japanese Colonial Rule.
On the way up, we saw an old lady selling snails and bug larva (which I have yet to try) and a lot of girls in high heels. On that note, everyone wears three-four inch high heels here. The pavement in the school is very uneven and the school is very hilly (much worse than Geneseo, SNU is actually in the mountains), so even I have almost rolled my ankle just walking around. I don't know how they do it, I've even seen girls running. I need to take a picture of this phenomenon.. the average female SNU student wears four inch heels that look terribly uncomfortable, black stockings, a really short miniskirt, a beautiful coat, a big scarf, some nice top, and perfect hair. The guys also dress up and some carry man-purses, it's really a sight to see everyone dressed like this.
Anyway, back to the Seoul Tower. After spending however many hours it took to climb the staircase, we made it to the top of the mountain. There was a big presentation on the top, with men dressed in traditional fighting clothing and fighting with bamboo. It was really funny to see them cut the bamboo up with their swords and a huge group of people clapping.
The view from the top is spectacular. On the windows, they have the cities that are in the direction that you are looking out on written. We went on a clear day and you could see everything. The bathroom also had the same view and they had little funny signs on the stall trying to tell you to keep it clean, but they failed miserably with the translation. Outside the big restaurant, there was a fence filled with locks. On the locks there were love notes written to people's significant others, it was such a beautiful sight to see all of them--there were thousands of them. They had a sign specifically telling people not to throw away their keys, probably to keep the park clean. There was a group of high school boys who had no english ability (I think they were from a town outside of Seoul) and kept trying to explain something to me in Korean. After five minutes I understood that one of the boys wanted a picture with me, so I also got one of us on my camera too.
To digress on this topic, foreigners really are a sight here. When you see one, you can immediately spot him or her in the crowd because I've only seen at most twenty outside of the school. I'm not underestimating either, I've bumped into people and we smile at each other as if we're family. It's very interesting to see how homogeneous Seoul really is, and how odd it is for others to be here. There have been two times at least that an older man has commented on how pretty we are and I've noticed that in the subway people don't look at each other usually, but sometimes you will see someone trying to catch a glimpse of us. Yesterday, on the subway I was trying to pronounce "what is this" in Korean and a guy sitting down told me I had good pronounciation and became really red when I tried to be friendly. Later I was told that my pronunciation was terrible, haha. I also tried to ask one of our buddies how to correctly say stupid on the bus and he was really embarrassed that I talked so loud across a distance, he didn't want to be heard responding to me. I thought maybe it was just a bad word, but it was very impolite of me to act that way.
I have since visted Itaewon, the foreign district in Seoul. On the sidewalks they have a greeting written in many different languages. Itaewon is right by the U.S. army base, so the bars we went to were filled with U.S. soldiers. The district has adapted to this so it was also interesting to see prostitutes dancing right alongside us. It's a really sketchy place, but we only saw a little of the nightlife. I would like to go back there and see what it is like during the daytime and when it's not raining. The whole place really is filled with foreigners, there are many Americans and Russians! I generally did not get a good feeling about it though.
Gangnam, Hongdae, and Sinchon are very popular nightlife areas as well. They are near the main universities in Seoul so there are many trendy shops, coffee places, and bars. This past weekend we went shopping in Sinchon, unfortunately though.. none of the shoes or jeans were big or long enough. Yasmin, one of my friends from Germany succeeded in buying a pair of sneakers, but I think it's really a miracle. We also all got a pair of black stockings because if you don't wear them with your skirts and heels here, you are defintely uncool :-). In Gangnam, we went to a Brazilian Steakhouse named Mercado. It was all you can eat steak for 25,000 KRW... probably so cheap because the beef is from China.
Last weekend 25 of us went to Yeongdeok on the Japan/East Sea (depending on if you are Korean or not the name changes). It is a small port town known for its snow crab about four and a half hours to the East of Seoul. We went on a short tour around the area and saw one of the popular beaches, many windmills, a lighthouse, and a folk village. We also went crab semi-fishing (they put 200 almost dead crabs in a big pool and about 80 of us had to fish them out). Our group caught around 21 crabs so we had them boiled and ate them. We weren't provided with any utensils or plates or anything, so we just used our hands and ate them like that on a table, making a huge mess. We all ended up smelling like crab and soju by the end. During the fishing, the announcer kept saying we were from SNU and I can't even imagine how many pictures were taken of us. We were like the showcase of the festival, I wouldn't be surprised if were are in the paper for the last week. There were many performances at night, including traditional percussion, singing, geishas, and a pop band. It culminated in fireworks in the rain. We stayed in a minbak--which was just three rooms in a small house attached to a seafood restaurant with only blankets and pillows. The room I was in had a bed so three of us shared it, but everyone else slept on the heated ondong (floor). The temperature was set so high I think the owners were trying to boil us like lobsters. I turned the heated bed off in the middle of the night but by then it was too late. We were all really cramped and wet from the rain, so the place took an interesting odor. In the morning we caught the sunrise and walked around the town. The owner woke up and made us a fresh fish soup, it was absolutely delicious (although not everyone shared this opinion).
After breakfast, the group split up. Most people went back to Seoul, but we went to Andong (three hours east of Seoul) and Hahoe Folk Village. Andong is a very small version of Seoul, but much more traditional. We also got some great stares here. The folk village is supposed to be the most famous in Korea because the Ryu clan has been living there for 600 years--since the Chosen dynasty. It is next to a river and surrounded by mountains. The cherry blossoms and golden bells started blooming in Andong (a couple weeks before Seoul is in bloom) and it was around 70 degrees. We caught a traditional mask dance, which was really weird and i'm not sure how I feel about it, but the area in general was beautiful and the wooden masks were scary looking. We did not have enough time to explore it and I kind of want to go back and look through it more thoroughly. The houses are still all very traditional and the clan makes their money through what seems like agriculture and tourism.
During the trip I tried a Bulgogi Burger at Lotteria--Korea's version of McDonald's so kind of familiar but with a weird twist. Bulgogi is a dish with beef that is kind of sweet and is sometimes in a soup or just with rice. It's really good, but as a burger it didn't do it for me. We made it home sunday night via bus.. the eighth bus we had taken that weekend. They are pretty easy to get around with, but it's tough to have to keep transfering all the time. We had a couple of Korean speakers with us the whole time so it made everything very easy, but the trip we are planning for next week will not have any Koreans so we'll see if we come back!
This past weekend we also went to the Yangsam Electronics Market, which is a huge mall just filled with all kinds of crazy gadgets for rather cheap prices. We did some bartering in Korean (!!) and I think the things people bought were pretty good, but who knows. Communicating here is really hard. I was under the impression that people speak english in Seoul, but I haven't found that after being here for a month. Some people speak a little, but if i'm lost there's no help. We actually got lost for a good five hours two weekends ago looking for a supermarket, and ended up in some crazy place. We figured it out and made it home, but it wasn't a pleasant way to discover that we can't get around easily if we accidentally take the wrong bus. My Korean has been improving by leaps and bounds, but I don't know anything haha.
I have a big Korean Language midterm this next week so i'm going to stop distracting myself, but I figure that it's been a month.. I should post! I have left out a lot though so I need to fill in the gaps. Korea is so different from anything I've ever experienced, the culture here is really something. I'm having a great time though!
Until next time,
Kristina
