Sunday, August 27, 2006
Some Random Pictures...
You know what? This weekend was pretty quiet! Sam and I did some Christmas shopping yesterday in Insadong, which is a cute part of Seoul that has tons of street vendors and little shops selling Korean arts and crafts. Awesome area to visit...anyone who comes to see us, we promise we'll take you there (if that isn't insentive to come, I don't know what is!!). Today Sam and I made a trip in to Costco to stock up on some fabulous North American food...here's the best part: Sam figured out a bus route that has a stop almost directly outside of Costco's front door - no more long walks with heavy bags for us!!
So, because there were no "adventures" to write about, I thought I'd share some ramdom pictures, that otherwise might not have made it on to the blog. Enjoy!
This is what Sam and I call a "squattie" toilet. Probably 80% of the bathroom stalls offer this kind of set-up. At first glance, you're probably thinking, "There is no way I would use that!"...and I admit that I thought that at first too. However, I am now a huge fan and advocate for the squattie toilet...seems much more sanitary to me...no need to sit where everyone else has already been!
This is one of Sam's favourite past-times! Some of the restaurants here have showcases that hold plastic replicas of the foods they offer. We all know that Sam loves his food...and he loves looking at all the options that he could order. I think I took this picture during his second time of looking through the display case...yep, both times on the same day :0)
This is one of the newest additions to our growing list of things we know how to order. Just ordered it for the first time yesterday - dalk bokki. It's so good. The long things that look like penne noddles are actually pounded rice. There's egg in there, and spaghetti noodles, plus some kind of flat noodle, and some kind of meat. It's the sauce that's to die for...delicious!
Here's Sam on the streets of Osan. It's really cool to go for a walk at night because of all the neon signs...really lights up the sky!!
Here I am on one of the side streets of Insadong. We took this picture because there's a Baskin Robbins down this alley (the "31 Flavours" sign is the pink circle that's behind my head...the picture's a little small, so you can't really see it). I thought it was random that Baskin Robbins would set up shop down such a skinny, random street!
The Experience of Banking in Korea
Banking in Korea is not just an errand...it's an experience!!
The number one best thing about our bank is that our teller's name is Don Ki (pronounced "Donkey")...tell me, where else would it be kosher to call your bank teller Donkey without receiving nasty comments and really poor service? Exactly...our bank is awesome!
We have a bank account here with KB Bank. The other day, Sam and I went in to transfer money home, and Don Ki immediately thanked us - as he ALWAYS does - for choosing KB. We were then treated to little cups of coffee while we waited. That's when the gifts started rolling in. Banking here does take longer then banking at home, but it seems like the number of gifts you receive from the bank is directly related to how long you wait! For example, when we opened our account 2 months ago, it took some time, but not too long...so we received a bottle of shampoo and a bottle of conditioner. The money transfer we did took a bit longer, so we received two big containers of dish-soap, and some zip-loc bags. Then, Don Ki realized that the transfer would take even longer then he thought, so he threw in a map of Korea. The best thing is how the gifts were presented. Don Ki came up to us and said, "I have gift for Sam and Rebecca"...and then proceeded to show us each thing the bank was offering. Once we had ewwed and awwed over them a bit, he pulled out a KB Bank gift bag and carefully placed our "gratitude" items into it, before presenting it to us with a flourish.
I love that the gifts are so practical...Sam and I will never have to buy dish-soap again...we're covered for the next 10 months! The zip-locs are great! As for the map, it's all in Korean, but it's the thought that counts right?
Here I am, modeling the gifts we received from the bank.
The number one best thing about our bank is that our teller's name is Don Ki (pronounced "Donkey")...tell me, where else would it be kosher to call your bank teller Donkey without receiving nasty comments and really poor service? Exactly...our bank is awesome!
We have a bank account here with KB Bank. The other day, Sam and I went in to transfer money home, and Don Ki immediately thanked us - as he ALWAYS does - for choosing KB. We were then treated to little cups of coffee while we waited. That's when the gifts started rolling in. Banking here does take longer then banking at home, but it seems like the number of gifts you receive from the bank is directly related to how long you wait! For example, when we opened our account 2 months ago, it took some time, but not too long...so we received a bottle of shampoo and a bottle of conditioner. The money transfer we did took a bit longer, so we received two big containers of dish-soap, and some zip-loc bags. Then, Don Ki realized that the transfer would take even longer then he thought, so he threw in a map of Korea. The best thing is how the gifts were presented. Don Ki came up to us and said, "I have gift for Sam and Rebecca"...and then proceeded to show us each thing the bank was offering. Once we had ewwed and awwed over them a bit, he pulled out a KB Bank gift bag and carefully placed our "gratitude" items into it, before presenting it to us with a flourish.
I love that the gifts are so practical...Sam and I will never have to buy dish-soap again...we're covered for the next 10 months! The zip-locs are great! As for the map, it's all in Korean, but it's the thought that counts right?
Here I am, modeling the gifts we received from the bank.Sunday, August 20, 2006
Biking ???
This weekend Sam and I were in the mood for a little exercise. A few of our friends had told us about a place by the Jamsil subway station where you could rent a bike for free - you just have to leave a piece of ID behind as collateral. Biking sounded perfect!
We headed out in the early afternoon...around 2 or so. We knew the route to Jamsil required 3 different trains...the dark blue line, with a transfer to the light blue line, and a transfer to the green line. Now, I know you're thinking that since we've been in Korea now for almost two months, we should be getting pretty good at taking the subway, right? Wrong!! Yesterday we learned about the difference that the letter "e" makes. For example, "Sincheon" and "Sinchon" are not the same place, even though they look the same when you don't understand the word anyways and are just glancing at it as you run to the next train! Unfortunately, we got on the green line heading towards "Sinchon" when we really wanted to be heading the other direction towards "Sincheon". After about 8 stops we realized that the station names weren't matching the names on our little guide (we're pretty quick, eh - only took us 8 stops)...and finally figured out that we had to get off and head back the way we had come. Here's the sad part of the story - about 45 to 50 minutes after getting on the wrong train we finally arrived at the right station, ran up the stairs to get outside, and found that...the bike rental stands had already closed for the day!!
We headed out in the early afternoon...around 2 or so. We knew the route to Jamsil required 3 different trains...the dark blue line, with a transfer to the light blue line, and a transfer to the green line. Now, I know you're thinking that since we've been in Korea now for almost two months, we should be getting pretty good at taking the subway, right? Wrong!! Yesterday we learned about the difference that the letter "e" makes. For example, "Sincheon" and "Sinchon" are not the same place, even though they look the same when you don't understand the word anyways and are just glancing at it as you run to the next train! Unfortunately, we got on the green line heading towards "Sinchon" when we really wanted to be heading the other direction towards "Sincheon". After about 8 stops we realized that the station names weren't matching the names on our little guide (we're pretty quick, eh - only took us 8 stops)...and finally figured out that we had to get off and head back the way we had come. Here's the sad part of the story - about 45 to 50 minutes after getting on the wrong train we finally arrived at the right station, ran up the stairs to get outside, and found that...the bike rental stands had already closed for the day!!
Sam at the closed and "locked down" bike rental booths.
Fortunately, Sam and I would never let a little something like getting lost and finding closed and locked bike rental stands ruin our day, so we decided to explore that part of the city. We saw some cool things...there was an amusement park on an island, so we watched the rides for awhile. We'll probably go back and ride them sometime! Then we walked around this great little lake, which just so happened to be date central! Everywhere we looked we saw couples on the park benches...the girl sitting up, and the guy lying on the bench with his head resting on his girlfriend's lap while she played with his hair. So, we did that for awhile so we could fit in with the locals! We found a Burger King and splurged on burgers and fries for dinner, which was fabulous (sidenote: here's a great thing about Asia - the serving sizes at fast food places are smaller...the fries are small, the drinks are small, and the burgers are small...so you don't leave feeling like you've got gut rot from all the grease...end of sidenote).
We found this pretty pagoda when we were walking around the lake.
We had just decided to head back to the subway station, when we started to feel a few sprinkles of rain...perfect timing! The subway ride was pretty uneventful on the first two trains...it was when we were waiting for our last train that the "fun" began. We were approached by a short, drunk man who wanted to practice his English on us. We get this everywhere we go - adults want to see if we understand them, teens want to see if we'll talk back, and parents want their kids to say "hi", just so they know that the English lessons they're paying for are actually doing some good! Anyways, this man walks up to us and asked us where we're from. We told him and then he started talking away (we understood probably 1 out of every 10 words), telling us about how his "English is very short" (we think he meant that he didn't speak a lot), and that "comnication" was his big problem (communication?). He said he knew American movies, and that Sam looked just like Jim Carrey, and I looked exactly like Meg Ryan (which I thought was hilarious...I love hearing who people think we look like!). Our train finally came, and it was obvious that he was waiting for us to get on so that he could follow and continue the conversation. With quick thinking, we started walking towards one entrance, allowed him to get on first, and then turned and got on another car. Once aboard, we quickly ran through two more crowded cars, until we had a good 3 cars between us and him. It was good for everyone - we had a nice peaceful ride, and he found someone else to talk to (when we got off at Osan we saw him through a window, chatting away with someone else). All in all - a great Saturday!
Tuesday, August 15, 2006
The "Black Market"
Today was a holiday - August 15th - Korea's "Independence from Japan" day - so we had the day off from school. Unfortunately, nothing "holidayish" was happening in Osan (besides a few Korean flags hung from windows), so Sam and I decided to make our own holiday fun, and headed into Songtan (2 subway stops down from Osan...the little town right near the U.S. air base). We had heard that there was a "black market" of sorts in Songtan...with tons of American items that had been smuggled off of the army base. With visions of "Dr. Pepper" and "oatmeal" in our heads, we started wandering through the streets.
This is near where we entered the elusive "Black Market" district. Not all of the shops sold contraband...this shope had tons of cool Korean dishes for sale. Not sure what they were, but they were neat to look at.
We also stumbled across a fabulous looking karaoke club...the only one I've seen where you can actually sing AND song!!
Here's Sam surrounded by many foods that we haven't seen in awhile! There were hotdogs, Cheetos, Ruffles, Dr. Pepper, tons of American candy, and even oatmeal. What did we buy, you ask? Absolutely nothing...hard to believe, I know! The oatmeal was ridiculously expensive, and we couldn't justify buying it. And as for the Dr. Pepper, we decided that Sam would buy some for my birthday...so if we had some today, it wouldn't be as special. We both agreed, though, that even though we didn't buy and eat anything, it was great to just SEE things from home, and know that they're only a short subway ride away!
Food
Sam and I wanted to show you some of our favourite foods over here. Honestly, Korean food is awesome! The more we try, the more we like!
This is dolsot bibimbap. It comes in a ceramic bowl that is pipping hot! It has a raw egg on top of it, but as you stir it all together, the ceramic bowl cooks the egg...very inventive, eh! It's tasty, and FUN to eat!! This dish has rice, beansprouts, lettuce, "little brown sticks" (we don't know what they are), carrot, and egg in it. They put a great red hot sauce on it too. Very delicious!
This is kimbap...I think I've mentioned it before in other blog entries. Like a sushi roll, but without the raw fish. It has rice, egg, carrot, spam (surprisingly ok tasting), some kind of grass, and another "brown" thing that is unidentifiable. All together, tastes great! The traditional kimbap also comes with a pickled radish in it, but we always point at the radish and make a "no" sign with our hands...don't really like the taste. A roll of kimbap only costs $1!! (I also wanted to show you in this picture how good I'm getting at using chopsticks) :0)
And here's Sam showing off his chopstick skills while eating Mandu...little dumplings. The ones on the left that are more reddish have kimchi in them (the spicy pickled cabbage that Korea is famous for). The ones on the right have meat in them. We like to get a box of each for a little variety. This was the first thing we learned how to order...we had it A LOT that first week!
And here's a dish of "sides" that come with every meal. Restaurants are awesome here...you go in, order your meat (which is all you pay for), and the waitress brings you lots of free side dishes to go with your meal. Usually they include kimchi, soup, different spicy vegetable dishes, rice pancakes...actually there are too many possibilites to name here. We're not exactly sure what everything on this plate is...the yellow things on the right are pickled radishes, and the red stuff on the left is kimchi...the other two things are "mystery sides". These sides are from the cheap little restaurant we like to go to, which is why there are only four, and they're all in one dish. A more expensive restaurant will bring lots and lots of little dishes to try!Sunday, August 06, 2006
Hiking!!
Sam and I are learning that it is impossible to "plan on" anything here! For example, as you know, a couple of weeks ago we "planned on" going on a 4 hour excursion to Costco - which turned into 8 hours! A week ago we "planned on" paying $20 for a meal, and ended up being charged $36 instead. Well, yesterday it happened again! We woke up to a beautiful Saturday morning (11:30 is still technically morning, right?)...blue sky, sun shining, humid as anything. We decided we'd go on a hike. It had been a long week of classroom confinement, so an adventure in the great outdoors was exactly what we needed! We had seen a map for a trail around "Seoul Grand Park" when we had been there a few weeks ago at the zoo. So, we decided that the 7.5 km path was perfect - we knew where it was and how to get there. We set out, and found that it was in fact so humid that we were sweating by the time we walked the 10 minutes to the subway station!
When we arrived at the park, we noticed that it was a bit clouded over in that part of Seoul - and a few little rain drops were falling...nothing major, just one every 10 seconds or so. We ate our kimbap that we had brought for lunch and set out to find our trail. Here's something interesting about hiking in Korea - it's mostly senior citizens who use the trails. We saw a total of two kids and two people our age while we were on the trail...the rest of the people we saw were definitely at least 55 or 60! And some of them were passing us!
We had a little confusion as to where our trail was, but after about 10 minutes we found a path that looked "hike-ish", figured that it had to be the one around the park, and decided to take it! It was great...beautiful scenery, a well kept and well marked trail to follow, and friendly people who responded to our "anyeong haseyo" (hello) as we passed them. After about an hour, the humidity was really taking its toll...we were both pretty much drenched in sweat...it was at the point where your energy level starts to wain. At that moment, what do we hear but thunder? I was in the middle of telling Sam how humidity can often cause "heat thunder" to occur even when a rainstorm isn't on its way (I'm pretty sure I've heard that somewhere before), when the first rainsdrops started to fall. And boy did they fall!! It became some of the hardest rain that I have ever been in, in my life! And did it ever feel good! The Korean hikers either whipped out an umbrella and continued hiking (who hikes with an umbrella?) or took cover under the trees. We considered taking cover under the trees, but seeing as it was a thunderstorm, decided that wasn't the safest plan of action, because we all know that thunder = lightning. Plus, the rain was exactly what we needed to refresh us. So, we kept on going. It felt like we were treking through the Brazilian rain forest - pouring down water, with beautiful green vegetation all around us. We decided that God had sent the rain at that moment cause he knew we needed it and that it would make us laugh (if you remember from a previous posting, the last time we were at Seoul Grand Park - at the zoo - it poured all day, and we weren't prepared for it then either!).
The rain eventually stopped, I rung out my shirt, and we kept on our way! We were absolutely drenched...not just wet - drenched...water was continually dripping off of us! The trail kept going up and up and up. Every so often we'd come to a little marker that had some Korean symbols on it and then a number - like 0.7 km. So we kept thinking we were almost back to our starting point. Then we'd walk the 0.7 km. and would come to another sign that said 1.5 km. Very confusing!! So we'd walk the 1.5 km. and come to a sign that said 1.2 km. (you get the point - lots of walking, lots of signs, then lots more walking). We did this for awhile, and then we started getting the feeling like something was wrong...it didn't feel like we were going "around" a park, it felt like we were going straight "away" from the park, and straight up a mountain. So we decided to try to ask other hikers where we were going. We'd point up the trail and say "Seoul Grand Park", and they'd nod and point in the direction we were going. That made us feel better for awhile, and then we realized that we still weren't getting anywhere (and 7.5 km had defnitely come and gone). So, we took more extreme measures and whipped out our "Survival Korean phrases" sheet, pointed to the Korean for "How do I get to..." and showed the hikers who passed us our subway map (the intent being that they would understand that we were trying to say "How do I get to the subway"...pretty clear, right? Wrong. Everyone that we tried our technique on kept pointing up the mountain, as if to say "To get to the subway station, keep going up the mountain"...we thought it was crazy, but figured it's their country, and they must know where the subway station is! What they really must have been thinking was, "I'm sure the foreigners want to see the view, otherwise why would they be out here?".
Well, we finally reached the look-out at the top of the mountain...and that was when we realized that we had a problem. We could see the zoo tent (which we thought we were heading around) far, far away in the distance. That's when we realized that the trail hadn't "felt" right because it WASN'T the right trail. At this point it was about 5:30 and we knew that there was no way we could hike back to the park before it got dark. Being the brilliant boy and girl scouts that we are, we had completely forgotten to bring anything "survival-ish"...no flashlight, no extra clothes, no matches...Nothing! We had a camera, a small pack of crackers, a frisbee, and our sunglasses.
At that moment, I turned to Sam and said, "What are we going to do?"...and 2 seconds later we heard a man say, "Can I help you with something?". It honestly feels like every single time we are completely lost or in a bad situation (both of which applied to this situation), God sends us someone who speaks English, and who can look at us and know that we have no idea what we're doing. With huge relief (it's always so nice to hear English!), we started asking the man how we could get back to Seoul Grand Park and to the subway. He was pretty surprised that we had hiked all the way from the park, and kept clarifying - "You came from Seoul Grand Park???". We were informed that there was no way we could make it back in time (which wasn't new information to us), and that the best thing would be to go back the way we had come for a little ways and then take a different trail out. I think he could tell from our blank stares that we had no idea where the path was that he was talking about, nor what to do once we were finally "out". So, he offered to lead us down!!
This was no small task...he led us for a good two hours...and boy did he ever walk fast! The Koreans are very sure-footed, and Sam and I were barely keeping up with him as he "ran" down the mountain. After the two hours, we came to a small town. He led us to a bus stop, told us to wait in the line and then ride the bus to Yangjae station, said his goodbyes (which included us thanking him profusely!!) and then was off on his way again. We took a 25 minute bus ride to the subway station, where we had to transfer from the orange line to the green line to the blue line to the purple line (which took about an hour and a half). We finally fell through the door of our apartment sometime after 9! What can we say? Just another brilliantly "planned" day in Korea!
I honestly felt like we were in Narnia at this point of our trip! We came up a small hill and found a lampost right in the middle of the forest. So random!
You can't really tell from this picture, but we were absolutely soaking wet when this was taken! The torrential downpour had just finished at this point. Lets just say it was the worst possible day to wear a white tanktop!
After walking FOREVER and not finding the end of our path we figured we must have walked to North Korea. Here's Sam pretending to cross the border into the North. (Note: we still have no idea why there was a double-fence guarded area with barbed wire on the top out in the forest!).
Here's Sam with Mr. Lee - the wonderful man who led us down the mountain and kept us from a night of "survival camping" in the Korean outback.
Just enjoying a fabulous "granola bar" break on the trail (sorry the pictures are out of order!).
