Five keys to my apartment, but only one key to my heart

This weekend was one hundred percent ROLLERCOASTER. First, I organized a little group of Mormons to go to the Hi! Seoul Festival. I couldn't miss a festival that promises me that there will be, "two types of pleasures, to see with your eyes or to feel with your body are vivid!" and asks the question "Would you fall into an ecstasy right now." Why, yes. Yes I would fall into an ecstasy, thank you for asking even though you chose not to use a question mark. The guidebook also notes that there will be "Pleasure for your eyes: To enjoy the programs with a shout of joy or a easy handclap!" Remember that ecstasy thing? It's happening.

This is the main stage at Yeouido. I know you don't know where Yeouido is, and you probably don't care, but I want to remember it so I can tell my grandchildren and since I'm sure this blog will be around forever...

This is the lighted Boat Parade located at the main stage on the Han River. The guidebook says, " The lighted Boat Parade to reveal its gorgeous appearance at the opening ceremony". I saw it and it was gorgeous. Actually quite breathtaking. We tried to jump the fence to get a closer look, but there were police everywhere protecting the gorgeousness.

What's a festival without food? A FESTIVAL I WILL NOT ATTEND. Luckily Hi Seoul had vendors with lots of korean food including, Bundaegi (mealworms). Steering clear of the worms, we thought we ordered chicken only to discover (thanks to our two Korean speaking girls...) that we actually ordered some kind of spicy intestines. That's what we get for just pointing and saying "nae" (which means "yes".) We didn't have to eat them luckily and instead opted for the chewy corn...imagine corn on the cob boiled for 1 hour. Korea and corn have an interesting relationship that I will have to delve into at another time.

This is the group...From left to right...Diana, Denice, Nate, KaRyn, RANDOM DRUNK AUSSIE LESBIAN WHO WANTED TO BUY ME A DRINK AND RAN AS FAST AS SHE COULD WHEN SHE FOUND OUT WE WERE ALL MORMON BUT NOT SO FAST THAT SHE ISN'T IN LIKE, EVERY GROUP PICTURE, Maureen and Nari.

I got interviewed by Arirang TV...And you won't believe this but this is my SECOND time on Korean television in the 2 short months that I have been here. The saddest part about this interview was that she asked what I thought of the festival's attempt to unite the old and the new in korea and I said something like this, "yeah, I think it's totally, like, really, you know, good and stuff. I mean, there's boats, and stuff and people and I think I almost ate chicken intestines and yeah." Dear America, I'm so sorry. Forgive me. NB

The evening ended with the most intense fireworks display I have ever witnessed. I am not kidding. It was so intense that it warranted Ooooos and Ahhhhhs from even the most hardened chicken intestine eating Koreans. And that is why I have chosen to post a gratuitous fireworks display on my blog. Perhaps it will help you understand.

It was so good, beautiful, awe-inspiring that we didn't want to miss anything even long enough to take a photo. That's why you should all come to Korea.
Saturday morning I headed to school for my last Saturday Art class (she says with a sigh of relief). I'm really glad to see it end even if making puppets and puppet theaters is great fun. It will be really nice to have my weekend back.

Now for the part about the keys. So I have ONE key to my dorm room and it's on a makeshift keychain because should you really have a whole chain for one key? At any rate, I've been thinking that I would have a real problem if ever I lost the key and since this is one of my great talents (losing things, especially of the metal door-opening variety) I thought that I should get a second key made. I didn't do it fast enough and even if I did, it wouldn't have helped me in this situation. I left my key at the school in Bundang, 1 hour by bus away from my house. Go back and get it? Aniyo. Andwiyo. (no. impossible.) the school is locked and I don't have a key because I lost that key too. (don't worry lumi, I found it, but man, I should not be allowed to touch keys). So I got home, realized my mistake minutes after my cell phone DIED containing most of the phone numbers of people who could help me. The front desk guy and I came to an impass of language pretty quickly and I turned around with tears in my eyes and said "HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO DO THIS? IT's IMPOSSIBLE."

I went upstairs, laid down my bags, sat in the hallway and let myself cry for one minute. Then I made a plan. I had one number that I had written on my korean flash cards for my friend JiHyun. I was meeting up with Brian R who had come up from Pusan and luckily we had connected before the phone died...so I called JiHyun from B's phone and she came all the way to my apartment and translated for me and bargained with the locksmith (who said that he only gave me a deal because she was pretty) and stayed until 60,000 won and five new door keys later, I had a new deadbolt. The moral of the story: Really, nothing is impossible if you have good friends. I am really lucky to have met some VERY COOL koreans who are so willing to help me. AND though things seem dramatically harder here sometimes, I am really actually happy! And I showed that happiness as one is supposed to by eating yummy Thai food and singing Alanis Morrisette in the VIP room at the Noraebang place in Hongdae.

Satisfied Noraebang Sigh. Sunday was nice. I made some very exciting contacts for the Sixteen Stones Foundation (my pet project has a name!!!) and we have district conference next week. Let's hope for more adventures! Lumina comes home this week!

Pansori

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Xn4E-90MA0

I still don't know how to copy cool things and put them here, so here is a weird link to some Ponsori...traditional korean opera/folk storytelling. Last night I went to a performance at the Korean Traditional Cultural Center (or something like that) with my friend Heather. We listened to music that was representative of traditional folk music from the North, Central and Southern regions of Korea...all of which are different. Lucky for me, Heather has a Ph.D. from Columbia in Ethnomusicology and did her thesis on the change in Korean traditional music with the onslaught of westernization in Korea. Let me tell you, this is the way to see a show in another language...Heather was able to debrief me on the style of pansori singing (you'll notice that it sounds a little like that old lady in the back row of the chapel who can't control her vibrato). What we listened to was more choral singing with a bit of pansori thrown in.

I'll be honest. I enjoyed the performance, but I'm not rushing to itunes in search of the latest Ponsori! HITZ! anytime soon. I think I mostly enjoyed it from an academic standpoint. I am happy to report that it reignited the curiosity that I once had in college about the connection of music and culture. At one point, while a 5th generation pansori singer was doing his thing on stage, he was emoting and people were shouting back from the audience and I thought I was in a Philadelphia black Baptist church. Call and Response is popular in the southern style of Korean music. It made me want to do a comparitive study of jazz and asian culture. ok, not that badly, but it was interesting.

And the hanbok(traditional korean dress) is soooo beautiful. I want one! Stella said she would take me to someone who could make one for me...they cost about $300 and most women get them when they get married. We'll see about that.

You Say Potato, I Say "맛있어요!"

There must have been a deal on potatoes because this week has been a never ending potato suprise at 찬의학교.

First there was monday's snack, boiled potatoes.
Then there was tuesday's snack, potato and cabbage sandwiches ( I can't make this stuff up).
Wednesday- sweet potatoes in some sort of brown gravy for lunch.
And today? Potato sticks with sesame oil at lunch and sweet potatoes drenched in corn syrup for snack.

This potato extravaganza comes hot on the tail of a recent realization that Korea is kind of like a brand new baby in many ways...including nutrition. Up until recently, potatoes and pig were main staples of the Korean diet. I just learned the other day that most of my coworkers did not have hot water growing up. And I discovered most unfortuitously, that not all bathrooms have toilets...(thanks for the headsup on the whole squat to pee thing, angie!) I live in an old part of seoul with very dirty streets and old women selling weird pig parts in the alley ways...so I don't know why this information about "old Korea" (just 10 years ago!) comes as such an unbelievable shock. The Seoul I KNOW is totally modern...with most conveniences and the ones that are missing, completely forgiveable. But I'm starting to understand a few things...

Like the love/hate relationship Korea has with western culture. And the eery twilight zone "little america" that we call Base. I went to the US Embassy housing on sunday for a church fireside and literally almost lost it. Within the little gates of itaewon was something resembling Shangrila. You could smell the BBQ and hear the lawn mowers whirling. There was a large commissary that had an odd resemblence to a Wal*mart and dinner consisted of Green Jello and Turkey Dinner Casserole cooked in a (nearly-mystical-in-korea) oven. There was a discussion among we foreigners who live outside the castle gates. It went something like this, as we took off our shoes and walked/danced upon the manicured lawns of our compatriots...

NB: "Doesn't this kind of creep you out?"
Foreigner Friend Who Has Been Here Longer: "Yeah, it looks just like California."
NB: "It kind of makes me sad. They've come all the way from the U.S. and don't really get to experience Korean culture."
FFWHBHL: "Yeah. Hey, do you think they'll let us have some of their barbeque?"
NB: "I mean, Korea is beautiful and has a lot to offer...OH MY GOSH, is that a trampoline? DUDE, I'm so jumping on that trampoline...right after I stop at the wal*mart to buy some gum that doesn't taste like watered down grape juice..."

What can I say. I like trampolines. OK enough musing. Time for work.

Ninny Beth Goes To The Joo

What is the Joo you ask? Well, if you put your tongue behind your upper teeth and make the sound a bee makes and then add the short "O" sound, you have a place where animals live in self-contained habitats usually far away from their actual homes...but if you are in Korea, you don't know how to make that sound (the one with the teeth thing) so you go see animals at the joo. And you wear a uniform while doing so. Here is my coworker Erica modelling the proposed Creativity School teacher fieldtrip uniform. Please note the embroidered tan drawstring pants. They say, "Bees make honey." Also note that I do not have said pants because here in Korea I require pants of the XXXXXXL variety. Perhaps because of this reason, oh yeah and the fact that they are horrifically ugly even by cute korea standards, we dispensed with the pants and the horrific striped grandma button up and stuck with the not-as-terrible-but-still-moderately-gross red windbreaker.So, the "Joo" is actually in Seoul Grand National Park which I was so pleased to discover! It's beautiful and houses and zoo and amusement park and some other stuff that I'm sure is very nice. The cherry blossoms were still in bloom and I finally felt like I had seen them in their full glory.

Here are two of my "oranges"...the cutest kids on the planet. On the left is SneakyD as I like to call her...if you leave her alone for two seconds, you will be sorry, but she's still painfully adorable. And the little guy on the right is about as sweet as they come. He likes to dance and makes the funniest faces without being prompted. My kind of guy!

As you can imagine, trying to get these kidlets to line up in an orderly fashion is a 30 minute affair. What I wasn't expecting on this fieldtrip was the sheer number of other schools who came to see the anemic caged animals of dubious origin. BTW. Seoul Zoo = sad looking animals in weird habitat exhibits....just a warning.


HEHE. This picture of D and A makes me giggle. I think that's a smile. Or gas. I think it's a smile though because we're on the elephant tram and one can't help but smile on the elephant tram.Here I am. Do you think I look like Drew Barrymore? Do you want to shake my hand? Do you touch me and then hold your hand to your body as though you have just touched something so sacred and special that you can't possibly stand it? Do you want me to say "Hi friend" to you? Well, then you are just like approximately 30 highschool students that we encountered at the joo. That's right. I got mobbed by a bunch of kids who acted like I had just stepped out of a limo instead of the monkey house trailing ten teeny hopping kindergarteners in bright yellow sweatsuits. I think it was the mysterious black glasses and unflattering camera angle.

An attempt at a photo. Sadly the "beautiful" dlophin fountain chose that moment to explode. I am also sad (or maybe happy) to report that this fountain held the kids interest much longer than the caged animals of dubious origins.

Lunchtime was an event worth writing about. Instead of picnic tables they have these sort of platforms where you take off your shoes and sit to eat. Remember when you were a kid on school fieldtrips and you couldn't wait to eat lunch because you got a capri-sun and some special sort of sandwich and snack? It's no different in Korea. You should have seen the crap these kids were packing in.....I mean, entire boxes of chocolate crackers and cookies and candy. One of my students had this crazy water with a picture of a corn cob on the outside. In disbelief, I made him let me taste it because SURELY this was not water with the essence of CORN...but dear friends...it was. Corn Water. And they were drinking it up with the fervor one usually reserves for a grape hug jug.
And there was the Korean version of the sandwich. Kimbap. YUM! Looks like a sushi roll, but it's not...quite... It's like a drier version without raw fish. Usually seaweed and rice wrapped around carrots, cucumbers, egg and maybe beef or tuna. Almost every child brought kimbap. I don't know what I was expecting, but there was not a sandwich in the crowd.One of these things just doesn't belong here. One of these things just isn't the same. Let's see...A fruit salad: Melon, strawberries and ....TOMATOES? One of the truly perplexing elements of Korean food. How did the cherry tomato become a straight, no questions asked, FRUIT? I get that it's TECHNICALLY a fruit but so are many vegetables. This said, I ate them and enjoyed them immensly as desert.

Ok, that's the end of the fieldtrip pics. I didn't take very many because my camera died halfway through the day as it is wont to do. I don't think it has very much to do with the fact that I have to slap it ever so gently to get the screen to work...do you?

Yesterday, I went to costco. It took me 4 hours. I repeat, 4 hours. But I came away with tortillas,cheese, sour cream, cheese, salsa, cheese, salad, cheese. I am now plagued with the question: At what point do I just give up on the whole "I'll travel the world to get some taco seasoning and a veggie burger" thing...It's expensive ($20 for a box of instant oatmeal?) and not really that healthy for me in the long run. My quest for western food has recently sent me to the ends of Seoul by bus and taxi and afterwards, I always feel bloated and disappointed...In fact, the best meal I had all week was Vietnamese Pho. I think I will devote no more saturdays for a while to the quest for sour cream and just explore what's here. I can do it.

PS. My mom and dad rock. Thanks for taking such good care of me.

Listening to Nina Simone RIGHT NOW

It's Cherry Blossom season!!!!! This is the view from my class room window. Sadly, this the closest I have been to the cherry blossoms this year...I have no real excuse...maybe I resent them because I have had a sinus infection since I got here and I'm pretty sure it's their fault? I'll try to get better pictures this weekend even though it's almost time for their demise into full on green leaves. I LOVE SUMMER!!!!!!

Now to some business...It's been brought to my attention that I don't post enough...I don't have much in the way of exciting pictures to post these days because I'm venturing out on my own so much and frankly, it's a little harder to take pictures of korean people on the streets without another foreigner there to back you up. I had this imaginary experience once on the subway when I really wanted to take a picture of this girl's crazy (and I mean crazy) 5 sparkly bow hair do...I imagined taking the picture only to have her boyfriend get in my face screaming something in korean and knock the camera out of my hand all the while moving me closer and closer to the doors which open just in time for him to push me out, falling into a large crowd of tiny korean business men who lack the upper body strength to catch my average american frame. So yeah. The blog is a little sparse...but if you can promise not to be mad at the lack of pictures, I will start writing more.

Now, for the interesting news of the day. Someone BARFED on the bus this morning. The culprit was gone by the time I got on, but they left a nice trail of vomit all over the seat with the wheel hump. The worst part about it was the smell and the fact that there was this trail of watery stuff all over the floor of the bus. The best part about it was the fact that I missed the trail of watery stuff AND it was kind of funny to see everyone get on the bus (which is usually really crowded) and perk up at the seemingly EMPTY 2 seats near the back only to be rudely greeted by the seat's true occupant. I had this horrible flashback of the time when I was in junior high and we all went to Knoebels amusement park...I jumped into the seat of that ride that flies you up into the air at an angle, pulled the bar down, rode the ride with much glee and amusement (it was an amusement park after all) and upon getting off realized that I had been sitting in vomit. Not a pleasant moment and I'm surprised to report, still not a pleasant memory.

At any rate, it's not so odd that someone had trouble keeping it down on this bus. A week or so ago, I was forced to stand the whole way to work. I fell asleep standing up only to be jerked awake by the bus stopping abruptly in the middle of a highway. My head hit the pole in front of me and I accidently smacked my forehead into the "stop" button which makes a loud beep sound to alert the driver that someone wants to get off. In the middle of stretch of highway with no bus stop. That was me.Saturday night I went with some friends to a jazz club in Hongdae (the college town area of seoul). Club Evans... I wanted to get all dressed up in case they called me out of the audience and asked me to sing...

They didn't, but I felt cute enough to have my friend Young Ji ask around the club about opportunities to sing. Evidently, I am not allowed to have a paying gig at a club in Korea (without a special visa) but I can come sing at the Jam Session on Mondays. Hmmmm...we'll see about that.

Look at me MOM!!!! I'm a long haired girl!!!!

Thinking of Salt Lake

A little something came in the mail from my DARLING friends in SLC... ...
How's a nice Korean girl like me supposed to get over Salt Lake if I stare at this place every night as I fall asleep? I thought about keeping it in my office so that I could gaze at the GSLSP while I am stuck in a suburban highrise but then I thought maybe it would exacerbate feelings of job dissatisfaction when I'd had a particularly stressful teaching day. And so it came home with me and here it is...THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU Kody, for sending it all this way. THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU to everyone who made my work at The Nature Conservancy so amazingly rewarding. In all honesty, I have had those days when I wonder what kind of crack I was smoking when I resigned and left TNC...a 35 hour work week, flex time, benefits, rock star coworkers whom I adored and volunteers and friends who gave their everything to this work that really made a difference...All I can say is that my heart will always be with you all. Wah Wah Wah!!!!

OH YEAH...and Carl and Charelle's wedding announcement! Hooorah! I know I'm too far to actually come, but it meant the world to me that you sent it this far, guys....thanks.

If you can't tell, I'm a little home hungry. If you are feeling generous, shoot me a message. I want to hear the gossip!

Culture Shock: Stage 2

I've moved a lot in my life...so I recognize this pattern but it's a little different in another country as opposed to another state. There are 5 stages of culture shock. When I first read about them, I thought...yeah, that won't happen to me. I'm cool. I'm down. I'm hip.

That was during phase one: The honeymoon phase.

Everything was exciting and scary in that sort of adrenaline rush sense of scary.

Now I think I've hit phase two: denial.

I'm starting to feel isolated by the cultural divide. I still like living here, but I notice the cracks on the sidewalk and I'm becoming really really really frustrated by my lack of ability to communicate. Lumina is in India and I miss her. I spend most nights home alone because it takes so long to get anywhere. I paid 8 dollars for a tub of sour cream. I eat dinner with Koreans who all speak in Korean to each other and all I can do is comment YET AGAIN on how delicious the food is and how pretty my friends are. The novelty has worn off. I called my mom. She told me to practice my Korean more. She's right. But what she doesn't understand is that the sounds are so foreign to my tongue. I feel like I'm talking with big jello cubes in my mouth. And when I do talk, it's just cute. not serious. and usually wrong. kkkk..kweupta. I have things to say, damnit! I'm funny and substantive and a little too intense for my good.

Sigh. So after a good long weep fest on saturday where I rode out to the school (the fact that I have to teach all day saturday this month is not helping) with my sunglasses on, I decided to try again. Maybe that's how seoul will be for a little while...like the gospel. I have to rechoose it every day. Everyday I have to wake up and say, it's not too hard and if it is, I can start over tomorrow....

Then I made sock puppets with the kids...

And wandered the streets around my house. I found this old bell tower that caught my fancy (my flash was being weird..t.he pictures are pretty dark)

I ate a creepy corndog-like meat product with sweet ketchup on it from a vendor, bought a cheap but cute little notebook for new vocabulary words and then watched a dance production in insadong right near my house.

I prayed to see things with new eyes and it worked. I still felt lonely, but I realized that there is beauty everywhere. I felt truly like Heavenly Father had let me see it just to comfort me. And in a fit of unrestrained committment to my new life in Korea.... I defrosted my freezer. I'm staying, Seoul...and I'm going to need to freeze things.

Finally A Post That Isn't About Food

Dear Brothers and Sisters, here we have the Seoul Temple. I wish I could put this building into context for you, but my camera doesn't span that wide. This temple is a little oasis in the middle of a bustling, crowded, 40 story high city. You walk up this alley and there it is. Manicured gardens, moroni in the middle of seoul. I was too winded from hiking up subway stairs and then dodging garbage on the city street to really be blown away by the spirit of the place, but looking at it now, I am reminded of the safety and beauty that I felt there. I've wanted to come here since I arrived in seoul, but finally was able two saturdays ago. thank goodness for temples. Universal houses of God.
And then I came here...Lena will think it's funny that my new hair salon is called Salon Zen. I came here because Johnny and Lucy studied in London. The only girl I've met in Korea with blond hair that wasn't sort of orange said that johnny did it. So I came. They have things all over the wall that say, "Zen is feeling". Oh yes, Zen is feeling. Zen is patient. Zen does not rush. Zen washes your hair 3 times and puts you under a cap-thingy that blows steam out of your head like a cartoon. Zen takes four hours of your saturday. Zen takes 125,000 of your won. Zen is feeling like your hair still looks orange. Actually it turned out ok, but so much for cheap and sassy in Korea. I guess if I'm going to stay blonde, I will just have to get used to it.

As for the rest of the week...Walking home from work, I stopped to listen to some acoustic music on my street. A girl came over and handed me a candle in a cup and suddenly I was a participant in a Seoul Peace Rally. I could have been really moved, (because I'm all for peace, you know?) but the two guys with the punk rock hair singing "How many loads must a man walk down...the answer my flend is blowing in the rind" just made me giggle. I eventually trapped another bewildered onlooker with the charge of the burning candle and went into that GS mart and bought tortilla chips and white bread. How american.
This is my friend Pamela and do you see what's in that picture with sweet pamela? Those are scrunchies. Lots and Lots of scrunchies. Walls of scrunchies. Bejeweled scrunchies. bedazzled scrunchies. Rainbow scrunchies. Flowered scrunchies. And do you know what the people around us were doing? BUYING SCRUNCHIES AND WEARING SCRUNCHIES. They're not just for trailer parks in korea...business women wear scrunchies. Korea is this weird mix of HIGH HIGH Fashion and 1992 rejects. I broke down and bought a hair clip with butterflies on it for use around my house. Let's just hope it stops there.