This past weekend some of my friends and I decided to go on a picnic in Suwon since they were predicting beautiful fall weather. So Saturday we all put on our sweaters and scarves and headed to e-mart to get our supplies. After spending way too much time wandering around e-mart we finally headed out to Suwon to the park. It turns out that there is a really beautiful park there with a little lake and we had a great day. The boys played some made up golf/mini soccer ball game and us girls had a great time eating bread and cheese and drinking wine. It was pretty much the perfect fall afternoon.
I kind of can't believe that fall is here already. In about a week and a half I will have been here for six months. When I was first deciding to come here committing to a year seemed like an eternity but now the time is flying by way too quickly and I'm already thinking about how soon it will be the end of my contract.
Oh, speaking of plans for the future - my Christmas plans are all made. I'm going to Bali! Originally the plan was to go to New Zealand with Patrick and another couple from my school (Katie and John) but by the time we got our act together the flights were all sold out. And they were kind of stupidly expensive anyways. So finally Patrick and I decided to go to Bali. Everything is all booked now an I'll be spending my first Christmas away from home on a beautiful beach. I think it should help ease the pain of missing Christmas at home. Gotta say though I was pretty sad this weekend knowing that it was turkey time at home and my thanksgiving dinner was galbi at the pig house. Oh well, c'est la vie.
So on that note. Happy thanksigiving!!! Hope you all had a great long weekend.
Monday, October 13, 2008
Saturday, September 20, 2008
Where in the world is Dongtan, South Korea? (Sung to the tune of Where in the world is Carmen Sandiego?)
So, here is Dongtan on a map in Google Earth. The photo was taken in December before it was built. Notice that I live in a hole according to this picture. Also, I work in a hole.
This is Dongtan with Seoul, so you can get an idea of where I am, relative to the big city.
And finally me in Korea as a whole.
Friday, September 19, 2008
Chuseok and the Second Fracture in a Year
Last night as I was walking home I fell off a curb I tried to laugh it off but my foot was pretty swollen and blue. This morning Patrick convinced me to go get my foot checked out and I was so glad I did because it turns out that I fractured my foot. Of course not the foot that I fractured in December, no this time it's the right one. Which is just awesome.
But the reason I'm writing about this is to say just how much I love going to the doctor here in Korea. The experience today was the polar opposite of the whole thing in December. I got to the doctors office, waited 20 minutes because he was on lunch. THen at 2 o'clock on the nose I was brought into his office. He took one look at my foot and sent me to have it x-rayed, 10 minutes later he had the results and sent me down the hall where I had some sort of electric paddle therapy thing (but not before he gave me an injection of pain killers). Then after a half hour i was brought back to his office where they fitted me for a walking cast. And gave me my prescription for a whole pile of mystery drugs. I LOVE the efficiency here. Oh, and the whole thing cost me $25 including the cast and the drugs. Awesome!
This past weekend was Chuseok, which is like Korean thanksgiving. Originally I wanted to go away somewhere but in the end Patrick and I decided to play tourist in Seoul and do all of the good stuff there that neither of us had gotten around to doing yet. And to make it even better I went and bought a nice new camera (mine got broken a couple of weeks ago) so I took like 300 photos. We stayed in Hongdae which is a cool university area, and we visited Gyeongbok palace on sunday and Changdeok palace on Monday. The palaces were both really cool, Changdeok was particularly cool because it has this huge secret garden and you also have to visit with a group tour. At first I was kind of annoyed by the group thing because I'd rather walk around alone but it ended up being good because it meant that there was only a limited number of people in there so you could actually get pictures without anyone in them. We also went up Namsan, a mountain in Seoul that has a big tower on top. It was the first time I got a good view of just how big Seoul is. It was a really great weekend. I'm going to link my photos when I get home. I'm at work right now and the picassa website is all in Korean, so I can't figure it out.
But the reason I'm writing about this is to say just how much I love going to the doctor here in Korea. The experience today was the polar opposite of the whole thing in December. I got to the doctors office, waited 20 minutes because he was on lunch. THen at 2 o'clock on the nose I was brought into his office. He took one look at my foot and sent me to have it x-rayed, 10 minutes later he had the results and sent me down the hall where I had some sort of electric paddle therapy thing (but not before he gave me an injection of pain killers). Then after a half hour i was brought back to his office where they fitted me for a walking cast. And gave me my prescription for a whole pile of mystery drugs. I LOVE the efficiency here. Oh, and the whole thing cost me $25 including the cast and the drugs. Awesome!
This past weekend was Chuseok, which is like Korean thanksgiving. Originally I wanted to go away somewhere but in the end Patrick and I decided to play tourist in Seoul and do all of the good stuff there that neither of us had gotten around to doing yet. And to make it even better I went and bought a nice new camera (mine got broken a couple of weeks ago) so I took like 300 photos. We stayed in Hongdae which is a cool university area, and we visited Gyeongbok palace on sunday and Changdeok palace on Monday. The palaces were both really cool, Changdeok was particularly cool because it has this huge secret garden and you also have to visit with a group tour. At first I was kind of annoyed by the group thing because I'd rather walk around alone but it ended up being good because it meant that there was only a limited number of people in there so you could actually get pictures without anyone in them. We also went up Namsan, a mountain in Seoul that has a big tower on top. It was the first time I got a good view of just how big Seoul is. It was a really great weekend. I'm going to link my photos when I get home. I'm at work right now and the picassa website is all in Korean, so I can't figure it out.
Sunday, August 24, 2008
The Perfect Korean Day
Yesterday was the perfect day in Korea. A bunch of us made plans to spend the day at the jim jil bang in Dongtan, so we all met up there around 1 or so and hung out until 7. First we spent about 2 hours in the baths, during which time us girls all also got the scrub. For the scrub basically this older Korean lady puts a brillo pad mitt on each hand and scrubs off the top layer of your skin. It takes about 20 minutes and is quite painful but the results are fantastic. I have never felt so soft or clean in my life. After we finished up in the baths we put on our funny little jim jil bang outfits and went upstairs into the coed section where we had lunch and then we all got massages for an hour or so. And then we hung out in the hot and cold rooms upstairs. The coolest part is that there's actually a little igloo up there. It's kind of great after spending so much time in hot saunas and baths. After dinner we went to the Pig House for galbi (Korean bbq) and soju of course and then we went out for some beer and eventually ended up at the norae bang. So all in all the day was pretty much the epitome of a great day in Korea.
Monday, August 4, 2008
Thailand
I just got back from my week in Thailand. It was a pretty great trip. It ended up being me and three other girls I've met since coming to Korea that went. We left early Saturday morning and flew to Bangkok, which is actually quite a bit further than I thought it was. If nothing else I'm learning some asian geography this year.
So anyways it was evening by the time we got into Bangkok. We went to our hotel which was pretty sweet considering we each paid about $20 a night for it. And then once Joanne and Troy got in we headed out for our one night in Bangkok. Unfortunately it was so late by the time that we ate and had a couple drinks that most things were closed. We did follow this one Thai guy all over the place because he promised us taht he could show us a good show, but eventually it was just getting too sketchy as he seemed to be leading us in circles so we all jumped into cabs and ran away.
The next morning we got up and headed back to the airport to go to Krabi. When we arrived in Krabi we went to this restaurant to wait for the ferry to Ko Phi Phi and while we were there we started talking to this really nice guy Sin who worked in the hotel.
Ko Phi Phi was gorgeous, we spent 4 days there. While we were there we took boat taxis to some different beaches. The blue lagoon was amazing. It was just this lagoon where you could stop the boat and go swimming, so we spent like an hour there swimming one afternoon. The other really cool place that we went was Monkey Bay. It was this beach that you had to take a boat to get to, and there were a whole bunch of monkeys just hanging out on the beach. We had been warned not to leave any of our stuff unattended cuz the monkeys would steal it and I totally believe they would because they weren't afraid of people at all. It was awesome. Although it did kind of remind me of that scene in Jurassic Park where the family is on the deserted beach and the little girl gets attacked by the dinosaurs ... but maybe that's just my imagination being a bit wild. Oh, and one night we saw a fire show, also kind of awesome.
After Phi Phi we headed back to Krabi for a day, where we once again lay on the beach. Then at night Sin and the other guys we had met the first night had a delicious bbq for us. There was a night market going on and a show put on by the local kids. So we just spent the night hanging out with locals.
The next day it was back to Bangkok. That night we went to this area in Bangkok called Nana, it was really cool, and I guess it was like the Muslim area of Bangkok. I had no idea there were so many Muslims in Thailand but apparently they make up like 30% of the population, so there's some more learning for me. :P As we were making our way back to the hotel we saw a baby elephant on the side of the road!! It was so adorable. Oh, we also rode in a tuk tuk, which is like a taxi on a scooter, kind of crazy and definitely kind of scary.
All in all it was a good trip, although it was kind of rushed, if I were to do it again I think I'd skip Bangkok and fly straight to somewhere close to the beach. It's just too much travelling for one week and also Bangkok just has this air of exploitation which kind of creeped me out. Oh, the final touch was that on the flight home Lydia and I got upgraded to first class. Woohoo!
So anyways it was evening by the time we got into Bangkok. We went to our hotel which was pretty sweet considering we each paid about $20 a night for it. And then once Joanne and Troy got in we headed out for our one night in Bangkok. Unfortunately it was so late by the time that we ate and had a couple drinks that most things were closed. We did follow this one Thai guy all over the place because he promised us taht he could show us a good show, but eventually it was just getting too sketchy as he seemed to be leading us in circles so we all jumped into cabs and ran away.
The next morning we got up and headed back to the airport to go to Krabi. When we arrived in Krabi we went to this restaurant to wait for the ferry to Ko Phi Phi and while we were there we started talking to this really nice guy Sin who worked in the hotel.
Ko Phi Phi was gorgeous, we spent 4 days there. While we were there we took boat taxis to some different beaches. The blue lagoon was amazing. It was just this lagoon where you could stop the boat and go swimming, so we spent like an hour there swimming one afternoon. The other really cool place that we went was Monkey Bay. It was this beach that you had to take a boat to get to, and there were a whole bunch of monkeys just hanging out on the beach. We had been warned not to leave any of our stuff unattended cuz the monkeys would steal it and I totally believe they would because they weren't afraid of people at all. It was awesome. Although it did kind of remind me of that scene in Jurassic Park where the family is on the deserted beach and the little girl gets attacked by the dinosaurs ... but maybe that's just my imagination being a bit wild. Oh, and one night we saw a fire show, also kind of awesome.
After Phi Phi we headed back to Krabi for a day, where we once again lay on the beach. Then at night Sin and the other guys we had met the first night had a delicious bbq for us. There was a night market going on and a show put on by the local kids. So we just spent the night hanging out with locals.
The next day it was back to Bangkok. That night we went to this area in Bangkok called Nana, it was really cool, and I guess it was like the Muslim area of Bangkok. I had no idea there were so many Muslims in Thailand but apparently they make up like 30% of the population, so there's some more learning for me. :P As we were making our way back to the hotel we saw a baby elephant on the side of the road!! It was so adorable. Oh, we also rode in a tuk tuk, which is like a taxi on a scooter, kind of crazy and definitely kind of scary.
All in all it was a good trip, although it was kind of rushed, if I were to do it again I think I'd skip Bangkok and fly straight to somewhere close to the beach. It's just too much travelling for one week and also Bangkok just has this air of exploitation which kind of creeped me out. Oh, the final touch was that on the flight home Lydia and I got upgraded to first class. Woohoo!
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