The Friday Night Make-Good Edition

Many apologies for not posting the other night, but some friends and I spent quite a while trying to figure out 1) what we wanted to do, 2) figuring out how to do what we wanted to do, and 3) actually doing what we wanted to do.

What I'm referring to, of course, is going to Building 63.  What we didn't realize was that it was pretty far away from where we're used to (on the friggin' OTHER SIDE of the friggin' Han River), and that it was basically one of the places where all the big shots that can afford to toss around 50,000 won bills like spare change go.  We discovered a wax museum inside, though, where we found several recognizable figures made into wax--Obama, Kim Dae-jung, Mao Zedong, even Dracula and a recreation of Da Vinci's The Last Supper.  I forgot my camera this time, but suffice it to say, there was much amusement when Hao-Hua, Caroline, and Julie went inside the "haunted house."  (I have something against haunted houses--I waited patiently outside and laughed when they all came out spooked.)

But that was yesterday.  We took the train to Ulsan this morning and toured the Hyundai Heavy Industries Shipyard and the Hyundai auto plant.  (Photos weren't allowed in the shipyard/factory, and I'm going to download these photos to my computer when I get back to E-dae anyway, so...)  Much laughter ensued when Matt attempted to mimic the Price is Right models in the showroom, and even later when they made me do my announcer voice on the bus.

We also hiked to Seokgulam Grotto (석굴암 석굴), a "cave temple" (according to the back of my ticket).  Again, pictures to come, but suffice it to say, I think it's impossible to hate the world after coming back from that place.  Or heck, even any Buddhist temple, for that matter.  I could've spent the whole day there, but alas, we had to move on.  Plus, the weather was beginning to act up again.

Busan, the UN Cemetery, and the fish market are apparently on the agenda tomorrow.  Can't wait...

Also, as I forgot my camera charger in the dorms at E-dae, I can only hope my battery will hold up thru tomorrow and Sunday until I return.  Until then, I can't put any pictures up until I get back...and then I'll go back and put them back in.  If you folks behave.

I'm too tired to come up with a suitable title.

I keep saying that Korean movies could be really great if they didn't try to expound upon every single side plot and try (but usually fail) to reconnect it to the main plot. After watching Hwangsanbul (황산벌) for class, I maintain that point of view, and will add on the fact that I feel they invoked a "Forced Happy Ending" trope, which never sits well with me. If you're going to force something...well, never mind.

But after that, I had a heck of a day with some friends just walking all over Seoul. We took the subway to the City Hall station (시청역) and explored the one palace I hadn't yet had the chance to explore: Deoksugung (덕수궁). It's the smallest of the three palaces, and its...unique location right next to the bustling city provides a rather interesting, if a bit distracting, juxtaposition between traditional and modern. While the palace itself is a great example of the traditional era, you can see the skylines lined by the Seoul high-rise buildings:


And that's not even the main throne room, either. Apparently Sejong the Great lived in Deoksugung at one point, although they moved him out of there because it was too small. Something like that, I can't remember. I will say, though, that they tricked me while we were here...we heard traditional music coming from the main courtyard. I thought someone was actually playing, but it turns out it was a sound system all along. Sigh...

From Deoksugung, we made our way further down the street and found the smallest river I've ever seen. See? Look between the white dotted lines...



OK, so it's not really a river, but this pavement nuisance connects to what's called Cheonggyecheon (청계천), which eventually connects to the Han River a little further downstream. While the New Orleanian in me wanted to say it's a glorified, much better-looking version of the many canals in the city, it's also somewhat of a park, as tourists and residents (especially couples) like to walk along the riverbank. Further down from where it starts, it becomes more of a forest along a river:


We also saw a rather neat light/laser show as it was getting dark in the area.  (7/7 EDIT: You can, too, if you click here.)

From Cheonggyecheon, we actually caved and had the equivalent of the Korean McDonald's, called "Lotteria" (롯데리아, which is apparently headquartered in Japan--who knew?). Somehow, the taste of bulgogi while a burger didn't quite resonate with me...I suppose it could've been worse, the shrimp burger sounded even stranger. Suffice it to say there's better food out there (as if I needed to say that!), although this was just to say we did it.

After dinner we paraded down Sejong-ro, the main boulevard that eventually leads to Gyeongbokgung (the biggest palace in Seoul). Along the way, we found a giant statue of, naturally, King Sejong. What we didn't realize was that there was a huge museum underneath the statue. We also found a neat little corner where little kids could draw their dreams on little squares on paper, to be pasted to woodblocks and displayed on the walls, like so:


What we weren't expecting, however, was Matt (our token white guy) getting mobbed by a bunch of Korean schoolgirls. All of a sudden, he was the most popular guy in the room, taking pictures with all the girls!


Hey, I'm an American guy too! How come you aren't clamoring to take a picture with me?

...oh, that's why.

We taxied back to E-dae without much trouble (although I still wonder how Matt's taxi got there before mine did, considering he took the second one...but did he get the cheaper one?).

Although here's the thing about being a guy staying at a women's university: when you come through the gates at 10:30 at night, I suppose the guards automatically assume you're up to no good. They stopped me at the gate to verify that I was actually a student--I flashed the key card and was waved through without any problems, although that's not to say I was scared out of my wits during the brief moment I was stopped.

They don't regulate people this much at 'SC, lemme tell you!

Of Korean Dorm Life

Up until now, I realize I've never said anything about my living conditions while in Korea. They're homely, for sure. Although without the kind of wall decorations I have at 'SC to make it my true home away from home, it actually feels a bit more like an apartment in need of artistry. (Grey skies as of late don't help matters in that regard.)

Anyway, my dorm room itself is, if it weren't crooked, laid out in a similar way to my old dorm room my freshman year at 'SC. Even so, it's pretty similar, as you can see here, although note the glass door in the back leads to a small balcony (please excuse the mess my roommate and I have left in our exhausted wakes):



Also, we have something most of the dorms at 'SC don't have in our room: CENTRAL A/C! The problem (for me, anyway) is that my desk is positioned so that I'm conveniently situated directly under the vent, so whenever it's on I'm always the first to freeze. At least I know it works!

Unlike the dorms at 'SC, where communal bathrooms are common, we have our own, individual bathroom in the dorm room itself. It doesn't look like much, but it's convenient...



You'll notice there's a random shower head snaking out from the sink--this entire space also doubles as our shower stall. Hao-Hua was concerned about privacy, even though the glass wall is tempered to the point where it covers up *just enough*. Problem is, with our (read: his) relatively tall height, we can see over the top of the tempered part and into the back mirror (depending on how close to the glass we are). On the bright side, if we're showering, it usually fogs up the back mirror enough where it doesn't matter. Still...design fail? Perhaps.

Another thing that's a bother (but could lead to possible comedic gold): you turn the sink on, then pull up on a small button to activate the shower. There is, however, a design flaw in the way the shower is laid out. Most of the time, you turn the water off, the shower goes off with it. But if you're not careful, the next time you turn on the sink and expect water to come out the faucet, you might get blasted by the shower head instead. (I'm speaking from experience, can you tell?)

I will say the door locks gave us fits when we first moved in. We were given a four-digit combination to open our door. Problem is, when we got to the door, there was no keypad in sight! It took us about five minutes to figure out that you had to go from this...



...to this...



...punch in the combination, then shut the cover again for the door to open. And then on the other side of the door, it looks a bit like this:



The rectangular silver button just above the green switch unlocks the door. While you could just turn the dial at the bottom, pressing the button just makes it seem even cooler, like something out of a sci-fi movie. Makes lock technology in the dorms at 'SC seem pretty lame.

What is rather counter-intuitive, however, is the keycard access to get into the building. While I can understand scanning the card to get in, you also need to scan the card to get out. Which begs the question, why would you need your card to get out when they know you're already in the system? Wouldn't that be how you got into the building in the first place?

And then there's the visitor policy, which makes 'SC seem completely unregulated in that regard (probably because it is). They have a system of demerit points in the building that you can accrue to infractions in and around your hall. Got more than 10 demerits? You are the weakest link, goodbye. No ifs, ands, or buts about it.

And you can get halfway there--5 points--simply by bringing a visitor to see your dorm (even if they're family). They didn't say anything about students visiting other students, thankfully--I can only assume that's okay. If they use any part of the dorm property, that's 10 points. If they stay overnight--significant other or not--you're gone. On the bright side, this would also mean that there's very little chance of locking your roommate out of your room whenever you and the significant other want a little "time to yourself." (I mean, it could happen, but given that the walls are pretty thin, you probably wouldn't want to chance it...) Although given that there don't appear to be what we would call RAs on the hall, I can only assume that the system is enforced by what essentially amounts to tattling on the offender(s).

Ladies and gentlemen, Korean dorm life.

Proof That The Sun Actually Exists

Classes started today. In and of itself, that really isn't anything special, especially since it felt like one of those cut-and-dry history classes. But don't listen to me right now, I'm kinda cranky and need some rest. I'll be surprised if I crash now and sleep all the way through the next morning.

But in any event, the sun actually came out for the first time this entire trip! (Not that two days is saying a whole lot, but still...)

Just...take a look. Stark contrast from the day before (these were taken just outside campus)...





And, later in the day, this one taken on top of the giant staircase.


We also got our official welcome wagon today from E-dae, nothing more than just dinner at a fancy restaurant. The culinary snob in me didn't think the food was anything terribly special, although we were rather amused by one particular side dish that tasted really good. The whole time, we had no idea what it was except for the fact that "it's a root of some kind." Take a look, it's the one in the top dish.

From the top and going clockwise: the mysterious root, kimchi, seasoned sesame leaf(?), bamboo shoots, unseasoned sesame leaf

And I mistakenly dumped a spoonful of sugar meant for coffee over the ice cream they gave us, although no one's supposed to know about that...

So I said yesterday that I felt that I hadn't epically failed at speaking Korean, yet. Well, fast forward to today when I meet my grandparents, and you'll discover that any confidence I once had is (was?) now completely gone. To any casual listener (if there were casual listeners), I must've sounded like a 5-year-old with a speech impediment, speaking in sentences too broken to fix. It also doesn't help that I speak very throaty and mumbly Korean, so I sound like someone yelling in a wind tunnel on top of that.

Anyway, I'm not sure I was making any sense at all when I talked to them, yet somehow (depending on what I was talking about) I managed to get through to them on a few things and left them (and me) utterly lost on most others.

But before that...we got a short tour of campus. And while it's much hillier than anything I've ever been used to, it also (to me, anyway) looks like something straight out of a postmodern Hogwarts.

From the castle walls...

...to the Forbidden Forest...

...there's something in the water if I'm making comparisons like that.

Exercises in Improvisation

Our first full day in Korea was spent walking, waiting, and changing plans over and over again. Is it any wonder I feel utterly exhausted at 8:00 pm?

My roommate, Hao-Hua, and I got up at 7 am and took a stroll around the front of Ewha (E-dae for short), where all the little shops and cafes are. The weather still hasn't improved from yesterday at all. It's muggy, rainy, and humid--in short, a meteorologist's worst nightmare. At least when we started walking, it wasn't too bad, though E-dae itself looked pretty spooky in the...fog? Smog? Haze? Whatever you call this:



We had breakfast in a small little cafe, grabbing some kimbap for 1,500 won per roll (less than $1.50!). The inner college students in us went ballistic--cheap food is good, but even better when it's cheap AND delicious at the same time. Even better, I actually spoke Korean competently! Score one for me...

...and then hold on, scratch everything, it's raining cats and dogs outside. Usually this would call for throwing caution to the wind and running for it, but when your destination is further than your sprint can take you AND down a very slippery hill or two, you change gears pretty quickly. My raincoat was soaked by the time we made it back inside.

So originally, we were supposed to take a bus tour of the city, but we called it off due to the weather. Then the plan was to see Transformers 3 at the nearby theater after lunch. But we were all saying, "no one comes all the way out to Korea to watch an American movie." After much waiting around in the subway station for our TA to get our subway passes (I suspect it was about an hour or so), we were--relieved that we finally had something resembling a plan--headed for Dongdaemun.

Of course, this is when the heavens decide to drop buckets of water on our heads, so we rushed into the nearest shopping center to keep dry while we could. While I'm sure the girls were delighted to get some quality shopping time (3 freakin' hours!), the Fantastic Four were...considerably less thrilled. Don't get me wrong, we were interested to see what they had to offer in the men's department. While I can't speak for the other three, I can safely say that I don't want to be caught dead in form-fitting pants, gaudy shoes, shirts with strings of English words that don't make any sense, or any piece of clothing with Angry Birds plastered all over it.

Also of particular note: the lone white man of our Fantastic Four, Matt, nearly gave one of the shopkeepers a heart attack when he spoke Korean to her. Commence hysteric laughter amongst the Americans.

At the top floor of the shopping center, though, was a small arcade tucked away in the corner nearest the movie theater, and Hao-Hua spent 2,000 won more than he was expecting in an effort to break the day's high score on the basketball game. (He did.)

Of course, what would a stay in Korea be without going to a barbeque dinner? This particular place was different from the ones we're used to in Los Angeles--it's basically a buffet. You pick the raw meat you want, take it to your table and cook it. Even the banchan (side dishes) are served buffet-style. Naturally, we all reeked of the stuff after we were done...I felt sorry for the people standing near us in the subway on the way back. It's a wonder the stench didn't kill anybody. Needless to say, when we got back to E-dae, I showered that out of my hair. Too bad I can't do the same with the searing pain in my feet.

Before I go, the obligatory group shot (taken by me, which is why I'm not in this one):

Incoming in Seoul

Not much to write home about, but inquiring minds want to know…

Made it to Seoul. A little sore from the plane ride (12 hours in a middle seat wasn’t exactly what I was looking forward to on the way there) and very much exhausted from the huge internal clock shake-up, but I’m here.

I was looking forward to at least talking with one of the people in our group on the long plane ride over, but ‘twas not to be. We were all over the plane, most of us in middle seats—by the time I checked into the flight, those were all that were left. Somehow my iPod (which didn’t have enough juice to last the flight), my copy of Les Misérables in print, and several of the in-flight games were company enough for the whole 12 hours. I don’t care how long the flight is, but sleeping is completely secondary—I sleep until the first beverage service starts (or shortly thereafter), and then can’t sleep for the rest of the flight.

Hey, I have issues. So what?

Apparently the flight attendants can recognize Korean people, Americanized or not, in an instant (Korean Air, doncha know). So of course, they start speaking to me in Korean right away. While I had some trouble at the check-in counter, I think I fudged my way through it…granted, the only things I had to say were my drink and lunch orders, so…that’s not really saying much. At least I didn’t have to ask them to switch to English, if that’s any consolation.

And they may have been smiling when I refused wine with my lunch, but underneath that polite façade I could easily see them thinking, “Is this guy crazy?” Or whatever the Korean equivalent of that is. “이상은 사람 이지…?” For all I know, I just botched that horribly. More where that came from over the next month, believe me.

We’re staying at Ehwa Womans’ University in Seoul. (For those of you reading, no, that’s not a typo—I’m too tired to explain why.) And from what I can tell in my plane-induced delirious state, it’s as gorgeous as the women who go there. (You can slap me for the lame comparison later.) Apparently it’s coed during the summer, so even the girls in our group (who outnumber the guys roughly 2:1) can go hang out with those guys once they get sick of The Fantastic Four.

Let’s talk about our group for a minute. There’s 10 of us on this trip, including me, but not counting our professor and TA. From what little I remember from our group’s demographics, there are only four guys (whom, as you’ve probably figured out by now, I’ll call The Fantastic Four from here on out). Eight of us are Asian (two of whom, including me, are Korean). One of us hasn’t ever been abroad before this trip. Another did this program last summer, but went to Japan. A couple of people were supposed to go to Japan this summer, but got switched over after a certain earthquake probably left them shouting “Fuk…ushima” for at least a few days. And—if you’ll pardon the way I phrase this—there’s a white guy who knows Korea better than I do. Apparently he even speaks it better than I do.

There’s goal #1 for this trip right there: learn to speak Korean better than the white guy.

From my rather limited interaction with a few of them at the gate, I think we’ve got a pretty good group. Now I just hope I can adjust my internal clock so I’ll be raring to go by tomorrow.

And so it actually happens...

Well. After many months of waiting, it's finally going to be a reality.

I'm off to Korea tomorrow morning, and will be there for an entire month. I plan to chronicle my journey while I'm there (and hopefully won't forget about the actual schoolwork I have to do on top of that), but you can bet there will be at least a few entries, hopefully with pictures, that I'll be putting up here over the next month.

I've been eagerly awaiting this trip for a number of reasons--among them, the fact that I'll get to practice my Korean even more (although I fear I might cower in the back corner once some cunning shopkeeper screws me out of 10,000 won more than I should've paid). I've spent far too long, I think, running away from my culture. Running away from learning the language, the history, the nerve to take that step.

Well, about damn time I took the plunge.

As they say...watch this space!