Busan

Back in November I went to Busan with two co-workers. For all of you unfamiliar with Korea's layout (as I was) Busan is a large city on the southeast tip of Korea. Here's a handy little map:

You can also see its distance from Suwon (where I live). Busan is the second largest city in Korea after Seoul and is a big vacation place for most Koreans. They have a lot of nice beaches and it's rumored to be so packed in the summer that you can't even move on the beach. Busan is known for its port too which is the fifth largest in the world. It was on my list of cities to visit and luckily some friends also wanted to go.

I don't get a lot of vacation time here so we decided to go just for a weekend. The train ride takes a little over four hours. There's a fast train called the KTX that can get you there in two and a half hours but we booked too late to get that train (and it's more expensive). Our train left at 10:52am Saturday morning. I will forever remember that time - it's a funny story and I think speaks volumes about Korean transportation.

We got to the station early and had plenty of time to collect our tickets, and grab breakfast. Korean trains/subway/everything is known to be extremely punctual so we made sure to stay on time. We were walking down the stairs to the platform around 10:48 and saw a train waiting. We ran down the stairs and hopped on the train just in time. As we were strolling through the train towards are seats we found ourselves in the first class section - that was indicator #1 that something was wrong. We showed our tickets to some passengers standing between cars and we were calmly informed we were on the wrong train. We had gotten on the 10:48 KTX train instead of our 10:52 train that was leaving from the same platform. How silly of us. Of course they would schedule trains four minutes apart. Oh, Korea.

Long story short: we got off at the next stop (an hour away) and waited for our train to catch up to us. It was a nice journey once we got settled, and I enjoyed watching Korea pass by.

We got into Busan and set off to find our accommodations. We had booked three beds in a shared room with the help of one of the Korean staff at school. The place was really nice, it looked just like a nice apartment, where someone had decided to put four bunk beds in the bedroom instead of one bed. There were little lockers for our bags so we tucked away our stuff and went off to explore. We walked along the beach then went to meet my friend Laura's friend who taught English in the area. We had dinner with her and went out. One of my favorite things was the drink menu at the first bar we went to. Some of the drink names are... interesting...

The next morning we went back to the beach early. I have this thing, like it's an accomplishment to stand in different bodies of water; so we went to Haeundae Beach (one of the most famous beaches in Busan). We wanted to see the beach too, but now I can officially check the Korean Straight off my list.

Haeundae Beach

After the beach we decided to go to a jjimjilbang (I pronounce it Jim-ji-bong). Jjimjilbangs are traditional Korean public bath houses/saunas. My guidebook says it's one of the things "not to miss" if you want the full Korean experience and I had been working up my courage to go for some time. Since I was traveling with two girls and they both wanted to go I figured it was time to let peer pressure win. Busan is also known for having some of the largest jjimjilbangs not only in Korea but in all Asia. We went to one recommended by my guidebook called Hurshimchung jjimjilbang.

Here's how it works: you don't pay anything to go in (you pay at the end) and they give you a bracelet with a number in case you purchase anything inside (like drinks) or get any extra spa treatments. The men and the women are of course separated and you go into your respective locker room where everyone is naked. In fact, you feel a little weird wearing clothes. So what can you do but join them? The main room of the jjimjilbang had a dozen pools. Each were kept at different temperatures and had different properties. Some had jets, some had minerals in the water etc. You hop from pool to pool staying wherever you want as long as you like.

Most Koreans have been going to jjimjilbangs from a young age so there's nothing out of the ordinary to be around lots of other naked people. In fact, after a few minutes you kind of forget about it. It's all the same when you get down to it, right? Wanting to go for the full experience we paid for an extra experience, that no doubt will sound weird, but basically involves a woman scrubbing you down. You lay on a table and she just scrubs you down; she has a special brush, soap, all of that. But at the end of the day it really just is a woman scrubbing you.  I will tell you though, it would shock you how much dead skin comes off and how soft it makes your skin feel. After that we went back to the pools and at one point we had three young girls coming up to us practicing their English. It was really cute and surprisingly not awkward; like I said you get over the whole naked thing in the first couple minutes. Okay, maybe you don't get over it but I will admit you kind of forget about it until you look down :)

The jjimjilbang not only includes the pools but other sauna rooms. For that part they gave us robes and it was mixed men and women. We went down into a big open floor and on that floor there were little huts that looked like igloos, they were maybe thirty feet around each. There were three and each one had different health benefits. One was really cold, one hot and one even hotter. There was also a separate room with charcoal in the walls and a sign that said the oxygen level in that room was higher than normal. I guess that also has beneficial health properties. Overall we were in the jjimjilbang for over three hours. It was an interesting experience and I'm glad I got up my courage and went.

After the jjimjilbang we had a couple hours before our train back. We went to the Jagalchi Fish Market. We got there later (around 5pm) so a lot of the market was closed, but you could still see how busy it must be during the day, especially in the early morning when the fish comes in. This is a traditional stand at Jagalchi and a selection of what they offer:

You pick what fish you want and can get it cooked or sashimi on the spot. We found a stand and bought two fish. One was a flounder but I'm not sure about the other. The man took the live fish out of the tank, clubbed them, and told us to follow him upstairs. Immediately the fish were handed to a women who started cooking them (we opted to have them grilled). These were our sides and the delicious fish:

The drink being poured is makgeolli, a fermented rice wine.

After dinner we caught our train back to Suwon. It was a busy weekend but I loved it. I will definitely try to go back to Busan before I leave Korea.

Trick Eye Museum

As many of you know I went to Hong Kong for Christmas and my winter break; that blog entry will be coming along soon. In the meantime I'll tell you about a little fun I had after the New Year. I came back from Hong Kong on the 31st just in time to meet my friend Becca from the U.S. who came to visit me for a week. We had a good time despite the fact I was working that week. My favorite thing we got to do was go to the Trick Eye Museum in Seoul. I had seen pictures a friend had posted from the museum and it looked like a lot of fun.

The museum has famous paintings repainted with a twist in the style of trompe l'oeil. All the paintings look like they are 3D but are in fact flat on the wall. There was writing on the wall helping you to know where to put your hands (or body) for the best effect. All in all, it was a lot of fun. Here are some of the best shots:

This was a different part where they had aprons with different body types you could try on. I went for the abs ;)

Jaraseom Singsing Winter Festival and The Garden of Morning Calm

Last weekend was Lunar New Year and we had Monday and Tuesday off school. I had wanted to travel outside Korea for the weekend but flights were expensive so I stuck around the area. On Saturday I went with two other teachers and one of their friends to a winter festival. The name of the festival is Jaraseom Singsing Winter Festival. It took about two hours traveling to get to Gapyeong where the festival was located. The main event there is ice fishing. We watched the families gather around one of many small holes in the ice to try and catch fish. I'm not sure how they could have caught anything since the holes seemed very close together, and there were so many people. I didn't go ice fishing myself because we had gotten a late start on the day and were headed to a garden with a special night display afterwards.

Jaraseom Singsing Winter Festival

Holes for ice fishing

The garden was my favorite part of the day. The name of the garden is The Garden of Morning Calm. Doesn't that sound calming? It is one of the oldest private gardens in Korea and I would love to see it in the spring or summer. During the winter they have the Lighting Festival which essentially means they put up a heck of a lot of Christmas lights. It was really beautiful to see. We walked around the garden experiencing all the different lights. For me the beauty of the garden made up for the unexpected commute. It was a really magical atmosphere.

The garden before sunset.

Some lights were shaped like animals. There was also an elephant, deer, and two angels.

All the beautiful lights

Me and the lights

More lights

A frozen river bed where people had stacked rocks for good luck.

House of Sharing

Up until now while I have been delayed in my posts, I've at least tried to keep them in chronological order; today that stops. This is only because I'm very excited about what I did today and want to write about it while it's still fresh in my mind. 

Today I went to the House of Sharing. My friend invited me to come with her and while I knew it was about comfort women from WWII I didn't know much more. Comfort women were the women forcefully conscripted and kidnapped by the Japanese during WWII to serve in their military's brothel system that stretched across Asia. I hadn't heard a lot about them past knowing that there are weekly protests held by the survivors outside the Japanese embassy in Seoul. The House of Sharing is a combination museum and home for the survivors. There are five survivors currently living there.

Entrance of the House of Sharing. Bronze busts of the survivors who have passed away.

When we first went to the complex we watched a short film then went through the museum. The film was about Kim, Hak-Soon, the first Korean survivor to come out publicly and speak about what she had been through. She came forward in 1991. All these women are in their 80s and older now and they still go to protest at the Japanese Embassy every Wednesday. It is the longest Human Rights protest in history and they just celebrated their 1,000 protest - this has been happening for over 20 years. The protest because the Japanese government denies it's role in military sexual slavery (despite overwhelming testimony and proof) and refuses to compensate the survivors.

A scene using clay dolls of the Halmoni (survivors) protesting. The t.v. above shows past news coverage of the protests.

After watching the documentary we went through the museum. The conditions and hardships the women endured were difficult to fathom. They had to serve 10 to 30 men a day; they were raped, beaten, and killed. 90% of the comfort women were Korean and they were shipped all across Asia. Japan set up the system of comfort houses after the rape of Nanjing to prevent something of that scale from happening again. The system they set up though, required forcibly taking thousands of women to "work". They said it's estimated that between 50,000 and 200,000 women across Asia were taken. They were brought to countries they couldn't speak the language in, and kept in small rooms. Many were killed at the end of the war (if they survived that long) to prevent their story from getting out. The museum was fascinating and horrible.

Portraits of the Halmoni. The shadowed pictures represent women who have passed away or who, for various reasons, feel like they can not come forward.

One of the most moving parts of the day was after the museum when we got to meet some of the women. We sat on the floor as they chatted with our Korean-speaking guide and she translated. The one woman we talked to the most reminded me of my grandma. She was this little old woman but she was so feisty and kept talking politically about the Japanese. The guide told us to ask her questions but reminded us that she had been telling her story for over 20 years (most likely) and to ask other questions too. Some guys started asking her questions and we ended up talking about hiking and what she likes to grow in her garden. She just seemed so much like a grandmother.

When it was time for us to leave everyone would bow a little and say goodbye. I asked the guide if I could give the Halmoni (the term they use for the survivors, it means grandmother) a hug. I don't know why I felt like I really wanted to give her a hug but I thought if it was a weird request she would just say no. At first the Halmoni said she was too old and that a hug was not needed :) I told her she just reminded me of my grandmother and as I was turning to go she smiled at me, stood up, and gave me a hug. It made me really happy. They are amazing women and I feel honored to have met them.

If you're interested in reading more about the House of Sharing the website is http://www.houseofsharing.org/

Halloween

Halloween is celebrated in Korea. Kids don't go trick-or-treating but they dress up (at least at the English schools) and at my school we had a Halloween party. I wanted to dress up for Halloween but I couldn't think of anything clever. I ended up wearing my tie-dye rainbow pants, drawing a rainbow on a shirt, and calling myself, you guessed it, a rainbow. I didn't want to buy a whole costume and for school being a rainbow worked out nicely. All the kids came in dressed up and we went trick-or-treating around the classrooms. Here's a picture of us trick-or-treating and me handing out candy:

After we went trick-or-treating we made small pumpkin candles in class then went to the gym to play games with the entire school. It was cute seeing all of the kids dressed up. I think every single girl was a princess of some sort. I wasn't surprised given the culture of being cute here. On the 6th floor (the gym) we played games until the end of the day.

After school, on the weekend, I went out with some friends in Seoul to celebrate Halloween. That was also a lot of fun and I was able to make another costume by putting eyes and a mouth on a dress and calling myself a jack o' lantern. I'm really missing my Thomas the Tank Engine costume from the last two years though, I don't think that one can ever be topped.

 This Year (jack o' lantern)

Last Year (Thomas the Tank Engine)

The Korean Folk Village

Happy New Year! I'm sorry it has taken me so long to write but the end of the year was very busy. I'm now at that fun point where I will be recapping things I did months ago but they were a lot of fun and definitely worth mentioning. The first was going to the Korean Folk Village. The Korean Folk Village is not far from where I live and I was able to go one Sunday (in October, I know, FOREVER ago) with my Korean friend Inchul. Inchul and I are language exchange partners in name although in reality we just hang out and get dinner sometimes. I was happy to have him come with me because most things in Korea are better with someone who can speak Korean. He hadn't been to the Folk Village since he was very young so he was happy to come along.

The Folk Village is not a real village, it's just staged for visitors. It's very interesting because they show what traditional houses and life looked like not only for Koreans here, but also Korean's on the South coast, the East coast etc. You can see the differences and it's very interesting. To be truthful though, I mostly enjoyed just walking around. We went on a beautiful autumn day, the leaves were changing colors, it was really beautiful. The best part of the visit were the performances. There were two: 1) guys doing a traditional dance with ribbons on their hat (I can't describe it but it was awesome) and 2) A girl balancing on a rope over twenty feet off the ground and doing tricks.

These are the guys dancing. Those ribbons are attached to their hats!

She's walking on the tight rope!

We watched the performances then walked around for a while. There was a museum that was fun to peak into and right before leaving there was this giant rock covered in twine for you to make a wish and hang it up. It was a nice way to finish our time at the village.

Here is my wish, tied to the rock!