Orientation #2

Hello again! It's been far too long since my last post, so sorry! There is so much to catch up on. I've barely had enough time to upload new batches of pictures to the computer in between everything. We're officially moved into our new home, though, so I'll have a lot more time on my hands now. I guess I'll start where I left off! The jimjilbang! It's sounds completely weird to us, at first I was pretty skeptical, but it won me over! If you have an open mind and are comfortable enough to have curious Korean ladies staring at you naked, you'll have a great time. We went to one of the biggest ones, called Dragon Hill. It's huge, and even has a kiddie waterpark with a bunch of inflatable waterslides. We didn't see that area, though, just the 'sauna' and commons areas. So when you enter, you pay an entry fee, and receive a set of scrub-like shorts and a t-shirt, and a bracelet with a key and bar code on it. Then you put your shoes into a small locker, and head upstairs into your sex's designated 'sauna' area. I keep putting 'sauna' in quotes, because it's not what we would think- a big steam/dry room with naked people sittin around in it. They have those, as well, but after putting all of your belongings into a larger locker (everything- that's where the nakie time begins) you go into the 'sauna' area. Take a good shower- realllly good, some of the older women look like they're trying to scrub their skin off- and hop from hot tub to hot tub, either inside our out (they all have different purposes and specialties) and relaaax. Some are ginseng baths, some are really hot or cold, some have awesome massaging jets, and some are just big enough to put your feet in for a nice foot water-massage. Then, or somewhere in between you can go into the dry room or steam room (I could only take them for a few minutes), or hop under an ice-cold shower. After you're nice and relaxed, or nice and creeped out by the fact that you've been running around naked jumping in and out of tubs with strangers, you go back to the locker room and put on the scrubs. You can then go back to the commons area, where you can get all types of massages, 'nail art', sit in unisex dry or steam rooms (they even had a 'cold room' with ice all over it). The massages were a little more expensive than we realized they would be, but they had massage chairs that were about $1.50 for 10 minutes of the most intense chair massage you've ever had. We did it twice in a row, and by the end of it were feeling a little battered. They had a sky terrace where we had 'indian bbq' (ribs, sausage, chicken, and pickles- they even serve pickles with pizza here, it's amazing). By then we were pretty zonked, but there were still a ton of screaming kids running around so we went back up to the sky terrace where we were surprised to find they were strating an outdoor movie: the new Terminator! Ha! So we watched that, and then it was really time for bed. Of course, if you decide to sleep at a jimjilbang, you're paying about $10, so you can't expect a California King bed... everyone: families, couples, random people who need a place to crash, all sleep on the floor in the main room. They have some small rooms for men or women only, but most people sleep in the big marble-floored great room. They provide small brick-shaped pillows, but that's about it. We somehow found a pad by a kiddie ride that's meant for if a kid falls off the ride, which was a life-saver. I made it through the night pretty well, slept soundly except for a few tosses and turns when one side of my body had gone numb. I hurt my back trying to get up but fixed it right back to normal when I got into the sauna again. It's kinda like a giant family-style slumber party- everyone's wearing the same pj's, eating lots of food, watching movies, and relaxing together. Then it's one more shower, get dressed, and leave. You pay for everything, food and all, with your wristband, so as you leave you pay up. It sounds pretty wacky in general, i know, and it was pretty surreal, but it's a very important tradition to Koreans, so when in Korea...

Moving on, sorry to have written such a novel, but I know some of you were still very curious about this so called jimjilbang (mom) so I thought I would go into detail.

One weekend in Suwon, we went out with a really big group of TaLK scholars. This is one of the many very random things we stumbled upon. A table of baby bunnies. Dressed in socks. *insert squeal* I held one and it was so scared it just nuzzled it's little head into my hand and shook. I don't know how I walked away, I wanted it so bad.


I mean, just look at them! Bunnies in socks!

Anyway, staying on the topic of 'oh my god how cute is that?!', this is a statue that was in front of the dorms at Kyung Hee University where we were the first month. I have no idea what it has to do with higher education, but it's darn cute. Did the peace sign, too- just tryin to fit in!


At the end of orientation, a local English radio station came to give a little concert, and allow a very select few students to show of they're talents for a live broadcast. Guess who one of those very select few might have been...


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojySbfNHy3I


So dreamy! Haha. He was the star of the show. They had all of these 'k-pop' (boyband/britney style) groups play for us, and even a traditional group played 'oh-la-dee oh-la-da', but he was the best. I suppose I am a little biased, though...

After that orientation, we drove with the 25 other teachers assigned to our province into Gyeongsangnam-do (the super long name of our province) for another week of classes. We went on a couple of interesting field trips, saw a couple temples and met our co-teachers... mostly just bonded with the few English-speakers we will be anywhere near during the next 6 months-year. It looks small on the map, but with only 25 or so of us, most are about an hour away from each other (or at least, Dunny and I are. Some are neighbors in big cities with hour commutes to school, but D and I are in a small town with ten minute commutes). Here are some of the pics I took during orientation #2:

In our '4 star' hotel lobby. It was nice, but their starring system is far different from ours... Anyway, we thought they were jellyfish... because they looked and swam exactly like jellyfish. Korean Radioactive cartoon-like jellyfish, maybe, but what do we know about sea life over here... seemed plausible. But no. Figured out they're plastic halfway through the orientation when we noticed one didn't have any tentacles and was swimming just like the others. I felt so deceived... No one else seemed to realize the trickery, though, so I guess we're not that dull.


This is Miryang, a cute little town with a gorgeous temple and lake. The temple is hard to see- it's the brown spot in the middle of that hill.

We respected...




and played...




and respected...



and played...


These are the days of our lives...

Clearly they want you to play, though, when they provide the games...



Then, we had a little time left to wander about town...



See the fish market...


These guys were swimming around like crazy... almost as if they didn't want to be eaten.



One person from our group took a picture of an old lady, and she made him pay her for it. Ha! Mine's blurry, but free.


The fruit is unnaturally delicious here. Where are all the pesticides and poo remnants I love so much?



The sidewalk goes right by this guy's back yard. Creepy, I know. I thought it was cool, though. He was sitting there on his platform going through all of his veggies.



We visited another temple, and a museum that week, but I'll post those pictures on Picassa soon- there are farrr too many. They also gave a class on Korean culture, and Dunny and I were chosen to be dressed in Hanbok, traditional Korean dress. Then they cracked up, because we were taking classes in a wedding hall, and you usually only wear Hanbok on special occassions... such as a wedding... They also had us sit as a mother and father would, and have their children bow to them. Historically, families would follow this tradition everyday, though it's rare now. I wish we had a picture of it, but alas. Then Dunny taught the (adorable) little boy how to make poot noises with his balloon, and it just about blew his mind. The instructors were packing up while we were back to regular classes, and you could hear the poots all the way down the hallway. It was possibly the cutest thing I've ever seen.





Was I right? I believe so.

That's about it for now! Sorry it's been so long, I will post pictures of the new home and neighborhood soon, I'm just plain too pooped right now! Hope everyone is well, all my love!

Finally! My first real post!

Wow, I actually have some time to post this! I've been working on it bit by bit this week, but we have 9 pm curfew on Sundays (yup.), so I finally have a little spare time on my hands. It's been a whirlwind week. Our days are 13 hours long, starting with 8 am breakfast and classes until 9 including the optional Korean lessons they provide in the evenings (which we badly need- been surviving on hello, goodbye, thank-you, and soju; I think we might need to know a bit more than that for the long term, however...) I can't believe it's only been one week! I have been taking as many pictures as possible, but I'll try to keep it down to the most 'wonderfullest' of them...

This is the first official Korean food we had. For plane food, it was pretty goshdang good, it's called Bibimbop (a very traditional dish- you can find it anywhere). It came with instructions.

I was a fan of the tube of red pepper paste. I held onto it for some reason. I'm being careful to keep it away from my travel toiletries, though...

And speaking of, here's the bathroom I share with my roomie:

The whole bathroom is the shower! Apparently this is a pretty swanky bathroom for Korea, too. I was perplexed at first, but now I kinda like it. It's liberating, in a way. You have a ton of room, and everything's going to get wet, but oh well! The toilet paper is protected and that's pretty much all that matters. Except, you have to turn it back to sink mode after you're done, which doesn't always happen, leading to surprise spritzes when you go to wash your hands.

Here's the view from the building we take classes in. A little contrast action...


I'm not sure what the old building is- I've been eyeing it for a while, dying to explore the inside. It seems to be abandoned...



Where, and how, to pee- inside HomePlus, basically a four-story Korean Wal-mart.


There are these chain bakeries called Paris Baguette all over the area. This one is across from Kyung Hee University, which is where we're staying in Suwon (about an hour away from Seoul, but still a very large city) for the month-long orientation/training program. Korea's take on Western breakfast foods- yes, that's a big pile of French toast on the lower right hand side. Just grab what you want (hot dog with yummy sauce wrapped in flaky philo anyone?) and bring them to the counter.

OR, you can order Pot Bing Su. It's shaved ice, topped with sweet beans, fruit, marshmallow-type rice thingies, and condensed milk... So. good. I was a little skeptical about the beans, as they're not exactly my first choice for dessert, but it won me over. Especially when it all started melting together!


I believe this qualifies as weird...



This past weekend, the TaLK (Teach and Learn in Korea) coordinators took all 500 of us on a field trip (wee!) into Seoul. We saw a performance called Nanta ("Cookin"), which is basically 'Stomp!", but with cooking utensils. Then they bused us into Insadong, a modern yet still somewhat traditional shopping and cultural district, and cut us loose. It was pretty tourist-y, but interesting, and just a wee crowded...

There were some amazing street vendors...

(these pots are filled with some sort of cockroach like insect. mmm.)

(Sausauge wrapped in bacon on a stick. he couldn't say no.)

And the streets, alley ways and everything in between are covered. Either in writing, lights, both, or passed out business men from the previous night.

I love that they have cafes/bars for girly-girls only. With their little chandeliers, and pretty floral chairs. So cute.



Well, that's it folks. Hope you enjoyed my first week as much as I did! I didn't finish covering the weekend, though... Next time I'll tell you about the Jimjilbang, or public bathhouse, we went to and stayed at on Saturday night...