I'm famous!

Or at least in a magazine...The issue came out, the article's been written, and they only botched up a little bit! And I'm not yellow in my picture either, which makes me very happy...

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AAHH!! I'M LEAVING

So much to say, pictures to put up, and probably more that I'm forgetting...but I'm leaving in a few hours and so it will all be done when I get back...Thanks, Seoul, you've been a blast. Anyonghikaesayo...

Definitely not ready to leave yet...

Aah, 9 days to go and I'm freaking out. I'm wishing my boss had agreed to 6 more months so I could stay longer. But, keeping busy winding up things. Doing the last of my presentations, giving the last of my tests and quizzes and telling my kids that this week is my last week. Getting excited to see people from home and school, and hoping it'll be much easier to deal with school stuff when I'm in the same time zone! I'm thinking I'm going to have reverse culture shock when I go back...I think I'll go hang out on 32nd and Broadway when I go home and be surrounded by all things Korean...

"You look yellow, are you alright?"

No, it's not a racial thing. It's a comment on the fact that I cannot shake being sick here. I don't get it! I have had a cold from day 3, and for the past couple of days, a bout of food poisoning took hold of me. And what day would that have been? Oh right, the one where the magazine people were coming to take my picture for an hour. I didn't even make it to work til right before they came, climbed incredibly slowly up the 6 flights of stairs, and put my head on my desk til they showed up. I smiled for the camera, talked a lot (they asked me how to solve the North Korean refugees problem - how am I supposed to know?) and then they took loads of pictures. After they were done, my boss says, "You look yellow, are you alright?" FANTASTIC. Just what I want...let's hope some darkroom magic goes on back at their offices. I think the interview went well though, and it comes out on Christmas!

I saw puppies for sale in the subway yesterday. You can take everything I said about bunnies for sale a couple of months ago, including the fact that they could fit in your hand, and apply it to these puppies...If only I could put one in my pocket and smuggle it through airport security.

2 weeks til I leave...HAPPY BIRTHDAY, BAPA!!!

"Are you married?"

All of the English teachers in Seoul and surrounding towns were supposed to attend this big seminar on Saturday on how to teach English in Korea and learn about cultural differences and stuff. 360 showed up. The first half was entirely in Korean (followed by a translator, though they could've just cut it in half by having the translator make the presentations) and then some other people spoke on various things. One guy who spoke about culture brought up some the following most common questions foreigners are asked by Koreans:

1) Do you know you're fat? (As if we need to be told we're bigger than most Koreans)
2) How should Korea solve its economic problems? (Way more common than you think it might be)
3) How old are you?
4) What do you do and how much do you make?
5) Are you married? (The last guy who asked me this then told me I was too young for love, and then bought me and my friend dinner)

And this last one is the one that baffles me the most! EVERYONE who seems to talk to me is a) surprised I can speak Korean, or at least understand them well enough to spit something out that I hope we both understand b) totally intrigued by the fact that I'm half-American, half-Korean and in Korea because I want to be and c) cannot believe I'm unmarried! But answering the "are you married?" question with a "no" has so far resulted in a huge discount off some dishes, a couple of free postcards, a free dinner of street food, and a t-shirt. Score! If only it worked like that in the US - I could definitely use a free lunch or two here and there!

I'm going to be in a magazine!

I'm famous! Well, I will be in January...this magazine just heard that the place I intern at gets people from the US and so they want an interview since I'm an expat volunteering in Korea. Photographers are coming tomorrow to take pictures and the reporter is going to interview me, woohoo! Now, what to wear...

"This is Starbucks. What do you mean you don't have Nutrasweet or Half and Half?"

Ah, silly Americans. Don't you know that not everyone is as obsessed with fake sugar and calories as you are? Even when several of us in line, as well as those working behind the counter, explained that they do not make such things over here, the couple could not believe that a Starbucks would be lacking these! They actually tried to ask for a refund.

Doing some of my last shopping before I leave and prices turn into Christmas mark-ups - last call for fakes or other Asian goodies...

Ah, the insanity! One month to go...

Man, time is FLYING by. I hit the one month mark yesterday for when I am leaving and I'm getting sad. I tried to work out staying for a little bit longer, but between school, lack of job, and lack of apartment to live in over here, it just didn't work out. Nick, from McGill (yes, from Poughkeepsie for you McGill kids reading this) is going to take over my job though, so if I make it back, I'll have a place to crash hopefully!! Let's see if I can score yet another unpaid summer of work, right? Getting excited to start school though, and searching for an apartment too...So much to do!

So this past week has been crazy. I had my first big presentation at one of the universities and it went well, and I've gotta give another tomorrow. Working on building a box the size of a jail cell in North Korea right now, it's really not that big. I don't think I can fit in it without falling over. Or maybe I just can't balance. It's only 2ft wide by 3ft tall...

Also went to dinner w/ my entire school faculty on Friday to this GORGEOUS traditional restaurant somewhere near us. For the first time since I told them I wasn't coming back, things were really chill and it was a hi/goodbye dinner for a new teacher and me. Some of us went out to a norebang (Korean karaoke) after that and Candace and I finally figured out how these girls stay in shape - shaking it like crazy in the singing room! We were totally put to shame when they got up (but we did score a 99/100 singing 99 Red Balloons, best score of the night!)

A few hours after getting home from school festivities, hopped on the plane and flew to see Wilson in Beijing! It was SO good to see a friend from home, and he was an AWESOME host. We started running around the city immediately, taking a cab from the airport and going straight to the Forbidden City, which we did backwards (note: incredibly hard to go against the current of giant tour groups!) and then proceeded to pretty much go full-on til I left at 630 on Monday morning, when I got back just in time to teach my little kids. Whew!


All the faculty of Wonderland - looks like we all get along, doesn't it? Missing one teacher, Joy, who is the other American, but it was a good dinner. The second picture is the bizarre Maori background that would play during every single karaoke song. What it has to do with ANYTHING we sang, I have no idea...

In case you were wondering, the cab is SARS free. And this is the nuclear plant on the way to the Forbidden City from the airport.

My Mao watch! The hand waves back and forth. It sort of works. But I already broke the band. Yes, only 2 days later.

So Wilson and I went in backwards through the Forbidden City, and this is what we were met with. 8000 people wearing red Nike caps or some other marker for their tour groups - lots of wading and darting trying to go against the current. Wilson and I took the same picture - standing against the columns - they look kinda cool all in a line. And the next is the massive courtyard of the Forbidden City. The whole place is definitely impressive, and makes me want to watch "The Last Emperor", but the fact that SO much of it is closed off to the public is kind of annoying. This is also one of the many thrones you see (each has its own purpose, I forget what this one's is). And finally, the main entrance, complete with Mao's portrait, and the up-close shot too.

Tiananmen Square - sight of the big demonstrations and man standing up to a tank. Which we must've walked at least 4 times, and it's pretty big, in search of a place that would exchange my money. In the end, we wound up at the big hotel right next to the Forbidden City. Always go with your first instinct!

After the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square, Wilson took me to a tea house where we met his friend, Jane (picture below). Wilson had some kind of jasmine tea and I had an AMAZING lychee tea which was so good, but you couldn't buy it on its own at the tea store. Oh well. These two guys here made incredible animal noises - as if there were birds, dogs, horses, and whatever else they did actually in the room. Wilson said it was like "Chinese traditional beat-boxing." And here we are at the tea house, though Wilson is not smiling because he likes awkward pictures.

For dinner, we went for Peking Duck which was really good, but didn't actually seem like we got all that much meat. The guy carves it near your table, and I guess they're supposed to make a stir-fry or something out of the meat not carved off at first, but the remainder of our bird simply disappeared to who knows where. Wilson really liked the chopstick holders, and this is me and Jane, definitely not paying attention to the camera we're supposed to be looking at. Oh yeah, and if you put your jacket over the chair, they put a cover over so no one will steal it. Nice of them to watch out for you like that.

Beijing's version of Bangkok's tuk-tuk. Though these are WAY smaller. I'm not quite sure how comfortable it would be for one person to fit in there. Wilson and I thought about doing it just to say we did it, but nixed that idea quickly.

The next day we went to the Temple of Heaven which is huge and is in this really big park. There are two pretty large temples on the grounds and a few checkpoints to make sure you only see them once if you've only paid once. Up close, the paint is peeling off and could definitely use some of the money being charged for admission to do some restoration work. The inside was still nice though. The whole thing is still pretty impressive.

After the temple, Wilson took me wandering through the hutongs - Beijing's old neighborhoods that are slowly being torn down. Imagine old Chinese movies from the Cultural Revolution and the houses they show there and that's what these were like, though in much worse condition. I thought they were really interesting to see though, especially in contrast to everything being done to prepare for the 2008 Olympics. Though sadly, most turn into the broken down frame you see next to the other picture.

Street food! Beijing's street food actually seems to be semi-protected behind windows, unlike the carts here. And here are our noodles in a bag. SO good. Ridiculously good. They made them fresh for us, and we got random steamed bun type things to go with them.

We finished our sightseeing at the lake by the hutongs, which was beautiful! We ate our noodles by the side and then walked around the other side of the hutongs which has been turned into a trendy bar area, including a bar called "Sex and Da City" and a Starbucks all done in traditional Chinese decorating style.

Candied fruit on a stick! EXCELLENT. Crabapples and mandarin orange slices coated in sugar. Mmmmm...

Pay up.

Chestnuts roasting in a fire in a barrel...

It's FREEZING here. SO COLD. Yay for heating systems in the floor so that you don't freeze your feet off too when you wake up. The bathroom however, is still quite a shocking wake-up call. So cold.

All over the streets now are these people sitting on stools next to big metal barrels on their side roasting chestnuts inside them. Chestnut carts are all over the place, and they've got these chestnut paste-filled puffy things that are really good too. But the metal barrel is just kinda interesting - like you could make it in your backyard. More on food/cd/anything you'd ever need trucks later...

Been preparing like mad the past two weeks for a big presentation at one of the universities in the city this week. Practiced the final version for my office today and rocked it! Didn't have to change a thing, woohoo! So now it's just gotta all go well on Thursday...

What kind of restaurant makes you cook your own food?

If you go for meat in Korea, these kinds! Bill Murray and Scarlett Johanneson's characters from Lost in Translation would not be amused. We went for Kalbi, which is beef short ribs I think. It's SO good. You grill the meat at your table and then you get lots of veggie side dishes. You put the meat in a piece of lettuce and add rice, some green onions or garlic maybe, some soybean paste (it's good I swear) and whatever else you feel like putting in. Wrap it all up and pop it in your mouth. SO good. The picture is of Samgyupsal, which is a thicker cut of pork. It was at the table next to us, but you get an idea of what you do at the table. This is me and Alicia. She's one of the Korean English teachers at school. She's also helping me do some of the translations from work because they're so hard. Even she thinks they're difficult and she's bilingual! The last picture is of the ridiculous accumulation of soju bottles from the table next to us that 10 businessmen were sitting at. When they left, the ladies filled up a CASE with the empty bottles. That is 36 bottles of liquor...and they say Asians have low tolerance...





And Spencer has just told me that "jass" is a real word. Oops. I still don't know if it was on purpose or not...

The DMZ and Back

Just got back from visiting the DMZ between North and South Korea. I'd been to Panmunjom, which is the joint security area where they have all the negotiation talks and such before, and that's where you get to step into North Korea for a few minutes as you walk around the room where they have these talks. This time, we went to the town that is as close to North Korea as you can get - Paju. I went with my internship people, there were about 40 of us - about 20 defectors, 10 of us who work there, and 10 volunteers or friends. We played some funny games on the bus, I think to keep everyone awake, involving lots of clapping and "So-and-so fighting!" which is a big Korean thing to say when you're cheering for someone. Then we got close to the border and I'll explain as the pictures go along. This entry's probably written more for me so I remember, but maybe whoever's reading this might get something out of it too.



9km before the border, about 6 miles, you go through your first military inspection point. This is a picture of what the road looks like after you go through this checkpoint. To deter cars from making a run for it, they've set up barriers on alternate sides of the road and you weave through them for about half a mile. The bus driver we had today gets tons and tons of credit for some of the maneuvering we did today. Hairpin turns up some mountains into the little village to get to the observation point and weaving in and out of these things is like your worst driving test nightmare. When they end, it's just completely flat, pretty much 'til you get to the border.



After this, we went and ate a quick lunch at a little rest stop kind of place. Western toilets were a very pleasant surprise and much welcomed after our bus ride. I've still got a bad cough so I was drinking tea and thoroughly regretted finishing it off about halfway through the trip. Korean coach buses seem to be lacking the restroom amenities that buses at home do, so I was quite pleased when we finally arrived. This towel is one of the only souvenirs that actually said anything about the tunnel or Panmunjom, everything else was pretty much Korea in general kind of stuff. You can also buy DMZ rice and other North Korean goods like soybean powder (the area we were in was famous for it) and other little odds and ends.



From there we went to Dorasan Station, the northernmost train station in South Korea, and what is hoped to one day run through unified Korea and all the way to Northern Europe, perhaps stretching as far as London. When this will happen, you never know, but they've got big plans. They started construction in 2002 and "Bushy" came for the groundbreaking ceremony and signed a piece of rail, I forget what they're actually called. In the picture of the sign pointing left to Pyongyang (capital of the North) and Seoul (capital of the South) you can see Bush and then-Korean-president Kim Dae Jung. Photos like this are all over commemorating the big event. This is also a picture of the ticket gate - note the sign to Pyongyang. Right now, the station has a train going through it 3 times a day, but we weren't really sure where it went or what it was for. There was a timetable, and a ticket window, but I don't think the place is actually open to passenger travel yet. The train did appear once while we were there though. Comes from Seoul and goes right back we think. This is also me, another intern - Dorothy, and the guard. I don't know how amused he was to be taking pictures. After you go past him, you go downstairs to their immigrations/security area, which is fully built and simply lacks the actual hardware such as computers, electrical outlets, desks for people to sit at inside the booths, etc. But all the signs have been made, as if it could be up and running in a month or so. All they need is a unified country for it to function for. The tracks I'm standing on stretch to North Korea which is just over the mountains.



After the station, we headed to the observation point, which was amazing. You walk into an auditorium and you are in a room with a giant window for a wall and there is Kaesong, North Korea, in all its superficial glory. We weren't sure if it was a propaganda village kind of set up or not, as is near the joint security area, but it's got some pretty tall buildings and lots of smaller ones, and a giant structure with a big North Korean flag flying atop it. Just across from it is the South Korean one, just as tall, just as big. You are not allowed to take pictures from inside the auditorium, though I have heard people sneak them - I didn't feel like risking my camera being confiscated. When you go outside, there are those machines where you put money in them and you can get a super-magnified look. So we put our money in and looked around, and saw a group of kids playing, perhaps a few people walking, but nothing else. Not a single car, not a single person working in a field or something, nothing. Only this small group of people in a small area. It felt really weird to be spying on them, which is essentially what we were doing. After a bunch of pictures of the sky, this is my one picture of North Korea, successfully taken after many tries of standing at the very edge of the photo line, which is about 15 ft from the watching area, and holding my camera as high as I could hoping I was aiming in the right direction. The pole on the right is North Korea. Notice the lack of trees after it and the fact that the mountains look pretty bare. This is because they've used all the trees for fuel pretty much.



Our last stop was probably the most shocking and most intense experience of the day. You are not allowed to bring cameras into this area, so I took a picture of the sign and you miss out on how hot I looked in my yellow construction hat. This is the 3rd Infiltration Tunnel, built by North Koreans and discovered in 1978 after a defector told of North Korean plans to invade, and deemed to be the most dangerous because of the fact that its end, the side we entered on, is only 44 km from Seoul. It's just over 1600m long and we walked 260m of it. After donning the construction hat, you start down a very nice, bright tunnel for about 10 minutes so you can get down to 75m underground where the tunnel is. I heard there used be a small train you could take to go down into it, but I think you realize a lot more when you walk it. One end shows you where construction stopped after it was discovered by the South. You make a left, and start down the tunnel. About 6ft wide, it's supposed to be able to let 30,000 troops through per hour. I had to crouch through most of it, so it's probably about 5'5" and SUPER claustrophobic. There is some water leaking through some areas and a couple of factoids on plaques on the walls. You can see where the dynamite holes were and how it was dug. The walls were also coated with coal when discovered because the North Koreans, after denying it was constructed by them and saying that only the South was capable of doing something like this, said that it was a coal mine, despite the fact that the entire tunnel and surrounding areas are made of granite. "Just another example of North Korean two-sidedness" is what the sign said. I don't know how these pictures were taken, but they are indeed from inside the tunnel, so maybe you can get some idea of what we crouched through. Needless to say, we reached the dead end and hightailed it back out. The hike back out was exhausting (a steep incline for 10 min can be rough!) and as the day's last activity, we were pretty beat when we made it to the top. Can you imagine thousands of troops actually charging through it and invading Seoul? It's pretty scary that there are 4 of them, and the 4th was discovered by accident in 1990.





This is the group that we went with. We put down papers so we could sit down in the parking lot and introduce ourselves, what we're doing with the organization or what we thought of the trip, etc. (Something you think might've been done at the beginning of the trip instead of the end?) Apparently, the soldiers on duty thought we were up to something and came over and asked us to leave and stop whatever it was we had planned. They thought we were protesting or something. But once we explained that really, it was nothing, we got to stay for 10 minutes and then were promptly asked to leave. This is the unification sculpture in front of the building. It's supposed to be North and South Koreans pushing two halves of the world which symbolizes peace. The arch over it is the railway connecting everything and the shot next to it is of the inside of the sculpture. Both sides have the Korean peninsula, with the North raised on one side and the South raised on the other. When peace is achieved, the two sides can be put together and will fit perfectly. We also drove by one of the US army bases on the way out, kinda odd to see Americans up there, seemingly in the middle of nowhere. The base had lots of recreation facilities outside, but all were grown over and hadn't been used in a very long time. The base actually looked to be in pretty poor condition, but I can't imagine that they get supply visits very often up there.

A long day. Promptly passed out on the bus on the way home, but really, really interesting and I only wish I understood more of what was said, even though I got a pretty good rundown from those who spoke English. I can only imagine what it was like for the defectors who were with us, but everyone talked about how great the experience was and how it made a lot of the work we do hit home.