Once again, I find myself writing just as I am about to leave another wonderful experience and realize that I have completely slacked off on keeping up with the blog.
I didn't write about visiting the post-adoption center, where I was able to play with babies who are about to go to the US, but aren't in foster families.
I didn't write about the adventures of street food in Korea, with their wonderful fruit smoothies, weird hotdogs covered in french fries, mandu, sundae, and tteokboki.
I didn't write about my research and what it's like to chase down organizations in the middle of summer when there are a million events going on and nobody really has time, but is kind enough to make time for you.
I didn't write about all of the friends I've made and how much I will miss them when I go back to the US, how I'm worried that the next time I come, they might not be here and how sad that makes me.
I didn't write about how I am excited to escort a child home, making a full loop of my experience.
I didn't write about being sad to leave Asia and my journeys behind, but happy to be back with family and friends, sharing what the (mis)adventures of the past five months.
Well...actually I think I did just write about those things...even in brief. Maybe I'll go back and write more about them later. Or maybe I will continue this blog with the (mis)adventures into which I always find myself stumbling. Or maybe this is the end of both my trips AND my foray into the blogging world...I'm kind of awful at updates, but I hope you were thoroughly amused anyway.
Here I go, back to the US in 1 day, back to the Incheon airport in 5 hours, back to Seoul in 27 minutes. It's been fun.
Monday, August 10, 2009
Saturday, August 1, 2009
Too Many Adventures to Keep Up...
Once again, I've been ridiculously neglectful in documenting and sharing my experiences. This will be a summary catch up that will also be ridiculous, in the sense that I cannot be brief and the word "summary" really is just me mocking my inability to be concise. See? Look how long that last sentence was, and I'm not even talking about what I did yet!
1) "home"coming: I decided way back when I was just a youngin' that when I traveled to Korea the first time, I would most definitely go to my birthtown and get a better grip on my roots. Turns out that even though it only takes a few hours to travel Korea, ways aren't that direct and kind of suck if you don't drive and/or are a foreigner with no Korean language skills, spoken or written. Long story short (again, can I really be that short?), Miss Choi, the social worker/translator at Ilsan, took pity on me and my millions of questions on how Korean buses work. She decided to take me with her to Gimcheon since she was going there anyway and then have her family drive me to Pohang, about an hour away from there.
We left on Friday evening and took the train to Gimcheon from Ilsan (we had to transfer in Seoul.) Now, anyone who knows me well (which is probably everyone reading this blog because if you don't know me well, it's a little creepy you care to follow this raving lunatic anyway) knows that I am easily stressed and freak out at the smallest thing. Turns out that I end up falling asleep and forget the name of the place that we're supposed to get off. Not a worry this time because I'm traveling with a Korean, right? Well, not so right. We had to ride in separate cars because we couldn't get seats together. When we stopped at...I think Daegu?...I wake up, see everyone leaving the train, and start to panic. I ran up and down the train with my ridiculously full hiking backpack that I way overpacked for a weekend visit, and I tried to find Miss Choi by yelling, hoping my voice would carry 4 cars away where she was sitting. The conductor was a little freaked out when I started to hyperventilate because the train started to move, and I wasn't off of it since I didn't see Miss Choi. He asked me what was wrong in Korean, which only made me freak out more and explain that I only spoke English. Such a nice man, he told me to stay there and took off down the cars to find someone to interpret for me. I ended up following him anyway and found Miss Choi sitting in her seat with her mp3 player looking completely shocked and confused at me wandering at breakneck speed through the train. She laughed at me, I laughed at me, and then we sat in her car as the conductor came back with a girl who spoke English. I think Miss Choi explained I was a spazz because everyone laughed, and it was all okay after that.
When we got to Gimcheon, her mother met us at the station, and we bought a cake since it was her older brother's (oppa's) birthday. I met both of her parents and her dad spoke some English, as did her brother who I met the next morning.
I felt kind of bad because her brother took us to Pohang the next day, even though it was his birthday. We ate special type of seaweed soup for breakfast that Koreans eat on birthdays, which was very....seaweedy tasting...before heading out. We ended up going to Bogyeongsa Temple, where my birthparents met, and Homigot Beach, the farthest point east in South Korea. Unfortunately, it decided to rain, but we still had fun anyway and ate so many snacks. I still can't get over the amount of snacks that Koreans eat.
The next day, since we got back to late for me to take the train home, we lazed around a bit, went to buy a birthday present for the choir director's daughter, and then went to two parks and her old high school. Even though it is summer, there where people there studying on a Sunday. Although, I do have to admit that a few girls in a classroom were actually just playing with a music program.
Overall, it was a lot of fun, and I did feel lie it was important for me to go there and see it. I don't know if I'd go back again any time soon, but maybe if my family was with me I'd take them because it was so beautiful.
2) Korean wedding: I got the chance to go to a Korean wedding with Molly and volunteers from America who had come as a family on the Motherland tour. It was beautiful, there were hundreds of people, and instead of taking presents, it is customary to take an envelope filled with the amount of money that it would probably cost for the meal. Maybe that's more useful than twenty toasters?
3) War Memorial Museum and Seodamun Prison Museum: Wow. They were intense in their own ways.
4) Holt Motherland Camp!: So much fun, I'm really glad that I was able to take part in this, even though it meant not doing the internship I had originally planned. I met 10 people from 4 different countries not including our Korean staff. They took us so many places, and in Seoul we had Tae Kwon Do Class (taught by Kukkiwon Master, demo performers, and a Korean Tiger), cooking class at a culinary school, ettiquette class where we learned how to serve traditional tea ceremony, bow, and had a coming of age ceremony, art class, tour of World Cup Stadium, hiking in a park, Han River cruise, care center, Ilsan (again for me!) and way too many foods. We also took a trip to Busan, a beach city and 2nd largest city in Korea, and Gyeonju, considered a museum without walls.
I really liked the homestay visit we did as well. I went with Mija from Denmark, and we stayed with a family outside of Seoul in Gyeonggi-do Province. The father worked for Samsung Corportation, who must really want people to host homestays because they sent a camera and interviewer to record the first night of our stay. I thought it was really funny because we had to do things over and over again to keep recording it correctly. We made bulgogi, talked, showed photos, and had to pretend to go to bed. After we went to "bed," we played Monopoly with the girl who was 12 and really adorable, and went to see Haeundae, a Korean movie about a tidal wave (I know that's not the right word) in Busan, which made me a little hesitant about going to Busan, even though it was a fictional movie. The next morning we went to a Buddhist temple area (more, I know, right?) which was beautiful, before eating supper in Seoul and meeting back with the group to go see Nanta performance, which was fantastic.
We were able to review our records too and meet our foster parents. I was so excited and surprised to learn that I would meet my foster mother too since nobody had told me until 10 minutes before we left. It was incredible, and I will meet the rest of her family before I leave Korea.
4) G.O.A.L. Conference: I met some great people, listened to some interesting speeches, and had an overall good time. I really like conferences a lot. For real.
5) On my own: Now I'm in Seoul, living at the Holt Guesthouse, doing interviews, last meetings, and trying to do some more sightseeing. I still want to see the kimchi museum and the Olympic park.
Okay, this is way too long as predicted. Sorry.
1) "home"coming: I decided way back when I was just a youngin' that when I traveled to Korea the first time, I would most definitely go to my birthtown and get a better grip on my roots. Turns out that even though it only takes a few hours to travel Korea, ways aren't that direct and kind of suck if you don't drive and/or are a foreigner with no Korean language skills, spoken or written. Long story short (again, can I really be that short?), Miss Choi, the social worker/translator at Ilsan, took pity on me and my millions of questions on how Korean buses work. She decided to take me with her to Gimcheon since she was going there anyway and then have her family drive me to Pohang, about an hour away from there.
We left on Friday evening and took the train to Gimcheon from Ilsan (we had to transfer in Seoul.) Now, anyone who knows me well (which is probably everyone reading this blog because if you don't know me well, it's a little creepy you care to follow this raving lunatic anyway) knows that I am easily stressed and freak out at the smallest thing. Turns out that I end up falling asleep and forget the name of the place that we're supposed to get off. Not a worry this time because I'm traveling with a Korean, right? Well, not so right. We had to ride in separate cars because we couldn't get seats together. When we stopped at...I think Daegu?...I wake up, see everyone leaving the train, and start to panic. I ran up and down the train with my ridiculously full hiking backpack that I way overpacked for a weekend visit, and I tried to find Miss Choi by yelling, hoping my voice would carry 4 cars away where she was sitting. The conductor was a little freaked out when I started to hyperventilate because the train started to move, and I wasn't off of it since I didn't see Miss Choi. He asked me what was wrong in Korean, which only made me freak out more and explain that I only spoke English. Such a nice man, he told me to stay there and took off down the cars to find someone to interpret for me. I ended up following him anyway and found Miss Choi sitting in her seat with her mp3 player looking completely shocked and confused at me wandering at breakneck speed through the train. She laughed at me, I laughed at me, and then we sat in her car as the conductor came back with a girl who spoke English. I think Miss Choi explained I was a spazz because everyone laughed, and it was all okay after that.
When we got to Gimcheon, her mother met us at the station, and we bought a cake since it was her older brother's (oppa's) birthday. I met both of her parents and her dad spoke some English, as did her brother who I met the next morning.
I felt kind of bad because her brother took us to Pohang the next day, even though it was his birthday. We ate special type of seaweed soup for breakfast that Koreans eat on birthdays, which was very....seaweedy tasting...before heading out. We ended up going to Bogyeongsa Temple, where my birthparents met, and Homigot Beach, the farthest point east in South Korea. Unfortunately, it decided to rain, but we still had fun anyway and ate so many snacks. I still can't get over the amount of snacks that Koreans eat.
The next day, since we got back to late for me to take the train home, we lazed around a bit, went to buy a birthday present for the choir director's daughter, and then went to two parks and her old high school. Even though it is summer, there where people there studying on a Sunday. Although, I do have to admit that a few girls in a classroom were actually just playing with a music program.
Overall, it was a lot of fun, and I did feel lie it was important for me to go there and see it. I don't know if I'd go back again any time soon, but maybe if my family was with me I'd take them because it was so beautiful.
2) Korean wedding: I got the chance to go to a Korean wedding with Molly and volunteers from America who had come as a family on the Motherland tour. It was beautiful, there were hundreds of people, and instead of taking presents, it is customary to take an envelope filled with the amount of money that it would probably cost for the meal. Maybe that's more useful than twenty toasters?
3) War Memorial Museum and Seodamun Prison Museum: Wow. They were intense in their own ways.
4) Holt Motherland Camp!: So much fun, I'm really glad that I was able to take part in this, even though it meant not doing the internship I had originally planned. I met 10 people from 4 different countries not including our Korean staff. They took us so many places, and in Seoul we had Tae Kwon Do Class (taught by Kukkiwon Master, demo performers, and a Korean Tiger), cooking class at a culinary school, ettiquette class where we learned how to serve traditional tea ceremony, bow, and had a coming of age ceremony, art class, tour of World Cup Stadium, hiking in a park, Han River cruise, care center, Ilsan (again for me!) and way too many foods. We also took a trip to Busan, a beach city and 2nd largest city in Korea, and Gyeonju, considered a museum without walls.
I really liked the homestay visit we did as well. I went with Mija from Denmark, and we stayed with a family outside of Seoul in Gyeonggi-do Province. The father worked for Samsung Corportation, who must really want people to host homestays because they sent a camera and interviewer to record the first night of our stay. I thought it was really funny because we had to do things over and over again to keep recording it correctly. We made bulgogi, talked, showed photos, and had to pretend to go to bed. After we went to "bed," we played Monopoly with the girl who was 12 and really adorable, and went to see Haeundae, a Korean movie about a tidal wave (I know that's not the right word) in Busan, which made me a little hesitant about going to Busan, even though it was a fictional movie. The next morning we went to a Buddhist temple area (more, I know, right?) which was beautiful, before eating supper in Seoul and meeting back with the group to go see Nanta performance, which was fantastic.
We were able to review our records too and meet our foster parents. I was so excited and surprised to learn that I would meet my foster mother too since nobody had told me until 10 minutes before we left. It was incredible, and I will meet the rest of her family before I leave Korea.
4) G.O.A.L. Conference: I met some great people, listened to some interesting speeches, and had an overall good time. I really like conferences a lot. For real.
5) On my own: Now I'm in Seoul, living at the Holt Guesthouse, doing interviews, last meetings, and trying to do some more sightseeing. I still want to see the kimchi museum and the Olympic park.
Okay, this is way too long as predicted. Sorry.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
