Halloween in November

Well, it's definitely somewhat anti-climatic to host Halloween an entire month late, but because of the swine flu this is what we were forced to do.  I won't go into too many dramatics about the frustrations surrounding the event, because from everything I have told you to date, I have a feeling you can probably infer some of what I went through as I waited (and waited, and waited, and waited) for this event to come together.

But about 386 balloons later - it came together ...somewhat.  And here are the pictures to show for it!

The night before ...

The Clown and The Cowboy

The Cowboy on the prowl

The kids

Our classes

Mickey

One of Wayne's students (that I think likes me better, haha)

My Boss

And last, but certainly not least ...about the most inappropriate thing that you will see on this blog.  What did 'we' (and I use the term we very liberally) decide to do when the kids got bored of the games ...put on Chucky for their viewing entertainment.  Brilliant, even I was too scared to watch ...they were transfixed.

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Dongdaemun Market (Seoul)

I don't know what I was expecting, but I certainly wasn't expecting what turned out to be reality.  And reality is - the women that live in this country are constantly decked out from head to toe, with shiny beautiful straight hair and never leaving home without their heels.  Whenever I am sitting on the subway I will look at the row of shoes sitting across from me (if I am lucky enough to be sitting.) and what meets my eyes is a beautiful array of sparkling, pretty heels (and normal shoes on the males.)  Like many other countries and situations (prom, weddings, etc.) the men just somewhat blend into the scenary, whereas the women stand out each looking unique and endlessly put together.

But this is not prom, nor is every day reason enough to dress for a wedding - this is real life ...my life.  And as much as I love heels more than chocolate, I can't keep up. From footwear to tights with beautiful sweaters (albiet some have some ridiculous things displayed on them) not only do I stand out because of my skin and my language, but up until this point the only footwear that I have been sporting on my touring adventures is my flip flops (which you cannot even buy here, you have to go online for if you need them) and my Diesel running shoes (cute - yes, but is neither pointy nor shiny.)

So I set out last weekend to do a little shopping.

I was slightly shocked when one of my coworkers suggested that we head out after work on Friday, I work till 9 ...isn't it time for bed?

Not in Korea.

Because of traffic it took us almost 2 hours  to get into Seoul and to our destination - 30 minutes of which was spent waiting on a block to get into the parking place.  And as a sidenote - parking here costs $10 every half hour, but with every purchase that you make, they give you a voucher for half an hour of parking.  It's called working the system.

To say that the shopping experience here is different from home would be the understatement of the world.  It's unreal, life nothing I have ever seen in my life.  Essentially Dongdaemun though called a Market is more like several high rise department stores, lined up over several streets, jammed full of vendors and stores (but not set up like stores because they do not have the same type of walls splitting them apart) and just crawling with people.  It was 11 oclock by the time that we got there and we didn't leave until 3am, and there was never a time when the streets weren't swarming with people and you didn't have to push your way around people in the department stores.

It's like sensory overload.  You can't just leisurely browse through stores at your leisure, not only are there far too many things to look at, but you have to watch out to make sure that you aren't running into one of the 10 people who are invading your personal space.

So after I did some breathing exercises and did my best to relax in these very surreal surroundings - I was ready to shop.  But something stopped me.  It wasn't necessarily the prices because there were reasonable prices all around me ...but it was the unfamiliarity of it all.  I'm unsure of what to compare this to, but imagine being on a plane, knowing the plane was in perfect working order and could get you where you wanted to go - but you have absolutely no idea how to fly that plane.

At home, shopping is almost therapeutic.  You walk into the stores here you have been a thousand times and you feel comfortable.  You touch their new lines and feel safe knowing that you will be fashionable wearing these items.  You take comfort in the brands that you have been wearing for years and you take for granted the background information that comes simply from seeing a specific name (ie. price, quality, sizing, etc.)  Here, I know nothing.  I feel lost and it is almost as overwhelming as the stores themselves.

I look at all of the beautiful clothes that surround me - but I have no idea what size I should be wearing, or what type of quality that stores sells, or how much to expect it to be, or even if that is something that won't make people stop and wonder if I got dressed in the dark.  It sounds simple, and I never thought that shopping could be so complicated - but I didn't even know where to start.

Except that every now and then you will come across a store, or a brand, or a name that you recognize.  You will immediately feel compelled to go over and touch it and feel comforted by it.  Then, just as you are thinking how cute you would look in it - you glance at the price tag.  The price is astronomical and you just know that you could never spend that much on something you could get for a quarter of the price at home.  And it hurts.

You are probably wondering now if I was successful - yes and no. I got 2 very cute tops (one was more of a sweater to wear with tights and Wayne says that it is very Asian, which I am completely fine with because as I mentioned, I love their style.)  And I am sure that this is just another challenge that I need to overcome and soon maybe even I will be wearing footwear that people will notice on the subway ...but until then, I am missing the closet that I left at home.

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Bus Trip to Daejeon

Well ...this week was a rough week.  To give you a bit of a background (though - if you read my posts last week, I guess you are up to date) Wayne & I were off for the last week because our school was closed due to the Swine Flu breakout.  It's unclear at this point how many of our kids actually had the flu, but there were over 4 public schools closed in our area, so safety first I suppose:)  Or maybe it was a good financial decision as they decided not to pay any of the teachers during this forced break. 

Either way - I won't get into my frustrations on that matter, except to say that we needed to get away.  It didn't matter where we went, just that it was away.

So we showed up at the bus terminal in Incheon (after going to Shinsegae - a HUGE department store to get winter jackets ...because apparently it became winter in the last week.) This is a picture of us in our new jackets at the bus terminal waiting for our bus.   And since we have very limited funds (please see above frustrations) we decided to take the cheapest bus pass and that just happened to be to Daejeon, South Korea.  It was a 2 hour bus ride and I could feel the tension leaving my body the second the wheels started turning.  

Daejeon - here we come!

Now, I need to break in this reverie of our 3 day get away to focus on one of the major highlights of my trip ...discovering the 'Love Motel.'  I will keep this PG-13 (though I believe I explained explicity to my grandma last week exactly the purpose of a love motel) but let me just say that they are designed to be both affordable and discreet.  And they are everywhere! 

The place that we decided on was called Sharp Motel and it cost $40 a night.  This isn't the type of place where you give your name to the front desk person or leave a credit card, nope - straight cash.  But it's also not a seedy, dirty, gross place - it was beautiful and I was all set to move in the second that I made eyes with the 50 inch screen tv and the full shower.  Never would I have imagined that a shower with a door would be a luxury, but it was wonderful. Let me share with you our room.

And check out the below array of goodies.  Everything from different lotions, to hairspray, to matches to condoms.  This hotel had everything covered.  Oh - and bug spray, I just pretended that, that wasn't there.

Oh yes - and I forgot to mention the set up outside of the motel.  They have all of the pictures of the rooms for you to view what is inside.  And everything is hidden.  You walk in the side of the building and the parking has barriers so that you are unable to make out any of the cars that are inside.  Perfect for discreetness ...no idea why people would want this, but I am sure that you can use your imagination.  And they wonder why the divorce rate is so high in this country.

So after some wonderful hours in front of the tv - they had a couple movie channels in English and I was in absolute heaven.  Never wanted to leave.  We also watched approximately 16 hours of America's Funniest Home Videos (Andrew would be proud) because there was a station that constantly seemed to be playing it ....and here's the best part - commercialless! we set out on the 'town.' 

Daejeon isn't a large place (from what I can tell and from what I saw) but our first attempt at finding somewhere to eat lead us into what must have been 'Hookers Alley' and was much larger than the hill in Seoul.  Everywhere we looked there were pictures displayed of half naked girls on their billboards and the windows of the shops were oddly dark and covered.  We didn't stay long, and sadly I didn't get any pictures.  Sometimes it's just not appropriate.

Our second attempt wasn't much more successful - while we may have ended up with food and alcohol in our bodies ...it was food that we would definitely pay for later.  It hurt.  It was so hot that it instantly brought sweat to your forehead ...we went through 2 litres of water trying to eat about 10 ribs.  I made it through 3 and gave up.  We ended up making it through all 10 (Wayne taking the brunt of most of it) - along with a bottle of soju and 2 bottles of beer ...in about 2 hours.  There are seriously no words for how hot this food was, it made my eyes water just getting close to it.  We chalked it up to an 'experience' (which is the word that we travellers like to use for mistake so that we don't feel so dumb) and set out to find our next meal.

Thankfully our third attempt was much more successful - the only problem was ... we may have under-analyzed how much alcohol we had consumed because we went through the dinner process twice.  I will attribute this to where the rest of our night ended up.

Oh yes - we went to the Norae bang (which is Korean for singing room - otherwise known as kareoke) all by ourselves!  And we performed our little hearts out ...okay, so we may have different ideas of what constitutes a performance, but we sure did sing - for 1 hour and 20 minutes straight.

There are videos, but I choose to believe the picture in my head of what I look like when I am dancing and singing (much more like Britney) and the videos slightly contradict this image.

That concludes night one.  Day two had a rather rough start and we sought solace at McDonalds to start our day.  Our plan was to head to O World.  I had found a pamphlet at the front desk and it promised 3 different worlds: Flower World, Animal World & a Carnival like World.  So we hopped into a cab and showed him the pamplet and 10 minutes later he dropped us off into absolutely nowhere.

Now - you would assume 2 things.  1. That if he didn't know where he was going, or where this place was located that he would have been upfront and honest and had us take another cab ~ and ~ 2. That we wouldn't have gotten out of the cab if we weren't in the right place.  All assumptions go out the window when you are in a foreign country where nothing looks the same and no one speaks your language.

We never made it to O World that day, but I do have high hopes of one day going back.

We ended making it to The Expo - but not before we mistakingly walked into an entire exhibit on farming that was swarming with old Korean men that glared unwelcomingly at us the entire time. Hey - we were just trying to find the entrance! It was called Tamas and I have yet to look it up in a Korean dictionary, but it must mean something about growing plants or operating heavy machinery.

We eventually made it into the Expo - which was maybe the most bizarre scenario we have yet to encounter. It was an absolute ghost land. (This is a picture of it from across the bridge - it looked promising - huge buildings, rides and even a ferris wheel!)  But when we got there ...the only person that greeted us was our friend ....

Yep - Alexander Graham Bell. Some of his close friends were there too, but none that were breathing.

Another pic of the ghost land:

We never really did figure it out - we walked in without being charged, the park looked open, music was playing, sounds were coming from some of the different exhibits, we saw random workers ...but nothing and no one else.  So we left ...and that pretty much concluded our sightseeing because while that may not seem like quite a full day - all that included over 2-3 hours of walking and I was missing America's Funniest Videos.

Overall our little trip was successful, we came back feeling much more relaxed and it was a ton of fun.  I am definitely hoping we will go back and visit O World some day ...but who knows - there is a ton more to see in this country and lots more Love Motels to stay in!

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Month Two: October 2009

It feels like yesterday that I was writing at the end of September, it almost feels like yesterday that we stepped off the plane and yet it also feels like we have been here forever.

This months was a really good/busy month. Highlights definitely being the candy in the package sent by Wayne's mom (which lasted until yesterday ...over 2 weeks ...you would be impressed unless you knew how much she sent ...tons!), the Korean Hip Hop concert, getting internet into our apartment (though it is down right now, a mere 2 weeks later, grrr), thus allowing skype dates to take place, finally getting our second bed/couch, the championship baseball game, kareoke nights with coworkers and finding a Shabu Shabu restaurant! Mmmmm, worth coming to visit us for.

You might notice that I left out going to the fish market and eating tasty treats ...that was not an oversight.

And miraculously - Wayne & I still seem to be surviving together ...a good sign being that we are both still alive:) Though - I think I thank the inclusion of the internet into our apartment as part of what has made that possible.

I wanted to take a portion of this message to thank friends & family at home who have made it so easy to feel close to home with all the emails and the skype dates. I swear that I have hated talking on the phone since I started working full time for InField and my cell phone became my worst nightmare, but all of a sudden I find myself loving skype and the connection that it gives me to home:) And for those of you that are dragging your feet either hooking it up, or setting up dates ...hopefully it will happen soon, because I miss you.

This month brought the Swine Flu and candy from home (and even some super cute red mitts - thanks Corrie!) ...can't wait to see what will happen next ...

Stay tuned.

xoL

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