The Sun Will Never Shine Again

*This was originally posted on Thursday September 6, 2007. Immediately following this post, the sun did in fact finally show itself on Friday, Saturday AND Sunday. It's amazing how a little sun can make a place seem 10x better. **See Picture Below

Well I officially hit week two in South Korea, and the sun has yet to show itself.

It was last seen in North America, at roughly 7:30am, with a brief sighting again somewhere over the international dateline before my brief stopover in Toyko. Ya know, I vaguely remember in my traveling haze noticing that while it was 5pm at the Toyko airport two Thursdays ago, it looked very cloudly and serene, as if the sun were rising but not just quite there yet. Maybe because my body thought it was really 4am, but I really thought that everything looked like very early morning, especially because there were no people around.

Regardless of all of that, my first 4-5 days here weather wise were odd. It was a different type of humidity than I had ever experienced. For anyone that is from or ever been to New York, imagine what the middle of August feels like when you're standing on the subway platform at rush hour waiting endlessly for a train to come. It was THAT kind of humidity, only so thick that I almost felt like I was taking a sip from a glass of water everytime I took a breath. It was so humid and hot that I was falling asleep standing up b/c I couldn't really function properly. We were easily reaching temperatures in the 90s, with around 85-95% humidity, and most places have minimal air conditioning.

However all of that feels like it was ages ago, because this week it has done nothing but rain. It became an immediate fall, but instead of really pretty color changing trees & leaves, its just grey. Everything is grey. And this is in no way me saying that things are depressing or not, just merely observing the color of the place. One of the korean teachers on my staff assured me that at some point soon we should be seeing blue skies, but I believe this to be a complete fabrication as the Korean Sky is most surely continuously grey. They were giving me false hope.

Not only do I need to see the sun for my own happiness, I need it to happy purely at an educational standpoint. When I walk into my class in the morning, and ask my students to tell me what the weather is like, I need to be able to teach them more phrases other than "cloudy" "rainy" "cold".


^A grey cloudy sky on the way back from Seoul to Suji


^The view from my balcony on a sunny, blue sky day

My First Trip to Seoul

My first thought... "Now this is where I wanted to be"

Now in all fairness, I do like Suji, and in the long run this little ghetto-fabulous area of the world will do me a lot of good. BUT compared to how amazing Seoul was, it was a bit to swallow on the first trip in.

First off, I was going to get out of Suji today if it killed me. There's only so many places you can really go here, and wherever you do wind up going I guarantee all you'll really see is neon signs or apartment (lego) buildings. My favorite part of Suji so far is the Lotte Mart, and it is just a gigantic piece of property with a very huge target/walmart/sam's club/bj's type place all mixed into one.

However, like any big city, Seoul is where the culture is. There are museums, and markets, and squares, and shopping districts, and architecture and restaurants and everything. Sure it'll cost you, but you at least have variety and options. I was lucky enough to go into Seoul with a couple of the girls on my staff to see the Monet Exhibit at the Seoul Museum of Art. For 10,000 Won (~$10) we went into a Museum with 3 floors and perused some of the most famous paintings in the world. After two hours or so we just happened to walk around Seoul a bit, find some food at a place called, "The Place" which happened to cater primarily towards american food (sandwiches, pasta, salads) and was pretty cheap all things considered and hopped back on the bus. I gotta tell ya... salad has never tasted so good.

The interesting thing about Seoul is that there's a gigantic Mountain in the middle of it, as well as the Han River. There's a walking path along the river that if it ever stops raining here, I will definitely walk on. I also cannot wait to do Seoul Tower (one of the largest buildings in Asia) and the Zoo, and anything else it has to offer.



I imagine I will be spending most of my weekend time enjoying Seoul....

Eating is Pretty Much a Guessing Game

I'm really new to this SoKo stuff, but a girl does have to eat in order to sustain life, so this is definitely something that deserves some attention.

I'm finding that there's a fair amount of english going on here. At least most people know enough to communicate on a basic level, and when all else fails, I've definitely used pointing or sign language to get the jist across. I've learned various words... Hello (anyeonghaseyo), Thank you (Kamsanida), tired (anja***), and bottle opener (peontage), but the words for food just are not sticking in my head for whatever reason. I've learned that bap is rice, galbi is beef, bulgogi is beef soup, Chuseyo is 'for me please' and that's basically about it.

We go to a place called Sharon's everyday for lunch at work. We call it sharon's because the little korean woman who runs the place is named Sharon, after Sharon Stone. And i've had various things... Tuna Rice, Mahndu (kimchi filled, or beef filled), ramyan (spicy ramen soup), mahndu ramyan, pork cutlet in some weird bbq sauce, some sort of crispy rice thing with a ton of vegetables, and that's about it. Luckily I've had my fair share of pizza here too (pizza hut, and a place called pizza school make really good pizza).

But the best thing I've had so far is Korean BBQ. There's some cheap stuff for like $3, and then there's some great stuff for like $12. The sides are all basically the same at these places - lettuce, salt, ginger, bean curd, sprouts, kimchi, etc etc. But the grades of meat are basically where the money comes into place. You can tell the difference, but the bad meat is definitely still good. They marinate the meat for 3-4 days before serving it, bring it out on a plate when you order it, and then slab the uncooked raw stuff onto a huge grill of some kind. They bring out tongs and scissors, and you wait to cook it. You can throw some garlic cloves on there, or grill some kimchi, and basically just wait. The meat is then cut by someone at your table, and then people just have it with their metal flat chopsticks (which is an art form, let me tell you).

You can eat just piece by piece, or make yourself a little sandwich like I do by putting a piece or two in a big piece of lettuce, adding some rice, and some random side, closing it up and then consuming. It's really really good.

Anyway, it's about dinner time now. SO when I figure out what more stuff is, then you will as well.



***All words in here are basically my interpretation of how to spell something.