Matt's Visit

Alright, I have been meaning to post this one for awhile, but it's taken some time to put together. But as a consolation.. this one is SUPER long. So, enjoy!

So for the record -- it was almost a month ago, eek! -- Matt's visit was wonderful. I continue to be so grateful to him for coming. Not only was it good to see family for the first time in six months (wow!) my brother and I generally have a lot of fun together, and I'm always up for that!

On the first Friday of his visit SLP had the day off, so we decided to visit the Korean Folk Village in Suwon. Minus the fact that it took FOREVER to get there (Seriously, Suwon folk: how do you manage getting to Seoul every weekend?) we had a great time. It wasn't very crowded so we had free reign to tour the homes etc. I finally got to see a complete traditional drum show after 9 months of living here - so I was pretty stoked about that. It's pretty easy to run across a drum show here ... if you hang around any of the temples, or near City Hall you're likely to see a group of volunteer performers drummin' away. But I had yet to set any of the hardcore drumming acrobats that were at the folk village. These guys have what remind me of ribbon dancers on their hats, and beat on the Korean equivalent of a tambourine. "But Erica-Teacher! Why must they be so ornately decorated and mobile?" you ask. Only because they FLIP IN THE AIR WHILST DRUMMING! ... Yeah. I'm a fan. And I was really happy to finally get to see them.

Matt outside what would have been his house - the Scholar's living area.

Can you say "whip lash" anyone?

My sad attempt at catching them mid- barrel turn.

We watched the see-saw acrobats too. -- another type of traditional Korean performance.

On our way back to Seoul we stopped and I introduced Matt to my favorite Korean street food: Teok Bokki (dock-bow-key). It's korean rice cakes smothered in spicy red chile paste sauce and other goodness. Really - it's yummy!


If you're not in Korea, I don't know if you've heard about it. But South Koreans are freaking out about the looming possibility of importing US beef. I know it's made international news, but between the Presidential Election and blood curdling gas prices, it's not exactly a front page story. Basically - Koreans are convinced for various misguided reasons that if they eat US beef their brains will turn into sponges and they will die. There has been a number of HUGE protests over it downtown the past few months - one of which Matt and I stumbled upon.

Protestors in front of Deoksugung Palace

My Hangeul skills are not up to par.. I think this says someone's name... Ahn Ha .. ?

Matt and I at the Cheonggyecheon

On Sunday we were going to visit Seoul Forrest, but it was raining. So we opted to see Kung Fu Panda with Mullen! I laughed because I was trying to be a good tour guide and pack Matt's trip with lots of events or whatnot, but we ended up falling into my typical routine anyway. Plus, Kung Fu Panda was an awesome movie - so I'm glad we saw it.

Matt was able to visit my school one day, and then ended up coming along on our field trip to the War Museum the next week. As far as Mars and Libra class are concerned, Matt is a rockstar .. or maybe more appropriately: a giant, red-faced monster of rockstar status. haha. I loved watching my students give my big brother a hard time though - it was really funny!

Since 'time off' is an alien concept to most workers in Korea, I couldn't really get out of work when Matt came. For the most part he bummed around Seoul during the day - and then we found something to do when I got home from work. I took him to Insadong and showed him where I bought everyone's Christmas presents. We went to Rocky Mountain Tavern and watched the (pitiful) NBA finals. And we ate a lot of kimchi mandu.

Seoul Tower ... near Insadong.

This is a popular shopping market in Insadong. It's less cheesy and touristy than many of the other stores... there are a lot of small shops full of Jewelery and a few finer souvenirs.

On Thursday Matt and I hit up a Korean baseball game with Andrea and my coworker Sarah. Really, Korean baseball games deserve a post of their own, but let's just say Korean Baseball fans are passionate, to say the least, and the game -despite the less than superb baserunning and defensive skills- was a lot of fun! They have cheerleaders and a kind of super-leader-dancing man that leads the fans in cheers for the entire game. I'm not kidding! They don't stop cheering together for a single at bat. It reminded me of the student section at some crazy NCAA college football game.

At the baseball game. Doosan Beas vs Lotte Giants... Think Blue! haha

Not even the rain delay could stop these fans!

On Friday I got my classes covered and Matt and I walked the 'Between the Palaces' walk that's in my lonely planet guide. ... the walk turned out to be not what we expected, but it was still nice. It was in this artsy part of town near the Blue House where there are a ton of shops, restaurants and galleries. We had an expensive but delicious lunch and visited the Owl Museum! Note to Seoulites everywhere: The Owl Museum is not so much an Owl Museum as a room in the back of some lady's house where she keeps her collection of over 2,500 owl statues (and other kinds of memorabilia). I got a kick out of it. Matt was creeped out. haha. I took Matt on a tour of Gyeonbokgung Palace (which I already wrote about) and then we went back to Insadong to pick up some souvenirs.

Kickin' it at Wangsimni

Matt pretending to sleep on the subway. Silly waegook.

*yuuhhhm*

At the Owl Museum!!!
I want to do this with my grandmother's collection of elephants.

I like how you can see the throne room reflected in our glasses.

Matt and me each standing in the Queen's doorway - apparently to eternal youth and beauty.

The sun got in Matt's eyes, haha.

All in all it was a great visit. My friends and coworkers and *especially* my students were very glad to meet Matt! haha. And I guess I felt lucky to have him visit. :)

Gyeonbokgung: Palace of Shining Happiness

Back in May I visited the largest palace in Seoul with Kirsten, Liz, and their co-worker Leah. It's been my favorite palace yet, but that also may be because we had a private tour guide! They offer guided tours in English, Japanese and (of course) Korean at various times throughout the day. It worked out that the English tour was starting about 5 minutes after we arrived, so we figured we'd wait and maybe follow the tour for a bit - before wandering off on our own. Well, five minutes passed and we were the only 4 who had shown up! The guide was kind enough to still take us around, even though we were the smallest group she said she'd ever had! She had great English and a ton of knowledge about the history of the palace - as well as the Joseon dynasty in general.

This is the main gate (first of 3) and entrance into Gyeongbokgung. Gung means palace, and gyeong bok literally means shining happiness.. ergo: palace of shining happiness. It was originally built by King Taejo in 1395 and in its heyday was said to rival the Forbidden City in Beijing. However, like everything in Korea, it's unfortunately been burnt down more than once and had to continually be rebuilt. Only a dozen or so buildings remain, but according to our tour guide they are in a constant process of trying to rebuild and replicate the entire palace.


Because of Buddha's Birthday and the Hi Seoul festival they had a ceremonial changing of the guards... which I have come to accept as basically the same in every city in every country in the world (that I've been to, anyway). Basically: there's a signal that the replacement guard is coming, there are some people sanding guard to be sure there's no foul play, some dudes exchange notes and passwords etc. and update each other about whatever it is they are guarding, someone hits a drum or blows a horn to let everyone know that the guards are changing and to basically call "all well," and then they go home. You now never have to watch a changing of the guard again - at least not a historical reenactment of one.


This is where the King held his parties. His guests entered from the gates in the wall to the right. There were three they could pass through - depending on their social status of course. The pillars supporting the "party hall" are designed for good feng shui. The outer pillars are square (representing the Earth) and the inner pillars are round (representing the sky/heavens). It's cool to see how intricately these details are included in the designs of the palaces. Everything is designed to compliment the king, both to flatter his ego (one could say) and to ensure his health, safety, longevity of life, and a (male) heir.

The animals one finds on the corner of roofs is another favorite trademark of mine in Asian architecture. There is always an odd number of animals on the corners of important buildings to protect the inhabitants and invoke blessings - you could say .... they basically served similar purposes to gothic gargoyles. From what I have learned, the Koreans were very superstitious and odd numbers were better than even ones. You can tell which buildings are most important because they will have more animal protectors. The typical numbers you will see are 5 and 7 .. on important buildings there could be 9 and on places imprtant to the king likely there would be 11 or 13.



Our tour guide. She was really sweet. :)


Me in front of the main throne room, where the king would receive guests etc.


This was the king's main throne room. The painting behind the throne is a folding screen and it was moved to wherever the king was going to be. It incorporates a lot of traditional Asian imagery, including mountains in the background for strength and protections, water in the foreground for a clear mind. There's also significance to the number of things and the colors in the picture ... but I can't remember what they are. haha.

Images of a mythical dragon-type creatures are typical of Korean royal decor, but this one is unique in that it has seven talons as opposed to five or three. It is the only one they have found to be that way - but Korean historians don't have a clue as to what its significance is because all of their written history has been lost to one fire or another during the time of Japanese occupation.



They hung the doors of the buildings up on these bars to store them during warm weather. In the winter they hung them up and attactched hinges so that they could be pushed open and closed, kind of like accordions....or something. The point is: instead of windows or worrying about summer and winter insulation - they just took the doors off.


This was just some pagoda that was on the grounds - I'm sure it's some sort of meditation spot or something.

I really enjoyed this palace and would reccommend it to anyone visiting Seoul. It's the largest one and has a great sample of Korean architecture, history, etc etc. I'm going back on Friday to show Matt around, and get a better view of the Blue House (Korean Presidential residence) than I did before and to visit the Folk Museum, which I didn't get a chance to do. So I will post more pictures and info next time.

By the by...

... Matt's in Korea.

My brother got here on Wednesday and is in town for a week and half. We'll be hitting the mean streets of Seoul so all those in the land of SK - watch yo'self.

It's been great having him here and getting to show what life is like for us Seoulites. Plus, him being here finally makes it real that I am here - and life has gone on for the last nine months... that everything hasn't just been put on pause while I'm having this crazy dream. Wow. I live in Korea - it still gets me.

Geomundo: Part Duggae

So.. the adventure continues! Our first night in Geomundo is one I will never forget. We'd had a fabulous day and were all really relaxed. Not to mention, thrilled to be out of Seoul for the weekend! After dinner, and some coffee, we went to the convenience store and bought snacks and beers. We took our goodies back to the beach and had our own chill-out beach party. It was so great! We all decided to call it a night and headed back to the main part of the island when we passed the biggest group of singing/dancing/drinking ajumma and ajushi ever! Haha. Really though, they were some swell old folk and had better moves than any of us posers! We chatted it up for a bit and then went our separate ways, when a few in our group decided that we ought to bring them a couple beers.. you know.. because. When we showed up again, and brought presents, we were invited to hang out with them. They sang for us and the gauntlet was officially thrown down. We sang (poorly and out of tune) for them - and it became a full fledged sing-off.



We were going to hang out with them the next night too, but there was a CRAZY rain storm... so pretty much everyone on the island stayed inside. We did see them on our hike during the day though! Before the rain hit it was a nice day. The sun was patchy but that was a good thing since we hiked the whole Island!

From the top of the mountain you could see the entire village - it was a fabulous view! We hiked to the top of the first 'hill' really quickly.. and sort of took our time exploring after that and slowly made our way to the lighthouse at the tip of the island. If we looked left we saw the village, and to the right - Nothing! Just cliffs and the ocean. As we pressed on we came to a part of the isalnd called "Wizard Rock." To get to it, we climbed down the stairs on one part of the mountain, and then up the side of this random cliff. I felt like a real kid again because we had to duck around trees and hold on to plants to climb from rock to rock, and make it to the top.

Wizard Rock - the point of view of the people who stayed on the trail.

Zoomed in photo of Dean, Jen, Kirsten and I on the top!!

Scale a mountain in Korea? CHECK! (haha)

I took this after climbing down Wizard Rock, and before climbing back up to the trail.

The light(house) at the end of the tunnel! (or..hike.)

CUA 007s - We're trying!

The last day of the weekend we left the island and headed home for Seoul. On the way though, we stopped at Namson Folk Village - which was PACKED for Children's Day. The weather was great, and we spent about an hour and a half touring traditional buildings, and watching demonstrations of traditional Korean culture. And of course - took plenty o' pictures.

Andrea getting schooled on some Korean music.

Dean really enjoyed this part of the day.

The village's signal bell. These bells are in all Korean cities and were rung to make announcements, warnings and on various.celebrations.

I'm low on the Totem Pole of life.. haha. I like it there.

Everyone say "Kimchi!"

This was the sign on our way out of the village.. everything in Korean tourism is so HAPPY. lol.


haha - Oh Korea.

One last shot of the country from our bus as we left.

It was a great weekend - definitely one of our best all year. Erica Teacher says: Adventure Korea Travel company and Geomundo Island - plus two stickers for you! ;-)