Thanksgiving in Korea

Since all of us foreigners are so far from home for the holidays we needed to band together and make as much holiday spirit as we could. We all worked on Thanksgiving since it is a Thursday and it is not a holiday here in Korea. So the Sunday before we all went to Liz's house and made our own Thanksgiving pot luck feast which was also a going-away party for Willow. Maggie and I went to Liz's a few hours early to help get the ball rolling. I think I had as much fun in the kitchen beforehand as I did at the party.Of course, the boys were watching sports while we cooked, some things are universal! With the help of a package mailed from the States by my helpful dad, I had everything I needed to make Pumpkin Chiffon Pie. I just can't have a Thanksgiving without it.
It went over very well. Thanks for teaching me how to make it Mom! By the time we got everything served we had so much food it was ridiculous.
And we were worried that we would not have enough. First Thanksgiving lesson learned... We had most of the staples, homemade cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, stuffing, corn, bread, pie, the only thing we did not have was a turkey, we replaced it with chicken instead.
It is really hard to make a turkey with only toaster ovens! The food was really good. I was really quite impressed with us. For many of us this was the first Thanksgiving away from our families and we pulled it out well. Liz took her DJ duties very seriously so we had some good tunes as well.
We ended up with tons of people and food and wine. So really a lot like a Thanksgiving at home, just having a makeshift family instead of our real ones. But we make do and I think it might actually end up with less fights this way. Hahaha. Check out Norbert enjoying his food.
Frances had a dog at the time named Sparks. They were having some bonding time to keep her from going for the food hard core. So cute...
We had about 25 people in Liz's apartment so we had to grab a seat anywhere we could, Liz and Sean were enjoying their food.
Willow was actually leaving on Thanksgiving Day so we were happy to have her at our party. I miss her, but she will be back before too long. Aren't we cute?
Bryan and Norbert were enjoying some Ginseng Wine, something I have only had here in Korea. It is decent but I still prefer a nice Bordeaux. It just isn't a holiday without some wine.
Because of the aforementioned oven issues, Coenraad went old school and cooked two if the chickens outside on a little charcoal grill. They were really good. We teased him about his African upbringing that he felt the need to make fire outside to cook the meat.
Aww...Sean and Willow couple picture! They are sooo cute. I know he misses her, but the GS Mart appreciates the spike in beer sales.
And little Sparks, getting in the middle of everyone to get all the love.
We had a great Thanksgiving. It felt like a real holiday which made me really happy since I am far from my family. I was worried that holidays on the other side of the world would be weird. But so far so good. Hopefully Christmas will be just as good.

A Bunch of Strangers Go See Billy Joel

So here is the crazy background story of my trip to the Billy Joel concert:
There once was a girl. Her name was Lori, see her below in the picture with her letter to Billy telling all about this crazy adventure.Lori really liked Billy Joel and she found out that there was going to be a concert in Seoul. So she asked all her friends to go but none of them were interested. Now Lori was a smart child of the 21st century so she decided to use Facebook to find some friends to go with her to the Billy Joel concert. Here are some of those crazy new friends below at T.G.I. Friday's before the show.
But how you ask, did she find these new friends? She used the Facebook search to look for people who lived in South Korea and had Billy Joel listed in their favorite music. This may be the most successful Facebook stalking story ever told! She sent these stalkees messages explaining about the concert and asking who wanted to go. 12 brave souls replied. And before they knew it, they all went to the Billy Joel concert together.
They were all enjoying the concert very much, but they had nosebleed seats, and even with the 10x optical zoom camera, this is the closest picture they could get. So four Americans (of course) decided they wanted to be closer. So they rushed down to the stage. But alas, there was a cheap plastic barrier to get onto the main floor, guarded by ushers. The ushers rebuffed the Americans. But the Americans were sneaky and knew what they wanted. So they pretended to be sad and go back to their seats. Once the trusting ushers turned their backs (Koreans are BIG rule followers), the Americans jumped the cheap plastic barrier and made for the stage.They got very, very close to Billy Joel, about 5th row back standing at the foot of the stage.. And this made them very happy because Billy Joel is very cool. Soon the rule-following ushers struck again. They tried to break up the happy little crowd at the foot of the stage. The Koreans obediently started shuffling quickly and quietly back to their seats. But the Americans started leaving only slowly and reluctantly. When the very cool Billy Joel saw what was happening to his fans, he stopped midsong. He was very angry about this dispersement of his avid followers. So he yelled at the ushers, "Hey, what the f@!k?"Immediately the Americans rushed back to the stage and now they were in the first and second row at the bottom of the stage. And the four Americans were even happier than before! The Billy Joel concert was amazing, all should hope to be so cool at that point in their lives. The Americans were very happy because Billy Joel touched their hands and sang all their favorite songs. One of the Americans even got a great video of part of Billy Joel singing Pianoman but was thwarted by Blogger not uploading it. It can be seen on the aforementioned Facebook page.
After the concert ended, the newly minted friends had so much energy, they decided they must go to the Noiribang and sing Billy Joel songs late into the night.

So that is just what they did. And there was much joy and singing throughout the land. All because the magic of Billy Joel brought them together.Sadly, all good things must come to an end, and the new friends sadly parted in the spirit of Billy Joel, promising to keep in touch through the thing that had brought them all together: The Facebook.
But the adventure was not over for our two young adventurers from Cheongju. They needed sustenance and a place to lay their weary heads for they did not live in Seoul. So after some searching they found a jinjibang.
Jinjibangs are Korean spas which offer many great things like saunas, whirlpools of many temperatures, steamrooms, and scrubbing stations. One enters these naked so they are separated by gender. But there is a common room with a TV, computers, a snack bar, human kilns and sleeping mats where all can come together. Weary travellers such as ours can sleep there, in the jinjibang pajamas which look like prison uniforms. It is quite inexpensive as well between $4-$10 depending on the jinjibang, much cheaper than a motel.
So the two weary travellers slept a good and cheap sleep at the jinjibang, a first for them both. Then the next morning they recharged themselves with Belgian waffles, fruit and gelato. And they were happy!

The End

Halloween Nights

Being in South Korea, they are concious of the concept of Halloween, but it is not celebrated. Except in the Westerener bars. So it makes getting costume stuff a bit difficult. I thought I would go with the culture and do a little school girl outfit. Sure enough, I found everything I was wearing in normal clothing shops here. My friend Sueji was going as a vampire, so I volunteered to be her victim. She, Liz and I got ready on Friday at her house. We had almost as much fun there as out at the bar. Check out my costume:
After we were all ready we headed out to the Halloween party at MJ, one of the foreigner bars down town. My friend Danny managed to find a Scream mask somewhere, this picture is so creepy.
Here is a close up on me and Sueji, she was a very sexy vampire. I did her makeup and she ended up winning second place in the costume contest. I guess those Theatre Makeup classes in college were good for something after all. That's Sueji's bite on my neck.
My friend Mike won 1st place in the costume contest, he made his costume. I was totally impressed, I never knew he was so creative.
I loved Liz's costume too, she was so pretty. I dubbed her the Acid Angel, because her makeup was so trippy.
Here is Sueji, Simon and Leanne. I think Simon was a zombie, his mask is on the back of his head. Leanne was really creepy though, I almost did not recognize her. She was dead. The white thing she is wearing is what they traditionally bury Koreans in. Creepy!

Norbert ended up singing with the band. Of course, he didn't do anything about his costume until the day of so he wore his bathrobe and managed to find this long orange wig somewhere and stuck Maggie's birthday tiara on top.

Jonathan's band, Papa Bear played as well. I am not even sure how he managed it, but all the sudden Jonathan was hanging from the ceiling. Priceless moment. Talk about stage presence!

So that was the end of the pictures I have from Friday, the actual night of Halloween. But this is Korea, and they party hard here, so there was another Halloween party at Road King on Saturday. Anyone who knows me knows I love Halloween, so I was all for getting all the mileage out of it that I could. So on Saturday, we got ready all over again. Since I had been Sueji's victim the night before, obviously now I had been turned and was a vampire myself. We are making out own little nest, check us out:

So we took our creepy selves out to the bowling alley first so we could get the most out of scaring the Koreans. It was mostly very funny but I felt a little bad for this one little kid, who was like 3 and kept hiding behind her mom whenever she saw us. Liz, the zombie, gets ready to eat the pins.
Here are the girls in our second round of costumes, Sueji and I in the back, vamp squad, and Liz and Maggie in the front representing the zombie contingent. Apparently Sueji is our pimp daddy as well, judging from the picture.

After the bowling alley we headed out to Road King for more Halloween festivities. I had to take a picture with this girl, she was a creepy little doll. Considering the limitations of what you can find here for Halloween, people got really creative.

This was one of my favorites, Brittany, K-Fed and one of their babies. It is always fun to mock pop culture.

Jeong Hwa was not quite ready to jump on the Halloween train with all the crazy westerners, but she certainly enjoyed laughing at us. She isn't the only one, we got stopped on the street when Koreans asked to take pictures with us. You can actually see my fangs pretty well in this pic.
Norbert had the same costume the second night as he did the first but by the time this picture was taken, he had lost it somewhere along the way. Check out the Sapporo can, tiniest beers ever. They were really cute.
So that was the Halloween craziness. I love Halloween! And it was real nice here cause it wasn't really that cold yet. Definitely no snow like we often get in Michigan. I had a great time and so did everyone else. I have more pictures on my facebook if you want more. And we wonder why the Koreans think we are strange...

CDI Work Holiday

So my work decided that we needed to have a work party all together to build teamwork, etc. So this being Korea, they decided this should be climbing the local mountain and then getting blasted on soju. I didn't take any pictures climbing, cause well I was climbing a mountain and that is hard. Plus they weren't really into like photo ops. Koreans tend to be really competitive at well everything and then all the foreign teachers are boys, so competitive... I like to actually look at the scenery when I hike, not try to kill myself getting to the top fast. Did I mention that this was at 9am on a Sunday?
Anyway, once we got to the top we took some group pictures. Back row: Joe, Norbert, Mr. An, Mark, Martin, Me, Front Row:James, Joanne, Lina, Stephanie, Hoang.
It was really funny cause before we even started climbing, they were passing out beer. So of couse when we got to the top, everyone started drinking. Hoang, Lina and Norbert looking cute for the camera and I guess Mark didn't wanna be left out.
It was a goregous day, a perfect early fall day. The trees were just starting to get touches of gold. Hoang, Mark and Joe enjoyed the foilage.
But the most impressive part was when we came into the little village near the top of the mountain. The rice fields are almost ready to harvest and they are just this amazing yellow gold color. It was really beautiful.
There were a lot of kids out playing since it was such a nice day. This one little boy kept trying to beat his big sister with a stick. I guess siblings are the same all over. Pierce, you recognize this situation? It was so cute, I had to snap a pic.
We were all amazed at the existence of a rameon vending machine. We didn't have time to make it work cause the boss thought we were being to slow to get to the lunch place, but come on, that is hilarious.
95% of the food that is spicy here is made so by this Korean red pepper. They must have just harvested it or something cause in the restaurant, one room just had them all over the floor drying. It looked so cool. That stuff is really spicy!
One of the bus drivers was... well, a little crazy. You have to love his outfit though. That is Norbert he has slung over his shoulder. That is pretty impressive cause Norbert is like 6'4", not a small guy and the bus driver is like 5'7".
So we all sat down and had this chicken soup stuff and pajang which is egg pancake with green onion, traditional post-hiking food. And of course they were doling out soju(Korean vodka) and dongdongju (rice wine) all over the place. I had a little dongdongju but I do not like soju.
To be honest, I don't really think anyone likes soju. It tastes the way rubbing alcohol smells. And the Koreans like to do straight shots of the stuff. However, I have a very fun series of pictures I call the soju face. I take a picture of my friends immediately after they do the shot of soju, Joe had a great one that day.
Soon everyone but me was pretty toasted. I just don't like drinking, especially hard liquor at like noon. So then the noiri bang machine got pulled out and the karaoke began. Norbert sang "I Believe I Can Fly" and soon all the Koreans were dancing. This might be a good place to let you all know about the fact that Koreans have no concept of a personal bubble...
So I made my excuses and headed out. Drunk people are kinda annoying when you are sober.... But definitely an interesting day....

Ulleungdo and Dokdo Islands

The weekend of my birthday was also a holiday weekend in Korea. It was Chuseok, which is a holiday all about spending time with your family. I guess that Thanksgiving is the closest thing to compare it too, but take out the slaughter of the indigenous peoples. So, Maggie, Liz and I decided to go somewhere for the three day weekend. We decided on Ulleungdo Island, an island off the east coast of South Korea. We met in Seoul late Friday night, drove all night and arrived at a famous beach on the east coast of Korea just before sunrise. Liz and Maggie were too tired to get up, but I dragged myself down to the beach to get some great photos.

You can see the colors starting to change in the sky over the ocean, and the light is not the sun it is actually one of the squid fishing boats, the squid are attracted to the light. Don't ask me why. Below you can see the squid they caught hanging out to dry. It looked so eerie in the predawn light that I had to take a picture. Very alien.
Sunrise started to approach over the still waters and it was so amazingly pretty I had to take a million pictures of it, this is my favorite. I do like sunrises, I do. I just don't like getting up for them. They are great if I haven't gone to bed yet.
The Koreans on the other hand, seem to love to get up early. There were tons of people at this beach before six a.m. There was one family with little kids who were playing in the sand, even though it was so early. They were so cute, I had to take a picture of them.
After that we took the ferry out to the island. It took two and a half hours and much nervousness from a lot of people about motion sickness. I figured if I could stand the tiny ferry to the Aran Islands that bucked like a spooked horse, I could handle this massive pleasure liner. The trip was plenty smooth, only a few people lost their cookies. Once we caught a few more hours sleep on the boat, we arrived at the island and headed off on our first adventure, a hike to the lighthouse. We climbed these funny twirly stairs to get up to the path.
The hike out to the lighthouse twined around the cliffs right above the ocean, it was a beautiful walk and gave us some exercise without torturing us like the mountains do. It was a gorgeous day, high-seventies and sunny and in September!
At one point there was a bridge over some deep water, perfect for bridge jumping. So our group stopped and went in the gorgeous clear blue water. Here is Maggie.
And me...
And Liz... I think she was trying out for the 2012 Olympics, making the rest of us feel bad.
As we got closer to the lighthouse, we started going up the cliffs. Got some beautiful views of the whole island. As you can tell I was still wet from swimming so I opted to wear the sarong I picked up in Thailand.
I didn't post any pictures of the lighthouse cause it wasn't that impressive to be honest, just looks like a modern white building really. But on the way back down we took the shortcut through the bamboo forest. That was really cool. Liz and Maggie liked it too. It was so cool and green in there and so dense you could not even see the sky in some parts.
Back down by the water there was a fisherman with some of his catches in big plastic tubs of water to keep them fresh. He let us hold a sea urchin which was so cool. It would walk along your hand using its spikes for mobility and you could feel its little sucker mouth investigating your hand. We made friends.
So we were all a bit shocked when the guy grabbed it, hacked it in two and scooped out the middle. He did it so fast I almost did not get a picture. Then he gave us all a bite. Consistency of tofu, tastes like ocean. Not something I would make a point to eat, but it was ok.
That night we walked up to the cable car and took it all the way up to the top of the tallest mountain on the island for the sunset. It is a rare day I am up for a sunrise and a sunset. Maggie and Liz getting ready to get in the creaky cable car.
The moon was just starting to come out and it was almost full. No haze at all so I had to take a picture of it, ok like 30 pictures of it, and this one came out the best.
We could see the whole little harbor town we were staying in from the top of the mountain. It was so colorful that it looked like childrens' toys nestled in the valley.
And of course, we wouldn't be girls if we didn't pose for a group shop up on the top of the mountain. We were so tired by this point.
As the dusk continued to fall the lights along the path we had walked earlier in the day winked on in the gloom. Almost like little torches ringing the island, it was a really cool sight to see.
After that we had dinner and crashed almost immediately. It was a really long day and we just didn't have any party left in us. The next morning of course, was the best day of the weekend. It was my birthday! We took a ferry about 90 minutes east to Dokdo. Dokdo is a tiny little rock of an island, but very important over here. Check it out.Only two people live on Dokdo, a married couple who are fishermen. They live in this little house and other fishermen occasionally stay there as well when they are this far out to sea. It used to be that no one lived here, but now the Koreans have to make sure that they keep the Japanese away.The Koreans and the Japanese fight endlessly over Dokdo. It all goes back to the treaty made after the Japanese were ousted from their occupation of Korea post-WWII. The Koreans are still quite sore that the Japanese ever managed to conquer them in the first place. So only 200 people a day are allowed to set foot on Dokdo, it has become sort of a nationalist pilgrimmage thing. We were quite lucky to get to go. Check out all the Koreans feeling their nationalism.
There were Korean coast guard guys all over, this one even had a dog. Though the dog seemed more friendly than intimidating. Liz made with the dog immediately, however the cute coast guard guy was not as friendly.

This rock was kinda random, well really the whole island is a big rock, but I liked it. It was interesting. All my kids always ask me, "Teacher, you know Dokdo?" Now I have photographic proof that I not only know it, I have been there, with my girls Maggie and Liz of course.
I was totally and completely in awe of the water here, I have never seen water so clear and blue. I mean, people in California dye their pools this color. I think it is cause they are volcanic islands so there is no silt in the water. You could see through to the bottom everywhere we went. It was so clear I could take pictures of this school of fish.
Back on Ulleungdo, we took a little bus tour around the island. At one of our stops Liz and I decided to climb up the rock face. It was real easy cause it is volcanic and full of pitting and holes for climbing. I was wearing a skirt, but I figured it was my birthday so screw it. Makes for good pics!
There was this one cave that was the color of Cheetos on one side of it. I know it is just like oxidized iron but it is crazy bright and came off on your hands if you touched it. You were supposed to build little rock towers on the ground in front of it and in the crevices. Not sure why, some sort of Buddhist thing.
Maggie and Liz posing at the juxtapostion of the green side and the orange side. They were trying to look tough and gangsta.
Then we climbed up the mountain on this metal stairway that was half modern art and half death trap. I am sure it was more sturdy than it appears, but it was trippy climbing it. Totally worth it though, great views from the top of the cliffs.
Check out the color palatte from the top, the bleached cliffs and that blue, blue water. Looks like those pictures of Greece. I just couldn't get over the water here.
Maggie was contemplating existence and the horizon from the top of the cliff. So I had to make her turn around and pose for a cheesy picture....
That brought us to sunset on my birthday, a lovely evening on the ocean once again. But anyone who knows me knows that when the sun sets that just time to get started.

So we got a big group of girls together and hit the makeoli store. Makeoli is Korean Rice Wine which is really cheap and pretty good. We had tons of fun. Liz liked this idea too.
There was a big group of girls (and Matt) who we got along with that were in our tour group so we all hung out after dinner, had a few drinks, took a walk down to the ocean and generally had a good old time.

So since the weather was still in the 70s and it was so gorgeous, we decided we needed to go swimming in the ocean at night. So we headed back to the bridge and all jumped in the water. We had a fantastic time until the police made us get out. They can be kinda uptight here sometimes.But I had a fantastic birthday and sooo much fun on the trip. The next day we headed back to the mainland. There are not any pics from Monday cause we were all recovering from the birthday festivities. Patrick from couchsurfing was kind enough to let us crash at his house in Donghae and I made it back just in time to go to work on Tuesday.