Awesome Day Off

Whew, Practically a whopping two weeks! What have I been doing? Honestly? I'm not too sure. Oh there are the days that stick out (specifically the weekends) but mostly it has all been running together like a blur. The weekend that I missed updating was very boring. I went out, slept in and then went to the craft store. The craft store was a nice little adventure but NOTHING compared to this past wonderful weekend with my "family". My group here in Korea is a tight little pack :D We get along famously and we all love spending time with one another. Time for a short photographic overview.

Let us begin here. Pizza! After a long night of reuniting with friends we decided to recuperate with some greasy, delicious, pizza! We ordered a supreme, with all of the trimmings, and a bulgogi (marinated beef) pizza. YUM!

Then we went on a romp about town after a short burst of shopping and found this quaint little coffee shop that I had to get a picture of. I have to say, the fact that we passed this shop wasn't as big a deal to me as how proud I was of this nighttime shot :D

Then we went by a place you will be seeing more of very soon. Take a good hard look. Why yes, that IS Darth Vader, why yes he IS holding a sandwich, and why YES he IS in the Swiss Alps. Why? Oh no, you do not question why; you see, the focus for everyone upon viewing this (at least for the Americans, myself included) is the burger, not the Vader.

It being that the "Vader Burger" shop was closed, we decided to roam about and find...BBQ! I LOVE me some Korean BBQ. More likely than not you will be seeing BBQ pop up in the delicious feed of posts that are to come (heh, food pun). No more words, just admire...

Then my lovely family, who I actually do not have a decent photo of so what you see are actually only a few of them, and I decided we would make the most of our night out and watch the sunrise from a coffee shop nearby.

And we watched the sun come up over the buildings :D


Ok, skip forward a few days and I have the day off, YAY! Today I had the most splendid day off. I slept in late without worry about class or planning for the day. I picked up my apartment for a bit before meeting up with my friend Yo-Han to have a day on the town. After we ran an errand to pick up mugs and pottery made by our friends we went for coffee. Well, tea I suppose since that's what we got.

Next I was introduced to the most delicious and hazardous thing to my health, the Korean corn dog. Take a good look friends, it's a double battered stick of practically pancake batter, topped off with panko breadcrumbs and ketchup. It is my new favorite weakness.

Remember the Vader Burger poster I showed you? Well during coffee the burger was brought up and immediately we had to seek it out. I knew it was near the Dakgalbi restaurants but could not for the life of me remember exactly where. So we set out down the four side streets lined with food and shops. Finally, third try being the charm, we found it. Crying with joy we looked over the menu, and prepared for a most epic feast.

The place itself, we observed, was actually a very quaint little shop, quite my style. We were baffled that no one else was there, it being dinner time, and this place being clearly superb to all other places (to us at least, who were craving burgers). The walls are lined with old school memorabilia consisting of Etta James' "At Last", Lucille ball, Audrey Hepburn, and retro adverts for all sorts of products. The only hint of it being 2011 was the TV blasting Kpop in the background, I tried my best not to be too mesmerized.

Next, our luscious burgers came. I bought a bacon burger with cheese, special sauce, and a fried egg! Just look at how pretty it is. Oh, and the onions aren't raw, they're practically caramelized in a beef stock-like sauce. YUUUUM!

Needless to say, not a morsel was left behind.

We still had some time to kill so we hit the arcade. They are everywhere, and you will never hear me complain! I love doing the shooting ranges, and I'm not too shabby I must say. The drawback is that there are always those damn crane machines that steal all your money and never give you a prize. Well today we had had just about enough, and Yo-Han looks at that crane machine and he says "I'm going to get one of those bears". Once the coins were fed into the machine his concentration was such that it would make a large child cry out in fear. The first few tries were a no go, but he was just playing with the machine, lulling it into a false sense of security when BAM! He whipped that crane claw around so fast it swung down and around the bear with a grip like an anaconda, squeezing the bear's fluff stuffed torso to the point of bursting. But Yo-han was too quick for that, he whipped the crane around and sent the bear FLYING through the air towards the drop box. The box was in sight now, the bear clearly going in. Suddenly the bear made a plunge toward the ground as if propelled by some sick, cruel magnetism. Just before the bear reached the box it fell, teetering on the edge between victory and damnation. As if it were meant to be, a subtle breeze broke the silence around us, up into the crane machine, and as it whipped around in a clockwise motion to escape the machine, it blew the bear from it's perch into the sweet abyss of the PRIZE drop box. A victory was won, a hero was born, and a legend was written.

All in all things have been pretty spectacular. Heading to Seoul this weekend so hopefully I'll have more to tell you after. Not sure what we're doing yet but talk of a mexican restaurant reached my ears and suddenly the word "chimichangas" popped into my head, and my smile got juuust a little bigger. We'll see what happens, you never know what's out there until you go explore it right?

Until next time, this has been a lovely time, and I have thoroughly enjoyed writing this blog. I keep forgetting how nice it is to write, even if no one reads it all :D I hope the world is being kind to you, catch you on the flip side.

-Sara

Mountains and Chuseok

Again with the slacking off! Well, I can't blame myself entirely, I've been keeping busy and exploring the world :D I'm going to try and squeeze in something like 12 days of not posting to recap all of this. I apologize if it isn't very detailed and such but, alas, so it goes.

OK, starting with my first weekend in Jeonju by my onesie, no errands to run, sleeping in until when I like, staying up to whatever time suits me ( a choice that has come back to bite me), and generally having a lackadaisical attitude letting the wind blow me where it may. I decided that I was going to walk around my city for a day, since I had no money for anything other than food, and see what I could find.

Well, I took one good look around, and one short stroll outside of my home and realized that I needed to go find the base of that mountain over beyond the bridges, and climb it.

And so I started on my merry way down the stream, making small detours down the streets lined with restaurants and run down apartment buildings. When suddenly I happened upon this sign. One would think that a NASA sign would signify some cool space museum or important site...
...but alas it was neither of these. Turns out NASA is Na Sa Sushi, a sushi Restaurant about a fifteen minute walk from my place. Silly? Yes. Will I probably go back for sushi? Most definitely.

After my sushi discovery I found the bottom of the mountain. Granted in order to get there I needed to cross the street (something that can take days in Korea), go under a sketchy bridge (mostly sketchy because it was for cars but could just barely fit one at a time), and pass some farmland filled with elderly people staring at me as if I were not from around here, go figure. Anywho, once all that was conquered I finally got to the top, and here's what I found.
A temple! One of the prettiest temples I have seen so far, mostly thanks to the picture below. Not a very old statue as the placard outside said it was a recreation of one that exists(ed?) somewhere else. Still gorgeous though, the photo hardly does justice to seeing it in person.
Next it was time for the hike down. I had made a friend who was telling me all kinds of nice little tidbits about cheap food in Korea when the people who live at the temple offered us water, some of the most refreshing and clean water you can find. Turns out they have a natural spring which you can drink from. It literally is a watering hole in the ground and you are given a ladle to scoop up the water. For safety/sanitary reasons they placed these metal tops down. Don't want someone washing themselves in your drinking water!
That was the end of my adventure that weekend, but the next weekend was CHUSEOK! Which, if you don't know, Chuseok is like Korean Thanksgiving but WAY better. We had 5 days off for Chuseok, so I went to visit my friends in Gunsan. Expensive? Yeah if you call $5.20 bus fare super expensive. Either way, well worth it in the end. Turns out it was our friend's birthday! So we ate cake and celebrated his birth the only way we know how.
Delicious dinner, cake and candles, and then Norebang. As I mentioned in my last blog Norebang is "karaoke" but way better. So we went, we sang, and by the time we were done it was like 2 AM! So, of course, we had to get second supper. And what better place to get second supper than at Lotteria? What's Lotteria you ask? Think McDonalds, and then add Korea. So now you're ordering "set"s not meals and you get things like the "Lady Burger" (I got that one ^^ ) instead of a Big Mac. SO. GOOD.
After a night of fun, and watching the sun come up on Chuseok morn, even though it was overcast and we didn't get to see it come up, we slept into the early afternoon; only waking for lunch and an exploratory afternoon. We went to Eunpa (sp?) Park to see the longest wooden bridge.
When viewing the bridge I noticed that there was a cathedral on the other side of the lake. Now, I'm not a particulary religious person, but I'm a sucker for a good cathedral. So I asked if it would be alright if we went to explore the area, specifically the church. All in agreement, we set off to find the Cathedral, and find it we did.
It was about a quarter of the way around the lake and we decided, after finding and exploring the cathedral, that we might as well go all the way around the lake, and so we did. Finishing the entire route talking about upcoming events, climbing trees, taking pictures, and generally having a pleasant afternoon.
Tomorrow, or today I suppose, is the start of yet another weekend. I don't plan on doing much other than cleaning my apartment thoroughly and possibly starting to decorate it, so maybe I'll post some pictures :D I hope all is well wherever you are in the world, and I hope that the world is being kind. Until next time.

-Sara

New Home!

Oh my goodness it has been a long time! I've been so busy moving from place to place that I haven't had time to update, not to mention I haven't had steady internet access. So orientation is over and I have to grow up now. I'm in my own apartment in my town and I started work this past Thursday. I have only explored a little since I've been pretty wiped out during the day, but I can share that much with you :D

Here is the first thing I see when I step outside my door, it's Norebang :D For those of you unfamiliar with the term a Norebang is a singing room where people drink and are merry. If you come to Korea and have Korean friends or anyone familiar with the culture, you are sure to go to one of these. Probably one of the most important parts of bonding here, next to eating and drinking, is Norebang (do NOT call it karaoke. It'd be worse than insulting someone's mother).


I am literally taking you on a time-line tour of my home :D Here is the Cafe at the end of my street, it's super cute and always blasting super chill music. They are very serious about their cafes here, so much so that if you walk/drive around, you are likely to see a Barista school. I'm not sure why they love cafes so much, but I would say that within a one mile radius of my house there are about ten, maybe more that I haven't found yet.


Here is part of the lovely mural outside of my house. It starts at the far end of the street you can see here, and runs all the way to the main road. I just like this part because the first day i was out there were approx. all of the bikers biking past and the coincidence of the situation struck me.


One of the many beautiful brick buildings in my town. Many of the buildings have cool designs on the side of them, especially nature themes designs. Much like this tree...and...diamond pattern :D


Walked about for a while, down some alleyways and side streets with vendors until I came across this little fenced off area. My guess is that it's being protected from destruction by that little blue fence, and possibly some very nasty government documents saying things like "...under the penalty of the law...", because everything else around are businesses or apartment complexes. Either way, it was very interesting to see a piece of history just hanging out in the middle of town.


Another part of my exploration about town was the discovery of a river walk right by my home. Oh, and if you can't see that area off to the right clearly, that's an outdoor gym, 100% free, open 24/7, 365. But the walk is probably my favorite and I'll explain why.


Yes, there is a pretty tree along the walk, but it's not really THE reason I love this river walk so much. The tree is like a perfect halfway point to the walk. It seems to describe how I've been seeing Korea so far. In the foreground you have this piece of nature, gnarled and haggard, but organic and real; and in the background you have the structures, artificial and constructed, planned and formed by humanity. I don't know if it's more a dichotomy or just a different way to see life and shared space. Either way, that was probably far too insightful for even my own good, but let's keep the ball rolling shall we?

When I got to the end of the path, after about a half an hour walk, this is what I came to. The rice fields and marshes stretched out for miles in front of me and disappeared up in between the mountains, circling them like one of those Christmas tree skirts you put down to keep the pine needles from getting you carpet all messy. This wasn't what made the walk one of my favorites so far, it would come after I stood there for a while just looking out at the marshes and trying to get a good shot of one of the HUGE cranes poking about.

And when I turned around to go home this was all I could see.

Maybe it's cheesy, a sunset photo, but being there in that moment was perfect. I was alone, not a single living person in sight. The crickets were starting to come out as a light breeze brushed over the fields cooling the air to a temperature that just barely touched Fall. It wasn't the hokey idea of a romantic sunset that made this evening perfect, but rather the notion that this moment came naturally.

Well, there are my adventures thus far, more to come soon, including an update about more exploring! Until next time, I hope the world is kind :D

-Sara