Ajussi Slaps, Love Motels, and Lanterns

The weekend of October 3rd was a three day holiday weekend with a multitude of festivals and events to enjoy all throughout South Korea.  Many foreign adventure tour groups had trips scheduled from Oktoberfest in the German-style village of Namhae Island, to an International Film Festival in Busan.  Us "new kids" were in a mad rush to book a trip since by the time we received our first paycheck, there were limited slots available on each excursion.  Most of my friends made it in time, Jenni and I did not.  We were probably the only two people who did not have some kind of organized trip to go on that weekend.  But we decided not to let it stop us.

This was an opportunity to customize our own trip, see if we could actually save money doing so, and find out how capable we were of navigating in a country where we don't speak the language.  Spoiler alert, the trip was a success.  We had a great time and successfully found our way around.  We did, however, spend almost the entire weekend in one giant giggle fit as we laughed at our own clueless-ness, ran away from ajussi's (old men), and attempted to make arrangements as gracefully as walking through molasses.

Planning Your Own Adventure Tip #1 -
have the location, dates and times written
in Hangul to purchase your bus
ticket with ease.

The night before our adventure.  All you can eat
KBBQ, these little guys came to life and literally stood
up when you put them on the grill.  Note: I did NOT
eat them...actually none of us did after their
"standing ovation" :(

Even getting breakfast, on our first day, caused us some confusion when Jenni ordered a cup of grapes that was thrown into a blender and transformed into a smoothie before we knew what was happening.  It was delicious but unexpected and being that it was the very first experience of the weekend - "what the hell just happened?" - was not a good foot to start off on.  Still, it gave us a good laugh.

We had arranged to transfer in Daegu on our way to Jinju.  All we had to do when we arrived was buy our next ticket to Jinju and get on the bus within 30 minutes.  This simple task was as easy for us as trying to nail jelly to a wall.  If you could picture one of those black and white, silent movies, where everyone kind of scurries about on super speed, that would've been us trying to find the right building to buy a ticket.  We ran from building to building and waited in line after line, only stopping to hold our sides as we could no longer control our own laughter.

When we finally arrived in the right building and at the right line, in this unnecessarily confusing bus terminal, a man shouted something at us in Korean and pointed at the list of departures.  "Jinju" we said, assuming he was asking where we were going.  (Side note: the ability to read body language and master assumptions helps tremendously when you don't speak the language).  We quickly realized that he didn't work at the terminal, he was just curious as to where these two foreigners were off to.  For the next several minutes he repeatedly yelled "Jinju, Jinju, Jinju" at us, while we tried to stuff down our laughter.  We didn't know if he was agreeing with us, arguing with us, or just making conversation.  The last twenty minutes had become such a disastrous comedy routine that by the time we reached the front of the line I was knee deep in giggles and Jenni had to talk for us.

Our VIP seating in the back of the bus.

Still can't get used to the amazing amount of foot room on the express bus!

Family photo on a selfie-stick

Jinju here we come!

We made it on our second bus and not long after that arrived in Jinju.  Our first task was to find ourselves a place to stay.  The rumor was, most places were booked because of the festival so we had to take the chance of finding a low end motel, staying in a spa, or somehow stumbling onto a place with a canceled reservation.  To give you a better idea of what we were working with, here is a brief synopsis on places to lay your head during a weekend stay in South Korea.

1. Hotels - you'll find even the classics here, such as the JW Marriot.  I don't need to explain what a hotel is to you or that on a festival weekend you can pay a pretty penny for a stay in one of these.
2. Hostels - again there's probably no need for an explanation on this either.  Dormitory-style, shared rooms essentially.
3. Guest houses - converted homes geared towards traveling foreigners, you can stay in them for a couple days or months.  Pretty inexpensive option, usually with shared bathrooms and both private and shared rooms.
4. Pensions - large shared rooms with lots of mats on the floor to sleep on, pretty common for foreign adventure groups to include as part of the package.  Which is why it's preferable to book with a group of people you know so you can request the same room.
5. Motels - also known as Love Motels, which are pretty much a bunch of cheap motel rooms usually located in cities for....taking your sweetheart to after a night out?  I think that's the best way I can put it.  Still, lots of people travel all through South Korea utilizing Love Motels as a super cheap way to get a decent nights sleep.
6. Jimjilbangs - these are Korean spas that have so many treatment options you can spend an entire day there.  They also have places to sleep in case you want to keep "spa-ing" in the morning.  Travelers take advantage of this as a super cheap and easy place to stay.  The prices are probably the lowest of all your options.  However, the downside is you have to take your stuff and "check out" every time you leave.  So they don't really work for more than one day.

Pretty Jinju

The lanterns lead the way

Jenni and I had decided to attempt the "Love Motel" route as to avoid having a shared room but still keeping the cost low.  We learned that the word for motel was spelled 모텔 in Hangul.  As we focused hard on practicing the pronunciation we heard ourselves say "mo-tell" and realized a few seconds after we hit the "duh" point that this was just a phonetic spelling of motel.

The first place we found offered us a room for 110,000.  That's like paying $110 for a room at a Motel 6.  No thank you. We decided to get further away from the river to find a place that wasn't trying to take advantage of foreigners.  Meanwhile, a South African girl had begun to follow us with the same mission in mind.  We walked at a steady pace, slightly faster than our foreign stalker, while still remaining cordial, as if it didn't bother us that we were in direct competition for a place to stay.  Luckily, we found a "movie themed" love motel with two rooms available. And since we were able to get first pick, we graciously gave her the bigger room for herself and her two other travel companions.

Our room was the "Sleepless in Seattle" Room
This is the extent of the themed decor.

Our itty bitty love room

Selfie with the wallpaper

Some amenities - others included some
"unmentionables" that you would expect to
find in a place called a love motel.

The view of champions

Feeling super proud of ourselves for accomplishing every task on our list thus far, we dropped our backpacks in the room and made our way to the festival.  We walked among rows of food vendors selecting our lunch then crossed the river on a shaky bridge that was essentially a serious of flat buoys tied together.  The bridges terrified Jenni, especially when I began bouncing along the buoys like the child I secretly am.

Jenni calls this chicken kabob, I call it shwarma.
Who really knows what the right answer is? (mine)

Fresh squeezed lemonade and cider, yum!!

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is why foreigners
get food poisoning.  Uncooked chicken, hanging
around for hours.  Korean stomachs are hardcore.

We were attracting a lot more stares and glares in Jinju than we were used to in Cheongju.  The smaller the city (or village) you're in, the more attention you draw.  We were glared at, gawked at, laughed at, and even slightly assaulted on this weekend trip.  An old man, called an ajusshi (아저씨) drunkenly stumbled towards me, said something and slapped me on the arm.  Not too hard but just enough to make me feel super uncomfortable and accosted.  He was smiling while he did it, so I assume he meant no harm?  We found ourselves ducking, running and hiding from other drunk or otherwise creepy ajusshis the rest of the day.

For the record, Jinju is not just full of perverted old men.  A very nice man directed us to the festival for blocks.  When he realized we were a bit lost, he pointed to a picture of the festival on his newspaper and then rolled it up and waved us along like an airplane coming in for a landing.  An experience like this one is far more common in SoKo than being slapped by an ajusshi.

Tofu lady

Cassette tapes...?

The lanterns were incredible in the day time and even more amazing at night.  The river was full of large lanterns representing every country with lantern tunnels to walk through where Jenni could practice using her new selfi-stick.  It was truly one of those, "do not miss" events that I'm glad we took the time and effort to get to.  We eventually met up with our friends from the organized trip, exchanged the positives and negatives of our experiences thus far, then parted ways as they went off to Namhae for Oktoberfest.

Lantern tunnel in the day

Lantern tunnel at night (wishes are attached to each lantern)

 

Dried squid

Ice cream being eaten by child being
eaten by tiger.

Cotton Candy!!!

Cleanest portable bathrooms ever.  And it turns out the woman's
bathroom has a line in every country.

The next day Jenni and I got on another bus towards Seoul.  Our plan was to go see the International Fireworks show happening there that night.  We set off to find a place to stay in Hongdae, high-fiving ourselves for mastering the Seoul Metro system.  Our sense of pride was quickly thwarted when we stepped out of the subway exit and realized we had no clue where to go from here.  Finding a love motel on foot in Seoul, a monstrosity of a city compared to the little town of Jinju, would be a much more difficult task.  We took a break, sat down for some Koreanized Chinese food, and discussed our options.

Chinese with an apron.

Hey, I'm butter.
(no idea)

Seoul represents shopping to us foreigners who do not reside in the city.  We can find all the comforts of home in this huge metropolitan area that we could never find in our own province.  Like the spices we bought on our previous trip.  As we sat there slurping up our 자장면 we began to discuss the option of clothes shopping in a store with western sizes and the idea became too seductive to pass up.  We were also admittedly over crowds, knew finding a place to stay would take up most of our limited time and had found more interest in shopping than in fireworks.  So we ditched our fireworks plan, spent a tad too much shopping (we regret nothing), then headed back to the bus terminal to exchange our tickets.

We couldn't figure out what they wanted to
happen here.  Feed your baby before entering
the subway?

Yay.  Just...yay.

Pork stew at the bus terminal

Recuperation meal - haemul pajeon

I slept like a rock on the bus ride home, then rallied with an energy drink for a night out on the town in Cheongju to end our weekend with a bang.  We planned on having a couple drinks with our friend Karen, then heading home.  I ended up leaving at 4:45 in the morning, with Karen and Jenni still at the bar when I left.  They say Seoul is a city that never sleeps, but Cheongju seems to certainly hold it's own in that department.



Sunday was a day of recuperation.  I did as much "nothing" as possible, thrilled with myself that I had made haemul pajeon just before leaving for the weekend so I didn't have to cook.  I snacked on leftovers for lunch and dinner and enjoyed some lazy time.

Overall, the weekend was a grand success even if we did learn a few lessons along the way.  Jenni was a fantastic travel buddy.  We had matched energy levels, sleep requirements and tenacity for an adventure on our own.  And hanging out with a Brit all weekend gave me a cool new lot of words and expressions to play with.  I thoroughly enjoyed saying "Right" (with determination in my voice as Jenni taught me) every time we set out for a new mission, from finding the closest convenience store to figuring out the subway system in Seoul.  I also noticed I've been saying "lovely" a lot more since hanging out with my European buddies.  I'm hoping to pick up more cause it makes me sound all cultured and whatnot. ;)

The Yays and Nays of South Korea

As my calendar flipped to October, I am yet again torn between two emotions.  On one hand, I'm surprised to be in October already, wondering where the time has gone.  On the other hand, it feels like ten lifetimes ago that I spent a sleepless night crossing the international date line, on my way to Incheon International Airport.

I am very much looking forward to this month.  I have planned and booked several adventures, two of which are pushing me far beyond my comfort zone.  You'll hear about those later (sorry for the teaser), for now I will fill you in on my past weekend and some interesting tidbits about South Korea.

The weekend began with a burrito and ended with some BBQ.  Not Korean BBQ, real American, Southern, very-much-needed, BBQ.  The burrito, from Kim's Burritos in Chungdae, was delicious.  I had a guacamole-shaped hole in my heart that I didn't even realize was there.  The satisfaction was grand.

Yum

Kim's Burritos

The next day we headed off to Daejon on a field trip from our YMCA Korean class.  The first item on the list was pear picking.  Our bus dropped us off and we began the trek to the pear farm.  What we thought was a quick walk turned out to be a steady incline straight up a rocky, wooded path.  Having not been prepared for this, we stepped carefully over rocks, some of us in sandals, some of us in dresses.  I was wearing a dress and cowboy boots. This was, for some reason, my second time unexpectedly hiking in my cowboy boots.  Maybe I should just stop wearing them.

Banana Spider - huge and scary.

Delicious picnic lunch included in our field trip.

Pear juice in a pouch - yum!

Anyway, we had a lovely time picking pears before we ventured off to a music festival where we tasted a variety of wines and "learned" how to play traditional Korean string instruments.  We also had a chance to try on traditional Korean ceremonial attire.  A woman threw one around me and then realized there was no chance it would tie across my "chest" area.  She literally gasped, pulled it off me and squished it on my friend Lizzie.  When it didn't fit perfectly across her "chest" area either, the woman took it upon herself to go to second base with Lizzie, adjusting her boobage, squishing and squeezing them into place.  It was an interesting and violating experience for poor Lizzie, I'm sure.

Before the "readjusting" experience occured

After the readjusting, she looked lovely.

The wines were interesting; the sweet wines were far too sweet for me and the dry wines, too bitter.  But we had fun sampling and being photographed by mass amounts of photographers.  I'd like to say it made me uncomfortable, but instead I enjoyed turning and posing for them like a gracious debutante with my wine glass, and encouraging/making Natalie to do the same.

This guy was loving his role in the parade.

We took photos of the Koreans, the Koreans
took photos of us.

Paparazzi photographing us waygooks (foreigners).
There was actually several more a of them a few seconds
before I took this.  I realized while posting this that the guy
in the vest is familiar.  Look above...total stalker.

Wine tasting!

I was impressed with the string instruments.  It took some serious skill to master the precision needed for the pressure on the string and the placement of the bow.  I attempted to play one but I failed miserably.  By the end I was able to imitate the cat sound I was instructed to make.  But that was after making several dying cat sounds that offended the ears of my onlooking friends.

Seriously cool and hard instrument.

Made a friend on the bus.

Sunday, Natalie, Jenni, and I ventured off to Seoul for some required items.  I needed a few more appropriate things to wear to work, sans "glamour" (glamour is the word Koreans use to refer to cleavage).  As well as some important spices that I could find in Itaewon, the foreign city I've mentioned before.  We shopped in the underground shopping center of the Express Bus Terminal in Seoul (where I got my 5,000 won, or $5 dress, the first time I was in Seoul) before gathering our foreign food items in Itaewon.

We also made our first rookie mistake as new foreigners.  We neglected to buy our return ticket the second we arrived at the bus station.  So when we went to purchase it at 6:00 pm we were told we couldn't get a bus home until 9:00 pm (after a terrifying moment of language confusion where they told us all buses were sold out...omg omg omg).  Lesson learned.  We brushed our shoulders off and went back downstairs for more shopping to sooth our bruised egos.

The best part about that day for me, was the BBQ.  Since, the passing of Rosh Hashanah, I had a serious craving for my mother's brisket.  Southern BBQ brisket is not the same (obvi), but the brisket combined with the traditional, southern style, side dishes gave me a nostalgic feeling of home.  Florida home, not Philly home.  Say what you want about my next statement, but like it or not, food is an important part of family and your identification of home.

Now I can make my mom's chili and shakshukah!

Yummy American BBQ

Now onto a segment I like to call:

"The Yays and Nays of South Korea"

For those of you back home, here is a list of a few things I can definitely get used and a few things I cannot get used to about life in SoKo.

Cannot get used to:
1. No drinks at lunch and cup size.

An example of the average cup size.

     ~So Koreans don't seem to drink all that much.  At lunch you won't find anyone with a cup of water near them.  There is a spot for grabbing a quick drink of water or tea in a thimble size cup after you have eaten.  But no one drinks during the meal.  This is especially difficult for me to get used to, more so when the meal is spicy.  And this is Korea soooo everything is spicy.
       No one ever seems to drop from dehydration here so I guess it's some kind of evolutionary thing.  Personally, I keep a bottle of water at my desk because I have dehydrated in my life before and I don't intend on doing that again.

The tea/water station in the lunch room for
AFTER your meal.

       The thimble cups are quite common here.  The average cup size reminds me of one of those paper cups we used to rinse our mouths out with after brushing our teeth as a kid.  Seriously...no exaggeration.  A biggest cup of coffee I've ever seen here is about the size of a standard small at home.  That just doesn't work for me.  I'm used to consuming my tower of coffee from Wawa.  Below is a picture of the paper coffee cup I just used, next to my teeny coffee mug, compared to an average size bottle of water.  I honestly feel as if I'm taking a shot of coffee.  I must invest in a coffee thermos soon.



2. Not saying "bless you" after sneezes.
     ~It's not that I have some kind of moral problem with this, I just literally cannot get used to it.  At first I didn't even think about it, I told a student "bless you" after he sneezed and he looked at me as if I had just scolded him for the interruption.  My accidental "bless yous" have caused confusion since day one, and I still have to stop myself every time I hear a sneeze.  It's bizarre how ingrained that is.  You should see the pleasure us foreigners get when we get a chance to "bless" each other after a sneeze.  We shout "bless you!!!" with a wide-eyed grin and sometimes even a little giggle.


3. No paper towels, anywhere...ever.

Unplugged hand dryer.

     ~I thought it was strange when the woman who showed me around the first day snatched the roll of paper towels out of my hand at the grocery store and told me I didn't need them.  Now I seem to understand that it's extremely uncommon to see any paper towels in any public bathroom.  Often times there are automatic hand dryers, but even more often those hand dryers are unplugged and unused.  People are accustomed to quickly shaking their hands in the air (almost always splattering me) before moving on with their day.  I miss paper towels.  I miss drying my hands.







4. The woes of tp.

TP roll next to the door of the
bathroom.

Empty TP roll in the stall

   ~This part is two-fold.  For one, you have to collect your tp before entering into the stall.  Skipping over the fact that mastering the estimation of your tp needs seems to be a long acquired skill, my biggest fear is forgetting to grab some sheets all together.  (In fact, after I took a picture of the tp roll for you lovely folks, I jumped in the stall for a quick potty break and realized I had forgotten to bring any with me.  Thankfully, it wasn't too late, but that was a closer call than I'd like.)  Still, from my trip to Amsterdam years ago, I know that this is not uncommon in most parts of the world.  So if I plan on doing any more traveling, I better become accustomed to this.  I've also come to learn that tp is not always in every public bathroom.  I currently have a tissue pack in every purse/bag I own.  It makes me feel like a well-prepared local.
        Secondly, you will find, more often than not, a small trash can next to the toilette.  This is for your tp.  You are not supposed to flush your tp here.  I have, so far, been staging my own personal protest against this.


5. Plastic surgery on minors.
     ~I knew plastic surgery was big here.  What I didn't prepare myself for was seeing one of my 6th grade students with an eye patch from a recent surgery.  I assumed she had an injury, but later that day, while walking through town, I noticed several young girls with eye patches.  Was there a sudden outbreak of eye injuries?  Were the three stooges in town, poking eyes out left and right?  No, it was just before a long holiday, some girls were getting one eye done so that on the holiday they could get the other eye done and be back to school with their brand new, Western-style, eyes.  I know this is not my culture, and I have no right to judge, it just makes me uncomfortable and a little sad to be perfectly honest.


6.  Spitting.
     ~Guys, girls, old men, old ladies...spit spit spit.  With a big 'ol hawking sound to go with it.  It's gross, but very common.  VERY common.  I don't think I'll ever get used to that sound.  No big explanation here, just...ew.



Can get used to:
1.  My favorite - no tipping!
     ~It feels terrible at first, like you're being a cheap jack ass.  But I have to admit, this is one I certainly can (and have) gotten used to.  Now the only problem is coming home to America and dropping my standard 20% on a food bill.  It's going to hurt big time.
       On the flip side, I saw my friend Natalie tip the taxi driver anyway because he had to deal with our very loud American antics on the way home from a night out one evening and she felt he deserved it.  The look of joy on his face was pretty awesome.  The next week, I had a cab take me to school one day after I had managed to get on the wrong bus and find myself on the opposite end of town (only time that's every happened to me, I swear).  He was patient with me while I choked out "left, right, there and here, here, here!!!" in my best version of Korean.  So I let him keep the change, which wasn't much.  The grin that spread from ear to ear on that man's face made me feel like I had just given him a kidney.  It's nice to get that feeling from something so small, I may just have to do that again.


2.  Being bowed to by my students.
     ~I kinda like it, makes me feel all important and whatnot.  And they honestly do it out of pure respect, not obligation.  It's nice.  And in return, I kind of like bowing to my fellow teachers, especially my principal and vice principal.  I thought it would be hard to get used to but it feels lovely being so respectful.


3.  Kids clean the school.
     ~There is a certain part of their day, usually just before lunch, that the kids come around with brooms and dust pans, etc and clean up the stairwells, hallways and classrooms.  They take out trash, and wipe down counters.  There was one day, last week, where they took a whole period to scrub down the entire school.  I like it, not because I'm some sort of dictator.  But because I think it gives them a sense of ownership.  And it seems to prevent them from the general destruction of their school.  Why throw paper on the ground or scribble on a desk when you're going to be the one cleaning it?


4.  No salt, no grease.
    ~I swear I spent most of my meals during orientation trying to pry salt out of a obviously rarely used salt shaker.  Nothing had enough flavor for me.  It was really hard to deal with at first because I admittedly had a bit of an unrequited love for salt at home.  Now, I appreciate it, my tastes have changed and I'm consuming less sodium.  I've also noticed that nothing is really all that greasy here.  I found myself prepared to have shiny fingers after a bag of chips but there was no shine.  No grease.  Even the fast food here is less greasy and salty.  If you aren't prepared for it, and you're a big fast food eater, you might even think it has zero flavor.  I love that I am unintentionally eating healthier here.


5.  Communal teeth brushing.

Teeth washing sink

Regular hand washing sink

     ~After lunch the teachers go off to the bathroom and brush their teeth together.  The office staff goes to their office and brushes their teeth together.  The kids go to the bathroom and brush their teeth together.  At first I thought it was a little extreme, but now I like the idea of being socially held accountable for good oral hygiene.






6.  No shoes inside.

Cinderella? 

Shoe cabinet at school.

     ~There isn't much to this one, I like being in my socks as much as possible.  I like the comfy slippers I get to wear.  I like that it's not a big deal if I don't wear fancy dress shoes because they're just going spend their day in a cabinet.  I worked for seven years in heels for 60 hours a week during my event planning days.  Then three years in socks during my daycare/nanny days.  I prefer the latter.

Some more fun things...

Students practicing for Sports Day

My walk home - some tug of war art.

My walk home - some random pirates.

My walk home - clown fun.