MK Meets The Sand Box: Cherry Blossoms, Scenes From an Italian Restaurant & Adorable Korean Children

So long to bitter days and nights. Spring has arrived in Korea! The past two weekends have been about 75 degrees and beautiful. Two weekends ago I traveled to Gyeongju, where my friends Dayna, Ariel, Conor, and Charles live. On Saturday we walked outside and were met by sunshine and no wind. Now living on an island, I've been 20 minutes from beaches my entire life, and Dayna growing up in LA...well let's just say we were in GREAT moods.

Beautiful day in Gyeongju

Everyone was. It made me think of college, and how every year on the first nice day of the year, everyone would be outside, in high-spirits, playing frisbee and hanging out at the lake. Spring does that to you, especially after such a cold, long winter. We met up with the rest of our group and had our usual bibimbap and coffee, followed by the decision to rent bikes for the day. We had them for about three hours. We rode everywhere and anywhere.. on the track along the river, through the park, and through street markets (carefully) so as not to run down ahjummas, children, and/or produce. In the park, the cherry blossoms were beginning to bloom and were gorgeous.

Cute couple amongst the cherry blossoms

Korean cherry blossoms are different from Japanese cherry blossoms, for they are more white with a slight pale pink color. It's almost as if you're walking in some winter wonderland in the middle of Spring. The only down side is that they are only in bloom for about two weeks tops. And if there's rain (like there will be this weekend), their life is cut short even more. So Koreans have these festivals to savor their beauty and short-lived lives. The park was a beautiful place to be that day. Children and their families were flying kites as couples strolled through the park in their coordinating outfits.

--> Quick side-note about couples here. They coordinate their outfits whenever possible. I have witnessed everything from matching colored neon Nike shoes, matching plaid shirts, and entire coordinated outfits (and I mean every piece). Manikins and advertisements follow suit as well. It's definitely entertaining to watch couples go by and notice how well their outfits go together. Men also LOVE shopping with their girlfriends, unlike in the West. You will see men holding their girlfriends handbags and choosing outfits for them (with no sign of embarrassment or "get me the hell out of this store" whatsoever.)

My first kimbap experience. I'm hooked. Kimbap is kind of like sushi but does not contain raw fish which is why I love it!

Bike Day!

Clodagh, Dara, and Ariel. Biking break


Kodak moment at a small temple in Gyeongju

It is very worth mentioning that Gyeongju brought me (as well as most of the group) to what could be considered one of my top 3 favorite Korean meals.. Dak-galbi. It is marinated diced up chicken, cabbage, rice cakes, scallions, cheese, all stir-fried in a chili pepper sauce. It has a bit of an Indian curry taste to it, which is probably why I like it so much. But like most Korean meals, it is ALL about the preparation and presentation. The waiter/waitress cooks it for you at your table, and adds every ingredient in their own unique way.

Dak galbi!

Conor, me, Simon, and Marc at the dak galbi restaurant

Back to Spring...

This past Wednesday, we had off for Election Day. So that meant, no school! Dayna, Dara, Conor, Ariel, and I took that as a day meant for shopping in Daegu. (Quick thing about Korean elections - Campaigning here, means each candidate has a group of singer/dancers who line up on the sides and corners of streets singing to a choreographed dance. It is the greatest sight! Some of their songs are even popular songs like Mary Had a Little Lamb. Of course the lyrics are changed to Korean propaganda related to their candidate. It definitely woke me up every morning for the past two weeks walking to school. Please all let's just picture Obama or some old graying political member in the States hiring people to do this..) So I don't know if I was excited or sad to see them go come Election Day. We all did quite a bit of damage in Daegu (and by all I really just mean me and Dayna.) My Korean-style clothing is growing and I'm really pumped to bring it back to the States and see what happens haha. But in all seriousness I really am a fan of the women's fashion here despite the shortness of the bottom half of their attire. Which is good, because it's hella cheap compared to all the Western stores with their imported goods. We ended that day at an Italian restaurant, where we had dinner on the porch outside. A bottle of red, a bottle of white, and some delicious light salads to finish off our perfect day. All we needed was Billy Joel serenading us and we would have completed the song. Instead we got intense K-pop songs from the noraebang next door.. we weren't complaining.

Successful day

Representing the Irish.. Conor and Dara


Representing the States.. Ariel, Dayna and myself

This past week I went running down by the Nakdong River. This river runs through most of Gyeongbuk Province and empties out into the Korean Strait (South Sea) at Busan. Andong, like many cities, has a beautiful track that runs along the river. Bike rental stands appear throughout, and children, men and women young and old, are running, walking their dogs, riding bikes or if you're a couple, taking a lovely stroll in your matching sneakers. The river is only about a ten to fifteen minute walk from my apt which is really convenient.

Needed a quick running break.. and yes of course I hopped across the stones

Nakdong River

Me and Sarah

The next day me and a few girls from Andong decided to go hiking on one of the most toughest trails in Andong. Cheongryang-san Mountain (known as the Sky Bridge Hike) was almost an hour away by bus. There were 3 separate trails to go up, so we decided on the 2nd one, mainly because Sarah's co-teacher said the first one was extremely steep and scary and the third one was too far away. Little did we know... the second trail could just as well have been the steep one she was talking about. About 45 minutes in, we had a nice break at a quiet tea shop where I bought citron tea (유자 차 pronounced yujacha.) It's the only tea I know how to say in Korean and has doubled as my new favorite tea, which is clearly why I ordered it. The menus were on paper hand fans and entirely in Korean. It's always a bit intimidating walking into a restaurant/cafe and seeing no English whatsoever. It's then, when you have to either A. make the choice to really study what is on that menu and hope that you recognize something, which often results in the waiter waiting longer than she/he was hoping for or B. point to something and say "hana juseyo" (which means "one please") and hope to god it's not 개고기 "gaegogi" (dog meat.) In my case, I have been taking time to learn Korean foods, so when this does happen to me, which is quite often, I have always been somewhat prepared. Let's think of the reality here... we are not in America. Menus are not going to have an English translation every time. So I don't pity those people who have been here and have not dedicated some time to study Korean. It's necessary, it's fun, and you're living in someone elses's country. Learn their language. Period.

Tea house

So many colorful lanterns!

Back to the trail... After our tea stop, we arrived at Chongnyang-sa Temple. There were colored lanterns on the trail leading up to this point and once we hit the temple, the lanterns were everywhere! Definitely a fun sort-of atmosphere and took away from the aches in our legs after sitting for 20 minutes at the tea shop. The view from the temple was breathtaking. Ever since New Zealand, I have constantly said, pictures really do not convey the beauty of mountains. We don't have anything like that in New York. The closest we come are the Appalachian Mountains that do no justice whatsoever to these. I caught myself, just like in NZ, staring out at them in awe. This is one of the many reasons why I came to Korea. There is so much to the world, and being stuck in America was not okay with me. Everyone needs to experience natural beauty like that. On our way up, we came across countless Koreans coming down. Well, it was either that no one chose to go up this trail that day or they don't go up this trail for a reason because of its steepness and extreme difficulty. If it was the second one, well we just chose to ignore that. Lisa, having the most experience with Korean language, was asking every few people how long until we would arrive at the bridge. One answer was 30 minutes, and then five minutes later, the answer was 10 minutes.. so there was really never a consistent ETA..

Dandayamana-Dhanurasana (Standing Bow Pose) for Bayport Bikram Studio's wall back home!

One of my favorite pictures

Ahjumma central!

After a total of 2 hours, we reached the Sky Bridge, which is a suspension bridge hanging in between the mountains. It was a gorgeous view, and I tried to ignore the fact that this bridge was suspended by cable wires between the two mountains. I mean I jumped the Nevis Bungy in New Zealand two years prior which was located in the middle of mountains by cable wires, so I don't quite know why I was a little shaken. At the end of the bridge, we met a family who invited us to sit down and join them for coffee and fruit. The young couple was fluent in English and the husband had studied at Stonybrook University which is 20 minutes from my hometown. Small world. After our delicious break we headed on back down the other trail, which only took about an hour. This trail was definitely steep and more rugged, which was fun. When we finally reached the road, we felt quite a feeling of accomplishment, just like the end of any hike. Endorphins were running high! Since we missed the bus we decided to stay there for dinner and get the last bus home.

We made it!

Dandayamana-Dhanurasana once again.. I had to haha

-->Three side-notes about hiking in Korea:

1. It's one of their favorite things and they do it in STYLE. I mentioned before about couples' coordinating outfits.. hiking is even cooler! Couples will coordinate their hiking outfits to the max. Though individually, Koreans go ALL OUT when they hike. For example, let's pick a color. Okay purple. They will match their shirts, pants, jacket, backpack, socks, hiking boots, hat, etc. ALL some shade of purple. You think I'm kiddng. I am not. I mean you see manikans in a Nike store with a perfectly coordinated workout outfit. That's them, but 10x more. Meanwhile I'm hiking up in black spandex Nike leggings and a blue Reebok top, with a green and gray backpack. Worst yet, I'm not even wearing legit hiking boots. I felt the stares at my Aasics running sneakers the whole way up.

2. Ahjummas are FIERCE. These 60-90 year old women are hiking up those mountains faster than the 25-year olds. It is unbelievable and for a lack of a better word, awesome to see. They have such drive and determination. I can only hope that I am that active at 80 years old.

3. 화이팅 Fighting! Koreans have this phrase for encouragement or to cheer you on. They pronounce it, "hwaiting" but some will say the English pronunciation of it which has been translated to "fighting." I have been told this by my landlord when I was sick a few weeks ago and I turned down a run. His exact words were, "Fighting MaryKate Teacher!" We heard 화이팅 many a time from our fellow Korean hikers that day.

After crossing the bridge. Sarah, me, and Lisa

Much needed breaks to keep our strength up

Almost there!

Me and Sarah at the entrance

Awesome shot. Kudos to Lisa!

Yesterday (Sunday), we went down to Andong's Cherry Blossom Festival, where we consumed way too much fried food and saw way too many adorable Korean children. We ran into a few of my friend's high school students which is always fun. I saw none of mine which was disappointing, but found out today in class that some of them were there. Oh well. There were some moments of homesickness in there, mostly because my mom and I have a full time job back home. And that my friends, is called shopping. I had to hold myself back with the vendors selling jewelery and handmade goods. My mom would have had a great time here. At the end of the day, I walked away with a full stomach, a new pair of handmade earrings, a new incense holder complete with jasmine incense sticks straight from India. It was a good day.