Six-Week Mark... Daegu, Seoul, and Pohang- Check!

Within the past week, everything has been going really smoothly, and I have a new sense of comfort living in this country I now call home. A lot has happened.. some fun, some meaningful, some not so important, but all worth mentioning. For instance, bus schedules between cities have been working out to my advantage, I found my own new way to Shinae (downtown) and back. (Only a 15 min walk from my apt. Score!) I changed my phone plan to unlimited data, one of my students sought me out at the market and I met his parents; I am now a millionaire (aka I got paid), I got an amazing package from my mom, including the works (the best two parts being Irish soda bread and my heels.)

Daegu

First stop- Berkeley Bar and Restaurant

Today marks the sixth week I've been in this country. I have been living in Andong for five of those weeks, and in that time I have traveled to three different cities. Daegu was the first. Daegu is one of the three major metropolitan cities in South Korea. I call it the city of "quick sand," in a good way. It was a 2 1/2 hour train ride from Andong, and we spent the day at a bar called, Berkeley. We then had dinner down the road where we ate samgyupsal (pork belly, that's grilled by the customers.) Delicious. Then ended up at a few of the popular foreigner bars and clubs in the city. The next morning we went to a Mexican restaurant for brunch and wound up staying there until 8pm.. We consumed strawberry daiquiris, vodka tonics as well as a complimentary round of tequila shots from the owner. In the afternoon, my friend Dayna and I ventured out to do what we do best... clothes shopping. We were in search of Korean womens' fashion..Just in case you were wondering, we were very successful. That night was a bit crazy for me. There were no late trains back to Andong, and the bus back was sold out (even though I got there an hour before.) Thanks to a great new friend I was able to stay the night at her place in Daegu and get the 6:40am bus back. I arrived in Andong at 8am, took a cab back to my apt, quickly changed, grabbed my bag, and walked to school, walking in the front doors at 8:29am. (I have to be there at 8:30). It was chaos.. but one hell of a story. Yes, we love Daegu.

Cocktails-in-a-bag

Traveler's Bar & Grill

Sunday Morning Madness

Seoul

Me, Simon, and Dara at Wolfhound Bar

The next weekend, my travels landed me in none other than the capital of this amazing country, and the most traveled-to destination by tourists in SK... Seoul. When I was figuring out my transportation to there, I quickly realized that Andong's train system is unfortunately not very practical. It's double the price of the bus and takes twice as long because 90% of the trains go to Dongdaegu station first and then transfer to other cities. So for example, when traveling to Seoul, if you look at a map, Dongdaegu (Daegu) station is 2 hours south of Andong, and Seoul is all the way on the northwestern corner of SK. The train would travel all the way to Dongdaegu and then all the way back up to Seoul. Plain ridiculous, so because of this I have been taking the bus when I travel. These buses are NOT at all like a Greyhound. They are roomy, and comfortable and easy to fall asleep in, which is very important =) So back to Seoul. The bus was 3 hours and I arrived there on Friday evening. The bus terminal I came into was the Express Bus Terminal which is connected to the subway, (like Penn Station.. for my New Yorkers.) Now being a New Yorker (even though I'm not from Manhattan), I have experience with the subway system, especially in the last two years. Spending a lot of time there... you would think my experiences would give me an advantage when arriving in Seoul's subway. For lack of a better expression. HELL NO. New Yorkers use uptown and downtown to determine which direction you should take the train. This does not exist here. You need to know what station is at the end of the line, so you know which train to take. Yes, there are English signs, but it's still Korea, so most things ARE in Korean! Thank god for two things. My friend Marc and my smartphone.  He told me to download the Jihachul app. It's an app that has an interactive map of the Seoul Subway system. I can simply tap what station I am at, tap where I need to go, and it tells me what line to get on, the times, and the transfers. It was magical. Before I even got onto the train however, I needed to buy a ticket. I was so overwhelmed that I completely overlooked the button where it said, English. With my broken-Korean, I asked two Korean girls my age how to buy one. They understood somewhat, but I spotted a foreigner and literally flagged him down like you would a cab. He was my saviour at that moment. I made it on to the correct train and met up with Marc when I got off. It took us multiple cab drivers and multiple kick-outs of cabs to FINALLY find a driver who understood where our hostel was. (That was accomplished by getting in touch with our friend who was already at the hostel, who put the owner on the phone to tell our driver where to go.) We arrived at the hostel to meet up with the rest of our friends... and the night began. Our hostel was in Hongdae (a popular foreigner hotspot), but we took the subway back to Itaewon (American military and foreigner filled area) to go out to the bars. We spent a good part of the night at Wolfhound Bar (an Irish pub) that played Irish songs all night. (It was the night before St. Paddy's.) Of course, me and my Irish friends (Dara, Clodagh, Angela, and Conor) were taking over every song.

Foreigners galore at the Festival

Me and Jaceon at the Irish Festival

When we woke up, we all went out to get bibimbap (probably one of the most famous dishes in Korea, and we all love it.) It's basically a rice dish, with beef, egg, beansprouts, spinach, seaweed, zucchini, and a bunch of other vegetables that I don't know the names of. It's a very pretty dish, for there are so many vibrant colors from all of the ingredients. When it is served to you, you need to mix it all up with red pepper paste. We then traveled to Itaweon yet again for the Irish Festival. There were Korean Irish Step Dancers (who admittedly weren't the best but still made me happy because it reminded me of home.) I made Dayna do the Siege of Ennis with me; there was Irish song after Irish song, and I was eating it up. It did make me miss home, thinking of family parties blasting Paddy Reilly. Our friend Haelim met up with us here (She was our TA during orientation and lives in Seoul.. we love her! She's awesome!) The festival gave us all a similar feeling of not being in Korea anymore, because there was such an abundant amount of foreigners there. Now remember the open container policy in Korea.. well, there is none. lol So please just picture this next part in your head. We all took turns going on beer runs to Home Plus, basically an E-Mart (an enormous grocery store, clothing store all-in-one shopping center.) We walked in and there were hundreds of foreigners stocking up on soju, mekju (beer) and mixers. We walked in there drinking a beer (at the door, the employee put a sticker on them, as a sign that we brought them in from outside and were not stealing.) It was quite a sight. And it was quite a day. Dayna and I bought coats later on that night. We bargained with them for a lower price and won. Pretty great. We ended up at a bar, with a bunch of foreigners wearing way too much green. I won't get in to how we got home that night, but let's just say the subway stops running at midnight and smartphones here die very quickly (the hostel's address and phone number were saved on them.)

Me and the Irish, Dara and Conor

 

Korean Irish Step Dancers

Me, Haelim, and Dayna

Some Korean girls dressed in hanbok.. they were hysterical

 On Sunday, five of us hopped on the train to Insadong. Insadong is a cultural market, holding many little shops that sell traditional art, food, and gifts. We stopped in a nice little cafe for coffee and then walked over to a Buddhist temple, where I sat in on a Buddhist meditation for twenty minutes. It was beyond anything I've ever experienced. I had no idea what was being said, but I stared in front of me, periodically gazing at the beautiful and intricate interior walls and ceiling. I walked out of there feeling relaxed, stress-free and light in a way. It was an interesting and new experience, and I know for a fact that won't be my last visit to a Buddhist temple. From there we walked ten minutes over to Gyeongbokgung Palace ("The Palace Greatly Blessed by Heaven.") This is probably the most well known in all of Korea. It's construction was completed in 1395, but torn down during the Japanese invasion in 1592. 270 years later in 1867, is when the Palace was reconstructed only to be torn down again during the Japanese occupation from 1910-1945. 1990 started the ongoing restoration of the Palace and its surrounding buildings. It is a fascinating place, full of history, culture, and beauty, and a must for anyone visiting Korea.

The main Buddhist Temple (I went into the temple next to this one.. this one was packed to the max)

At the entrance of the Palace

 Seoul is a wonderful place, but I am also thankful that I did not get placed there. On one hand I would be broke in a matter of weeks with the amount of shopping that is available. But on a more serious note, Seoul is very westernized and I feel there is not as much culture there as there is in other parts of Korea. I am thankful that I live in Andong, for it contains the more traditional and conservative side of this country. But it's a comfort to know that if I need to get away and surround myself with fellow foreigners, a Starbucks, and western-sized clothes, that Seoul is only a three hour bus ride away.

Pohang

Now we come to the third city- Pohang. Pohang is way down south, right on the eastern coast.. hence beach! This was only a short two hour bus ride. I met up with Dayna, Charles, Richard, Joe, and Westley. We all met very early on in orientation and became an awesome little group. Joe and Richard live there, so they showed us around. We went down to Jukdo Market, which is the famous market in Pohang, known for their seafood. So many fish, so many seafood I have never seen nor heard of before.

Charles with the King Octopus at Jukdo Market

We had lunch at a crab restaurant. We picked out our own crab (still alive) and waited for them to cook them fresh. Delicious and filling! We went down to Bukbo Beach (even though it was quite chilly that weekend), and it was beautiful. It again made me miss home a little bit. My whole life I've been a 20 min car ride form a beach.. so clearly Pohang and Busan are going to consume my weekends here in the summer =) We went out that night and met up with a few other friends from orientation who live in Pohang. Another beautiful city.

  Jukdo Market (the commotion at the end is because one of the huge fish unexpectedly jumped almost clear out of its bucket..

 

Delicious crab

Joe at dinner at a samgyupsal restaurant

Me, Travis, and Dayna

Me and Dayna

Joe, Westley, Richard, Dayna, and me

Traveling to these different cities every weekend is something I look forward to all week. My city of Andong is awesome and the people here are great, but I want to see all of Korea and there is SO MUCH to see. The friends I made during orientation are awesome, and we became very close, so the fact that it is so easy to travel in this country and to see each other almost every weekend is really great. As a foreigner here, I am engulfing myself in this culture and reaching out to meet and speak with Koreans. However all of us foreigners found out very quickly that we need each other to get through this year. This was a life-changing decision for all of us, to move ourselves to a country who's culture is so unlike our own. We go through some tough times here, trying to teach these children and communicate our simplest needs and even our opinions to our co-teachers. We are all going through the same things so talking to each other helps tremendously. Every city we go to, we meet more and more Koreans who are so interested in speaking English with us, and vice-versa. I always say it's so funny, because all we want to do is speak Korean and learn Korean from them, but all they want to do is speak English with us. hah.

This is the perfect point to bring up my friend Scott. I met him the first week I was here in Andong, and he is leaving for the military in two days. (It is required of all Korean men to join the military.) We had a going away party for him this weekend at his uncle's makkoli restaurant, which was fabulous. Scott is a great person, always hanging out with us foreigners in Andong, trying to improve his English, even though he's amazing at it, and clearly fluent. He has studied it hard and we are all sad to see him go. He has helped me out incredibly with my Korean and has become a true friend here. Scott, you're awesome, good luck with everything and I will see you in NY!

Kasey, Scott, and me at his going away dinner