An Alien Abroad

The Expat life can be odd......the things you take for granted back home are all turned on their head when you live as an Alien Abroad.

To begin with, instead of socialising with the hand-selected friends from the last 20 years of your life, you are randomly placed with other westerners who potentially have no more in common than the fact they all speak English. So you all get wasted all the time because alcohol makes friends. You're in a distant country for a limited time, so you act different too.....stay up later, travel further, see more. And you say goodbye. Constantly. Most expats here are on short-term teaching contracts, so throughout the year you attend more leaving parties than birthday parties. And this weekend, was Matt's leaving do. Which is a very sad loss.

So London has it's Camden....and Korea has it's Hongdae....and that's where we were headed to make our farewells! Hongdae is vibrant, buzzing, neon, filled with young people, and is one of the few places in Korea where you are guaranteed to see white faces in the crowd. Outside food stalls, naerabangs (singing rooms), nightclubs, pool halls, bars, outdoor arcade games, markets, and young musicians playing in the park. No wonder we all make a beeline for the place whenever an excuse for a party comes up.

So Lee and I were a trifle early. 3 hours early actually. Obviously we got a little over excited. So we headed to one of the pool halls to try and show each other who's best. (I am). Korean pool halls don't usually sell alcohol, but they don't mind you bringing your own drink in so we were set to go.

3 hours and 16 lost games of pool later I went to meet the others for the shenanigans. Garten Bier (which has ice cup holders sunk in the tables, bells to alert the waiting staff & the requirement to buy hot octopus pastry balls) and then a move onto The Beatles Cellar Bar which is small, pretty empty so perfect for taking over, and you can play your own music. Believing I hold a far superior music taste to anyone else there, I sauntered up to the bar only to draw a blank and realise the only person I wanted to listen to was Cliff Richard...so thankfully someone else took over and I went to do shots of whiskey. I don't even like whiskey. At least I wasn't rolling around on the ground.....

And so our night came to an end and we got a taxi home. Not without a run in from the Korean police along the way...involving an on-foot police chase when the policeman thought I was trying to run away from him, when actually I was just trying to run to the local shop for water. Easy to confuse I suppose.

Needless to say, Sunday was a hungover write-off, and I am now vowing never to drink alcohol again.  Again.

Fuel to the Fire

I think a small sigh of relief passed everyone's lips as the potential 'Korean Crisis' seemingly blew over and died down. Everyone thought it would...but you couldn't help that niggling feeling of 'what if?' going through your mind anyway. North Korea can be paranoid, irrational, unpredictable.....and holds an alarming amount of nuclear weapons. So excellent. No nuclear war this week.

So I find it interesting that the South Korean defence minister has resigned after being criticised for being 'too passive' and that 'there was too much emphasis on preventing a military incident escalating into something worse'. .......pardon? Preventing an incident escalating into something worse is quite high on my list of things to do. Prevent away!


Mr Kim quitting after being criticised for being too passive

We know that the shelling of the South Korean island occurred after the North considered the US/South Korean military training on the island to be reckless provocation given its close proximity to the North Korean border. Furthermore, since the incident, the North have stated that it "will wage second and even third rounds of attacks without any hesitation if war-mongers in South Korea make reckless military provocations again"...... So I find it alarming to hear that the US and South have plans to begin military training, 5 miles south of the border, from next week. Did they not hear what the North said? In fact, the North have stated that they will consider this training to bring the country "to the brink of war". Again. Great.

I do understand the need to appear strong. I do understand that we cannot allow North Korea to spontaneously attack the South when they feel threatened. But the underlying point through each of these attacks is that the North retaliates with alarmingly exaggerated disproportion when they feel threatened. Perhaps, we could realise the North's sensitivity to being 'threatened', and try and impliment ways to avoid such situations occuring by staying a reasonable distance from the border. Surely this is the best way to avoid war....however small the likilihood of war is. We do not have to lose face, strength, or even stop the training.

Perhaps we should focus on peace, rather than adding fuel to the fire.

War?

Today was quite a dramatic one.

Being in South Korea for my second year, I'm used to the threats from North Korea, the occasional BBC 'crisis', and the general tensions between the South and North. That said, I'm also pretty used to ignoring it. It's well known that North Korea feels the need to reiterate it's 'power', especially at times of internal or global weakness, and uses the threat of nuclear weapons as its mean of doing so. Despite the media drama back home, South Koreans are seemingly pretty relaxed about the whole situation, which leads me to feel relaxed also. Besides, why would North Korea do something so blatantly suicidal as attacking the South, when they know the USA would stand in? Only an agreement with China or Russia could lead them to do such a thing....and that's unlikely....

So today seemed a little different from the usual North/South clash. To begin with, this is the first time North Korea has opened fire on South Korean land where civilians are living. There has been the occasional cross-border incidents, but only over water.....and nothing so seemingly unprovoked.

BBC image of Yeonpyeong events today

The most notably different thing of today was the people's reaction to the events. A friend of mine went to quickly transfer her money out of Korea, only to be told by the bank manager to 'prepare for war'. All flights out of Korea, and all KTX train tickets away from Seoul were sold out. My first class of students came in gushing to use the internet to be updated on the events, sparking tears and hugs....even planning escape routes. Something about this sudden change from ease to nervousness caused me to be nervous. In every class, students were talking about the 'war'...some excited, some anxious, some nonchalant, some terrified. Even my Korean co-teachers came in asking how I felt about 'the war'.

South Koreans watching the incident on TV

OK so in reality......we're not at war. Admittedly, we are at the 'highest non-wartime alert'.....meaning that should anything provocative occur in the immediate future, a state of war could be announced, but in all likelihood, this is another case of North Korea shouting wolf. Nothing is likely to happen. The 'Korean Crisis' shall hopefully die down in a few days. 

But it is interesting to be in a country so politically tense. How long can this ceasefire - without a peace treaty - hold out? How would it feel to be one of my students, growing up in a country so recently divided, unsure of whether war will break out or whether it will be reunified? I used today as an appropriate opportunity to discuss these issues with my students. I asked each class whether they wish to be reunified with North Korea. Although opinions were divided, 3 out of 4 classes voted against reunification. Their reasoning was that North Korea is so impoverished, a reunification would ruin the South Korean economy. Mighty smart elementary school kids....if not mighty unsympathetic to their starving cousins. It seems that in the generation change, the want to reconcile with brothers, mothers, wives, cousins has become outlived....the younger generation never knew the northern people and therefore feel little if no loyalty to them.

So how does it feel to be a child growing up in South Korea in this age of uncertainty? Well, according to them they'll feel 'happy, because if there is war there will be no school'...... 'angry, because they will take our money'.......'let's pray to Jesus for help' and............. 'teacher, my heart is raining today'.

Let's hope tomorrow this all blows over. I think it will. And then we'll have no need for anger, Jesus, rain....and no need for school would be nice too. 

The Secret Garden of Biwon

According to the guide books, Autumn is the best time to visit to Korea due to its cool temperature and the trees which 'erupt in a magnificent array of reds, yellows and oranges'. Crikey. So we thought we'd better take advantage of this and visit somewhere leafy so we could experience this magnificent array. We'd heard great things about the 'Secret Garden of Biwon' at the UNESCO world heritage Cheongdeokgung palace, so we headed down.

Cheongdeokgung is a palace in Seoul where the Kings and Queens lived during the 1400's. Unfortunatley, during one of the many Japanese invasions of Korea, the Japanese burnt down all of the palaces in Seoul, leaving Cheongdeokgung in ruins....until restoration rebuilt it to its (almost) original state.

Cheongdeokgung is the only palace in Korea where you cannot walk around alone - you must be in a tour group. And we had missed all of the English tours. Sigh. Ok so Korean tour it is! But we soon found this to be quite handy.....it meant that the whole area was deserted except for our tour group, and if you could just sneak away from the group.........mangificent array here we come! Occasionally we bumped into an old security guard, but they either looked terrified of having to communicate with a foreigner so stayed away, or they were super excited about the rare opportunity to practice their English, and so gave us as many informative pointers to the palaces as they could summon without breaking a sweat.

So we had the 'Secret Garden' almost to ourselves.... and it was magificent. I don't know why our trees don't turn that colour in England, but they don't. The gardens were filled with solitary wooden pagodas, often beside a lotus pond...which apparently each had different uses...such as writing poetry, having parties, and floating goblets of wine in the water.

Between us, Lee and I managed to take over 200 photos....which in hindsight was rather excessive, especially as they were all of trees. But it shows how beautiful the place was to make us do it! OK so one more picture of a tree......(what will we do with the other 198?).....

NEON!

Asia is pretty well known for its neon light addiction - and South Korea is no exception! It makes you wonder what good our energy saving lightbulbs are doing back home when you can see the bright hues of Asia from space. That said, walking through the blazing night markets of Seoul with K-pop blaring out from competing shops speakers whilst getting crushed in the shopping stampede, is pretty amazing. And seeing as Lee 'needed' a new pair of jeans and I 'needed' a new camera.....there was no better excuse to head to Myeongdong....the night market capital of Korea.

Myeongdong was amazing! To think I've spent the last year trying to squeeze myself into the hankerchief-sized clothing being sold around the rest of the country, when all this time there were normal shops in Myeongdong! It's a wonderful balance of western clothes shops inside and hundreds of Korean market clothes stalls outside....all of it at super cheap prices. So we went a bit shopping happy.

Actually, I think Myeongdong was more heaven for Lee than it was for me! In the rest of Korea, as a female, so long as you can squeeze into the clothes on offer they are actually pretty nice. As a man you're screwed. The size is a problem, with the jeans waist being a maximum of 30, but the fashion is worse. The current mens fashion is super feminine / super skinny.... best demonstrated by Shinee boy band below, and better demonstrated in their music video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skZxb5sBoiU

.....so unless Lee fancied donning some pastel pink skinny jeans he was going to have some shoppng problems this year. So thank you Myeongdong! No glitter, thigh rips, stonewash or skinny jeans in sight.

Myeongdong also has a whole array of hot food street stalls, ranging from Korean style kebabs, to dried squid tentacles, to the usual spicy dok-boki (rice cakes in a spicy sauce) and meat on sticks (what type of meat is questionable).

So we filled oursleves up on kebab (it's not often you find kebab in Korea!) and headed home. At least I now know where i'll be doing all my Christmas shopping.....

Seoul Lantern Festival

For once it was a Sunday and I wasn't feeling like death from the night before, and with this delightful whole day infront of us, we travelled into Seoul for the Lantern Festival.

The Lantern Festival marked the 50 day countdown to the 2010-2012 visit Korea campaign - over 10,000 lanterns from over 20 countries worldwide were lit to signify 'hope and friendship', and placed along the Cheonggyecheon stream.

We went on the final evening..and so it was packed! Korea can be overcrowed at the best of times, so thousands of people all getting to the same stream meant lots of queing and adjima-shoving, but all in all, once you were down by the water it was a beautiful sight.

Even so, the Korean winter has now and truly set in, and so hats, gloves, scarves & warm clothes were needed! So we all went for a nice warm dinner. How are we gonna cope for the next 4 months.....



Lotte World!

Given my plan to try all things new in Korea, I immeditely said 'yes' when Matt suggested we all go to the infamous Seoul 'Lotte World' theme park. I didn't think to cast my mind back to the last time I went on a fairground ride, when I was so terrified I tried screaming 'stop the ride, stop the ride' repeatedly.

So we met at the unearthly hour of 7:30am to avoid the schoolkid crowds and entered the magical world of Lotte World. It actually feels like stepping into Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory, minus a few oompaloompas.

And so the fear.....sorry, fun, began. Rollercoasters, big swinging things, big tall things, big things that drop you from terrifying heights, big teacups, we did it all. Well, actually, I was nice enough to offer not to go on a few rides so I could be the photographer and get some good photos. Nothing to do with being scared. And if I had have been on the rides I would have looked like this:

After the big scary rides we decided to end it on a big one.....the teacups. Or as they call it, the 'drunken basket'. Ok so I know that technically the teacups are lame, but this one you can control by spinning a wheel in the middle, and with six people spinning the wheel, you can pick up quite a mighty pace. In between my laughter I managed to sneak views at Lee who was trying not to be sick over the edge.

So after a long day of rides & ice-cream & pizza & beer & more rides (you've got to wonder how we weren't all sick) we went home all screamed out for the day.



The Ham

No, we did not just eat some ham. We were lucky enough to be invited to our friend Will's & Yunjong's pre-wedding Ham ceremoney, at Yungjong's family home.... 

The 'Ham' is a traditional Korean ceremony a few days before a wedding, where the bridegroom offers the bride's family a box of gifts (the 'Ham'), including the traditonal dress and jewellery for the wedding. In return, the bride's family give wine, food (and, back in ye old days, money)...and after much bowing and inspection of the gifts, they all have a feast and drinking session in celebration! Somewhere during this ceremony the groom is supposed to wear a dried squid on his head while bowing lowly before the bride's parents, while the family and friends jokingly shout insults to him. I dont know why, but Will seemed reluctant to play out this part, so despite my camera being at the ready, I saw no dried squid wearing. Come on Will, its tradition....

After the bride's mother inspects the gifts, the bride dresses in the traditional Hanbok dress, and both the bride and groom bow low before the parents in respect.

 

So the merriment! Korean cuisine is, in my opinion, the best that I have come across yet, beating India, Thailand, Europe, China....everywhere I have travelled so far. So a homecooked Korean feast is a luxery - from spicy soups to meaty bulgogi dishes, sushimi and kimchee, all fruits and vegetables, all laid out beautifully on the low rise tables where we sit around crossed legged on the floor tucking in with our chopsticks, and knocking it back with shots of soju. Be warned...do not leave your chopsticks sticking out of your rice bowl....I was politely told this is very rude as it resembles  funeral rite. Ooops. Not the right theme for a wedding. Thankfully I didn't do any other customery faux-pas (I don't think...) before we all gave our thankyous, bowed another few times, and left the grand apartment of Yungjong's parents.

So, Korean culture.... there you are! It can sometimes feel as though the Korean culture is being forgotten, or drowned out by the strong western (American) influences. It was refreshing to see some real traditional culture still alive and kicking in the country! And was a thoroughly enjoyable evening.

Seongmodo Island

The first weekend back from chilly England and Korea was still a blazing 24 degrees, which leaves nothing better to do than spend the weekend on one of the West Sea Islands! With over 4000 islands to choose from, some of which have still rarely seen westerners, we took our Korean friend Jinny's advice  and headed for the tiny Seongmodo Island.

Oepo-ri resembles what I imagine 1970's Korea to look like - low rise hanuk style buildings, seafood resturants and a small fish market. We tried to find somewhere that sold anything but seafood and failed. So we sat ourselves in a rather questionable drinking establishment, where the elderly owners were knocking back soju, falling over, and then trying to force apples/peanuts/snacks onto us. They seemed gobsmacked to have western customers and let out huge howls of amusement each time we were able to oder our beers in Korean. We were probably getting it wrong and tellng them we were teapots.

The next morning we took the short ferry ride to Seongmodo Island....short, but made memorable by the hundreds of seagulls which flock around the open ferry and swoop directly at the wooping Koreans all throwing snacks into the air for the Seagulls to catch mid-air. These birds fly right at you. It's terrifying...and quite amazing at the same time.

Seongmodo Island is beautiful. It's very small, so small that we rented a retro style scooter from an ajima and zipped around the entire island in only an hour or so. It's not so much beaches, as you find in Jeju or Deokjeok-do, but beautiful mountains and scenery, and just the escape from the chaos and architectural monotony of the mainland.

On the Island is the 1400 year old Bomunsa temple, with it's own version of the terracota army....over 300 stone monks sat together beside the temple.

This was by far one of the best temples I have seen in Korea as it had lots of character and was very well presereved. the temple itself is set a small walk from a huddle of shops and restaurants...and be warned...there are adjima's poised and ready to try and hand (force)-feed you lots of tentacly seafood. So if you see them, run.

The Return To Korea

So I'm back in Korea! The same city, same apartment building, same school....I've got to admit I was worried about it being too 'the same'. I like to feel as though I'm always moving forward and learning new things. So will this year just be the same? Well, Korea is one of those incredible countries that changes in a blink of an eye - no sooner have you found a restaurant before its been replaced by a new better one, the English teachers come and go with each yearly contract, whole cities are built in a few months, the pupils and teachers are seemingly at the schools only transitorily... even the seasons change from one extreme to the exact opposite overnight. Boiling summer to freezing winter in one evening....wow.

So I've returned to a new Korea. All change it seems. And I want to keep it this way! I've vowed to myself that this year will be a year of trying new food, going to new places, submerging myself more into the Korean culture, and learning more of the language so all I know isn't just 'one more beer please'.

So for my second year round I want it to be a year of firsts. let's see how I manage...