DE 4

I've decided to call the events that my school's director finds and coaxes her foreign teachers into - mostly volunteering and special guided tours - "director's excursions" (DE for short).

The first DE was a trip out to Namhansanseong, which I wrote about in a previous post.  After that was a trip to a palace garden, which also got a post.  A few weeks ago, we went out to a mountain and were part of a campaign to prevent forest fires.  (산불을 예방합시다! <-- I swear I said this, like, a couple hundred times. Never going to forget the words for "forest fire" and "to prevent," that's for damn sure.)This past excursion, we went to North Jeolla Province/Jeollabuk-do (전라북도), which is in the southern area of the peninsula.

We had to be downtown at 8:30, which meant an early morning and a crowded subway ride. Luckily, we already knew basically where we were going, so we didn't have to plan too much extra time into our commute.

When we arrived at the meetup point, we encountered a Vietnamese couple whom we had met on the first DE. It was definitely nice to see some familiar faces, but they were on the other bus so we didn't see them nearly as much this trip as on the other one.

Unfortunately, it was the weekend before Children's Day, so the traffic was insane. We were supposed to arrive around noon and eat lunch right away, but we didn't get there until nearly one and had to eat very quickly. The food was really good, but there was a lot of seafood so I didn't eat very much.  There was an awesome mushroom soup that I really wish I knew how to make, though. Maybe someday I'll find a recipe somewhere.


Right after lunch, we went to see a 농악 (nong-ak) performance.

I was behind a few people, so I couldn't get many pictures (or see very well, actually). Luckily, I had seen something similar before, so I didn't miss too terribly much while I tried to see past the heads in front of me.

After that, we listened to a lecture on Ganggangsullae (강강술래), which is another traditional dance.  We had an interpreter whom we could listen to via headphones, but I did without for most of the lecture just so I could test my Korean ability. I definitely missed out on some things, but I feel like I understood a fair bit about the history of the dance.

Before we went to the hotel, we walked to the local mulberry festival for some special events. We didn't get to spend much time there, but it was still neat to see a local festival in a smaller town instead of just in a part of Seoul.

The hotel was about an hour away (I think...I fell asleep on the bus, to tell the truth), and it was by the ocean.

Yay surprise beach trip!

We only had a little time in the room to clean up before dinner, which was very enjoyable barbecue. There were 6 people to a table, so we sat with our two Vietnamese friends and two of their friends (another Vietnamese couple).  After dinner it was completely dark, and the beach wasn't the long type you can walk along for ages. The plan was to get up early and explore the rocky area under the balcony, but the tide was in when we woke up so there was no way to get there but to swim. Rather than attempt that, we went back to sleep. Still, being by the beach was still awesome, even if there weren't many opportunities to enjoy it.

After breakfast, we took a trip to learn about the Saemangeum Seawall.  It was cloudy, so we couldn't really see much from the center where we learned about the project's construction and the future work that would be done in the area.  We got a tour that explained all about the project (the interpretation was sequential rather than simultaneous this time, so I listened carefully to the original Korean and the translation this time) and learned about the plans to develop the area. The seawall is a really cool accomplishment, but I'm not sure how I feel about the project as a whole. They plan to build a city there that's supposed to be a center for trade or something...but how do you just plan a whole new city and say it's going to be super important? Important cities aren't built up all at once; they just kind of...grow. And then there's all the argument about the environmental impact, which they entirely skimmed over with a couple sentences. I would have liked to hear more about that.  Still, it was a really interesting tour.

Traffic back to Seoul was crazy once again. We had to make multiple stops at rest stations (which are 1000 times better than the ones I've stopped at in the States), and we ended up taking around 6 hours to get home.

Overall, definitely a really awesome event. Each person paid ₩10,000 (~$10 US) for this trip, and that included food, hotel, bus, and all the events. Preeeeetty ridiculously awesome. There were also some fun people that I hope I see again if I get to go on other trips this group puts on.

Changdeokgung cultural event

This weekend I went to another cultural event through my school.  The director hears about a lot of these opportunities and promotes them to the foreign teachers.  I really wasn't feeling going to something that started at 9am on a Sunday, but my director caught me while I was developing a video-based course and I was caught off guard so I wasn't able to come up with a reason why I couldn't go.  A few of other teachers got roped into going too, so I wasn't the only one she managed to catch off-guard.

So, at 9am on a Sunday, I was at Changdeokgung Palace (창덕궁).

The event was three musical performances at different locations in the "secret garden" of the palace.  The palace itself was absolutely beautiful, but the secret garden was even better.  Admission to it costs extra, but I highly recommend it. (I got in for free because of the program, though~)

The first performance was near Buyongji Pond (부용지).  We listened to pansori (판소리), which I absolutely love. (If you're interested in listening to a short selection, here's a good one on youtube.)  The piece we listened to was an excerpt from the story of Chunhyang.  There's actually a movie made from the pansori piece, which you can watch with subtitles on youtube.  It includes parts of the song in the movie, which is really cool.

This is Buyongji pond. It's probably a lot prettier in summer when there are plants growing in it, but it was still really beautiful.
 

The pansori performance:

After that, there was a daegeum (대금) performance.  I tried to upload the video that I took, but it's too large for this blog. Here's a youtube video of the same piece by a different performer instead.

I've heard traditional music before, but the only instrument I knew by name was gayageum (가야금). I'd never heard a daegeum solo performance before, and it was really interesting.  I was expecting the clear sound you get out of a metal flute, but there were actually some harsher, buzzier tones as well. 
Once I got over my initial surprise at the change in tone quality, it was actually very beautiful to hear how each different kind of sound was used in the song.

The last performance was a court dance with a musical ensemble.

Surprisingly, the smallest flute was the loudest. Go figure.

After the performances and the tour were over, my coworkers, school director, and the woman from Korea Tourism Organization (the same one who ran the Namhansanseong trip) all went out to lunch in Insadong.  Definitely found a great restaurant to take people to when they come visit!

Overall, even though I had to get up really early in order to do this today and didn't really want to sign up in the first place, I had a great time.  I'm a bit sad that I'm not going to the next event, which is a walk-a-thon in November, but that's right around the time of the TOPIK exam and I'll probably want to do some extra studying.  There will be plenty of other events though~

Costco and Namhansanseong~

This weekend was a tad on the expensive side...but worth it.

Friday night after work I went out clubbing in Gangnam with some friends.  We ran into Ashley, which was nice. I picked the club because she said she would be there and that it was a good place to go.  It was an extremely fun club, and most of us (including me) even got in for free because there was some random dude outside that gave us some bracelets for free entry.  We were out all night - I saw the sunrise on the cab ride home.

Saturday was Costco.  Glorious, glorious, crowded-as-hell Costco.  I was really hoping to find Goldfish or Cheez-its, but I found neither.  I did find some lunch meat, which I am super happy about.  Meat can be a bit expensive here, so I also ended up with some bacon and some chicken breasts.  Pickles are another thing that I got really excited about.  You get pickles as side dishes rather frequently, but they're always sweet pickles. Always. No exceptions.  So when I saw jars of dill pickles, I couldn't resist. My other purchases included enough cheese for an army (I got a little overeager. Oops. I see plenty of grilled cheese in my future) and a giant box of Swiss Miss.

I told myself that I wouldn't be the person who insists on only eating American food, but as I'm writing this post, I'm enjoying a ham and cheese sandwich with some pickles and apples (they were on sale at Emart).  Don't even care.


On Sunday, Ingrid and I went on this touristy cultural thing-a-thing that we signed up for through our school.  UNESCO designated Namhansanseong (남한산성) a world cultural heritage site this past June, so the Korea Tourism Organization set up an event for foreigners.  They took us there by bus, gave us food, and set up events for us to do.  They overbooked it, though, so they asked for five volunteers to separate from the main group and do something else. After some debate, Ingrid and I volunteered.  While what the other group got to do looked like tons of fun as well, we had a great time.


We wore more elaborate hanbok than the ones we tried on at the cafe in Insadong, which was really cool.

 

For comparison, the basic ones we wore in the cafe during Chuseok:

 There were lots and lots of group shots wherever we went.

 

I got to sew a book together, but I still haven't figured out what I want to write in it.

Here we're standing in front of what we would have been doing if we hadn't volunteered to split from the main group.

 We learned about traditional tea ceremonies from these two lovely ladies.

The weekend was an absolute blast, but I was exhausted at work today.  I made it through the day and even forced myself to make a trip to Emart so I could finally get myself a laundry basket.  I'm still working on building up my storage containers and setting up my apartment, but I can definitely see progress being made.