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.

Cycling!

I've taken multiple bicycle outings since the weather started warming up.

The first one I went out with a coworker and we rented bikes. I'd bought a bike back in fall, but she didn't have one yet.  (That problem has since been remedied.)  We took a train to the other end of town, rented bikes with no fee but a two-hour limit, and rode out to Seoul Forest Park. It was a bit chilly and everything still looked dead, but it was still a very enjoyable ride. I'm really looking forward to returning once everything is a bit greener.

The second time, I set out alone from home on my bike and rode for the trail that starts at Eungam Station and leads all the way to the Han River.  I had no particular end point in mind, which was nice.

I had a great view the whole way.

 

 

I even saw some gorgeous little flowers next to the bike path.

Eventually I made my way to the other side of the river via the Banpo Bridge (반포대교) and tried to figure out the best place to get myself some lunch. I had meant to stop at a kimbap place and pick something up before I hit the trail, but I completely forgot.  Eventually I picked a random side-road and followed it. I had no idea where I was or where I was going, which made me a bit nervous.  I had to keep reminding myself that everything was fine - I could always just ask for directions or use my phone to find the nearest subway station.  Eventually I found a really nice kimbap place, got a roll to go, and took it back to the river.

The wind going back was terrible. It was very strong, very cold, and very annoying. I couldn't feel my hands by the time I got to Yeouido (여의도), where Ingrid was going to meet me.  I ended up hanging out by a river monster while I waited.

It even made sound when you stood in front of it.

We decided it was far too cold to ride all the way back home with no gloves, especially as it was dusk at that point, so we caught the subway back.


Sunday was supposed to hold a trip back to Yeouido for the cherry blossoms, but it was too rainy to be worth it. This weekend ought to have better weather, though, so hopefully I can make it back out for the flowers.

It's not freezing!

Warm weather has FINALLY arrived!  It's still a bit chilly at times, but I've been able to leave my gloves at home and cut down on the layers.

In the colder months, there was a conversation between the Korean teachers and the American teachers regarding the weather. Neither party could make much sense of the other because the Koreans only knew the temperatures in Celsius and the Americans only knew Fahrenheit. After that, I resolved only to use Celsius and have removed Fahrenheit from my phone's weather notifications.  It was a bit rough for quite a while (My daily thought process was basically "is it above zero? I can survive today. Under zero? I'm gonna die.") but I'm finally getting a good guesstimate for temperatures.  Unfortunately...I still can't do mental conversions on the fly.  Thanks to some conversion tools online, I know it's been in the 50s and 60s here as of late.  However, in my head, it's been in the teens. Lately it's been tending toward the upper portions, and there have even been days where we hit 20 or 21.

Yes, this DOES mean I have been out and about doing things. In turn, that means that YES, there will be more posts from me coming up. I've been out cycling, and I'll be hiking (I think?) for some school thing (I have no idea what I got dragged into but I'm going so we'll see) tomorrow.  Well, it's past 2am here, so technically it's today.  9am. Buhhuhuhuh whyyy.

Anywho. Be on the lookout for photos from my bicycle outings, hiking, random walks through the city, and whatever other shenanigans I get up to~

More baking!

Yes, another post about food. There isn't a whole lot else to write about in winter. Besides, life is so much happier with an oven.  It really is.  I've already posted pictures of my scones, but I've made quite a few other things since that first batch.

 

Chocolate chip cookies~ They weren't perfect, but I think my brown sugar mixture was just a bit off. They were still quite good, and I'll be able to fix it for next time.

(Please ignore the derp cookie that's sitting front and center. That was the heel of the roll, so it was doomed from the start. The other side of it looked nice, though.)

These cookies were SO. MUCH. FREAKING. WORK. A coworker and I stayed up until 4am on a Thursday night and 2am the following night so we could make cookies for our students, who had to come in for Saturday classes on Valentine's Day. We thought it would be cute to make heart-shaped sugar cookies.  My coworker found a video and recipe for sugar cookies with shapes in the middle and sprinkles on the outside, so we decided to try to make them. It looked easy enough.

NO.

It was easy to do, but it took an eternity. Thursday night we made four rolls of what were basically slice-and-bake sugar cookies with sprinkles on the outside. Like I said, we were up until 4am...and we were finished mixing the dough at, like, 11pm. 

Eventually we gave up and put the remaining dough back in the fridge for Friday night, when we would do most of the baking. We decided to just roll out the rest of the dough and cut heart shapes out of it instead of trying to make fancy cookies with heart shapes in the middle. 

Grand cookie total: Three hundred. 

Yes. We made three hundred cookies for our students (and coworkers). No, I will not EVER do that again. Next time it'll be something that's less effort.

I grabbed mini loaf pans when I went shopping for the Valentine's Day cookies, so when Ingrid had some very ripe bananas and I found some bananas on special at Homeplus because they were starting to turn a bit brown, I knew it was time for banana bread.  It turned out really well, but I think I'm going to add a bit more cinnamon next time. The recipe called for half a teaspoon, but I think it needs more than that.

Next endeavor: pumpkin bread. I have a can of pumpkin sitting in my pantry, and it's the exact same brand I used back in the US.  It's gonna be awesome. 

Meanwhile, my apartment still smells like banana bread. Awesome.

Hibernating

Sorry for the lack of posts lately! I basically hibernate all winter.  I don't do much of anything when the weather is cold.  If I don't have to leave the warmth of my apartment for work or a social obligation, I don't. I'm still working on making friends here, so social obligations are few and far between.

Most of my days are wake up, kill time, go to work, read a bit, go to bed, repeat. My weekends mostly consist of tea, studying, reading, and avoiding going outside.  I've had multiple people from back home express concern that I might be lonely, but as I told them: I have books. I can't be lonely when I have books.  (You might be laughing at that, but I'm serious. Books have been my best friends since a very young age and they have never failed me.)

Buuuuuuut it's February now! It's that much closer to warm weather and fun things to read about (or, in my case, fun things to do).

Now for slightly more interesting things.  My Korean finally feels like it's improving instead of just staying where it was when I got here. I had to act as a translator for a coworker during a spot of trouble one night, and I was pleasantly surprised to find that I actually did a decent job of working through things. I wasn't perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but I held things together until her boyfriend (who is Korean and speaks good English) arrived to translate more accurately.  I bought a book of puzzles and found a few that don't require me to actually know what the words mean - I just have to find where the given words fit within the puzzle.  When I looked through the word list, I didn't know most of the words right off the bat, but as I worked through them, I realized that when I looked at the pieces of the words, I knew parts of a lot of them.  I looked up the words that I had an educated guess for, and I ended up being right for a little over half of them. Being able to figure out what a word means is just as important as having a memorized set of vocabulary and grammar, so I'm really happy with that.

More stuff, more stuff, more stuff...uhhh....movies? Sure, movies.

I've now seen three movies since coming here in August.  The first one was the last Hobbit movie (excuse me while I shed a tear - I'm not ready for LotR movies to be totally finished).  Next was a Korean movie with one of my favorite actors. I didn't understand everything, but I got the gist of it. One day I'll be able to watch a Korean movie without going "wait, what?" every five seconds. Last night I made a spur-of-the-moment decision while out and saw Big Hero 6 instead of going to a cafe to study.  It was awesome and I highly recommend it. Foreign movies here typically have Korean subtitles, while animated films are usually dubbed. Surprisingly, Big Hero 6 wasn't, so I got to enjoy it in English.

Not much else to talk about for now.  We get new teachers in a couple of weeks, so it will be interesting to see how everything gets shaken up and which classes I get to keep. Hopefully the weather warms up soon so I can go read in a park all day instead of reading in my apartment all day~

Scone saga

I love baking. Baking is my favorite thing to do in the kitchen. Looove it.  Unfortunately, most Korean apartments and houses do not have ovens. This meant that even though I know how to make wonderfully delicious baked things, I was not able to.

Until now.

My parents decided to be awesome and get me a toaster oven for Christmas. A large one. My mother also included my pastry mixer and scraper along with some measuring spoons in my Christmas box, which made me feel much more at home in my kitchen. Since then, I have been on a search for all the necessary ingredients for scones. Baking soda and baking powder were a bit of an adventure, and buttermilk was all but impossible. White vinegar to add to milk for a buttermilk substitute was also a pain, but eventually Costco came to the rescue. Today the final piece came together: baking sheets.  The trip out to a supposed "baking street" was a bit frustrating at times, but eventually very rewarding.  I now know of multiple stores with baking supplies, from cookie cutters and loaf pans to melting chocolate and food coloring.  On the way back to the subway, I even ran across at least a dozen shops selling yarn - talk about a bonus!

Immediately upon returning home, I began my endeavor of making delicious little treats with (mostly) unfamiliar equipment.  Preparing the dough was reasonably easy, except for the part where my mixing bowl was too small so I spilled flour all over myself. I always spill flour on my shirt. Always. This time, however, it got on my shirt, pants, floor, and counter. Whoops.

Unfamiliar ovens are always scary. There is no way of knowing if you'll accidentally overcook or undercook your food because it could be finnicky. Also, Fahrenheit to Celsius is a problem. So is the fact that my oven's instruction manual was all in Korean. 

MY SCONELESSNESS IS FINALLY OVER!!!!

 

The only casualty of the evening was the oven mitt that came with my oven. All I did was try to grab the baking sheet that the scones were on, and this happened. Apparently this oven mitt was not designed to be used with hot things, which begs the question of what exactly it was designed to do. Look pretty hanging on a hook? Thanks, I'll get a functional one that does the same thing.  Luckily I had a clean hand towel, so I was able to use that to handle the baking sheet.

My scones ended up darker on the outside than I typically make them, but the inside was perfect. I'm really looking forward to learning more about this oven's nuances and trying some new things~

Boo cold :(

I hate cold. Hate hate hate. If hell exists, it is not fire; it is ice. I spend most of my evenings wearing the warm pj pants and socks my grandma made for me and drinking tea. Going outside is kept to a minimum.  It doesn't help that my hat, which is super warm, is also kinda tight on my head and therefore irritates my cartilage piercing. Those suckers take for-freaking-ever to fully heal, and mine is at the point where I forget about it except when I have to put on a shirt with a tight collar, accidentally get too close with the hairdryer, or some idiot at the club isn't looking where he's throwing his arms and elbows me right in the ear. That last one really did happen a couple weeks ago and it made my ear bleed a bit. Grumble grumble. I had plans to change my earring the next day, but NOPE. Not gonna happen when it's sore.

Ahem. Anyway. Cold.

I've also been getting the sniffles, which I've been keeping largely at bay with vitamin C supplements and a number of cups of tea per day that I would rather not disclose out of possible-though-unconfirmed embarrassment. I will, however, say that I might need to order tea again sooner than I expected, even though I steep my loose tea 2 or 3 times per portion. I will also admit that the (partially-used) box of fillable tea bags that my mother included in my first care package has been entirely used up. Whoops. I am now down to my reusable infusers and the full box of bags I brought with me. No comment on how much tea is left.

Today was the first sticking snow in my part of Seoul. I think I remember hearing something about snow in other parts before now and there were definitely flurries sometime last week, but the snow today actually turned things white. It was a dusting, but it turned to ice once the sun set and I nearly slipped and fell when I went out to get my pizza from the delivery guy.  My current shoe options are heels or old and worn-out Converse. Tomorrow I have a haircut in the morning and a birthday event in the evening, so I plan on getting myself some fur-lined snow boots sometime in between. Hopefully I'll be able to pick up some HeatTech as well. I already have hot packs at the ready. I DON'T PLAY AROUND WHEN IT COMES TO COLD, GUYS.

I also have been wanting to go geocaching lately but haven't been able to because screw going out in the cold and wind by myself to search for itty bitty microcaches. I do think I converted one of the Korean teachers by accident, though - she seemed utterly fascinated when I was explaining the concept after she overheard me talking about why I wanted a trackable something-or-other to one of the other English teachers. I might have to brave the cold just so I can take her out to find a couple caches and show her how much fun it can be.