Phillippines

Hostel Balcony Day 1

Day 1:  We arrived in the Phillippines on Friday night at around 1:30 in the morning. The airport was dead in Manilla where we flew into and we just took a cab to our hostel. The Hostel was pretty cool with a nice upper floor for just hanging out and then our room was on the lower floor. The room was kinda dirty and the showers were cold but we each only paid around $5 a night there. And it was safe so that was the main part.

Day 2: We thought we should go to "sight-see" in Manilla since we were there. The unfortunate thing was there was nothing to see in Manilla. First we went to the Hard Rock cafe and bought shirts and ate. It was good western food after coming to Korea. After that we went to the old part of town but we didn't feel safe at all there. We just walked around and saw an old catholic church there where they were having a wedding. It was really beautiful wedding but outside of there everyone was staring at us. We had some little kids come up to us and start to sing us songs in tagalog and ask us for money. After that we got out of there and went to a park very close to there. The park had trash everywhere and wasn't very nice either. So we just decided to go to the mall because we had heard the shopping in the Phillippines was really good and cheap. It wasn't as cheap as I would have hoped but they did have cute clothes that we could actually try on. There we felt a lot safer but they had police at the entrances of the malls checking for guns in our handbags. We ate a Phillippino buffet at the mall which was interesting. The food there was kinda bland but it was still good. We just went back to the hostel after that because we didn't want to be outside.

Tricycle thing which served as taxi

Street in Manila

Day 3: We left in the afternoon for the island of Palawan. This was much better. Although the Manilla airport is kind of crappy. When we got to Palawan they were all asking if we had a hotel or if we wanted them to drive us to one. I think the tourism there was really competitive. We ended up riding in a tricycle thingy with this guy who took us to a hostel we had in our travel guide. He was really nice to us and very accommodating. Our hotel here was cleaner and the beds more comfortable which was good. They didn't have mosquito nets though but they brought in spray for us and we sprayed the room. There were also geckos everywhere. They were pretty funny and the running joke the whole time was that we would take one home in our bags on accident and then get kicked out of the dorms for having pets. We ate supper at this chicken place that looked a little more local than we were expecting. The place we were going to go to was closed. The food was delicious though and we ate meal, drinks, and dessert for about $10. I had an amazing strawberry bubble tea and chicken teriyaki. 

Fish feeding at Snake Island

Day 4: We went island hoping at Honda bay. This was really cool because they took you to each island and told us what we should see and what we should do. The first island we went to was starfish island. It was soooo cool. There were starfish everywhere and the water was so clear and warm. We could see the bottom as the boat was coming up to the island. We were the only ones on this island and it was really quiet. Then after that we went to snake island (only called that due to the shape). There they had us buy bread ahead of time and we fed the fish and took tons of fish pictures. We saw all sorts of fish of all colors. They also fed us home cooked food on this island. We had some delicious pork, tuna, shrimps, and not so delicious fish (everyone else liked it). The philipino men with us ate with their fingers even the rice. A lot of the people there did that. After lunch we went to the last island where we got to snorkel some more and it was also very pretty. After that we got back we had talked to the tour lady about wanting to go to Sebang and El Nido and she set it all up and helped us with everything. I'm not sure if its just the philipino way to be this accommodating or if they really wanted us to come with them everywhere. They took us to the ATM, airport for our tickets back to Manilla, tour agency, place to get into the underground river and then home. Then we went out for supper at the place they said had the only night life in Puerto Princesa. It didn't have much night life. It was probably about the size of Jefferson or maybe a little bigger of a town so it fell asleep early.

Outside the boat for island hoping

Underground River in Sebang

View on the way to El Nido

Day 5: We got up early to take a van to Sebang and the Underground river. This was crazy because the roads were really bad. Most of them were gravel with so many pot holes the driver slowed way down and swerved to miss them. Most of the paved roads were missing lanes in places from mud slides and stuff since it was the rainy season. I was motion sick so I just slept the whole way there. Once we got there we got on a boat to go to the island where the actual underground river was. These two Americans walked up to us on the way and they went with us on the boat. They were really nice. One was from Philadelphia and the other from Ohio maybe and they were in China working. The underground river wasn't as exciting as we were hoping. It pretty much just included a really long cave in a boat. Also the tour guide was very difficult to understand due to his heavy philipino accent. When we got done with the river we went on a monkey trail. We didn't see any monkeys but we did see a pretty cool/big lizard. When we got done here we drove the way to El Nido which was close to 4 or 5 hours. On the way we stopped in Roxas so that the driver could eat and I was hungry so I also ate. He was so nice he was letting me try his food and he bought my food too. The unfortunate thing was I wasn't keen on what he had. I got the privilege of trying what I think was some sort of fatty beef and another dish of intestines with black sauce.  I wasn't quite as hungry after that. When we got to El Nido we found a really cool hotel which probably could have been cheaper but it was very nice. We had two rooms, a bathroom and a balcony. The only problem was there is no electricity in El Nido from 6 am to 2 pm and its quite warm there. So we had to get up good time in the morning because we were soooo hot. After we got settled we went and ate supper at Ric Sons which was just down the beach. This was an experience. They had a band playing the whole time which was cool. There was also a party that came in after a little while with 6 philipina girls and 1 old man and what we think was a philipino man dressed as a girl. The last one was quite entertaining the whole time with a very eccentric personality. We also had a male nurse from Switzerland came up and talked to us. He was a very interesting character and we ended up seeing him everywhere the rest of the time. There was also a waiter who walked up to our table and asked us where we were from when we told him Germany and USA he said that Germans were big people and Americans were fat. Maybe he was a bit rude or maybe he has a skewed view.

The beach by our hotel

Day 6: We wanted to just relax and not do anything so we decided to not go on an island tour. We had seen a beach that looked really nice on the way but was a little ways away so we told one of the tricycle guys to take us there. He tried to tell us there wasn't anything there but we didn't listen. Next thing we know a buddy of his is trying to take us to another island and drop us off for some "beautiful beach". We kindly declined and took a tricycle back into town. When we got to the beach the swiss guy was there and he suggested for us to go to the Art Cafe which was delicious. He came with but he wasn't very good company because he just read his magazine the whole time. We were wondering why he bothered to join us. He was also really rude always talking in German instead of English. Then we just laid on the beach all day and swam. It was really nice to relax even if the beach wasn't that exciting. That night we went to the coolest restaurant ever. It was also on the beach and they had delicious food. They also had this really cool place to sit which looked a little bit like a boat and was out over the tide. We were kind of getting a little wet but it was really fun.

The Alternative (the coolest restaurant)

Day 7: We decided to do an island hoping tour after our fail the day before. This was a really cool island tour where we got to see 5 islands. The first island was a small lagoon which had fish that bit when we stepped on the sand because they were laying in it. The guide led us to a little cave where we could sit and hang out in. The scenery was also really beautiful with huge cliffs jetting up above us on either side. Under the water there were reefs. The next island we stayed at to eat. We didn't snorkel here much but relaxed and laid on the beach. We also found a hermit crab just wandering on the beach which we took a video of. After eating Caro and I hung in the water talking to two of our guides and an old dutch man. The old dutch man was there with his young philipina girlfriend. The tour guides were trying to teach us tagalog (philipino) but it wasn't working all that well. Caro was picking it up but me not so much. I just got something about mahalay being beautiful because they say beautiful morning and beautiful night for good morning and good night. That night we went out to eat that night and just hung out.

Day 8: We wanted to just relax again so we just spent the day on the beach near our hotel. We didn't want to get up to early but unfortunately we didn't have much of a choice because it was sooooo hot there. They didn't have electricity from 6am to 2pm so we were burning up without fans in the morning. When we were on the beach in the afternoon it started to pour rain on us. That was a big bummer so we just went back to the hotel and lounged. I got a long ways in my book Emma by Jane Austen and the other girls got good naps in. While they were still napping Martina and I went to swim for a little while before it was time to get ready for supper. We went to a place on the beach again and sat on the beach. This was fun because as the tide was coming in it got our feet wet and Julia and I started to fall backwards. The joke of the night was to not fall over when the waves swept the sand out from under the chair.

Notice the palms and the rain :(

Day 9: This was our last day so we really wanted to make it great. Well....we tried. We booked for a boat to take us to an island just to stay for the day (a credible source). This seemed like a great idea and it really was beautiful. We had a few highlights such as seeing a ton of Hermit crabs and real monkeys. The monkeys were quite interesting and kind of hard to find. The only problem was that an hour into being on the island it started to rain on us cats and dogs. There were no people on this island but us and this other couple so we had nowhere to get out of the rain. This didn't seem like that big of a deal except that we had all of our passports and stuff with us so it was getting wet too. Not to mention it was quite cold. Thankfully we had gotten the guys number ahead of time and so he came back to pick us up. He was quite nice to us and we laughed the whole way back about how funny it was that it was raining so hard. After this we just stayed in the room and hung out while it rained most of the day. That night we went to a restaurant called Sea slugs but I didn't have to eat seafood thank god. I had delicious chicken adobo (Philippino chicken).

We were so cold! But it was really funny.

Day 10: Just traveled all day home. It was a 5.5 hr drive back to Puerto Princesa from El Nido. Then about an hour to Manila from Puerto Princesa on a plane and 4 hours back on a plane to Seoul. We came back exasted from traveling all day but the trip was amazing.

Exhausted!

Overall: We saw some very beautiful things and took some amazing pictures. The culture felt a lot closer to home and almost like a Latin American country. The people were very accommodating and really nice. There were dogs everywhere and they were all either pregnant or had puppies. I've never seen so many dogs without collars in one place. Being in a small town was amazing to. Our driver on the way did the one finger wave which I thought was so cool. The people in the towns also felt like small town people willing to help in anyway and never that busy. I felt totally safe on the island of Palawan and thought it was beautiful. I loved all of the wildlife everywhere and got to see stuff that I thought I would only see in zoos and books.

Only a Month Until home......hmmmmm

Ok so the last two weekends haven't been all that exciting. Last weekend I spent most of the weekend at home except for a Sunday excursion to the palace. It was really fun to see all of the fall colors. We also got to see the Korean presidents home from far away. It's called the blue house and is pretty cool looking. There were a lot of families there with their kids. The kids here are so adorable and I  think once I get back to Creighton I will really miss being able to see kids all of the time. It's cool how old all of these palaces and things are.

    That week on Thursday I went with a Finnish and French girl to the Hello Kitty cafe. This is funny because the whole place is decorated in Hello Kitty.  It has been fun hanging out with these girls because they were in my Korean language group and we usually had Thursday afternoon dates to go places.
    The next weekend I went with Jina home again. I really enjoy going home with her for good food and her family is so nice to me. On Friday night we went to sa-hyoung and opah (Jina's boyfriend) picked us up there and we went to a Korean restaurant. This one served a soup in the middle of the table which is just boiled veggies and thinly sliced beef. It was delicious. I think this is one of my favorite Korean dishes. The next day Jina and I searched for something to see and we found a park with all of the fall colors. It was called nam-han-san-sung. This was a really cool place but... everyone was staring at us. Go figure because everyone was in hiking gear and we were in dresses and boots. I was also the only foreigner there so that didn't help. Then after that her friend picked us up and we went to Jina and her friends old university. It was a lot bigger than Sogang and very cool. We ate supper there and just came back to Jina's house after that.
    The next day Jina had a birthday party so I went with Opah to the huge department store. It was so packed since it was the weekend. The department stores here are huge. Then we went to pick up Jina and just came home. Opah was really tired because he had stayed up late with a friend the night before. I keep telling him I could drive for him but he doesn't think that's a good idea since its Seoul and I don't have a Korean license. He is also a little protective over his brand new car.

    The next week I had a ton of homework due and the German girls kept inviting me to do fun things. I was so bummed telling them no but I did go to the Lantern festival. It was soooo cool. There is this small crick that runs through Seoul that has some really cool bridges and is nice at night. That few weeks though they had these lanterns in the middle of it. This looked really cool. The rest of the week we were just getting ready to go to the Phillippines. We left on that Friday to go.

Busan!!!

Last weekend I got the privilege of going to Busan and it was really fun and funny.
Friday: Getting there was interesting. I had a later class so everyone went on without me and I caught up. I thought I would ride on the KTX (the really fast train) to get there in only 3 hours instead of 5 and a half. So when I get to the train station and am waiting in line for the machine to get my ticket from there is a girl in front of me and a man behind me. The girl in front of me seemed to be having issues and so the guy behind me was watching very intently behind my back and looking over my shoulder. He was breaking my space bubble a little. Then the girl got done and I got up there and the man behind me moved up to my right to help me and this other guy appeared out of nowhere to help me on the left. The guy on the left I thought was a train worker but he turned out to be a clerk from the nearby Lotte mart. So they are trying to help me purchase a ticket even though it is in English and they have no idea what it says. So I'm trying to tell them that it is sold out and they aren't understanding so we finally get the ticket. Then the Lotte guy grabs my waist pulls out his cell phone and asks a stranger to take a picture of us on his cell phone. I have no idea who this guy is and he didn't even ask. While taking the picture he keeps pulling me closer to him. It was a little startling but really funny story for later. Then we parted ways and I went to my platform but they were shooting a drama on the platform. This was kinda cool to see because dramas are so huge here. Getting on my train was not to bad I just matched up the characters and the number with the ones on my ticket for which car. Then I asked a random guy where I can sit and he said anywhere. I sat in a window seat so I could see out. There was 4 boys who came in and sat down across the isle from me and I think they were from the military taking the weekend to go home. One of them still had his uniform on. I didn't make eye contact with them and just sat in my seat. A girl sat next to me and got off at the first stop. After a little while one of the boys got up to go to the bathroom and it caught my eye so I looked up at him and made eye contact and smiled. Then when he got off the train he gave me a Starbucks latte and I was so surprised I just said thank you. I couldn't even think to say it in Korean. When he was leaving he waved really big at me. I still can't believe all the kindness of the Koreans. They are always helping out and really accommodating.
     Once I got to Busan the girls picked me up and we went to the Hostel. This was probably one of the coolest places I've stayed in. We had our own room with 4 twin beds and then a kitchen and living room and bathroom which we shared with the other people staying there. It was called the Indy House after Indiana Jones and it was only around $17 a night per person. On the last day they even let us leave our stuff there until we left for the bus even though it was after 11 am. Then we went to a delicious Italian restaurant and a bridge where we took pictures and hung out by the sea. Even though it was chilly it was beautiful. Afterward we played on some play ground equipment and hula hooped there.
   On Saturday: We went to the fish market in the morning. This was also very interesting. I'm not sure I ever want to eat fish after that. There were also lots of places that sold pork including pork feet and pork heads. There was squid, octopus (live and dead) and sting rays. While we were there we kept getting asked where we were from and the people were all very nice. One lady asked me where I was from and then when I told her she told me I was pretty and started to touch my hair. I wasn't exactly thrilled to have someone touching my hair when they've been working with fish but I guess that it was just a sign of friendliness. On the way to the Lotte department store where we could see the city and sea from a nice view on top we saw the dried market. They dried everything. Apparently even frogs which is what the picture is of. There are also dried squid, octopus and fishes. This was an experience. Once we got to Lotte there was a water show where they shot up water and it feel in designs from the ceiling also. This was all to music and they set it to lights too. In the water falling from the ceiling the wrote words like welcome to Lotte and others. Koreans sure know how to do some things big. The view from the top was also very cool. We could see the view of the market and all the ships coming into it and then also the city and the tower. Best of all it was free to do and we didn't have to pay to get into the Busan tower to see the same view. Inside the department store we saw a Hello Kitty store and a Barbie store. They had everything here. Also I got to eat a bread bowl from Quiznos for the first time since being here. It was delicious even if it wasn't Korean. When I was walking in the store a few little boys ran up to me and shouted Hello! When I asked them their names in Korean they just ran away. Maybe they aren't as tough as they first seemed.

     After this we went to see a temple. There are always temples here. The temple was Beomosa and it was kind of far away. When we got off at the subway station we just started to follow the signs thinking  they would lead us to the temple. We saw one that said 3 Km and I  thought that's not that far so we started walking up the mountain. Then we reached a fork in the road with no sign so we asked a guy. He was so nice even though he was talking on the phone and didn't know where it was he tracked someone down and asked them and translated it back to us. They asked us whether we wanted to take the bus or walk and that should have been our hint but we said walk anyway. 15 min later and one very narrow winding road with no side walk we found a bus. And we embodied the saying stupid foreigners. It was a nice temple though and we were glad we made it up there. It wasn't as cool as the shrines in Japan but it was free and very nice. We were tired and very ready to just sleep or eat or rest. So we went back to the hostel and some of us took a nap. After this we decided to just eat delivery pizza at the hostel but we weren't sure where from. Pizza here is kinda expensive so we asked the lady working at our hostel she showed us a bunch of different menus and even ordered it for us. The only problem was we had a communication error and only had two small pizzas for the four of us. After this we just went out to eat a snack and this guy who was also staying at our hostel came with us. He was from New Hampshire and  he was very nice. He had graduated from college and was just taking some traveling time across southeast Asia. After this week looked at all the good Halloween costumes. They don't actually celebrate Halloween as a holiday here just the bars have huge parties for it and people get all dressed up. The costumes were hilarious. We saw a really good Marge Simpson and other people dressed up well too. When we came back to the Hostel we ended up staying up late talking to the guy from New Hampshire and another guy who was staying there from Israel. He spoke awesome English because his dad had grown up in the US and all of his family was still in the US. He told me his dad was an orthopedic surgeon and had gone to Harvard Medical school. He was a nice guy and it was interesting to hear how Israel works.

      Sunday: We went to the worlds largest department store in the morning. It was still kind of expensive but had good sales. All of the world famous brands are in it and they even have an ice rink. It's kinda like a mall only just one store. It was very large with I think 12 floors. It also had a Krispy Cream doughnut shop in the basement. Here there are so many doughnut shops here like Krispy Cream and Dunkin' Donuts. After that we hung out at the beach for the rest of the day. This was a beautiful day to do that because it wasn't too cold to put your feet in. It was probably 60 degrees out and the sun was out. There were lots of people at the beach. We had a lot of fun taking random pictures here and just enjoying relaxing. After that we went to get our stuff and get on the bus to come home. The bus ride home was pretty uneventful other than the man next to me was snoring very loudly. I've never actually heard anyone snore on a bus but I'm amazed his wife next to him didn't wake him. It was a very fun trip and I still really like Korea.

October!

     Sorry I haven't written for so long. The weekend of Oct. 2nd we went to Lotte world. It was a lot like Disney World on a smaller scale and Asianized. It's mascot was a raccoon which was hilarious. It was also surprisingly cheap or about $16. It was raining though so we spent time inside and outside. The ride lines were kinda long but the rides were different. There were only two coasters and both of them didn't have huge drops they just went really fast and upside down and sideways and all over the place. It was a bit intense. Also when you were getting onto the roller coaster there were 6 park employees (men) singing a song in Korean and clapping to the beat. I think they were telling us to how to get into the ride, put on our seat belts and enjoy the ride. When we were leaving they all waved big and said bye in Korean and English because we were on it. This is pretty common in Korea and they use this technique while making a traditional candy to sell it. It's very fun but I couldn't see an American boy ever doing it. We went to fireworks on Friday night but they were hard to see. They were some of the best in the world because this week was the international fireworks festival in Seoul. (I have been really bad about bringing my camera this past two weeks. Sorry!)
      On the weekend of October 9th I did a bit more. On Friday night I went to an apartment with some Finnish and French friends from language class. This was a blast! I was going to try to make bread but then I realized even if I could find flour I wouldn't know what it was in Korean to pick out which kind. After that I gave up the bread. We just made spaghetti with some mystery ground meat of some sort and a salad. It was good though. It was nice to be in a place other than the dorms to see what normal Koreans live like but once getting there we realized that this couldn't be a normal Korean place. It was huge and very gorgeous. The lady that we were borrowing it from was gone to Jeju for the weekend and this was her second home. The Finnish couple had lived there while they were searching for a place to stay in the beginning.
        On Saturday I really needed some warmer clothes because I didn't bring enough. Go figure. So we went shopping and I got some clothes. I was still running into the troubles of them all being one size fits all. This really doesn't work for me when all the other people around here might fit into a size 0 or smaller. They also don't allow me to try stuff on since in theory it should be one size fits all. My cardigans fit well but I bought a dress that is a little tight and so I must wear a cardigan over it. This is the problem with one size shopping. Then after that I went with the french girls to sam-gap-sa or Korean BBQ. This isn't really my thing because it's all fatty pork but that's ok. I usually just get some spicy tofu soup and its ok. After that we went to the fireworks show but we were too late and missed the whole thing. There were soo many people there. It is on this island in the middle of the han river which is pretty cool.
      Sunday I got the privilege to hang out with Jina and her boyfriend all day. He has a nice brand new car (the companies here help their new employees buy cars) and he took us around. First we went to On The Border which was the most delicious Mexican food I've had in awhile. Jina didn't really care for the enchiladas but they really enjoyed salad and quesadillas. During lunch we kept on trying to get Jina to say legitimate the right way but she just can't. There are too many rs and ls. After that we came back to campus and worked on homework for the afternoon. It was really nice because we could sit outside on a picnic table on campus. After that we went to a place for some Korean soup which we cook in the middle of the table with a bunch of veggies and some beef on bones. It's pretty good but I feel like maybe an acquired taste. Definitely healthy though. This Korean food makes me realize how they stay skinny over here. Lots and lots of veggies. We really needed some stuff from the store so opah (Jina's boyfriend, Opah is the honorific term for older brother used for any guy older than you) took us to the supermarket. This supermarket was huge and kinda like a Target with more of everything. It was also in the world cup stadium which I thought was interesting. They don't waste any space here.

    On Tuesday of that week we got to go to the Japan vs. Korea friendly soccer match. This was really fun to see because it was also in the world cup stadium. All around there were people screaming chants for Korea and I thought it was really cool. My German friends thought it wasn't that exciting but I've never been to a European game so it was great. There were some really famous players on both teams but I don't know any of them. I just knew when they came on the field because the Korean girls behind me started to scream really loud when they were announced. One of the really cool things about food in the stadium here is that anyone can bring whatever food they want in. It isn't just owned by one company that jacks up the price of everything with terrible food. It was interesting to see everyone bringing in pizza from outside.
    The next two weeks after that were really really boring. I had midterms so we just studied a lot and didn't do anything. I only had one good story from midterms where I had a teacher speak in Korean during the test for 15 min telling the other students what to do. I could pick out some of what his words were from konglish and my limited Korean skills. It turned out to be fine in the end because he either went really easy on me or threw out some of the questions or everyone missed them. Overall it was an ok midterms.

Opah (brother) and I

Omah (mother) and I

    As soon as midterms were over I got to go to Jinas!!! This was so exciting. I took the subway and then the bus to where she was by myself and got there fine. Then her mom came and picked us up. Her mom is soooo nice. She made us supper and Jina had told her I was picky so she tried really hard to make everything I would like. I really tried to tell her that I wanted to try everything but Jina wasn't good at conveying this message. She made us spicy pork and tofu soup both of which were delicious. There was also Jina's favorite which was clams and crab uncooked in spicy sauce. I didn't care for the clams or the crab but I tried both. She had so much fruit I was in heaven. I ate watermelon, parsimon, and tried mussmelon. After that the other Opah (actually Jina's older brother) took us to a coffee shop near their home and we had honey bread and played cards. This was really fun. I taught them all the different American card games like bs, slap jack, kings corner, go fish, and others. Before we went back to the apartment we had to stop to get "post" for my breakfast. They were really insistent on my eating cereal for breakfast. The whole family was probably the best hosts I've ever had in my life. They wanted so much to make me as comfortable as possible. We then watched Letters to Juliet which was good. Its the first movie I've seen since being here. Their apartment was also rather large which surprised me. I thought that all Koreans live in small apartments but theirs was probably the same size as our first floor at home. They had 3 bedrooms and 2 baths. There was also a type of balcony where the glass doors were open and then it was outside even though it was inside. When we first got there there was a little boy who ran up to me and said Hi! Then he asked Jina a million times in Korean where I was from. She told him to ask me and I told him and he said he knew one of our songs. He started to sing his ABC's. It was so adorable. They are starting to teach the kids English really early here.
        Saturday we slept in and then we went to a few museums. The first one that we went to was an art museum of Paek Nam June. This was very interesting because it was all with TVs. Appearently he is very famous but I'm just not up on my art. Then we went to a Korean history museum of the area of Gyeonggi-do (or something like that). It was really cool they had all of the old stuff and many old pots and clothing.  We also saw many kids here and they are so adorable.

      Sunday: We went to Nami Island with Opah (boyfriend). This was a blast! It was like mackinaw island only without cars. This is where all of the dramas are filmed and it's normal to ride bikes around. We took a ferry out to the island and then walked around all day. We pretty much just took pictures the whole day which was fun. This area is known for its spicy chicken bbq. This is where we cook it in the middle of the table again and it was delicious. They also had mushrooms and rice cakes to cook on the grill and then soup and spicy noodles. It was so good. Way better than the pork bbq (sam-gap-sa).
   I promise to post soon about Busan (Pusan) and post pictures of all of this on facebook!

Chusok (Korean Thanksgiving)

Ok so I made it back to Seoul from Japan.... And here is what happened in between.
      Monday... We left really early for the airport because we thought "oh it's Chusok (largest Korean holiday when everyone and their dog goes home)." Well wrong assumption. We were there way to early so we just worked on homework and waited until we could check in. Getting there was great with no problems. (If you have the chance fly a Korean airline... they are awesome!) Once we got to Japan we were horribly lost in the subway and went the wrong way. Some guy set us straight when he heard us talking about it. Then when we got on the train another guy helped us to get off the right stop. Japanese people were like this all of the time. Everyone was always trying to help the lost foreigners. So our first impression was public transit really stinks and the Japanese people are really friendly. The other thing is it cost us about $5 to get to the hotel and the hotel wasn't that far. Once we got to the motel we laughed for about 15 min at our room. I even took a video of it. The toilet was so cool it was all in one with bidet, some other water shooting feature (both of which you could decide the water pressure), and ran water when you sat on it. This is also in the video so I'm really sorry if what we are saying doesn't make sense. This began our search for funny toilets.
     Tuesday... We got up early and bought a bus pass for the day so we could get around Kyoto. Then we walked to this awesome Shrine called Fushimi-Inari. It was so pretty even though it was about 85 degrees out and we were sweating through our clothes climbing up this mountain.  After that we went to a market because we had heard that they had cheap Kimonos. Well they weren't that cheap but we ate lunch off of a vendor which was definitely interesting. We also went around the temple but we didn't want to pay about $7 to get in. Then we went to another temple which was free to get into. We ended up just sitting there after we had walked through it because our feet hurt so bad from walking all day long. It was so peaceful and nice. Then we went shopping in downtown Kyoto for a while. This was very fun even though I didn't buy anything. The shopping market was really cool because even though it was a bunch of different shops they had a roof over the entire thing so you were always out of the rain/snow. Then we met up with some friends from our university and another Seoul University for supper. We ate Japanese food and I shared a huge meal with another guy from the other university. We had seasoned cucumber, chicken cartilage kabobs (we sent that back, he was German so he didn't know what cartilage was in English), pork loin kabobs, white meat chicken kabob, french fries, garlic bread (these two aren't Japanese but they weren't odd either), and rice. It was a good meal and the manager gave us free drinks. The table was different from the ones in Korea because they were on floor level and then they had a hole in the floor to put your feet. It was very cool. Caroline (the German girl I traveled with all week) tried something new and it ended up being soup with pieces of fat. That one wasn't quite as good as what everyone else ordered. We still weren't sure how the public transit system worked yet so we just rode the train home and I was tired so we went to bed.
      Wednesday..... We were very tired from running all day on Tuesday so in the morning we searched for some camera batteries and lenses for Caroline and her mom. This was kind of nice because it was more relaxing than running all over the place. After that we went to the Imperial palace but we had to have a scheduled tour time. This was O.K. though because it was free to see and we also scheduled time to see the villa. After doing this we went to Gion (the geisha district) but there weren't any Geishas out yet because it was too early. Seeing this we went to another temple which also wasn't open because it was too late. So then we searched for something to eat. Everything in Japan is really, really expensive so we thought we were gtting a deal on this restaurant. Well we barely got any food and still paid like $15. We sat at another one of the funny tables where your legs dangle you take off your shoes beforehand. Then you put your shoes in a cubby and take the key.

The first course (veggie jelly), my $5 coke (no refills) and the key for my shoes

After this we went to a book store to find out that Japanese kids read the same books as we did as kids. Like Good Night Moon. Caroline said that German kids do too. We got to talking and come to find out they also translated all the Disney movies and songs into German for German kids.

Maybe Obama reads this to his children??

Also the books in Japan have the binding on the right side. They are read from right page to left page and up to down. Everything in Japan was backwards. The street people drove down the left side. This really threw me off directionally. After this we went back to the motel.
    Thursday....We went to Nara (pronounced Nada, I think). We had very high expectations that it didn't exactly live up to. We were really tired by this point so we had slept in and then we went there around noon. There were sooo many deer just there to feed and pet. They were minis of our deer and they were cute. You could get up really close to them. That was definitely the highlight of Nara because then we paid $7 to see the big Buddha. He was huge. There was another highlight though. All of the deer posters. They were so funny.

Then we visited another random shrine where we took hilarious pictures of tourists that looked ridiculous. We also got to see a wedding party and the bride and groom all dressed up. This was kind of a bum day so when we were done with Nara we just went to mister Doughnut in the station for "supper". Supper proved to be very interesting due to my doughnut choice. I thought maybe I would be safe with a streusel doughnut. But of course not. Instead it had curry on the inside. It was so disgusting. After that I went with the safe choice and got a chocolate one.
     Friday... We went to the palace in the morning and it was far less exciting than I thought it would be because we weren't able to go into anywhere. Only see the outside. I guess the inside wouldn't have been much better because the emperor didn't have the money the Shogun did. We also went to a park awhile waiting for our time at the villa. This park was so desolate but there were still Buddhist shrines everywhere all over the park with equipment also. This was really nice to relax again but we got eaten up by mosquitoes. Then after this we went to the emperor's villa. This was pretty because there were beautiful gardens all over. One thing the Japanese know how to do it is gardening. The funniest part is there is a tree in all of these places that looks very similar to marijuana leaves.

Notice the woman in the cap...Her son's name was Gasper

Another really fun part of this day was looking at the tourists and what they were wearing. They all were so funny to watch. One guy was really odd and he was there with his mother. He was wearing a pearl harbor hat which seemed to be very contradictory. The other thing we have noticed a lot of is the Nazi symbol because Hitler stole it from the Buddhists and flipped it. That has been interesting while touring with a German. On this day I also took a great picture of a woman's urinal. I've always wondered why we don't have them and now I know. Because EVERYONE misses which makes the thing smell horrible. They are the sure way for the smelliest bathrooms. This is the cleanest one we found.

On top of this they usually don't have soap to wash your hands with when they have the smelly bathrooms or tp. This took some getting used to. After going to this bathroom and the villa we went to the Manga museum. This was sooooo much fun. Manga is the Japanese anime drawings/books. This museum was worth the $7 because it was very interactive for all ages and it was just a blast. They also had books in all languages that were available to read in a court yard in the middle of the facility. It was so relaxing after walking around for 4 days. After this we were obsessed and tried to find a store that sold Manga. We did but it was far too expensive so I think I'll try to find a store in Korea that sells it (everything is cheaper in Korea). This place was very nice and the toilet here made noise when you sat on it so no one could hear what you were doing. It also had the bidet and other water shooting thing.
      Saturday.... We attempted to get everything else we possibly could do in. In the morning we went to the golden temple. This was a major disappointment because we paid $7 to take pictures of the thing and that was it. There was nothing else on the grounds except for very funny signs. This is one thing that I will definitely miss about Asia is the signs. The ones in Japan were much funnier than the ones in Korea but both are hilarious.

Where are we not supposed to scribble? The tree?

After going to the golden temple we went to the Shogun Palace. This place was very very cool. They had the nightengale floors which were very cool. Whenever we stepped on them they sounded like the birds so that when the shogun was there he could hear intruders and not get killed. There were also paintings by famous Japanese artists all over the doors and they were gorgeous. This was where the money in Japan was so everything was really nice. We couldn't take pictures of anything. As in everywhere in Japan we also took off our shoes to walk around in the building. It's always really nice to take off our shoes after walking so much. It was also nice to be able to go into the buildings because usually in Japan you can't. After going here we were hungry and we wanted to eat some Japanese food so we ate at this really nice restaurant and I had pork, rice, and salad all mixed in together. While we were waiting an older lady gave us an origami bird that she made right there while also waiting. It is so amazing how nice the Japanese are. After this we went to a temple but everything was closed for the day. So we went on the Philosophers walk. It's pretty much just a walkway with cherry trees so we weren't in the right season but that's ok. It was still a really cool area to walk around in. After this we went on a search for Geishas. This was awesome because we actually saw 5 or 6. They were so pretty with their kimonos on and they looked exactly like in the movie Memoirs of a Geisha. They were also so timid looking.  That might have been the highlight of the trip with the Manga museum.
       Sunday.... We were nervous about getting to the plane on time so we just left after our check out time. This was again too early but on the bright side we got exit row seating by the window. That is one of the best benefits to being really early to a flight. We just sat around and studied/killed time in the airport all day. It was really nice to have a bum day before coming back to school. We made it back safe and sound. It was a great trip and I'm glad that we went.

Culture in Korea

Eating my cake in the little box they wrapped it in.

       Well now that I've been here for three weeks it feels like it has gone by so fast. So far everything is still going really well. Last Friday we went to karaoke and I got a roomie.
       On Saturday morning I got to talk to my roommate more and she is really nice. She is Korean from about two hours away. She has been to school before for math and now is going for English Literature. She has also taught school for a few years in between there. We have so much fun hanging out and I'm really really glad she came. It is so much less lonely with her here. She is also really helpful with culture and language class and such. I told her she should come visit Iowa but that it's not that exciting. She also invited me to her home to have a home cooked meal with her family. After that H.U.G. (foreign exchange club) went out to see some sights. We saw Namdemun market which was really busy and has so many shops. There are a lot of small shops in Seoul and this was one of the areas. It seemed more for older women so we went to a department store and drank coffee. In the basement of the store there was a huge bakery/pastry/everything edible store with different venders all having many different treats. Katrina and I bought some cute little cakes which I couldn't fit in my bag so I just ate near the palace. The palace was so pretty and we even got to try lots of things. There was Chinese printing (Korea used the Chinese alphabet before Hangul) and we could try on clothes. We could also try a traditional alcohol which was very strong and not good. It tasted like the Korean beer soju which is very, very bad.

Koreans in western military clothing due to Japanese rule.

After that we went and ate a another pork place where you cook the meat yourself. These are everywhere and actually quite good. They have a spicy soup there that I really like called twenchanggike. It has vegetables, tofu, and red broth. I usually avoid the tofu but the rest is really good. After that we went to Namsan tower/Seoul tower. It was too cloudy and rainy to go to the top though so we just walked around it and went to the gift shop.
     On Sunday we went to Dongdemun. It was so hectic. There are literally shops wall to wall for seven floors all selling clothes, shoes, accessories and everything you can imagine. There were probably 20 of these buildings and they were all probably the size of a mall. Although this was an experience I don't think I would ever do again. It is way to overwhelming and they can tell I'm not Korean so haggling the price is really hard. They think, "oh foreigner lets try to get lots of money out of her." I only ended up getting one skirt which was plenty. We ended up just going to Edea to shop because there are plenty of shops for just as cheap and less overwhelming.
     This week was pretty uneventful other than having a friends birthday party on Wednesday. Dan, Caroline and I went to Dunken Donuts to get a cake. We have a community fridge that people have been stealing out of but we needed to put the cake in there so we wrote notes all over it.

No one stole the cake and he was very excited to get the cake and had a very good birthday.

Caroline, Dave (the birthday guy), and I

Also earlier that night I forgot to mention we did a Chusok (Korean Thanksgiving) educational session where we ate normal Chusok food (rice cakes, rice milk), tried on traditional clothing and played traditional games. The games were really fun with one of them hopping on one foot and knocking everyone else over.

In traditional Korean clothing

Then the weekend came again. On Friday night we just hung out with people and got lost finding the place even though we had already been there once. Saturday we went to Insa-dong to a tourist place with lots of shops. I bought a tea pot set there which we've been enjoying tea out of. It is so cute.

We ate at a place where we sat on the floor and Gina and Caroline had octopus. It was so spicy that they were sweating and turning red. Gina is even Korean so she should be used to spicy. I stuck to Bulgolgi soup which is not spicy at all and is just really tenderized beef with vegetables in a broth. For sides we had Kimshi (always never fail to have), seasoned broccoli, brown sugar seasoned something, vinegar radishes, and chung (cold ham covered in egg). This is common with every meal and we usually have soup. For the foreigners they usually get us seaweed soup because its not as spicy. Then afterwords we took Caroline home and then went to coffee with one of Gina's friends. I ate my first Dunken Donuts here, it was so delicious. After we got home we stayed up late talking. Today we just bummed around. We had fun attempting to study and then going to the store. I also got ready for Japan.....
    About Japan... I leave tomorrow and we are flying to Osaka. Then we're going to take the train to Kyoto. We have our hotel and everything booked. I'll keep everyone posted on how it goes!      

Oh Korea....

The weekend:

This is what the table looked like with the sides.

     On Friday we went to the city hall district where we went to an art museum and walked around a lot. We tried to go to the temple but it closed right as we got up to it. Even so we saw a statue of the man who came up with the current system of writing for Korea and we also saw two U.S. embassies.
   For supper we went out as a group to a "pork" restaurant which consisted of very thickly sliced slabs of bacon which we cook ourselves. There is also an over abundance of stuff to dip the pieces of meat in and put on a lettuce leaf with the meat to eat in a ball in one bite. They offer kimshi, stringed cabbage with 2 different sauces, pink radish slices, rice, lettuce, garlic, tofu, and a lettuce chopped up with sauce on it.
    The girl cooking was a group member's buddy and she was really nice. The girl to he left is one of my friends Caroline from Germany. At this restaurant there was table seating or floor seating. Also notice the tin thing in the picture to the right. That is the cups they use here. All restaurants use them and so does our cafeteria. They are really cute like everything else here. Everything comes in little size.

This is What the meat was cooked on and looked like.

  After going to the restaurant we met up with some more people to do karaoke. Karaoke is different here than it is in the states and way more fun. You get a group of people together here and then rent a room for like 25,000 won which is less than $25 dollars. They had tons of American songs and two mics which we could sing in. The chairs in the room were velvety and cute like everything else and they had fun lights like a DJ has to go with the songs. The only odd thing was the movies playing in the background. They had video of new york playing for Hey Jude and Nemo footage for I Don't Like Your Girlfriend  by Avril Levine.
     The next day we went to the Korean folk village. It was interesting but probably not a place I'd go again. They had old houses and we got to see how Koreans in the old days used to live. At one point we found out that fermented urine was used to cure bruises. We also saw a tightrope walker, this drum show, a horse show, and an old wedding. This part was interesting because the tightrope walker was just on a rope held up by two posts on either side and screwed into the ground. He jumped on the rope and sat on the rope.

Tightrope Walker.

He was pretty cool. There was also the horse guys who stood on the horses, picked stuff up off the ground while still on the horses, and laid down across the horses backs.There was a wedding that was pretty uneventful. The drum guys also put on a good show. Here is a video of it for you to see.
      Once we had seen all of that we came home and went to go eat supper. For the people at school the french boy didn't understand me when I said supper only when I said dinner did he finally get it. I thought that was funny. Anyway we were really hungry for something not Korean so we went to eat pizza and we found a pizza hut. Pizza here is an experience in itself. We had a pizza with corn, potato wedges, peppers, hardly any sauce, Canadian bacon (looks like American bacon), and pepperoni (ham slices). For the first time since being in Korea I drank water in a normal American glass (still much smaller than the normal pizza hut cups). After we got done with supper we came back and met up with a group to go out. First we went to Ipub and some people played pool and just talked there. Side note: In Korea people don't hang out at others places. Ever. Its a social rule that you go somewhere public. Anyway then we decided to go to the club but some of the members of the group wanted to go to Itawon. That's the district of town where all of the foreigners are due to the military base. This is the first time I've been in Seoul that I didn't feel safe. There were people everywhere and none of them looked like upstanding citizens. The Korean women everywhere else in the city always look very nice and put together but here they looked bad. We went to a very crowded club and I was very glad to leave when we did.
    The next day we went shopping in a district (I'm having troubles remembering names of all these places). We ate pizza again and again this was way different than anything in America. It was a Korean chain called Mr. Pizza and we had the shrimp king. It was good. There were lots of groups of friends having birthday parties and bringing little cute cakes in. Also everyone here is couples so they have things in twos. The salad bar is called Love Salad (salad for 2) and lots of food in restaurants comes in portions for two people. Then we went to forever 21 which was kinda expensive compared to the states and way expensive for shopping here. There were lots of high end stores in this district but I ended up getting a pair of vans due to the massive blisters on my feet. Hopefully these let my feet heal. While we were there we met up with Emily another girl from Creighton who is at another university here in Seoul. It was really nice to see another familiar face. Once we finished we came back and relaxed. It was the best feeling to relax after that jam packed weekend.