Where we go from here

Ok: I had several good thoughts about Korea today. To be honest, I haven't had that many since we have been home. I was a bit premature thinking that last Sunday would be close to the end of our jet lag. The whole week has been a kind of rough. Both of us have been in strange sleeping and eating patterns. We have been awake at 3 am eating cheerios and watching infomercials. Then trying to function during the day.
Also surprising: I miss Korean food. That has been an unexpected development. I thought I would want pizza and tacos, but I just want rice and banchan. We have eaten it twice this week. What has Korea done to me?

Oh, jahjangmyeon...so delish.
 (fried black bean paste and noodles topped with cucumber slices)

Now that I am feeling more myself, and I am happily home munching my jajang noodle dish, I can think more rationally about my feelings about the trip, and where we go from here. Specifically regarding our language endeavors. That was really the main reason we decided to take the trip. Joe and I have reached a crossroads in our language learning. Two years in. We have the basics. Now we have to decide if we can get to that next level of communication. It is a big step.
But I think we can do it.

"Do you want to go back?"

Sunday evening. I think the worst of our jet lag is over. We managed to stay awake all day on Saturday, (after being awake most of Friday night) although towards the end of the day we thought we might have to prop open our eyelids with little toothpicks. But we made it and have felt pretty good all day today.
So, we have been talking and sharing our stories with our friends, and trying to get our minds around this crazy trip. And this particular question--"Do you want to go back?"--keeps being asked of us. Quite interesting. I think people feel this is a good indication of whether I enjoyed the trip. I don't know if it is.
It was a good trip. Also intense. That word keeps popping up in my mind. It was a good trip, but intense. And exhausting.  It was good, bad, funny, frustrating, insightful and ridiculous. Definitely the most out of my comfort zone I have ever been. And Joe should win some kind of man of the year award for traveling with his wife and mother. :)
I don't regret it, at all. I am very glad we did it. It was a great experience.
But do I want to go back? Our clothes are barely out of the dryer. I have not even passed out all of my gifts. Must I think about this now?
My immediate response to this question is no. I came, I saw, I ate the seafood. The trip has not unlocked some hidden wanderlust in me. Nor has it removed the part of me that enjoys the routine of home.
But perhaps this is still the rice and kimchee talking. Once the bread gets back in my system, and we settle back into our routine of home, the memories of this trip will come back to me.

I will be right there!

Wait, whose camera is that?

Mom is totally taking our food while we are distracted

So, will I go back? Who knows? I never thought I would go the first time. But I went, and I have the pictures to prove it. I think I will enjoy them for awhile.

Back where we began

Landed in Charlotte about 7 pm Thursday night. We were greeted with the lovely summer-in-the-South heat and humidity. We dropped off mom about 11 pm last night, and got back to our home a little after midnight. 

But we made it home! To our overgrown yard and two lonely cats! When we get through with yard work and laundry, one last entry to sum up everything. Meantime, my cat Bailey won't leave my side.

 

Goodbye Korea, hello jet lag

Here we go again! Time for my poor body to have no idea what time it is.

We spend most of our last morning walking around Seoul in the rain, using our last hours here to make sure we have gotten everything we wanted to. (As of this writing, there are no plans on returning, so it is now or never.) We stop in one more cafe for one last cafe latte and wait for the rain to subside before venturing back to the hotel.

An American, in Korea, at a French cafe

The family has arrived to take us to the airport, so we pile into the vehicle and take off. At the airport early, we have time for lunch (a last Korean meal: banchan, I have made my peace with you; mandu (Korean dumplings), I think I will miss you most!) and then get the surreal chance to see a friend from America who is arriving for a stay in Korea the day we are leaving. We meet up with him and have a chance to spend an hour or so laughing and comparing thoughts about our trips.

Just like old times...but in Korea

Finally we must go through security and I am sad for my mom-in-law as she says goodbye to her brother and sister. It has been 10 years since she has seen them last, who knows when she will see them again. I cannot imagine going that long without seeing my sister.

The family sees us off

Our plane leaves Wednesday at 6:10 pm. We eat, then settle in and try to sleep as much as possible. It is fitful plane sleep and a short 9 ½ hours later we land in Seattle. Local time is 12:40 pm, still Wednesday. We arrive before we left. The three of us depart the plane and like in a trance, collect luggage, go through customs, get a shuttle and get to our hotel. Our bodies are screaming for sleep but Joe and I take a shuttle to a nearby mall and try to walk around for a few hours. It is only 3:00.

We eat (first stateside meal: a yummy bowl of Vietnamese pho) and spend some time walking around before finally getting back to the hotel and falling deliriously into bed. We are asleep by 8 pm, (perhaps a mistake) and now it is 12:48 am and I am wide awake.

I will conclude this entry from the Seattle airport the next morning. Joe and I ended up being awake for most of the night. Oh, reentry into our lives is gonna be fun! 

We begin the descent

Last day of the tour. We wake early and get on the bus by 7:40. The weather is cloudy and foggy. As are we. 

Nice view from our room, but a foggy morning

 After a bit of a drive, we arrive at Seongsan Ilchubang, an extinct volcano. They give us one hour and we begin the climb.

So many people--can you find Mom?

The steps are at a pretty steep incline and it is crowded. We huff and puff and make our way to the top. The view from the top is nice, but again, it is foggy.

 At the top it is also windy, which nicely dries out our sweaty shirts. We begin the descent. We get back with about 15 minutes to spare before it is back on the bus and away we go.
Next a folk village. We tour around a bit and it is time for another sales pitch. This is some kind of miracle tea. (I have to say I expected to enjoy folk villages more. Maybe we went to the wrong ones.)

On to our last lunch of the tour. Pork barbecue. It is tasty. I haven't mentioned this before but I think every restaurant that we have been to has these little machines which dispense about a dixie cup's worth of creamy, sugary coffee, which everyone has for dessert. Yum!

Now we are winding down and some of our group has left already to catch planes back to the mainland. We tour a little historical 'theme park' (memory lane for everyone over 40) of how everyday life in Korea used to be. The dioramas and mannequins are amusing. 

Our plane leaves at 4 pm for Seoul, and before we know it we are back at our Seoul hotel. Last night in the city! It is raining unfortunately, but we have dinner at a street cart, watching people hurry past us with umbrellas while we munch our tteokbokki. Dinner, for the three of us, for roughly $7. Can't beat that. Afterward, some last minute souvenir shopping wraps up the evening.

Take your pick!

I can't believe it is almost over. I feel like we have been here for much longer than two weeks. It has been very easy to forget about home here, and just concentrate on the next tour, the next subway, the next meal. 

Everything else seems (and really is, I suppose) so far away. But it is time to go home.

{FYI: We have taken over 700 pictures...don't worry, no one but my mom and dad will be forced to look at all of them....get ready Mom and Dad! ;)}

Go big or go home

I am sitting in the hotel room, having a nice stiff drink after a long, long day. I earned it.
We set out this morning at 8, we are on a full tour bus now, no longer just the six of us. There are about 40 of us. The weather is delightfully perfect. Sunny, but with a cool breeze.
Our first stop is along the coast. Lava has formed these black, hexagonal shaped rock columns, and the water is a lovely turquoise color.
Next a tangerine farm/bed and breakfast/ginseng biolab. Yes, all in one. (No, I don't know why.) We end up in what appears to be a sales pitch on the benefits of ginseng and how it will help you live forever. (A downside of guided tours: you are at the mercy of the guides.) They are growing ginseng in labs, very futuristic.
Then another boat tour. It is relaxing, there are so many little islands, some basically just rocks jutting up out of the ocean all around Korea.
Lunch is served, then on to Yongduam Mountain. It is an area of volcanic lava rock formations and is quite amazing. Here is where it gets interesting.
We are walking along admiring the scene, with our original tour group, and we come across some ladies cutting up sea cucumbers, octopus, conch and sea squirt (yes, that is the name of it and it is the orangey looking one on the plate.) They are selling it, and before we know what has happened, the couple with us has bought a plate full. They invite us to join them.

Fresher than fresh

Now, I just watched these ladies sitting on this rock, hacking up these things and rinsing them off. The only thing cooked was the octopus. I am handed a pair of chopsticks and a cup of gochujang (essentially Korean ketchup) and told to dig in. I don't think they thought I would. But, well, this is why I came here. I dig in.
First, the cucumber (btw, not so much vegetable as sea slug). It is chewy, verging on crunchy. But I get it down. No taste really. Then the squirt. It is gnarly looking, but it too has not much taste. It looks worse than it is. Slimy. I drown it in gochujang. The octopus, by contrast, is really good. The conch is tough, and probably the hardest to eat.

Mandy vs. the Sea squirt

But I do it! I am sitting on a rock off the coast of Korea in the middle of the ocean eating something that 5 minutes ago was swimming around in the water.

Who needs chairs, a table or a restaurant?

The food consumed, we move on. Another downside of the guided tour: having to be on a time schedule. We  hustle to make it back to the bus.

So happy we found the way out!

The next mountain is Songaksan, and we walk up the mountain and look down over the cliffs of insanity (hee!). More volcanic activity has created these great formations. Joe tries to climb down the side of the mountain where very rustic steps have been carved out and I try not to have a heart attack.

And dinner. I thought, naively, having eaten what I just ate would be the last great hurdle in my Korean food quest. Until I sit down to dinner and come face to face with my supper. Which is looking back at me. In the soup pot, live clams. Moving. I can't look.

Low country boil, South Korean style

They turn the heat on under the pot and the bubbling soup does its work to cook all of the seafood in the dish. I don't, just can't, eat the clams, but I do eat the squid, prawn, and abalone, which are good. Joe eats the clam and says it was delicious. So there you go.
When I get home, I am going to eat pizza every day for a week.

On to Jeju

Ok, this tour is definitely not for the faint of heart. I am tired, cranky and I don't know where I am.

However, it is funny to note that the Halmony with our group is keeping up better than the rest of us. And she walks with a cane!

We wake up and get moving to enjoy our Korean breakfast. It is a buffet and I am in line when a man behind me asks, 'do you eat Korean food?' and I understand him and say yes. What he doesn't ask is if I want to eat Korean food...

Joe has no problems with Korean breakfast!

We eat and get a move on. Our first stop is a former POW camp, and museum about the Korean War. It is very interesting to get some background information from Joe's mom about her family and how they were affected by war. The museum is a bit graphic, but I think this is so much a part of everyone's history they are all familiar with it.

After that it is over we hit a rest stop and again, these are such nice places! Clean and lots of food choices. I grab coffee and a doughnut filled with red bean paste, and all is right with the world.

We are heading towards Gimpo airport to catch our flight to Jeju Island. Time for one last meal with our tour guide on the mainland.

Our tour group

The flight is less than one hour and we are on the somewhat tropical island of Jeju. This is a big honeymoon spot. It is so pretty. From the airport we are whisked away to 'Circus World' where there is an acrobat show and then to Camelia Hill, a nature walk with so many different kinds of plants my mom-in-law loses her mind. The weather is practically perfect.

Dinner is served early tonight, and we get to the hotel before we have lost the will to go on. Our hotel is by the ocean, so we are able to sit out on our balcony and enjoy the view and sound of the waves. This is the kind of touring I like.  

Geoje and the coast

The third morning of the tour Joe and I wake a little early and remember seeing a french bakery (yes, I know, strange, but they are all over the place!) not far from our hotel so we go down before breakfast to get a cup of coffee. We walk in to the bakery and I want to do a little dance it smells so good. We get coffee and I snag a cream cheese croissant in anticipation of another Korean breakfast. It is so delicious and I eat with relish. We head back to the hotel for breakfast and walk in to see everyone eating...an American breakfast. With coffee. Apparently the tour guide and mom-in-law talked and he decided to be nice and order everyone  an American breakfast this morning. Meantime, the 'Halmony' ('Grandmother') that is with the other couple was across the street getting her eat on at a Korean place. I hated that they went out of their way but it was very nice of mom and the guide to think of us. 

We head out for a green tea farm and a plum farm. We hop back in the van and head for a folk village. It was once a movie set and is now a tourist area. It is cute and we walk around and take silly pictures while everyone stares at the strange foreigner. 

I can't imagine why they stare...

We drive for about an hour and end up at a rest area (much nicer than American rest stops) and have lunch here. Again, the guide and mom-in-law have been talking and they want me to have something I like to eat so we eat in what is essentially in a food court. I feel bad because I don't want the others to feel like they are getting put out over me. But we all have our food court fare, noodle bowls and spicy soups. We head onward. 

The coast! We are passing all sorts of fishing areas (how there can possibly be any fish or oysters left in these waters I don't know). We are now driving along the coast and it is beautiful, full of rocky cliffs and islands breaking up the sea line. The temperature has dropped and the wind picked up (saw on the news later a typhoon in Japan was probably responsible for the weather.) We get on a tour boat and take a tour of the surrounding islands. It is good, if a bit choppy.

This day never ends. We drive to a hill appropriately named “Windy Hill”. It is indeed windy.

After a while, we finally head to dinner where we have what appears to be a Korean version of one of my favorite Southern foods, hoe cake (although this one is made from ground mung bean). It is delicious and we eat it up. A pork dish rounds out the meal. 

Well, a hoe cake with some other stuff in it. And notice the fish being dissected in the background.

After dinner, we go across the street to the street to our hotel and collapse.

Damyang, Namwon, Gurye, Sunchon

Day 2--we head down to breakfast. Ok, here is a dirty little secret about this trip so far—I have not had to eat Korean breakfast. In Seoul we ate at the hotel; eggs, pastries, fruit. But this morning we are greeted by the omnipresent banchan. And then they bring us Ooguhji baekban (cabbage soup? I don't know). This, I believe, is why Koreans are such fiery people—they begin their day with spicy hot soup and kimchee! My heart drops when I see no coffee around either, so I do slip away to the coffee shop and grab a coffee.

When I return to the table, I dig into the meal. It is not so bad, just not what I consider breakfast food.

After breakfast, we are off!

First stop, a bamboo forest. Us and about 45 school buses that is. As we walk in we see a little cart selling hoetteok. Or as I refer to it, the best thing I ever ate. It is a fried pancake made with bamboo flour mixed with  brown sugar that melts into caramel as it cooks. It is folded up and put into cups. We set off to tour the forest munching our pancakes.

With this snack, I hereby forgive Korea for breakfast

  

We walk along and as we pass the little groups of school children (about 6 or 7 year olds), they are hilariously staring and pointing at me. I hear one little boy point at me and tell his friend "weyguk imneedah!" ("It is a foreigner!") I also hear lots of whispered "meeguk!"s ("American!") They don't get many foreigners down this way. 

After the forest we continue on down to Namwon, and to a garden/park dedicated to the famous story of two lovers. It is again, just very pretty and we walk around and take pictures.

Lunch is very similar to what we have been eating, and we keep on moving. This schedule is serious. We continue to Sunchon, where they have an Eco museum and marsh land. It looks like something you would see in Florida, actually. We take a boat around the marsh, and then they have all of these paths though the marsh that we meander around. It is quite lovely. And exhausting. 

Walking around the marsh

Just when I think maybe we are done for the day, we hit our last scheduled stop for the day, a folk village. It begins to drizzle but we get out of the van and trudge around the village. It is quiet and I am tired, but we see it through. 

We head into dinner and I am too tired to remember to take a picture. By the time we get to the hotel around 8pm, we are a van of walking zombies, too tired to care that there is no a/c in the hotel. Or artwork on the walls. It is a bare bones room. 

Buyeo and Buan

{Before I begin today, one thing I forgot to mention from Wednesday. When we took a taxi back from the Kingdom Hall, we jumped in and told the driver where our hotel was. ('Courtyard Marriott-Times Square') He takes off and as we are driving, nothing looks familiar. We thought he was trying to take a long route to charge us more. Well, he pulls up to a stop and says, here you go. We look up and he has taken us to—Hotel Dodo. Not kidding. Written in English. I don't know what he thought we said or what but no, we are not staying at Hotel Dodo. :)}

Ok, sorry for the radio silence. We have been deep in South Korea, and internet access is not as easily accessible. Neither is finding 5 minutes to try on this combination 'Amazing Race' and 'Fear Factor' tour. Korea is trying to beat me down, but I won't let it! 

Here begins our tour down the western side of South Korea. We meet up with our group at 9 am Thursday morning. It is a smaller group than we would like, only 7 of us including the guide. The other three are a husband and wife in their 50s and the wife's mom. They are Koreans from Long Island. Very nice family.

We set off in a minivan, barely big enough to hold all of our luggage. (Yes, I am an over packer!) We head off for Buyeo, our first stop. We get there in about 2 hours. (We use the drive time for a nap. I can sleep anywhere, anytime at this point.) It is raining.

We take a short ferry ride to a mountain side (Naghwaam) where we climb to the top. There are steps carved in the stone but it is pretty steep. At the top is the famous site where a King's court ladies (legend says 3000 of them) threw themselves off the cliff when his Kingdom was overthrown. Kind of a sad story. But nice views from the mountain of the river. We walk around for a bit in the rain, then head to Buan.

At Buan we head to a park with a large man made pond that has pathways cutting through it and all kinds of flowers growing in the water (there is also a story connected to this place, but I won't go into it). It is lovely and the rain has stopped. We walk and take pictures. Lunch is a traditional Korean meal. (And everyone continues to watch as I pick up my chopsticks and dig in. I am the entertainment with dinner.)

Back in the van, we head to Saemangum. I will try and explain. This is a huge project underway to essentially build more land onto Korea. (!) They are stopping up the ocean water with these elaborate dam systems, and are bringing in all sorts of rock and sand to build up the ground. Then they have plans on making all this extra land into living, commercial and farm land. It is a 30 year, 6 billion dollar project. It is so ambitious and has so many far reaching effects, I don't even know what to think. They have a projected finish date of 2020. If they accomplish it, it will be amazing.

Then we stop over at what was once a movie set for some Korean dramas (unfortunately none we have seen) and is now a tourist attraction. It is fun to walk around in the sets of palaces and see some of the costumes. I make Joe pose on the King's throne.

He is such a happy ruler!

We head towards our dinner destination and stop to walk on the beach and watch the sunset. It is lovely, the West Sea (or Yellow? Which does it prefer to be called?).

It's been a long day, can you see the exhaustion?

 Dinner is a seafood extravaganza, and we head to the hotel to crash by 8pm.The hotel is very nice, and we are now completely away from anywhere frequented by foreigners. This hotel has everything written in Korean. It takes us 15 minutes to figure out how to turn on the a/c in the room!  

The conch? Tasted like mud. 

The palace and the meeting

It is almost midnight and I missed my sleep window and feel I now have my second wind, unfortunately. We are packed and ready to start our tour package tomorrow, early.

But today we accomplished a few last things on our to do/see list in Seoul. We toured the Changdeok Palace. It is right in the middle of the city; you walk in and everything becomes quiet and slows down. It sort of made me sad, I don't know, so empty and still. 

Then we moved on to Insadong. It is a big tourist area for Korean artists, selling Korean souvenirs and such (although according to Mom-in-law it is all made in China anyway). Still, cute stuff and we enjoy looking around.  Stop for lunch and have Soondubu jiigae, hot tofu soup. Yum!

A bubbling cauldron of spicy goodness.

 As we are leaving the restaurant, the waitress comes over and asks me if I am an actress! Ha! So we laugh and say no, and she says, you look like...Paris Hilton. Wha??? Americans all look the same to them, apparently. 

We (finally!) got to a meeting tonight. The Kingdom Hall was a room on the third floor of a building. About 75 in attendance. We tried our best to have conversation, we think they understood most of it.   

No matter where you go, friends.

Tomorrow, the tour!

Sightseeing in the city

Time is really going by quickly. We have only one more day in Seoul and then our tour starts. So on Tuesday we  decide to politely ditch mom and head out on our own for some serious sightseeing around Seoul. She spent the day with her brother so I think all parties were satisfied on that front.
Joe and I head out for the subway. Now, I have been warned that Korean subways are crowded free-for-alls  where you must push old people and babies out of the way to make it onto a subway car. (That is how it sounded to me, anyway.) So I had my game face on and was ready for a brawl as we headed below street level.

But there was no pushing! Hardly any shoving! We went after morning rush hour so it was no more crowded than subways in America.

See? No worries.

I like subways in general. They are prime people watching venues. So I stared at them, they stared at me.  (Interestingly, I get less stares when it is just Joe and I than when I am with the family.)
All was good as we exited the subway at our first stop. Until I tried to get through the turnstile. And couldn't. I swiped my subway ticket at the turnstile with it in my left hand and it triggered the wrong gate to move. Then I was stuck. Joe had already gone through and was like, 'just jump over it'. There really was no other option. People were backing up behind me. So like a gymnast I hold on to either side of the turnstile and hurl myself up....and get stuck on the top. Not enough momentum to make it fully over. So I throw myself the rest of the way over the gate and land with a flourish. Joe had moved on because he didn't want to be seen with a blond felon. :)
The markets! We head into Dongdaemun. It is a crowded maze of little shops, crammed full of wares. Completely overwhelmed, we wander down the aisles. So much stuff. After some time we decide to keep moving. We jump back on the subway and head to Myeongdong.

Can't be too homesick when there is a Starbucks every two blocks!

More markets, more things. This area seems to be a bit more modern and touristy, and again we are overwhelmed by the amount of shops. We stop for a snack, pahtbingsu. Sweet red bean paste over shaved ice topped with rice cakes. It is a very interesting texture, and very good.

Joe doesn't want to share!

We continue on. Unfortunately, although the prices in these markets are very inexpensive, the clothing is made for the delicate bone structure of the Korean, not the hardy Western European bone structure of yours truly. So we move on.
We hit Lotte Department store and make for the food court area. If only we had food courts like this back home. No Sbarros or Orange Julius around here. There are all kinds of noodle bowls and rice dishes and we decide on a cold bimbimbap.
We hop back on the subway and make our way to find a Kingdom Hall. We want to take no chances this time. There is one not far from the hotel. After a bit too much wandering we find it! And the meeting is tomorrow night.
The hotel is a welcome sight in the evening, and we are glad to get off our tired, blistered feet. Good night!

Day trip to Daejeon

Ok, we are back! All better now. Sunday was kind of a bum day, but I think you allowed one bum day on a trip. We stayed close to the hotel and slept too much. We missed the meeting due to, I don't know, not fully understanding that although South Korea is not a large country, it will take you 4 hours and a will of iron to get anywhere. So that was disappointing!
But Monday made up for it. Mom's sister stayed the night at the hotel ('Emo'-aunt in Korean) and after breakfast we all took off for a train ride back to where Emo lives, Daejeon. It is about 2 hours away. It was nice to sit back and watch the countryside. This was the farthest we have been out of the city. We passed rice fields and farms, and began to see some mountains.
Emo's husband (Emobu) picked us up from the train station. Our plan for the day was to meet with some friends. That is about as much explanation as we received. Emo started studying the Bible about 2 months ago, so she wanted her sister to meet her study conductor. She was a very sweet sister. Then we met up with a special pioneer couple and headed to lunch.
So, our first cultural experience! We went to a Folk Village/Museum in Chubu. It was in the mountains, which  were so pretty and green. The foggy day had cleared and the sun came out. It was beautiful. The village was landscaped so nicely, and we walked around a bit before heading in to lunch. (And we have yet to reach a limit to how many times we can reference 'Dae Jang Gum'!)

Doenjang jars-for fermenting the soy bean paste

So we have another huge and delicious meal. This time I order bimbimbap (note to self: eat more bimbimbap! It is so good!) and again we all overeat. They also order makgoelli, rice wine. Interesting. It is not my fave, but it goes well with the meal. The special pioneer sister knows some English, so we talk a little. They were assigned for many years near the DMZ.

Digging in

After we eat, we head to another little house for tea time (or in my case, caramel macchiato time). We go in and they make us go upstairs where we sit on the floor at little tables and have our drinks.
We take more pictures, every possible combination of the 7 of us. The pioneer couple heads off, and we head on to Gyeryong Mountain.
Everything is so green and pretty. (Dare I compare it somewhat to the Tennessee mountains?) We do a little light hiking (is there such a thing?) and then head back.

The sisters, taking a stroll

We get back to the train station and say our goodbyes to Emo and Emobu. It is 8pm and we have a two hour train ride ahead of us. We settle in and promptly fall asleep on the train.
Oh, but wait! The best part! We were able to exchange money, ask for a subway map, buy food at a store, and ask for postcards, all on our own. Without having to repeat ourselves. People understand us! :)

Jet lag...

...is no joke.

Banchan gone wild and lots of traffic

First off, a note:
-I hate the romanization of Korean words. I am not very good at it; our first meeting in Korean the friends threatened us if we even looked at romanized words there would be serious consequences! So forgive the wildly irregular spelling of Korean words. It is what it is.
Ok, that's off my chest. Let's begin.
So Saturday is very overcast as we set out in Samjoon's car. (Maybe no hyphens, per Joe's suggestion.) We pick up his wife and son, and head over to see Joe's grandmother's mausoleum. It is sad, but everyone is ok. We then head to the grave of my mom-in-law's younger brother, which is in a very beautiful setting out of town on a hillside. Won't it be wonderful when these beautiful places are not filled with sadness?
After that we drive, oh, I don't know, all over the place. Traffic is crazy, as I was warned about before we came. People drive with abandon, and the cars dart in and out of lanes at will. I sit in the back seat and concentrate on the conversation.
I am trying to pick up what the discussion is about. Listening so hard it hurts. Some is understood, some my mom-in-law translates. I use my few phrases to try and chime in. Joe, on the other hand, is sitting in the front seat holding on for dear life. :)
At first we were intimidated trying to use our language skills. People automatically use English when they see us. (If they know it.) So we try to answer them in Korean. Now we have gotten more comfortable, and everyone responds well to our efforts. It is so fun!
We tool around for awhile, and then make our way to lunch. The restaurant specializes in cholodoh hanshik (traditional Korean meals). We sit down at a long table, and I am wondering why until they start bringing the food.
Banchan means 'side dish' and Koreans love them. Little sides of kimchee, seaweed, noodles, tofu, kimchee pancakes, all sorts of things to eat along with the main dish. I have had my share, usually we have 5 or 6, but this? Was insane. See below:

The banchan army

They filled the table with them! Along with 6 whole cooked fish. (True story: as a child I was seriously scared to eat fish because I thought I would choke to death on a bone. Yeah, my food issues go way back.) So I dig in to all the banchan and am successfully avoiding the fish when Samjoon motions to me to take a fish. ('But the fish, the fish is smiling at me!' hee!) So I smile and nod and wonder how I am gonna get out of this. He apparently sees I am not making a move so he removes the head and takes the skin and bones out for me. Thank you! So I eat the fish. (Small bites, making sure no bones...)
After stuffing ourselves we get back in the car and drive some more. We go through a National Arboretum and it is lush and so pretty. It is raining but still nice. Everything is so green.
We go to a yogurt/coffee shop (with a great name, see below!), and meet a couple from Joe's aunt's congregation. They are very nice and we have some conversation, but goodness we don't understand much. We try to catch what we can then have to get mom to fill us in every so often.

Best restaurant name so far!

We are heading back to the hotel in awful traffic and rain, it is about 3:30, when, like narcoleptics, the sleepiness hits Joe and I. We must, at this moment, go to sleep. No choice. So we are rocked to sleep by the motion of the car careening in and out of lanes.
Still full from the lunch of a thousand dishes (seriously, they must wash so many dishes a day in these restaurants!) the three of us relax in the hotel in the evening and have some nice conversation. We discuss family, and memories, as we look out over the Seoul skyline. The day called for some reflection.
And tomorrow we hope for some sun. And to take the subway.

Settling in and chowing down

Friday evening...

It is rainy and foggy weather, and colder than we expected. Joe's Sam-joon ('uncle', mom's older brother) picks us up from the airport and we head to the hotel. The hotel is in an area (strangely) named 'Times Square'. It is very nice, and connected to a very upscale mall (the look but don't buy kind). I think it is a newly developed area, no one seems to be familiar with it, and it looks like there are new shops and buildings next to old ones.

Time for dinner! (When traveling, it's

 always about the next meal.) We head out of the hotel, cross the street and walk down a block or so and I am on my first Korean streets. Food and neon assault my senses. Street carts, cafes, restaurants and bars, all lit up by flashy neon signs. We walk past some delicious smelling food carts (I will be back to see you later!) and enter a restaurant. This is a real, Korean, take your shoes off and sit on the floor place.

Everyone say 'Kimchee'! I don't think everyone did...

Food is ordered as well as mek-ju (beer) and so-ju (clear liquor). They bring the meal, nae-ji bok-kum (squid soup? Close enough) and tae-ji pul-go-gi (korean pork bbq). Thanks to my good Korean friends in America, who exposed me to all foods scary, when the waitress brings the food and begins chopping up the squid in the dish (with her surgical instruments), I sit back, sip my mek-ju, and snap a picture. :)

Yep, I ate it. And it was good!

The food is really good, and the kimchee is very spicy. One of Joe's cousin's shows up and eats with us. The last time Joe saw him he was 5. Now he is in college.

We head out, and walk down the neon flooded street. We end up at another restaurant for round two of eating, I guess. I miss a lot of explanation. :) This place serves grilled chicken and ttok (rice cake—mmm!) with a sort of take on teriyaki sauce and it is called “Hoolala chicken”. Love the name! It is good; we are stuffed though. As we sit in the restaurant my eyes start crossing, it is not even 9 pm but I am so tired I can hardly walk back to the hotel.

However, a good nights sleep has alleviated some of the bags under my eyes, and, well, the makeup can handle the rest. It is still raining and foggy this morning. A full day in Seoul awaits!

Time zone madness

We are here! In Seoul! And it is Saturday! I am not sure where all the time went.

But let's go back.

Thursday morning at 11 am we board the biggest plane I have ever seen. And this time we are in Business class. If you must spend the better half of a day sitting in one place, this is the place to be. They really think of everything to make you comfortable, and to make you forget you are hurtling through the air. (It looked like the kind of place you would get Incepted. Ha!) We get settled into our seats and the flight attendant comes by with glasses of champagne and before she can say “Would you like some...” I say yes and promptly procure one for myself and one for my mom-in-law. I begin to relax.

So, the flight takes off and my favorite thing is that they have all the window shades drawn. They feed us and then it is lights out. Like one big sleepover, everyone around us reclines their seats, pulls up their blankets, watches some tv and goes to sleep. After a big meal and two glasses of wine, I do too.

The lights stay off for most of the flight. Around hour 8 I think I had had enough sleep and was ready to eat again and wake up. We introduced my mom-in-law to our favorite Korean drama “Dae Jang Gum” and let her watch the first two episodes on the computer. She loved it of course!

We caught a tail wind or some such flight lingo, because we landed one hour early. Of this whole trip, the thing I was looking forward to least was the flight. And it was really good. It didn't feel like we spent all that time on the plane.

We land in Seoul at 2pm Friday.

On our way!

At the edge of the continent

So it has begun! Our adventure began this morning at a lovely 3am, and now we are relaxing at the hotel in San Francisco. It was a good day, although a long day, and we may have tried to walk Joe's mom to death. Inadvertently.
Our flight took off at 7:30 am. We were able to cash in every airline mile, frequent flier point, and Piggly Wiggly Greenbax we had to get 3 sweet first class seats. So the flight takes off, I am flipping through the Sky Mall magazine, and I see the flight attendant bring a guy two seats ahead of me a Budweiser. In a can! My first thought, um, it is 7:30am!; my second thought, Dad, is that you? (Just kidding! Love you, Dad!)
Beyond that it was an uneventful flight (and my mom-in-law can never go back to coach! Ha!) By the time we got checked in, took the shuttle to the subway and got downtown, we were all starving and basically ran into the first restaurant we found. Good little Chinese restaurant; we had dumplings, and basil chicken fried rice, and these pan fried noodles with seafood. The noodles were crunchy (unexpected) with a thick white sauce; different but yummy.

Pan fried noodles, what's not to love?

 We decided to  head down to the Wharf area and walk around some, which ended up being a lot, which ended up almost ending Joe's mom's trip as soon as it began. We took the trolley back, so crisis averted. It was a lot of walking, but hey, we will be sitting for 13 hours tomorrow, so it all evens out...

See, she is fine!

Tomorrow, on to Seoul!  

"More kimchee, please!"

And other phrases to make it in Korea...
Less than one week away! We are gearing up for departure. So many details to be taken care of before we get out of here.
While we (ok, mostly I) have no idea what we are going to pack in our luggage, we also are trying to figure out what to pack in our minds. As mentioned, we have been studying the language for about 2 years, but we need to pick up conversational language. We have found some good little Korean phrase/travel books, which we have been pouring over for the last month or so, trying to learn some essential phrases to help us get around, not look completely lost, and know most of the time what we are eating.
The books are broken down into different situations, which is nice. Hotel, Taxi, Subway, Shopping, and of course, a big section on Eating and Drinking. (Unfortunately, no section titled 'Losing it in Korea'. I might have found that helpful.)
Here are some phrases we have memorized and intend on using:

What is this? I-go-shi mwo-ye-yo?

What time is it? Myot-shi-ye-yo?

Where is the bathroom? Hwa-jang-shil-i oh-di iss-oh-yo?

I don't understand. Mo-ru-geh-sso-yo. (Because we speak Korean like 5 year olds, these will probably be used a lot!)

I would like coffee, please. Ko-pi ju-say-yo.

I would like wine, please. Wi-ine ju say-yo. (I have priorities.)

I would like to go shopping. Shyo-ping ka-go ship-oh-yo.
How much does it cost? Ohl-ma yeh-yo?
That is a little expensive. Cho-kum pi-ssah-yo.
Can you sell it cheaper? Chohm Kka-kka chu-say-yo. (Bargaining? Is a must.)

I really like it here. Ah-ju ma-um-eh duh-ru-yo.
It was really delicious. Mah-sheet-geh moh-go-so-yo. 
Please give me more kimchee. Kim-chee johm-toh ju-say-yo. (Just keepin' it positive!)

What is 'catnip' in Korean?

So, it's a start. Any suggestions for us? What do we need to know how to say?

What am I doing, and why? And most importantly, what's for dinner?

So, what am I doing? Going with my husband (Joe) and mom-in-law for two weeks to South Korea. Now the why; it is not as simple.
I was born in Savannah, GA and have lived a fairly sheltered Southern life up until about 2 years ago. Joe and I decided to learn his mother's native language, Korean, and to experience everything about the culture and people.
The Korean language is tricky to navigate, but Joe and I are enjoying it. We are excited to try and use our rudimentary language skills in Korea. But let's be honest, a culture is mostly discovered through its food. And maybe no culture more so than Korean.
Koreans love their food. Love! And until 2 years ago, I had never really tried it. Before now, I hate to admit it, but I liked, you know, American food. Pretty exclusively. I was raised on cheesy casseroles and meat and potatoes. (I come from the land of Paula Dean!) I was a picky eater who would choose a dish I knew over trying something different any day.
But then I became surrounded by wonderfully friendly Korean women who would spread huge meals before me, dishes I could not recognize. And then they sat down and watched me and my awkward chopstick skills. What to do? What could I do? I ate.
I won't say it was love at first bite, or second or third, but I kept trying the dishes. And now, (chopstick skills greatly improved!) I can rattle off a list of my favorite Korean dishes and am looking forward to eating my way around Korea. I have fallen in love with Korean culture! And I want to share the trip here.
So, 'oh-so-oh-say-yo!' ('Welcome' in Korean) to my blog.

So many dishes, so little time