Korean Culture Maven

This weekend I had the joy of participating in Korean Culture day. The city of Daegu puts on a culture day each year for all the foreigners living in the area. They loaded us up on buses, took us to a museum and then to a little village. The museum turned out to have an entire building devoted solely to pottery from around 400 A D. The pottery was all from two adjacent dynasties and it differed only in whether it had a nipple or a cup on top. I was on pottery overload after about 10 minutes. That and the interpreter was trying valiantly to find technical english words for achaeological-type information, and lost most of us in the process. Then we went to the next building which turned out to a burial mound.

Traditional Korean burial sites have spherical mounds housing the various dead of a family. You can see these everywhere from the freeways. These mounds are generally fairly small (seeming big enough to house one maybe two bodies), but the mounds of the kings are as vast as pyramids! The museum was built next to a huge series of burial mounds; the largest one containing the ruler from the period the pottery came from. They had excavated the largest mound to show where all the attendants and the ruler were buried as well as where all the goods needed for the after-life were placed. They left the excavation open and built a dome-shaped building around it so you can walk through it. Very cool.

Next we headed to the little demonstration village where we commenced to become old-school Martha Stuarts Korean-style. We made baskets out of straw to carry eggs in, we pulled taffy, and we even harvested some sweet potatoes and roasted them in the ground! Luckily I teamed up with a pro for the taffy pulling because: 1. it is a crazy good workout for your lats, 2. created blisters on the hands of many of us, and 3. if you don't get it pulled before it's hardened it becomes a solid gob of taffy poop. We were some of the only ones in the bunch to end up with taffy rather than poop. I was proud. We ended the day with some traditional games. I think "traditional" games are called that because we were all equally limited in toys before the modern age. We soon found out that hoop rolling and tug-of-war were just as traditional to Korean culture as to English or American culture. You will appreciate that the team of teachers, lead by one of our administrators, cheated like hell and won all the games. ah, educators. We're an unruly bunch. :)

Accu--what?

A couple weeks ago I decided to go try accupuncture. My lower back has been rather killer lately so I thought I'd give it a whirl. I started assuming that I'd go in, they'd turn me into a porcupine, and wham-o I'd be cured. Not so much. It turns out there is accupuncture, accupressure, and an accu-sucker machine to be contended with as well.

The gentleman who was recommended to me speaks some pretty limited english, so between his english medical phrase book and some serious gesturing on my part, I think I managed to convey what I was after. So they take me back to a little exam cubby and I lay down on my tummy expecting the needles, but instead, the nurse wheels up this machine and sticks these big suckers on my back that procede to pinch me and stimulate my muscles with what I think was electricity but I'm not sure. I tried asking, but I hit a brick wall with that one.

So when the sucker machine was done, the doctor probed my back for a while with the needles and then put needles in my knees, ankles, hands, and filtrum. Those needles stayed in for a good half-hour and then they sent me off with some herbal tea. Overall, the experience was not unpleasant, and as I've returned for follow-ups, it's become pretty relaxing. I've graduated to more and smaller sucker machine leads, and we've varied the needle placement a bit, and really, I'm feeling better! The main drawback is that the way I bruise, the sucker thing has left some serious and numerous hickies on my back. I look like I've been trying to mate unsuccessfully with an octopus. But hey, beauty is a small price to pay for comfort.

PS: thanks for your comments. It's fun to get some feedback and find out who is tuning in. And while I'm at it, I need to apologize for my spelling and grammar. I recently read back through some of my posts, and my editing skills are definitely lacking.

Balls!

Oh get your heads out of the toilet! I meant the kind where you dress up and dance! Yes, last weekend I had the pleasure of attending a Navy ball. My friend Amy is dating a young Navy man, and she talked the rest of us into going to the ball with them. She found us dates and everything! Remarkably, by the week before the ball she had actually found me two dates and I was slightly concerned about what I was going to do with them since I'd never met either.
I didn't have to worry long. One of them bailed out, and then we found an extra ticket so our friend Margaret could go, but we didn't have a stand-by boy for her, so we shared mine. Down from two for the evening to half! That's okay, we made quite an impression on the crowd I guess because apparently a male ex-stripper was taken with me enough to try to get my details after we left! ha. Leave it to me to pick up the stripper.

And speaking of pick-ups.... The weekend before, I went to latino night at the club on base and had a lovely time dancing with several of the latin men, but I somehow managed to pick up the white guy who declined to dance. How does that happen? I saw him again the evening before the ball and he seems alright.

So the answer to last week's post is apparently 1.5 and a stripper. And me being me, this weekend is in Seoul with the girls. :) Educators' weekend and some shopping!

PS: All my stuff came today!!! Wahoo! My bed!!!!!

Hooray!!

My internet is finally fixed, so you should now be able to dial the vonage phone and I should actually hear it right rather than having to check the messages. No garauntees...I've never actually heard the thing ring, but here's hoping! This also means my computer is actually at a desk rather than precariously balanced in my lap. :) Yay!

And I have a lovely rhetorical question to leave you with: how many dates can one squeeze into a single weekend? ha! We'll know the answer by Monday.
And now I've left you hanging.....

PS

Yes, North Korea tested a nuclear weapon underground. No, I have not yet grown a third eyeball, nor do I plan to. Mostly, don't worry. Everything is still remarkably normal here. I'll keep you posted.

Korea is making me itchy!

My youngest neice had the experience of being greatly annoyed with people before she had the words to express to them that they were pissing her off. So when she'd get really hacked, she'd frown and say, "You're making me itchy!" It was hilarious, so I remember that when I'm getting hacked off. Getting some laughter out of annoyance is handy here since the only other option is anger and that doesn't get me anywhere.

Korea is definitely making me itchy today. My day started with trying to go and pay for the ticket I reserved a couple weeks ago for Lauren's wedding. I knew I was in trouble when the young woman at the agency took ten minutes to pull up my itinerary for purchase. It turns out she misquoted the price to me and now wants $350 more. No way, and thanks for wasting my time. I had some more choice words, but I politely swallowed them and walked out.

My next stop was the cell phone shop. I ran out of minutes last night so I went to purchase some minute cards. Fortunately the shop was open, but the telephone company is aparently changing some services and we couldn't get the cards to load. The nice guy there went ahead and sold me the cards so I could try adding them later. Yep, I'm still without a phone, and if I can't get it to work I have to go back tomorrow.

Tomorrow is going to be a challenge though because I also have to go and pay for the much cheaper ticket I found with another travel agent for the wedding and meet the internet repair guys at the apartment. At some point I'm also supposed to meet someone here to put my water bottle on. Since the tap water here isn't potable, the landlord provides bottled water. We negotiated for a filtering system, but of course he gave me the stupid bottle thing instead, and the darn bottle weighs about 40lbs so while I can lift it, I can't gracefully flip it upside-down to put on the machine without spilling half the contents. This means I am at the mercy of the rental agency to send someone to change the bottles out. And of course they haven't had time to send anyone today. I'd try to call them again to get someone over here, but I still can't use my phone.

Don't worry, they also have the water bottles in pony keg size so I'm going to make sure I get those in the future. I should actually be able to put them on myself and not have to dehydrate.

What are we celebrating again?

This weekend has been full of celelbration! Since many of the children and staff at our school come from households in which one parent is Korean and the other American, we celebrate both American and Korean holidays.

This weekend is Chusok, which is the equivilant of Thanksgiving here. The people all get dressed up in beautiful traditional outfits and return to their childhood homes to remember their ancestors. This of course also meant lots of classroom parties and home-made food on Thursday. Chusok happened to fall during Hispanic heritage month. For the last couple weeks I have also been enjoying some awesome food from Cuba, Mexico, you name it, and the women put on a wonderful display of traditional clothes and dancing. I went to a fiesta night on Friday where they played latin music all evening and I of course danced my tush off. Oh and while we have Korean and Hispanic celebrations, we may as well have some American ones too. So we had a Columbus day weekend barbecue yesterday to make sure we were celebrating everything equally.

Needless to say, I've been having a fabulous time. :)

Riverwalk

Less than five minutes walk from my house is a riverwalk in the figurative sense. This is not a commercial area. There are not any businesses or stands, no restaurants or bars; in short, I've seen nothing for sale. This riverwalk was designed for recreation. There are walkers, joggers, bikers, rollerbladers, groups doing aerobics, you name it! There are generally large groups of old men playing cards or dominoes, and I often see people fishing. They also have an acupressure trail that you take your shoes off and walk on pointy stuff. I haven't tried that yet. At first I was surprised by this little outdoor activity oasis, but it makes perfect sense. It is not practical to use the commercial sidewalks for leisure. They are narrow and packed with street vendors. Cars and scooters also drive on the sidewalks and people park on them. So if you just want to take a stroll or ride your bike, you need someplace designated for this. The riverwalk.

So today I set out for a little walk, but when I got to the river, I discovered a festival. Colorful Daegu. It seemed to start right by the entrance from my street. At this end a stage was set up where I had the opporunity to hear an octet of flutes play classical music, see a man do traditional dancing, and a magician. I strolled further and found craft boothes. You could go in and do basket weaving, papier mache mask making, and origami. You could watch fabric dying, leather working, and a variety of traditional cooking. It was really interesting. At the far end was an enormous stage where a Korean alt/punk band was performing. I was truly impressed at the variety of cultural offerings at this little festival. You will be proud to know that I even tried some strange treat that was coated in a peanut dust and was the texture of an old jello jiggler on the inside. Don't ask, I couldn't figure out what it was, but everyone else was trying it!