You put Icy Hot where?!

Comments this weekend included: Did you see what we did to his hair? How did he get the icey hot under your nose if you weren't asleep? Wanna see what happens when you put mentos in coke? All these were said by teenaged boys while spending some eleven hours on a bus. Thank goodness I wasn't responsible for them...I had the girls. They had more of the following comments: Coach? When's the next rest stop? I have to pee. I need to puke. Do you have any tampons?

Puking and exploding coke on a bus are not generally very fun for the adults in charge, but the kids sure got a kick out of it, and as for restrooms, we've decided to issue Depends to any child who refuses to try to go to the bathroom before we leave. Lucky for me, I know what happens when you add mentos to coke, so we averted that disaster, but you can only win so many battles when you are dealing with thirty-some teenagers. And these were good kids.

What new craziness is this you ask? Well, I got talked into helping coach softball. At first I thought this would just be a showing up to practice thing and supervising some drills, but the "coach" prefers not to ride the bus, plan practice, or teach anything. Really he just yells alot. This means I've been promoted to head coach! .... but I don't get the title... or the paycheck... I do get the benefits of being the one in charge on the bus, sleeping on a wrestling gym floor with all the girls, and trying to lead them. Unfortunately for them, I don't know beans about coaching, but the boys coach has done a great job of helping me try to figure it out.

So I am officially exhausted after the weekend's adventures, but all sarcasm aside, I really did have a good time. It was fun to be out on the field with the girls, cheering them on, helping them out. They got trounced the first game, and it was hard to see what that did to their spirits, but teenagers are remarkably resilient. They went out and did 100% better the second game, and they only got beaten soundley that time. It was a vast improvement! I'm anticipating we might actually be winning some by the end of the season. I get to repeat all this again next weekend, so wish me luck. and patience. and maybe some coaching skills. I think I'll need them.

Stilletos made for walking

One of the things you can't help but notice in Korea is the fashion. There are a couple of trends, but the young women wear whatever they feel like throwing together, and invariably they look good. The result is that unlike America, you never see anyone in the same outfit. You also never see them out of their outfits. For me, fashion (or my approximation there-of) is reserved for getting dressed up for a night out on the town. For the women here, you are apparently not allowed to leave your house for any reason without your full fashion gear. This was truly driven home to me on Jeju. I was out climbing on rocks, balancing in streams, and walking long distances to catch all the sights, so naturally, I was in exercise clothes, sneakers, and a hat...and I was the one out of place. When I saw the first woman walking down a nature trail in heels, I thought, good grief her feet must hurt. When I saw a woman picking her way across stones in a stream at a waterfall in heels, I thought she was nuts. When I looked around and realized I was the only chick in sneakers, I thought well damn, if I could do all this in heels I'd wear them too. Really in the end, it was sort of impressive. I still maintain that even if they had the physical grace to navigate the outdoors in heels without falling, their feet must still be screaming.
Don't worry, I'm sticking with my tenny's.

The other thing that I really noticed was how diligent the older Korean women are about talking to you in Korean. I have to admit that when I'm in public, I sort of tune out because I don't understand anything. I was sitting in the airport reading a book when my brain registered that it had just heard the same phrase three times. I looked up, and there was this little ajimah next to me trying to talk to me! I was so flattered that she would try, but I of course gave her the hand signals and the embarrassed giggle indicating that I didn't understand her. It didn't bother her a bit. She just kept talking to me, and honestly after a while, I got the gist from some gestures and a few known words, and we had a little conversation about our vacations! Really I'm sure I just made everything up, and I'm pretty sure she did too. I also pulled a Brent and just nodded and answered yes to any question that was asked more than once. That seems to make people happy. Laugh when they do, smile a lot, and the nonconversation is pretty rewarding. I have had this experience several times here and always with the older women. They might be my favorite.

The teenaged Korean girls are another story. I'm pretty sure they dare each other to try to talk to us, which ends up with one girl running up and breathlessly speaking a couple of English words, and when we actually talk back to her she shrieks and runs to her friends amidst massive giggling. This, while annoying, is at least humorous. The other night they upped the ante though. I guess her friends dared her to try to touch the Americans or maybe to try to piss us off, I don't know. So I'm walking with my friend Margaret, and we try to pass this girl, but everytime we slow down or speed up, she does too and she keeps getting between us. Then she starts fumbling at my hand like she's going to hold it. So I move to touch her hand, and of course this results in the same shrieking giggling routine. At first I thought it was funny, but it made me feel like a bit of a freak to think that kids are daring each other to touch me. ah the endless entertainment of the mi-gook.

(Just in case anybody doesn't know and thinks I'm being derogatory, mi-gook is actually what Koreans call us, and it means American. They call themselves Han-gook. The term gook came around because when the Koreans first saw American soldiers, they called them mi-gooks: Americans. The soldiers thought the Koreans were identifying themselves in English: Me "gook" so they called the Koreans gooks, and that eventually became a slur.)

Mi-gook in Jeju

Wow, it's certainly been a while since I last updated my blog, so I'll have to fill you in on my more mundane adventures later this week. In the meantime, I just got back from Jeju. It's a volcanic island that is the southern-most portion of Korea, and it is gorgeous. I only spent two whole days there, but in that period, I managed to trek to five waterfalls (well four because one wasn't falling...but I walked there!), visit a botanical garden, and discover a lava beach. oh yeah, and I rode on a submarine!

The waterfalls were amazing and everywhere. The middle of the island is of course the inactive volcano which has a lake in its crater. You can climb Hallasan, but I was too exhausted after my first day of exploring to hike the eight hours round trip, and I wouldn't have had time for my lava beach. So because the middle of the island is essentially a volcano, the terrain is completely uneven from the way the lava cooled and everything slopes down from the middle. Hence all the waterfalls...and the sore walking muscles. :)



Volcanic soil is apparently pretty fertile, so there were flowering trees, shrubs, plants everywhere you looked, and the botanical garden is the largest in Asia (or so it boasts). They had pretty neat displays of everything from cactus to tulips, and my favorite bougainvillea and flox were ubiquitous. I was a bit of a tourist attraction at the botanical garden. It must have been a school visit day because kids kept coming up to try out their English on me, and I was the center of a number of photos. But I shouldn't be surprised by a culture that grafitties plants. Check this succulent out closely. :)


The submarine ride was pretty cool too. I'm not sure it was truly a "submarine" but we certainly went 40m under water. We saw lots of fish and cool marine plants and even an old sunken boat. I was the only mi-gook on the tour, so the guides even took a picture of me, and pulled me protesting to the front of the line. They said something in Korean that made the crowd saw "aww" but I have no idea what. Folks were really friendly though. This will be my first trip by myself that I'll actually have pictures with me in them. I think it is very strange in Korea for a woman to travel by herself, so people kept coming up and offering to take my picture for me. Maybe that's why they were "aww"ing me. Who knows?

So coolest for last: the lava beach. The grounds of my hotel were gorgeous, and they ended at what from my balcony appeared to be some black rocks. Well, it turns out that it was one solid black rock that solidified into a crazy maze of ridges and lumps, and stretched quite a ways out into the ocean. It was a total moonscape! I spent hours climbing around on it, and I found lots of sea treasures. I guess when the waves get big, sea creatures wash up on the rocks, but they are too convoluted for things to wash back out. The sea treasures just get stuck in crevices. And boy did I have fun treasure hunting. I only brought a few things back and left the rest for others to find. The best part was how peaceful it was out there. You are so far from all the hotels and roads, and it is so hard to get out there, that there weren't any tourists or any noises other than the wind and waves. I did see a couple fishermen, but that was it.















I'll save my cultural learnings for my next blog. Koreans are truly intriguing.