Parakeets and Paparazzi

Last weekend they sent us to Seoul for educator's day. They provided us with a day of seminars to choose from to expand our educational knowledge. Some of the lectures were actually informative, but the best part of the weekend is the free train tickets to Seoul. :)

I went and visited the DMZ again and actually took some pictures this time. Since I've already blogged about the DMZ I won't bore you with that again, but I will add some pictures to the post on it. Check out "38th parallel universe" for the new visuals.

I will instead tell you about Insa-dong. It is an art district in Seoul that has one main road, a myriad of alleys, and in that space, over 100 galleries. Now I'm not talking just paintings, but all kinds of traditional crafts. I saw people making really cool paper crafts like boxes and lamps, wood carving, and character scripts that I guess are like calligraphy. I had a great time strolling through the street vendors and galleries...except people kept taking my picture. Some of the pictures were from college students on a photo scavenger hunt who had to document themselves chatting with a foreigner. I also got super snapped by a man with a telephoto lens. It was really weird. I definitely feel objectified sometimes and a little bit of a freak.

After walking around for a couple hours I slipped into one of the many tea houses in that district. The Old Tea House is at the end of one of the allies and up a narrow flight of stairs. When you get into it, the only thing you notice is how packed the place is with furniture. I mean I almost thought I'd walked into a furniture shop until a young woman appeared with a menu to seat me. Once I sat down though, I forgot I was in the middle of a big city. The shop was full of parakeets! They were just flying around loose, coming periodically to get the crumbs on your table, and chirping quietly. The shop also had water features for a little relaxing background noise. Between the birds and the water, I thought I was in a forest somewhere. It was lovely.

Busted

Man, I thought I'd come to terms with my room, and then they installed a ramp to make my room handicap accessible. Unfortunately, its design trips up my able kids as well as the disabled ones. They also installed a new doorknob which is self-locking. Between the locks and the ramp, the room is now equally inaccessible to all. I guess that's one way to look at equal opportunity.
It's probably best that my room is inaccessible though. Have I mentioned my floor and my fears of falling through it? Well, I'm safe now. My friend Mike came out to visit me, tripped on the hills in the floor, caught himself in one of the low spots, and presto! Busted. I now have wood poking up through my carpet. I of course went running for the main building, grinning ear to ear and doing the "I get a new floor" dance. I was also singing this while I danced through the halls, possibly to the mild chagrine of my administration. Most people would not be pleased that their office floor is in splinters, but I am so relieved that it finally broke without me or my students going through it! I've actually had nightmares about this. Don't worry, Mike didn't go through either. He was totally unharmed...just slightly bug-eyed.
And when the nice guys that fix stuff came out to assess the damage, they also agreed to make the ramp less deadly! How cool is that?

In the land of Squash

Well, there's only so much I can say about squash, but I have to say something because it's everywhere. I mean it! I think there are two squash seasons: one in the spring and one in the fall, and I also think it must grow wild here. Last year I thought it odd when I saw pumpkins growing on roofs in one of the villages, but this year, I have noticed them growing on all kinds of roofs, including the one at the train station! I also found a squash plant growing down from a roof into a tree...and the squash is hanging right over the sidewalk on my way to the market! In the middle of the city! There are squash hanging out into the street and dangling over my head! And then I went for a walk along the river in the public park...and found squash growing all through the park. And then I got on a train and realized that it was also growing all along the highways and in the gullies next to the tracks! I'll have to ask if all that squash belongs to the city or if people are allowed to pick it for themselves. Either way that's weird. Can you imagine driving down the highway and seeing pumpkins growing in the median? Or squash dangling from the power lines? The flowers are really beautiful though.