Bungeeeeee-ing and Rafting 6/19/11

So after a much longer evening that expected location: an Irish pub in Seoul...I experienced something I've never experienced before. After going to bed at 4:30am and waking up at 6am, we took a two-three hour bus ride to the Gwan-ju river in northern South Korea. We got off the bus, bought some water shoes and separated into groups of 8-10 people. There was 5 of us (friends) in total: Sarah, Laura, me, and 2 of Laura's friends. Laura is from Ireland..she's pretty cool. :)
Anyways...We carried our 10-person raft with 3 other people and our instructor. Good thing we weren't in any immediate danger, because we would have no idea what he was saying. He was pretty cool though. We got in the water before getting in our boats, most people in their clothes. We then got in our boats and started paddling. Instead of 1-2-3-4..for paddling all together, our instructor decided to make it funny saying Kimchi (us: Kimchi), Makkoli (makkoli), Soju (soju), Mecchu(mecchu)..and so on. We got stuck on rocks a lot and had to bounce or rock/roll our way off of them. We were having trouble with the side to side...side one, side two (rolling) so Laura took over dictating who was going first, "1,2,1,2". The funny thing was...every boat we passed looked so miserable or just not having fun or getting bored. Our boat was awesome. We were silly and ridiculous, but at least we weren't bored or not having fun. At our first stop, everyone got out of the boat and for those that wanted to, jumped off a rock about 30 feet above the water. It was really fun EXCEPT...we should have taken off our helmets before jumping. That hurt. After that, we continued down the river. There were dips once in a while, where we got splashed and went down a few rocks, but other than that, it was really calm water. we saw a couple small waterfalls, but the scenery was beautiful. (I didn't take many pictures because I didn't dare bring my camera or phone on a boat. It would've gotten ruined.) We got to our next stop where we got out of the boat and had to climb over slippery rocks. I got so many bruises and it took me a long time because you couldn't see in the water, which meant if you stepped in the wrong place, you would just fall into the water. It took a while for everyone to get across them. Really hard. We kept going in the boats after that and after being in them for a while, everyone was hot and drying off, so our instructor said.."game". So we put the paddles across the boat long ways and everyone rested their feet on it pushing against another person's feet on the opposite side. On 3, you push off, and see who can stay up. My side lost BUT..we were all holding on to each other and did a pretty awesome backwards summersault into the water. :) After that, we were almost done. We paddled in, went into the showers (first public shower experience...) and got changed to get lunch. We went to a picnic area where they had a buffet style lunch set out for our group (2 tour buses worth of people) to eat before going to the next stop: BUNGEE JUMPING.

We all got off the bus and awaited where we were supposed to go. We were in the middle of a bridge and those that wanted to jump were lining up. 37$ for bungee jumping. Would NEVER be that cheap in the States. I got in line, paid, signed a waver and went upstairs to where you wait to jump. I didn't have to wait long. There were 2 options: you could have the rope attached to your ankles or around your waste. I went for the feet. When I got up to the ledge, the guy said "1,2,3, BUNGEE, yes?" Haha. I was like, "OK"...so he said "1,2,3..." and I fell forward..not even thinking before going. I didnt "jump" persay... just let myself fall forward and I fell face first with my arms out like I was flying. It was AMAZING. I have never felt a rush like this in my LIFE! The jump was 52m which is about 175 ft. The feeling when you let go and have no control of anything that happens next is exhilarating. Everyone should try. Sarah did it too. She didn't make a sound. I was screaming but it was a having fun scream not a scared scream. Anyways, to say the least, I would do it again in a second. SUPER AMAZING! After I jumped I went down underneath the bridge where we had a great view. We watched that, and got on the bus to go home. It was a LONG day and we got back around midnight if I remember correctly.
Rafting: CHECK
Bungee jumping: CHECK

Sokcho

Weekend of 6/4/2011

I know its been a while, but I would like to get you caught up on what I have been up to.

Two weekends ago, I went for my co-worker’s birthday weekend in SOKCHO. There was a huge mountain there, so a lot of people wanted to go hiking. We had a three day weekend, so it was a good time for many foreigners to go somewhere for more than one or 2 days. There were also supposedly some nice beaches around as well. Well, we left Saturday morning for a supposed to be 5 hour bus ride. Three to Seoul and two hours to Sokcho. It took longer than we thought, but when we got there, it was around 5 or so. We decided to go shopping because the place that we were going to stay at had pots and pans and a grill. We got lots of food and made kebabs for 13 people. I didn’t help make anything, but they turned out pretty good. They had veggies, chicken and shrimp on them. The shrimp (which I’m not a HUGE fan of, but I eat it) was amaaaaaazing on the grill. So good. we ran out of coal and whatnot so after 2 rounds of kebabs on the grill, one of the guys there took them inside and made it even better, stir frying it. SO good. Well, the place that we stayed at a place where we had “rented” a sort of house. There are no beds, but semi-comfortable blankets and pillows that you lay out on the floor in the rooms. I guess maybe about 8 people can stay in a room. We had 3 rooms, a living room and a kitchen. It was pretty nice. The next morning, after some drinking Saturday night, we got up and some people went hiking and some went to the beach. I went to the beach. It was really hot. There really wasn’t too many people on the beach, but more came in the afternoon. I think its ridiculous how Koreans try so hard not to get a tan. Korean’s tend to think white is better…so they don’t want to be tan. I think this is funny because a good hunk of Americans I know want to be tan and stay tan. This being said, they carry around sun umbrellas and while I was at the beach, witnessed several women and children wearing long sleeved shirts, hats, face scarves, sunglasses, etc. it is 90 degrees out but they are bundled up like its winter, just so they don’t get a tan, or tanner than their original skin color. Everyone wants what they can’t have.

Finally, after the beach, we decided to come back a day early. The group I was with anyways…so, first, the lady at the ticket counter was a bitch and was kinda mean to us. She was pissed at one of the people we were with so she wouldn’t let one of us use our debit cards…THEN, we had to wait an hour…which wasn’t too bad, but when the hour was up, everyone was kinda in different places… Everyone was running for the bus (because they leave exactly on time) Me and one friend, Carissa, were getting kim bop, which is kinda like sushi, but not. It usually takes like maybe max 5 minutes to make fresh. Well this woman was taking a year. We just left money. Not sure if it was right, but definitely enough. Three other friends were coming from a pharmacy and one had gone into the bus station to use the restroom. Well, the girl that came from the restroom got the bus door closed in her face because of time constraints after we tried to stop the bus. So, Laura had to take the bus back by herself…3 or 4 hours. When we got to the bus station in Seoul, Andrew, a co-worker, had realized that he lost his wallet. It was probably left at the rest stop we stopped at on our way back. He was worried about that of course, we were trying to figure out when the last train was back to Daejeon because there were no more buses, and he was trying to check the bus for his wallet. We met back up with Laura because her (next) bus left just 5 minutes after ours. We had 30 minutes to get to Daejeon station to catch the last train to Daejeon. Well, the station was not very close to us. We told our cab driver BALI BALI (?) which is HURRY HURRY (I guess). Well, he hurried. We were going in no driving zones, through red lights, around cars that were stopped. This cabby was awesome. We made it with 7 minutes to spare. So, from leaving Sokcho around 6-30, we didn’t get home til 2ish. Loooooong day.

Doctor Fish???

So, I wanted to share a little experience I had yesterday. So, Sarah and I were texted by our co-worker Alicia asking if we wanted to go to “fish n din” the other day. We were curious, so we asked what kind of food it was. We got a reply “Oh, I don’t know what we are doing for dinner yet, but we can decide later” (or something to that effect) We then were informed that Doctor Fish (which im not really sure how fish n din was explaining this dr. fish place, but…whatever) Is a place that you get a drink like a smoothy or shake or something and then you pay $2.00 to put your feet into a little area where feeder fish (the goldfish you get at fairs, basically), and the fish eat all the dead skin off your feet. At first when I put my feet in, I couldn’t keep them in because the feeling was so strange, but after a little while…It just felt like tickling or soft scratching. Apparently my feet had a lot of dead skin, cuz out of the 5 of us, the fish swarmed(??) to me and one of the other girls’ feet. At least it’s not a sign of being dirty. We did, also, end up eating at a “western” restaurant ‘BONBON.’ I had pesto spaghetti. Delicious. :P

Meeting Ki, and almost getting mugged (allegedly)

5-16-2011

So, I have been really lucky, since I’ve gotten here, to have some fun stuff to do on the weekends. This weekend was great! This weekend I met a friend that I haven’t seen in almost 3 years. (he went to SUNY Oneonta with me for 2 years before coming back home to do his mandatory 2 years in the Korean army) I can’t believe it has been that long. It is part of the reason I looked for a job in Daejeon, but knew that since he was in the Korean army, I wouldn’t see him for a while. LUCKILY, he had a weekend break! KiBum graced me with his presence this past weekend. It was soooooo nice to see him. Finding each other... was really funny and quite a process… we were at different corners on different sides of the road, him jumping, waving and doing stuff to try to get me to notice him…then because I was not near him, he got some strange looks from people…He said he asked some woman where CGV (movie theater) was and she just stared at him. :P AFTER finally finding each other, we got some food at a bbq place that was overpriced and not very good. The guy that was working there was kinda creepy. Oh well. We decided to just walk around and go back to my apartment. We just decided to catch up and hang out and watch movies. It was so comfortable We walked around and checked stuff out and got some pizza from “Pizza School” and hung out til he had to go home for dinner with his family. He’ll be out of the army in July, so I’m looking forward to that.

I also, for the first time, went to this shopping center “Home Best”. I went with Sarah. On the way there, we were just walking and all of a sudden, a guy falls into the back of us…like his head was at our feet. I guess when he tripped, his foot or leg hit Sarah, cuz she had a red mark/scratch on the back of her leg. He was dressed all in black and was running. (The fact that he was wearing black has nothing to do with it…just adds suspense/makes the story more interesting. He was also wearing a mask over his mouth, which is also really common here too…) I THINK he was planning to steal our purses or something cuz WHY would someone be SO close to you? It’s not like he didn’t see us. He was (or acted like he was) hurt after he got up, but followed us for a while. I don’t know exactly what happened or why he was so close…weird. Guess he would be a good candidate for “World’s Worst Criminals.” ANYWAYS…It was a beautiful day so we ended it by sitting outside by the river that is really close to our apartments.

Interesting places/pics..more to come!

Dr. for butt problems...obviously
The street I live on :)
Music on: 06:00 pm Music off: 04:00 am
Haven't been here yet...but a guy passing said it was "VERY DELICIOUS" with a smile.
If you figure this one out...let me know....

Maninsan :)

5-7-2011

Today me and Sarah decided to go to a park. Maninsan.. Anyways…I went to Sarah’s to skype with mom in the morning which was nice (cuz I STILL don’t have internet), and we copied down the directions Alicia (another coworker) gave us. We got ready and left together. On the bus we realize…no directions. Sarah and I have interesting/ not so good senses of direction. She is most certainly better than me, but yeah, still both new to this city. So- we went on what we remembered. We took a bus to Daejeon station then found what we were pretty sure was our bus. We got on it and hoped for the best. Several stops and about a half hour to forty min. later we were still on the bus, looking for a place we didn’t know the name of, because that was also written on the paper. That being said…we couldn’t even ask how to get to this place because, we didn’t know…”mann—“something…? The bus was headed towards the mountain, so we were just waiting. We finally found where we were pretty sure looked like a nice park to hang out in and have a pb&j picnic! yay, it was! There were a lot of people there. I thought maybe we had crashed a party or family reunion or something…who knows? We always get strange looks, so even if we had done something wrong, the looks wouldn’t be any different…i don’t think. Anyways, we walked around a couple trails and just sat outside. It was a beautiful day. The way back home was interesting… We took the same bus back to Daejeon station, and looked for our next bus back to our “dong” or neighborhood. Well, we couldn’t find it. We walked up and down this one side of the road 4 times. I think some of the old women selling fruits and herbs probably noticed we were lost because after the first 2 times, they started smiling at us. Well, we got so tired of walking that we just took a cab back. So much for the stupid bus we were looking for, for probably about 40 minutes or so. After getting back I had my first Bi Bim bop..which was really good. It’s rice in a bowl with a bunch of different veggies or something on top of it around the outside such as seaweed, carrots, bean sprouts, etc., then there is a fried egg over top of koju jong (spicey paste). Mmm. Yum. In conclusion of today, Sarah and I decided we really need to learn the Korean han-geoul…it will def. help us.

Weird/Different situations/ things I have noticed...

SO…I have been here 2 weeks now, and have experienced a few interesting things. I would now like to share. The thing I will have to get used to most is bathroom activities. First, here, because the plumbing is so bad…you don’t flush your toilet paper…you throw it away in a garbage can (specifically for that use, of course). Second, some places don’t have toilet paper in the stalls. You have to take the amount you think you will need from a tp dispenser outside of the stalls. You best hope you don’t need more than you think. There is also a soap pole or rod or something, I dunno what it’s called…but it’s a metal thing sticking out of the wall that has soap on the end of it that you just grab to get soap. Like a bar of soap that covers a pole. Weird..I’m not a fan..I’d rather use a soap dispenser. Sometimes there are really intense buttons next to the toilet seat for heating, or cleaning the rest of that region, along with some other buttons I’m not sure of what they do..haha. Lastly, with the bathroom stuff…today I was informed that there is a “courtesy button” in some of the bathrooms, that you can press in case you need more time and don’t want people to know that you are doin number 2. Apparently it sounds really fake anyways, so it doesn’t even serve a purpose, but..i think that’s awesome.

Korean people for the most part are pretty helpful. If you don’t know how to do something or seem lost or something..they generally try to help you out. This is usually true with directions, help at a restaurant figuring out the menu that has no English on it, stuff like that. On the other side, there are a few things that are a little hard to get used to, so far. I have had so many people, boys, girls, old people, kids, doesn’t matter…STARING at me/us. At the festival the other night, 3 guys came over to us and asked if they could take a picture with us. I’m pretty sure this was because they couldn’t sneak a shot of all of us from a distance, which we caught them trying to do earlier. That has happened on a few other occasions as well. Today, me and my friend Sarah were walking in a market and were called out by someone saying “HI! HI!, where you from??” Everyone then turns to look at us…awesome. Then a guy turns his video camera on us as we were kind of answering the guy so we could get away..we could be on the news, who knows. I’m kinda interested to see what happens next, but at the same time….