Steal Their Seoul in South Korea, Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?

I hope Carmen doesn’t steal Seoul, because frankly I still have much to see. I’ve been to Seoul quite a few times, but it’s almost too big of a city to see everything in a day, weekend, or even a week. My mission to continue seeing more and more in Korea that’s actually Korean is coming along quite nicely. I’ve been keeping myself quite busy with this mission, and I’ve seen and done some really cool things.
I’ve yet to post pictures on these happenings, but I’ll get around to it soon I hope. First off I went to Myeong-dong (which I had previously been to once), which is a huge shopping district in Seoul. It’s a favorite of foreigners living here, especially Americans, because it houses some of the main shops back home: Gap, H & M, Apple Store, Forever 21, and restaurants like Outback and TGI Friday’s. It’s quite an extensive area with blocks and blocks of shops, and I must say that the stores that sells comedic nicknacks and swag are my favorite. After going through these shops, which I really went to because my friends really wanted to go, we went to this restaurant called Bennigan’s. It’s reminiscent of Macaroni Grill back home, mixed with a lot of New York décor. I recommend their lunch specials, a ton of food at a reasonable restaurant price.
After that we headed somewhere I really wanted to go, which is the Korean War Memorial, a museum dedicated to Korea’s independence victory. There were lots of amazing things to see, it was almost too big of a museum (very Getty-like). There were walls and walls of plaques of soldiers from all over the world who lost their lives, and I must say it was pretty cool to see a Navarro (Ralph Navarro) under the California portion of these plaqued walls. Inside the museum there was just so much to see, including mannequin/caricature recreations of battles. My favorite was the human-sized recreation of the Hwaseong Fortress, which one could walk around in like it was King Friday’s kingdom from Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood. The kid in me that liked forts really appreciated this. The museum was great, and aside from the huge Chevorlet billboard outside it that took away some of the historical effect, I’m really glad I did it.
I still want to do more of the palaces in Seoul, but I’ll have to save that for another day. However, I did head to a great place in Yongin called the Jisan Resort this past Friday. Some friends and I headed to snowboard and ski, something I really wanted to do here since so many people here do it and it gave me an excuse to head out and see the Korean slopes. I must say that snowboarding was an epic failure, but skiing was definitely more of a success. Just need to work on stopping myself when I reach the bottom of the slope, in due time I’m sure. Really glad I got to do something wintery that helped me see more of what this country has to offer. Since I had winter on the brain I then went ice skating at the You & I Center in Byeongjeom. This center is great in that aside from ice skating they offer things like swimming and hold classical music symphony concerts at events they host. I will say I had a blast ice skating (I usually do), but the only thing that weirded me out is that in SK people wear helmets while doing it, so that was a first.
In exploring more of Korea I still aim to go to Busan, which is a hot-spot for tourist and beach/resort-type vacations. It’s really far south in SK, but I hear it’s worth the trip. I’ve also unlocked new sites in my neighborhood as I found this great scenic park that has a great hiking route near the future site of the Sports Complex here in Songtan. In seeing more of South Korea, I must say that I still aim to see more of Asia since it’s so convenient since I’m already here. With that said I’m happy to report that yesterday I bought my ticket to Japan!!!!! Yes, J-A-P-A-N! I’ll be there for a weekend in April in the very renowned city of Tokyo. Yesterday was also a win because my school moved a couch into my apartment (which was direly needed), so I was on cloud nine that day. But back to Japan, Whoop whoooop!
So these past days have been really good to me, including my food ordering accomplishment (see previous vlog).
On a totally unrelated note, I’m really happy all the Timbiriche albums are now on iTunes. To commemorate the albums of one of my favorite all-time groups since my childhood I thought I’d leave you with a song from when they were kids. It’s funny to see Paulina Rubio, Benny Ibarra, Sasha, Erik Rubin, Diego Schoening, Alix Bauer, and Mariana Garza when they were kids and note that they look and sound (not the guys) the same today.

Accomplishment (a big one by my standards)

Fear of Away Pt. 2

I mentioned in an earlier blog that the one thing that does bother me about being here is that the fact that when one is as far away from loved ones as I am, there is a sense of powerlessness that comes with it. There are things you wish you cold do, but you can't.

Within a week's time frame it just so happens that two foreign teachers here in the Pyeongtaek area lost their grandmothers. When I wrote the first time about a fear of away it was because one of my school's French foreign exchange students lost her grandfather. The first time a teacher lost a grandmother, the timing kind of worked out in that he was already going to return because his contract was completed anyway, so when he went because of his grandmother's funeral, he was already set to go home. In a way there was a silver lining. In the second case, because it's still fairly recent and I haven't heard much about the situation yet, I really don't know what's going on there.

Either way, this just reinforces this thought that still influences me coming home after my teaching year is over. But at the same time I know that if I were home, there's still only so much one can do about the inevitable. Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Constant internal mind debate.

I'm working on a project right now, which has been keeping my mind busy, so I'm really happy about that, and it makes me look forward to how it will come out.

My outlook on renewing my teacher year is this: If it's mid-March and job prospects/leads looks promising, then yes I'll return home. I need that type of security. I'm not the type of person that leaves everything up to the fates. God doesn't help those who don't help themselves.

Your House

I've been having a recurring dream and it's starting to replay over and over in mind. I've had it in three occasions all together and they've been spread out through a very wide time frame.

The dream is about a house. It's an older classic house, a little old-timey, and very nice and spacious. The house is at least three stories and stands strong near an intersection. Granted, in previous dreams the house bricks have been darker than in other dreams. This last time the house had light and faded bricks. If you go to downtown LA and walk from Mt. Saint Mary's College to USC, you see some really nice old-fashioned houses, some Victorian, and very beautiful. This house seemed like that kind of house.

So I enter this house, and every time I do I am welcomed with open arms by the people who are already in there. I have no clue who's house it is and to whom it belongs. There are usually lots of people inside the house chatting, having drinks, eating some light foods, and having mild conversations; it's all very casual. Granted, I don't know any of these people in real life, they're just figments of my imagination.

Because this house will host a dinner party-esque gathering, the dream has never really bothered me, that is until this third and last time I had the dream. This time around there was an implosion, something went off inside the house and I knew it was coming. The kaboom could even be heard in the streets outside and I would look to the street and see cars stopped because of the exploding sound. But after the shock of the whatever it was that exploded (which I have no clue where it came from), it was business as usual for the people inside the house. In addition, this time and long after the implosion and guests had gone back to their routine, I kind of woke up in a cold sweat and couldn't go back to bed. This was two days ago, and the dream just keeps playing over and over.

In order to move past this dream, which is haunting whatever free time my mind has had to wander (which has been a lot considering that work is extremely light this week as it's consisted of half-workdays and desk warming), I decided to pray to the Google gods for a response and have come to some interesting findings. And although none of the answers for the dreams I had are exactly parallel, I'm currently gathering pieces and chunks to see what I discover. These are my findings thus far:

"Houses in dreams usually represent yourself or your personality or body. The fact that it is very spacious might indicate vast potential."

"Houses can be symbols of the self, and the various rooms have different meanings."

"To dream of a house represents your mind. The rooms of the house, and what you do inside the house indicate what is happening inside your mind. To dream of someone else’s house represents your mind through the perspective of another aspect of your personality."

"Since you don’t recognize the house and don’t know anything else about it, all you can do is think about how the house makes you feel."

"New rooms in a house can relate to areas in our lives where we are discovering new skills, abilities or strengths within ourselves"

So it seems I shouldn't really let the dream bother as what I gathered from these other responses, blogs, and dream sites is relatively positive. Maybe new and exciting things are on their way...

해피 음력 설날!!!!

Hope everyone has a happy lunar new year!!!!

So things that have happened recently have included a birthday, a trip to a Korean monument, dogsitting and just hanging out.

I've been good and the temperature is actually rising here in Korea now. Like 88% of the snow on my block has melted, and yes that's my true scientific statistic, you can go again and check for standard deviation if you must.

One of our group's teacher friends, Trina, had a birthday last week. Thai food, and J&J's at the main gate were what the festivities consisted of and it was fun. Birthdays can be tough for teachers in Korea, and I remember mine came at the same time as my "three month slump." So it's nice to help someone feel better about their birthday when you've gone through yours and you know how it can be.

This past weekend was so much fun. I went to Suwon, which is known as the provincial capital of South Korea. We hit up the market and the Art Street, which is just streets among streets of shops and food. The city of Suwon is best known for the Hwaseong Fortress, a huge landmark in SK. The fortress was built in 1796 during the Joseon Dynasty. Here's a video of when we first began our journey at the south end of the fortress. The walk up was pretty steep, icy, and tiring, so pardon my condition in this video.

There's a bell halfway through the fortress and we got to ring it. That was pretty fun and it was great being able to walk through such an important piece of Korean history. It was reminiscent of my trip to the Great Wall of China. Here's a video of me ringing the bell at the fortress.

After the walk around the fortress, which includes seeing all of the city of Suwon atop of it, I was glad I did it. I still have one great Korean landmark I need to see during my time here, which is the Seoul Tower. Granted, I've seen it from a distance as you have to drive around it to get around Seoul. But I've never been in it, so it's definitely something I want to do in the very near future.

I was also done with my dogsitting assignment yesterday. Mr. Lee and his family brought me some great souvenirs from Taiwan and Rocky was an ease to take care of. It was nice living in Osan too, finally going to an E-Mart, and getting to know the area a little better. I'm privileged in the fact that I live in Songtan and that I don't have to go out of my way to really understand the businesses there. To prove my point, I went to Family Mart (a chain Korean establishment) to buy some juice and the manager said "Happy New Year" in English. Yeah...I don't think that kind of stuff happens in the regular Korean cities. So it was interesting being in Osan and calling for cab and ordering food. It wasn't difficult because I know survival Korean, but it was definitely different than Songtan. Here's Rocky, the dog that assured my stay in Osan for three days (even though I still made my way into Songtan and Pyeongtaek to see people):

All in all this past week has been good in me experiencing Korean culture in that I got to see a great Korean landmark, lived in the home of a Korean family, and the other day some friends and I gathered at this awesome restaurant in Pyeongtaek to have some Korean spicy chicken.

감사합니다 for reading! (thanks for reading)