"Chicago" in Daegu

The Daegu Opera House. I've been wanting to go since I found out they had one, but I could never find a performance schedule. Well, now I have one!
They were performing the musical "Chicago", which I saw the movie and really enjoyed so I really wanted to see the stage show. Of course it was all in Korean but I know the story by heart so it was easy to follow. It was fantastic! The performers did a great job.
Finding the place was pretty simple; they had English signs and it's kind of hard to miss once you drive by. The driving is not so simple. I do not drive here. I have my Korean license but unless I absolutely have to I don't drive. So far I haven't had to. Matt is learning to drive like the Koreans & it is terrifying! Many times I just have to close my eyes and hold on. We almost missed the turn to the parking lot since we were in the far right lane, so he just turned across the other 2 lanes to make the left hand turn. This sounds crazy but is actually quite normal driving behavior here and surprisingly didn't disturb me at all.
After the play we went to find dinner. It took us an hour to drive about 4 miles. It was horrible. We really need to learn the subway route! We were going to try this restaurant we've driven by and I always thought looked nice, but it turned out to be a drink lounge only. So since we were there, had a parking place, and were starving we just walked till we did find a restaurant, about half a block down. No English, no pictures. The waitress did know the words 'seafood' , 'noodles', and ' pork' so that's what we ordered. I was just hoping the seafood was cooked! My dish was like a seafood noodle soup. It was cooked and it was good, although very spicy. The noodles seemed to be like potato noodles, which was different and very tasty. I had to quit eating after a while because all I could taste was the seared flesh of my mouth. Due to the decor and Matt's meal being very similar to sweet & sour pork, we came to the conclusion that it was a Chinese restaurant, and not Korean.
After dinner we walked across the street (always a life threatening proposition) to a coffee shop. While waiting, I had to use the bathroom. Now I realize this is an odd topic but I also realized that I haven't discussed the toilets here and it's worth blogging about. Toilets here are always a crapshoot, so to speak. They did have a bathroom, except it was in the alleyway behind the shop. And it was cold. Like 20 degrees outside cold. And the bathroom was outside, did I mention it was cold? BUT it did have toilet paper, and a toilet. These are not as common as you may think. Many of the restrooms have 'squatty' toilets, which I have actually mastered the use of! The first few times I was presented with one I chose to wait, but then I decided I couldn't avoid them forever. I have also learned to carry some type of toilet paper with me. Most bathrooms however do not have soap, this one didn't even have a working faucet. This concerned me due to the fact that the guy making the coffee uses the same bathroom. This same situation happened at a restaraunt we ate at; fortunately (or not?) I had already eaten or I don't think I could have continued that meal. (I also carry hand sanitizer at all times!)
So, the opera, the bathrooms. The highs & lows of a day in the city!

Cirque

It's not all ascending steps to temples and folk villages out here. Sometimes entertainment comes to us, courtesy of MWR (morale, welfare, & recreation) & Armed Forces entertainment. Yes indeed, the Cirque came to town, with a giant Santa in tow.

Oldest child's favorite, (the 'pink princess' as she called her)...
my favorite....ha ha.....

and the husband's favorite!

Our oldest loved having her picture taken with the princesses. I couldn't believe the little one actually sat with the 'red princess' (Carrie again) without screaming! And of course she was pretty enough to get her share of attention as well!

All eyes on the little one!

When we were waiting for the photo op, the oldest was trying to climb on the bleacher bars & pretending to be an acrobat, and the next night at dinner (we have a 'church supper' for lack of a better term every Monday) she told them she was an acrobat. So I think she was impressed.She flipped upside down a few times...maybe she has some talent?


I thought this guy was really neat, spinning giant cubes & other things. He would step in & out, like a lasso tricks if you've ever seen that. There was another who had like a giant double hula hoop that he rolled around inside of. I couldn't get a picture of him but he was pretty awesome as well. It was a great show. The husband & I enjoyed it as much as the girls, maybe even more!

Andong

Well, we broke down and bought a car. (Ha ha!) But it's okay. We still do a fair share of walking. But it does make it easier to get out & explore, like to Andong. Home of the traditional mask festival, which sounds really fun except we missed it back in October. Korea has a history & love affair with these traditional masks. It was explained to me that back when they had the class system in place, those in the lower class were forbidden to speak poorly of the upper class. So they would make masks as their form of expression. Every souvenir shop here has some wooden ones for sale. I hope you can enlarge this to see it better.


Unfortunately we didn't get to the mask museum outside of Andong, which is supposed to be fairly nice. But we'll definitely be making another trip up there. This visit we went to a Korean folk village. The homes here were moved to their present location some years back for a dam construction project & renovated at that time. They also use a large section for filming Korean shows because it is so authentic (that's what the info says anyway). We didn't walk over the whole village because it was so COLD & we weren't really prepared for it. It started snowing on us and there were some strong winds so we had to give it up sooner than I liked.




We also tried to go to the adjacent museum, but they were inexplicably closed.

Ubiquitous totems in front of the museum.

We also stopped by Korea's oldest and largest stone pagoda, Sinse-dong Chilcheung Jeontap (seven storied pagoda). 

My favorite picture!

The best part: we ate lunch at Pizza Hut! Ha ha. (My husband is very unwilling to risk it in a Korean restaurant, mainly because they eat many things raw [even sometimes beef] & we don't!) We tried this crust that said it had sweet potato that I assumed was just mixed into the crust. Wrong; they have a thin ring of mashed sweet potatoes & then cheese around the crust. I think they must a different kind of sweet potatoes than I know because they were yellow & very sweet. It was different but really good. Even the world's pickiest husband liked it! Then we went to have coffee and dessert at a bakery, and I tried a 'glutinous rice donut'. Yech. Take my word, leave it on the shelf. It was fun to mush though! It's similar to the consistency of one of those stress balls & I think probably about the same flavor too.

They had a big Christmas tree up in the center of the outdoor shopping area and a Salvation Army bell ringer, bucket & all, so it was kind of nostalgic. And with the snow falling it was just great!

China: The abridged version

The China trip is fading fast from my memory & we've visited a new place in Korea to blog about, which is what this is really all about, right? So I'll try to sum up China in this post.

We never left Beijing during our tour. All the sights we saw were in the city, except for the Wall, which wasn't a long drive. I'll start at the beginning though. Airport: HUGE. I don't have much comparison to go by, the biggest airport I've flown from is Dallas (if you're going by size of the building), and the Beijing airport is probably 10 times bigger. There are at least 5 terminals and the terminal we left from had 62 gates. I don't know about the rest. It felt like I was in an indoor football stadium when I walked into the entrance. It's really that big. And very clean. I was impressed.

Beijing is lacking in one thing that Korea has: smells. I didn't notice any smells in the city while we there, and another couple and I did strike off on our own a couple of times so we weren't always in the tourist areas. Beijing also has it's own 'Chinatown', no kidding! We just drove through it; it was a very commercialized looking place.

(SOAP BOX ALERT!) During our time in Korea and (so briefly!) China I am amazed at how many people speak English. So many know at least enough to effectively communicate what you need to know. In Korea they start learning in preschool. A Korean mom told me they are obsessed with teaching their kids English. From what I understand it's like this in most Asian countries. It's kind of humbling to think how influential America must be for so many people to try to learn English and be so eager for their children to learn it. I mean when was the last time you gave any thought to trying to learn anything about another language? I think it really boils down to one fact though: the power of the dollar. Even with our 'sunken' economy we are still so amazingly rich.

But back to the topic at hand. The rest of the trip is honestly a blur. We saw so much in such a short period of time that it's hard to really take it all in. The tea ceremony: way to much effort for a single cup of tea. Let me brew up a pitcher and pour the sugar in! (Can you tell I'm from Alabama?) The jasmine tea was indeed very good, but not good enough to make me want to change my ways! We also saw an acrobatics show, which fascinated the girls. Carrie was especially awe struck. ("Mommy she's standing on her head!") It's is supposed to be based on the history of the area of China that was struck by a severe earthquake a few years ago, but the translation didn't make a whole lot of sense to me so I can't explain. It just seemed like a normal entertaining acrobatics show to me! We kind of ran through Tienanmen Square; most of the pictures I took were while I was walking. Same thing in the Forbidden City. And the Forbidden City really is a city; it's huge! You think you're walking through the exit gate and BAM! There's more! The area around the Summer Palace was beautiful, but since it was winter everything was dead and the small streams and such all dried up. We didn't go into the palace, I don't know if you can. There's so much more there that we didn't see; it should really be called a city as well. The Temple of Heaven: what can I say? It's a temple complex very different from what we've experienced in Korea, although that's probably because it's not Buddhist. It also is very large, and required much walking, though it didn't change much from one part to the next; the buildings just got a little bigger.

After a while all the pagodas and other buildings begin to kind of run together. It's beautiful architecture but it doesn't vary much from one to the other, at least not to me! And of course there are people everywhere which also translates to traffic congestion, but I honestly didn't think it was bad at all considering the population size. Of course, I wasn't the one doing the driving.

We ate at Chinese restaurants every meal, although I question how authentic they were. For example, they all had large 'gift shops' and the food was just like what you'd get at any Chinese buffet in the states. After a while some of us were sick of it, so at one time we saw a McDonald's and ate there, and another time we set off and found a Mexican restaurant, which was fantastic! I also had the best cappuccino ever from a Starbucks. (For the record I am not a Starbucks fan, but this one was great!)

Interesting note: censored internet. One of my tour groupies had brought his laptop & was telling us how some of the ads are blocked & there is no access to Facebook & MySpace. You hear about this but it's so much more profound to experience it yourself (or at least vicariously through someone you know!). And their version of Tienanmen Square is much different than ours; namely no mention at all of anyone getting killed. I remember staring at our tour guide as she was telling us the Chinese version of what had happened and thinking "Is she serious?". Then I wondered if she had any clue that there was a different version out there. They make it sound like a government support rally and not any kind of protest. (On a side note: they 'hawk' Mao Zedong watches in the square. You too can enjoy checking 'big brother' for your local time!)

Overall I had a good time and am so glad I went. My favorite part: definitely the Great Wall. It's awe inspiring. And learning that I can travel quite well with 2 little girls alone may inspire many more trips!

Addendum: Hindsight makes me realize how arrogant it is to presume everyone learns English solely because of America's international impact. There are other English speaking countries that influence the world as well, and I am now slightly humbled in my opinion and more conscious of their contribution to global society. However, I still maintain that America has the biggest impact.

The Great Wall (of many steps)

The Great Wall truly is great. It really is a wonder. I could never describe how magnificent it really is. There are three sections open to tourists; I'm not sure which one we went to. It is much larger and longer than I expected. I was unable to ascend anywhere close to the top since I was carrying a 25 pound child up the many steps. They didn't think it necessary to install an elevator I guess. It was icy and I had already slipped once. The steps are smooth, well worn stone and not of uniform size and shape. And they are very steep. I took this picture to show how steep, but it doesn't adequately capture it.

Since I don't have words to describe it I'll just post several pictures. The surrounding mountains are magnificent as well, although everything was dead when we went. If you ever have a chance to see the wall you should definitely go.