Here & There

It has been quite some time between posts, because it has been quite some time since we did something new! Life in Korea that was once exciting and a new adventure around corner, has somehow become, well, commonplace. We're at home. No, I'm not fluent in the language and some things are still challenging (such as giving directions to taxi drivers and trying to negotiate with xenophobes eager to rip off foreigners), but mostly I've adapted and learned how to work with the system.

This has been an especially cold winter, and outings have been few. Even going out to our favorite restaurants requires a great deal of will-power (and layers) to brave the freezing cold. Also, millions of Korean school children were out for winter break and that is something I'd rather avoid. However, we have not been homebound the entire time. We've had several snow days with sledding and snowball fights,

a SpongeBob play day with friends at the Ilsan KINTEX,

visits to the excellent Art Across America special exhibit at the National Museum,

and to the Leeum Samsung Museum of Art with a wonderful collection of modern art. This museum has three galleries; we saw two, the modern art of course and the Korean celadon collection along with some other traditional Korean art.

The husband and I have also seen the English performance of Phantom of the Opera twice at the Blue Square Performing Arts Hall; it really was that good!

Now, the days are starting to warm up and I have been planning our 'must-see-before-we-leave-Korea-in-three-months' list. We've been here long enough that there really doesn't seem to be all that much that I actually want to visit that I haven't already visited. I guess the ticking time clock will tell!

Bukchon

The Bukchon hanok village is a popular tourist destination in Seoul. Located in an elevated area between the Gyeongbok and Changdeok Palaces, it has some obvious old-world appeal. Hanoks are traditional Korean houses. Since the vast majority of people in Seoul live in apartments, hanoks (or houses in general) are uncommon in this area. (True hanoks aren't common in other parts of South Korea, but I have seen many modernized versions of them in less urban areas. Waegwan had many, and several traditional as well.)  As Seoul was rapidly expanding in the past, many of the old-style homes were torn down to make way for the new high rises. While this brought great wealth to the ones selling their property, most of the traditional culture was lost. The Bukchon village is a preservation area of sorts. Many of the hanoks are hotels or restaurants, though some are actual residences. I wandered around the area for a couple of hours to see what I could see. Having spent almost two years living and traveling the more rural parts of South Korea, this wasn't as exciting to me. However, if Seoul is your main reference point for Korea, this is a great place to visit to get an idea of non-Seoul life. In the area are numerous cultural experience programs; I didn't look into any of them. The tourist information office, a short walk from the subway exit, had English guide maps and English speaking staff that were helpful. The area is also close by Insa-dong, one of my favorite shopping areas in Seoul. 

After wandering around, I stepped into a coffee cafe to warm up and relax for a bit. It was called 4M (also forum) and it was awesome! They had a beanbag area set up for lounging, tables and chairs of course, and adirondack chairs facing the floor to ceiling windows. I sat in these comfy chairs and enjoyed my drink!

Cozy!

Christmas in Korea

Another last, and a wonderful first! Our last Christmas in Korea was my first white Christmas ever! We only got about half an inch or so, but combined with the remnants from a few days ago, it was enough to cover everything and make it a true white Christmas! Unfortunately it has been so bitterly cold we didn't go out to play in the snow, but we cozily sat on our porch and enjoyed the view as the girls enjoyed their stockings and hot cocoa. And that was just Christmas day.

We weren't able to go out and accomplish the many plans I had due to some things that I had to do to help a friend - priorities you know. I had hoped to see the parade at Lotte World and the lights around the city, some ice skating at city square, but we simply couldn't. Now the Koreans are all on winter break and everything in Seoul is crazy packed, which is not something I deal with well, so we missed those things. We did make it to the Hilton where they have an enormous revolving tree and electric train set up, as well as a 'gingerbread' house with souvenirs.

For some days before Christmas there was enough snow to make sledding possible. (It was also warm enough to not be miserable!) Since Korea is full of hills, finding a good hill was not a problem at all! Finding a clear, open one is a little more troublesome, but fortunately there was one just down the sidewalk from our house! Since I never got to do these things growing up, sledding makes me feel like a giddy 6 year old, and I had a blast!

We also took a short trip down to some old favorite places in Daegu and saw some of the decor there. About this time the temperatures really started to drop, so seeing the lights was a brief occurrence!

Dongdaegu Station

Jongno area

in the hotel lobby

I also decided I wanted to take part in a popular Korean tradition - the Christmas cake. I don't actually know if it's a tradition, but they sell them everywhere (I bought mine in a subway cafe), and they're always marvelously decorated! This one is a little more simple than others.

So, our last Christmas in Korea was fairly uneventful, which in my opinion is a good thing, and I will treasure it!

Autumn Wanderings

I LOVE AUTUMN! The best season to me. Cooler weather and gorgeous colors! I've been out and about to take it all in, because this is my last fall in Korea (sob!) and I don't want to miss it. I'm just going to share pictures of the foliage. These were taken at Olympic Park, Changdeok Palace, Changgyeong Palace, and Seoul Grand Park, all located within Seoul.

It's also persimmon time!

I like how the mountains always seem to pop up in
the background.

Olympic Park

The weather is getting cooler and cooler, and the leaves are turning redder and yellower! Autumn is here! I've been trying to get out of the house as much as possible before the weather turns too cold (it's shaping up to be a COLD winter) and to see the beauty of the leaves before they fall.

Peace Gate; the main entrance.

 The choice of the day was Olympic Park, site of the 1988 Olympics and located on the eastern side of Seoul. It is another large park, 370 square acres, or 1.5 million square meters for any non-Americans reading this.The brochure I picked up from the information center said you can "upgrade the quality of your life" by visiting the various areas of the park. I don't know about that, but you can certainly enjoy a lovely day outside! Within the park there are also three museums: the Olympic museum, the SOMA museum of art, and the Seoul Baekje museum. There is also an outdoor sculpture garden and several other things as well, including two playground areas, with snack stands scattered about. Always a good thing when you have kids in tow!

Inside the Olympic museum.

 The only museum we had time to visit this day was the Olympic museum. The first exhibit hall was an excellent history of the Olympic games, and the second hall was focused on the 1988 Olympics and mostly on Korean athletes. It was a very educational museum.

Flags of participating countries. I love a good flag display!
Also good for geography lessons!

 After the museum visit we walked around part of the park. (We certainly didn't attempt the whole park at once!) Some of the scenes:

A very popular sculpture, and of course the lovely roses
still in bloom!

SOMA museum with sculpture park in foreground.

You could walk through the field of flowers. So beautiful!
Notice the changing leaves in back.

Of course there were plenty of lovely leaves, which I will show in a separate post. The girls and I really enjoyed this park and can't wait to go back!

Dance at Seoul Tanz Station

I have been watching my girls dance ballet for over 3 years now, and I developed a desire to do it also. I stumbled upon a website while looking for English speaking art classes for my daughter that was about classes for adults. One of them was for dance. The location is in the Sinchon area, near Ewha Women's University, and the studio is Seoul Tanz Station. They offer a wide variety of classes from ballet to club dance, and yoga and pilates as well. Of course they are all in Korean, but I just watch closely and it's not hard to follow along. At times the language barrier can cause a problem on my part, simply because it would help if I could ask a question or understand some of the more complicated steps before we start, but overall it's not an issue. They do have English speaking staff at the desk, which is very helpful. Their set-up is quite convenient as well. You can either pay per class, or buy a pre-paid punch card for a set number of classes. The more pre-paid credits you buy, the cheaper. however, there is a time limit on redemption. The schedule is published and you can choose any class, show up, and dance! I was surprised at the number of older (non-college) students in my basic ballet class, but it was encouraging to know I did not enter this youthful vicariousness alone! I like what I read the other day, "Live life vivaciously, not vicariously!". Hopefully, that would be me!

Bulletin board with current & special classes and photos.

Sungshin Women's University Tour

I had the opportunity to be part of an escorted tour of Sungshin University that was arranged by a Korean officer's wife who works there. (At this point, Korean etiquette would dictate that I say wonderful impressive things about this couple and my connections to them, but I'm not Korean, so...) I went solo, my husband's exact words being "Why on earth would I want to tour a women's college?". To my surprise, since this was arranged primarily for American servicemembers and their spouses, most of my fellow tourists were Korean. Someone said this was due to the above parenthetical comment; I don't know, I just found it surprising.

We had a brief talk about the university founder, then over to the ROTC section. After that it was the small art museum that houses a 150 year old and very special map of Korea called daedong yeojido, or grand map of Korea. (They explained it to us, and while it was interesting, I won't go into details here.) Then we had to sit through a propaganda talk about the Korean education system, in which he even used a brief clip of President Obama speaking. I have many of my own thoughts on the Korean system, the American system, Korean v. American systems, and Obama, but this isn't the forum. Neither was that, so I kept my mouth clamped shut. Next, we were shuttled over to the second campus, called the eco-campus, composed of four buildings. I think it was 'eco' because it had several trees planted and they made use of natural light so as not to rely so much on electric lights. It was a very small and compact campus by any standard. We were served a delicious Korean lunch, and then had a tour of this campus. This included a small natural history museum consisting mostly of plants, and what they called costume museum, but was actually a hanbok museum. We also got to sample three different traditional teas and rice cakes and rice candy. These rice cakes were different from what I've had before, and were quite good. The tour concluded with performances of traditional Korean dance performed by students majoring in traditional dance.

Learning about the founder.

eco-campus

yum!

Art gallery A, at the eco-campus, a spiral ramp with art
work displayed. You can see the natural light.

tea & rice cakes

I wish there was more to write, but that's pretty much it. I didn't learn anything new or exciting, but I did enjoy the day.