Merry Christmas From Me to You!

This year has definitely been one of the most interesting ones of my life for many, many reasons; all of them being good. I'm having an absolutely great time in Korea, but I now find myself separated from all of the people I love back in the U.S.A. and Mexico, so my friend Amy and I decided that we would make a video greeting for all the people that we miss, and here it is.

Merry Christmas from South Korea!!

Special Air Raid Drill

So, there was a special air raid drill here in Korea yesterday December 15th. I thought it was gonna be a big deal, but it really wasn't a big deal at all in the city where I live because we are pretty far from the border between North and South. Actually, I haven't heard anyone say that the drills were in any way a big deal where they live, and I know people even in the northern sections of Seoul. However, according to the NY Times, this was a huge deal with fake smoke bombs, people wearing gas masks, everyone rushing down into basements and taking cover, etc... (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/16/world/asia/16korea.html). I didn't see any of that. I did see people standing on the street corners with flags and whistles and attempting to stop traffic, but that's about it.

I don't know, but it seems to me like the media is dramatizing something that's already not pleasant to begin with in order to sell their stupid newspapers. It's only annoying because I keep getting emails and Skype calls from friends and family who read those newspapers or see all of it on TV and then, of course, become concerned. Technically, it does fall within the realm of possibility that this whole Korean drama turns into another war. But the chances of that happening are very slim. So everybody chill. Everything's fine. :)

"It's Cold Outside!" "How Cold Is It?" "It's So Cold That..."

Dude...

I had to mini blog about this because this is the kind of crazy ridiculousness that I'm dealing with over here.

So I walk out of my apartment to go buy something quickly at the market. I had just taken a shower, so my hair was still wet. It was cold outside but it's no big deal. I do it all the time. So I bump into my friend Kim right outside the market and she says, "Hi! Is your hair actually wet?" I said, "Yeah, why?" I run my fingers through it and I notice that my hair was suddenly stiff and has this white flaky stuff on it. Thoroughly embarrassed and thinking that I must've not washed the conditioner off well enough, I said, "Gotta go!" as I rushed to pull my hair back so no one else would notice it. As I was walking through the nice warm store, I went to touch my hair again to try to figure out what was wrong with it and it was completely fine again. Why?

BECAUSE MY HAIR HAD STARTED TO FREEZE SOLID WHEN I WAS OUTSIDE!!

Can you believe this craziness??? I've NEVER had to deal with this kind of thing. I was like, "Hmmm... What's this cold white stuff that's taking over my head?" Good Lord!!

Ok. I'm done ranting. :)

First Trek Out of Daejeon: SEOUL(ish)

It's been a couple of weeks again since the last time I wrote in here and I thought this weekend truly merited a blog post.

I have a couple of friends here in SoKo who I knew before I came here. I met Jessie in college in a class that will forever go in the books as THE most awesome class I've ever had. It was a small group communications class and our term project was to go camping together with a small group of six people. It was crazy fun and we all got along so well that at the end of the semester we all took off to Las Vegas together and had some more crazy fun there... But I digress. Jessie convinced her friend Megan (who I met in that Vegas trip) to come along with us to SoKo, and so I now have two friends who live on the outskirts of Seoul. Well, it was Jessie's birthday this weekend and she invited me to go to the festivities. Now, like I said, Jessie lives on the outer edge of Seoul, so that meant that I had a long trip ahead of me. Normally, traveling this distance would've probably taken me about an hour in my car, but since I didn't exactly bring my car with me to Korea, I had to take a bus and then the subway. That was supposed to have taken me a little less that 2 hours, but because I'm still not familiar with the public transportation systems here, I totally got onto the wrong subway train and ended up in the wrong place. It was an express subway and it completely skipped my stop so I got off when I realized what had happened and Jessie had to come and get me. Never a dull moment in the book of Marisol.

Now, not all of the trip going towards Seoul was bad. The bus ride was nice because somehow I ended up being the only person in the bus who had an empty seat next to her, so I was able to make myself comfortable and stretch my legs out a little bit. Also, I was able to track my entire trip with the navigator app in my phone, so I was able to make sure that I didn't miss my city because of the fact that all of the announcements are made in Korean, which I still don't understand.

Anyway, once I actually got to Jessie's neighborhood, everything was good. We had some time to linger, so I was able to meet a couple of her friends, we had pizza, we randomly had some Champagne, and then we went off to party the night away. We met up with more of her friends for dinner at a Mexican/Italian restaurant close to her apartment. I was super jealous that she has a Mexican restaurant, but I was also really glad to see a burrito and Margarita for the first time since I left L.A. When dinner was done,

(Birthday Girl Jessie)

(Me and Jessie's friend Liz)

(Jessie and Megan)

(Mexican/Italian restaurant?? *shrug*)

we went to a bar down the street and continued the drinking. Anyone who's ever been out with me knows that my signature drink is an Amaretto Sour, so I had myself a couple and I was good to go. But see, that's not where it ended. That's not where it ever ends in Korea

and especially not in Seoul. We then hopped over to some club in the next town over and danced for a couple of hours and had more drinks. That was really fun, and super funny, because Korean people are really funny people to party with. They were all over the "foreigners" until we left. I thought we might finally be going home to sleep, seeing as it was already around 3am, but we ended up at another club which was coincidentally across the street and down the block a little from the subway station where I had accidentally ended up earlier that day. We got there and continued the dancing and drinking. Apparently Jessie and Megan are on a first-name basis with the owners of the club, so they gave all of the girls in our group free shots of tequila... This was a turning point in our night and Jessie's boyfriend decided that we'd had enough (good thinking) and needed to get out of there. He made sure we got to Jessie's place alright, said goodnight, and he left. We woke up the next day with some MEAN hangovers.

I, of course, don't have any pictures of anything after the first bar (or do I?), so you're just gonna have to take my word for most of this. ^_^

Anywho, I finally gathered myself, and my stuff, and made the trip back to Daejeon and Songchon-dong. That went a lot smoother because Jessie was with me when I bought my subway ticket and train ticket. (Thanks, Jessie a.k.a. "Jesshikah!") I was so glad to get back to my little apartment. I didn't realize how much I've made myself at home here in Songchon-dong. I like my neighborhood, the smells of it, the people, the little hole-in-the-wall kimbap shop downstairs and the bar on the corner. I like my hood. Plus, I don't think I'd make it out alive, or at least my liver would have to repair itself BIG TIME on a daily basis, if I lived closer to Seoul. :D

It Comes in Waves

I've been told by my new friends here that homesickness comes in waves and I never doubted it for a second. I'm riding that wave today. It's Thanksgiving back at home today and I'm not there. It's not so much that I wish I could go back home but rather that I wish that home could come to me. I like it here. I like my new surroundings and my new adventure. But I do miss my family and my boyfriend. I wish they could come here and run around this place with me. Every time I see a cell phone shop I think of my little brother Jonathan. He was so excited for me to get a super futuristic cell phone. He'd geek out and whisperingly yell, "Future!" as he wiggled his fingers in front of me, as if to perform some sort of crazy robot magic trick.

I see a lot of things here that remind me of my family and friends back in L.A. I could write about all of it, or I could choose to get up and get out of my apartment and try to walk it off. I choose walk... But not before I mope a little.

Wartime Crisis? Classroom Free Speech.

If you keep up with the news, I'm sure you heard about the artillery attack that occurred yesterday, Tuesday November 23, 2010 on a small South Korean island near the North/South border. Well, apparently North Korea decided that they did not like the fact that South Korea had performed some drills recently to prepare in case of a North Korean attack, so they went ahead and attacked the small island village of Yeong Pyeong, South Korea. From what I've gathered, the village has a population of only about 1,200 people, but they were attacked because there is some sort of military base there. Apparently there were 2 South Korean military men who were killed and 13 injured. From the images I've seen, the numbers could have been worse, so as much as I feel bad for those 2 men who were killed, I'm also glad it wasn't worse.

I didn't know about any of this until about an hour after I got into work when one of the other teachers arrived late and was very obviously upset. I asked her what was wrong and she told me about the attacks and said that she was very scared. In all honesty, I thought that she might have kept her composure a little bit better since we did have kids in the school at the time and we wouldn't want to scare them. But I don't think that was at the top of their list. So when the kids started freaking out also, I had to sit them down and have a discussion with them and they wrote about why they thought the North had attacked the South. I had them write about how it made them feel and what they thought of the entire situation. I didn't think they'd be able to write much, but they did. They used the translators on their cell phones (all of them have cells) and they wrote about how angry and scared they were. One of my students, a 12 year-old girl wrote, "I'm scared because North Korea and South Korea are same race but, they [North Korea] want kill South Korea. I think they's action is not right action. I don't want unification. Because, they has bad think. They do wrong action." Her writing obviously needs some work, but she was still very clear about how she feels. I can't imagine what it's like to be a kid and have to deal with the possibility of war breaking out in your home country. Another one of my 12 year old girl students wrote, "[I'm] scared because I think my mom, dad, and me may be dead. I'm scared. North Korea are we war. Many S. Korean very scared. Me too! I don't like war. North Korea is very bad." After they had written for a while, I sat down with them and tried to calm them and tell them that everything was going to be ok and that I don't honestly think this will escalate to anything worse. They were obviously very nervous and were feeling helpless in the situation expecting the worst. It's sad that I had to do this, but I had to reassure them of all of the friends that South Korea has and that the North lacks. I had to explain to them that the North has no one to back them up and that they should not be afraid. Afterwards, one of my 11 year-old boys wrote, "North Korea have no friends. So they can't attacked before. I'm not afraid now. North Korea attacked us, we will be win."I was glad that I was able to let them express how they were feeling and that they went along with the writing exercise rather than just shut down and refuse to do anything. Maybe it's because I asked them what THEIR opinions were rather than just offering them mine and leaving it at that. I remember how much it sucked to be little and not be able to express how I was feeling about the major conflicts and problems going on around me. It sucks to feel little and not have a voice. I hope they were able to find theirs and that it's a comfort to know they have it.

Nature, Buddhism, and City Life

I've mentioned before how great the people here have been, but I don't think I've really yet captured what I'm talking about. In an attempt to do so, I'm posting this blog.

After meeting Prianka at the grocery store and finding her on the internet, she added me to a page on Facebook for people who live here and where they post social events on a regular basis. I immediately started getting welcome emails from other foreigners and getting invitations to their weekend outings. Two of those people were my new friends Ross and Nicole. They said that they were going to Gyeryongsan National Park, which is just outside of Daejeon, and that I should come along. Apparently Fall here is beautiful, which is something that I've never really experienced back in LA, so I jumped at the chance. They also said that there was a Buddhist Temple there and all of the monks are women, so that might be interesting to see. I was a little sick at this point, but I didn't want to miss out.

Well, it's a good thing that I decided to ignore my body's pleads to stay home and in bed because I met even more awesome people there and I got to see a little more of SoKo. I won't write much more than this but rather let the pictures do the talking (with minor captions for some of those pictures).

(^Daejeon Station. There was a guy dressed almost like a monk and playing come music.)

(^Old men with hats and canes quietly observing the world.)

(^New friends Sara and Amy.) :)

(^From left to right: Bart, Ross, Nicole, Sara, and Amy. All new.)

(^The infamous Durian fruit. It's supposed to taste like custardy putrid onions.)

(^Sara and her "Delicious Snack" from 7Eleven.)

(^On our way to Gyeryongsan National Park. We took a city bus.)

(^We thought this was hilarious and so I had to take a picture.)

(^If you've never seen what a traditional Korean toilet looks like, this is it. I've managed to avoid them so far.)

(^This is not really sweat in a bottle. It's a Gatorade-type drink.)

(^Mmmmm... Silk worms. Delicious... NOT!!)

(^Fall colors!!)

(^Female Buddhist Monks. I never knew that there were women monks. I thought this was awesome.)

(^I think the stones are piled neatly like this by people because if you can make the rocks balance, then your wishes come true... I may have the explanation a little off, but that's the gist of it.)

(^Pepero sticks. The people here have a holiday called Pepero Day whic is somewhat like Valentine's Day in which they give out Pepero (cookie sticks with chocolate inside or outside) to those they love.)

(^We got goofy and pretended to smoke them. I'm glad we didn't get smacked in the face because women are not allowed to smoke in SoKo. I think it's something about the movement of a stick-like object towards the mouth. I'll try to figure it out and report back on it later.)

(^Buddha)

(^Buddhist Temple)

(^I like this picture. I like the old man with the impeccable posture.)

(^More Female Buddhist Monks.)

(^We went back to the downtown area of Daejeon for dinner.)

(^Crazy trendy shopping.)

(^Fanciest Pizza Hut I've ever seen.)

(^Yay for new friends!)