Koreans love to go to the hospital. And with extraordinarily affordable health care, it's not surprising that no malady, from headaches to hangnails, is too insignificant to necessitate a trip to the hospital.
Still, it was a surprise when at the makeup counter yesterday, the salesgirl took one look at my painfully broken out face and said, "Hospital."
To be sure, my face is taking longer than I would like to adjust to this new climate, but I didn't think it wasn't anything a bit of foundation and a little more time couldn't take of. (Oh, who am I kidding, my face is a disaster!) But it got me thinking that perhaps, I too, should make use of South Korea's renowned health care system. And so tomorrow, I, along with a Korean teacher/interpreter, journey to the dermatologist. And with any luck, I'll be looking prettier soon.
So long, farewell ...
This weekend, I began the process of saying farewell to some of the new friends I've made since I've been here. It seems that I was among the first of a new wave of teachers, and by September, not many of the people I've met will still be teaching here in South Korea.
Ironically, I met most of these folks at another going-away party -- one for Mary, the teacher I replaced. I'd only been in Korea for five days before Mary left her final mark on Korea with a blowout at a huge German pub (good beer, horrible food) featuring a Bulgarian band belting out songs in a dozen different languages, including a far-too-accurate cover of "Step by Step" by the New Kids on the Block.
Not surprisingly, the expatriates tend to hang out together at expat bars, so it was off to Moe's where a punk rock band rocked some original songs with a little Nirvana and Ricky Martin thrown into the mix. I hear the most random music here. Old and new American music is certainly prevalent, but Koreans also love their K-Pop, the catchy, mind-numbing, bubblegum, Korean pop that's played in every shop, taxi and disco in the country.
It was only my second weekend here when I was carted off to go camping on the beach of picturesque Geojedo Island, a hour-long ferry ride from Busan. Sadly, the beaches are pretty littered, but our group was able to carve out a pretty spot to pitch tents, roast weenies and, of course, imbibe a mind-erasing amount of soju as we played in the sand.
Out to the ball game; off to the races
Busan is a baseball loving city, and the home team is the Lotte Giants. So far, I've only been to one game, but they're a blast, so I hope they schedule more home games on the weekends. Games are a spectacle of rabid fans waving newspaper pompons and wearing inflatable seagull headbands (the Giants' mascot). You can bring in our own food and drink, though you can buy everything from hot dogs to sheets of dried squid in the stadium.
The local horse-racing track is also a hot spot in town and an event for the whole family. When my roomie, Sarah, suggested a day at the races, we were all envisioning a dusty track and a few bleachers, so we were blown away by the gorgeous and massive racing complex before us. In addition to the four-story viewing building, with a couple restaurants and the nicest restrooms I've found in Korea thus far, there was a large outdoor seating area.
In between races, there were dance groups to entertain the crowd. There were horse-drawn carriage rides, an alpine slide for the kids, along with a random assortment of games, including one where children stood barefoot on a block of ice to see who could last the longest. The stables were open for viewing, and the grounds were a sight to behold all by themselves. Truly an impressive experience that I'd like to repeat. Maybe I'll even bet on a horse next time, though the whole process confounds me.
Another Korean institution is the norae-bong, or private karaoke room. Now, you all know, I am not a karaoke-ing sort of girl, but there's something about being in semi-private company and watermelon-infused soju that loosens the tongue. I'm generally hoarse by the time I step out of the norae-bong, which has been as late as 5 a.m. since norae-bongs (and bars) never seem to close. Just this morning, I watched the sky brighten over the ocean at Guangali Beach as another farewell party came to a close.
Check out my photo albums "Just another Friday night," "Take me out to the ball game," and "A day at the races" on my Facebook page.
Sunday, July 26, 2009
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
House of sand and mud
There's a little beach town on the western coast of South Korea, which is known for two things: being the most popular site in the world for great white shark attacks (which don't actually happen in town) and the Buryeong Mud Festival.
Every year, tens of thousands of people -- mostly foreigners, but a few Koreans, too -- come to take a dip in the Yellow Sea, soak up some sun and drench themselves in the local mud, known for its therapeutic properties.
Take away the sun and add about four oil tankers of beer and soju, and you're starting to come close to the weekend I had.
A gray sky melted into a gray ocean, and the gray ocean flowed onto a gray, mud-soaked beach. But the drizzly weather couldn't keep us down. After a five-hour bus ride, my party of nine was all too eager to ditch the bags at the mimbok (Korean-style motel) and head to the beach.
We almost literally dove into the mud housed in big plastic tubs on the beach. The beach is sand and the mud was transported from nearby mud flats. There were big paint brushes and mirrors and we went nuts painting each other, slathering it in each others' hair and making mud hand prints in places that ought not be touched in public. With most of us half a dozen cocktails into it, we threw mud around and generally made a big mess of things, which didn't really matter since the whole scene was one big muddy mess anyway.
All around people were reveling in the mud. Sad, unattractive white men wailed for someone, anyone to paint them with mud, while a pair of girls mud wrestled a few feet away from me. Finding the wrestling too exhausting, they settled on making out with each other as a way to entertain the gathering crowd.
At the highest part of the beach, huge inflatable water slides quickly became treacherous as they became coated with mud and sand, guaranteeing riders a dose of road rash should they risk a slide. Above-ground pools were filled with mud and more mud spewed from showers aimed into the pools. Slippery with mud, people writhed against each other in a rubber jail -- though I'm still not exactly sure what the jail was for.
On the boardwalk, vendors hawked mud skin care products and cosmetics, along with t-shirts and other random souvenirs. There were lots of freebies too, like the colored mud tent, which let you paint yourself, and your friends, in red, yellow, purple, blue and green mud. When the tent ran out of water to mix the mud, the color-happy festival goers used beer and soda. Since "paint your neighbor" was the name of the game, I was soon a sticky, beer-soaked cacophony of color.
As the drizzle turned to rain, the colors ran into each other, and soon all the people were gray, too, just like everything around us. While there was certainly a great deal of good, clean (read: muddy) fun, the prevalent vibe was drunkenness, and by about 6:30 p.m., we were putting the first of the girls to bed. Mimboks don't have actual beds, just blankets and pillows, and everyone sleeps on the floor. Ours was about the size of a standard bedroom and slept all nine of us very cozily.
The rest of us cleaned up the best we could in the bathroom with near no water pressure and headed back into the rain. The beach-side auditorium was packed with people watching the Korean song and dance. We braved the ever-increasing rain to watch an amazing fireworks display, but then traded the monsoon for a bit of quiet conversation and later, a raucous norae bang (private karaoke room), where we belted everything from Avril Levigne to Journey.
We called it an early night around 2 a.m., but we seemed to be the only ones. We woke to find the landings of our four-story mimbok covered with shards of broken beer bottles and enough blood to demand a trip to the emergency room. The icing on the cake was a sizable pile of human excrement on the second floor landing. But compared to other mimboks, ours was relatively unscathed, I hear.
Despite the typhoon raging outside, we went in search of lunch (convenience store instant noodles, called ramyan). Eventually the rains died down, but the gale-force winds persisted. We persisted right along with them, making the most of our last few hours in Boryeong before returning to Busan exhausted but boasting glowing, mud-enriched skin.
Check out photos from MudFest on my Facebook page.
Every year, tens of thousands of people -- mostly foreigners, but a few Koreans, too -- come to take a dip in the Yellow Sea, soak up some sun and drench themselves in the local mud, known for its therapeutic properties.
Take away the sun and add about four oil tankers of beer and soju, and you're starting to come close to the weekend I had.
A gray sky melted into a gray ocean, and the gray ocean flowed onto a gray, mud-soaked beach. But the drizzly weather couldn't keep us down. After a five-hour bus ride, my party of nine was all too eager to ditch the bags at the mimbok (Korean-style motel) and head to the beach.
We almost literally dove into the mud housed in big plastic tubs on the beach. The beach is sand and the mud was transported from nearby mud flats. There were big paint brushes and mirrors and we went nuts painting each other, slathering it in each others' hair and making mud hand prints in places that ought not be touched in public. With most of us half a dozen cocktails into it, we threw mud around and generally made a big mess of things, which didn't really matter since the whole scene was one big muddy mess anyway.
All around people were reveling in the mud. Sad, unattractive white men wailed for someone, anyone to paint them with mud, while a pair of girls mud wrestled a few feet away from me. Finding the wrestling too exhausting, they settled on making out with each other as a way to entertain the gathering crowd.
At the highest part of the beach, huge inflatable water slides quickly became treacherous as they became coated with mud and sand, guaranteeing riders a dose of road rash should they risk a slide. Above-ground pools were filled with mud and more mud spewed from showers aimed into the pools. Slippery with mud, people writhed against each other in a rubber jail -- though I'm still not exactly sure what the jail was for.
On the boardwalk, vendors hawked mud skin care products and cosmetics, along with t-shirts and other random souvenirs. There were lots of freebies too, like the colored mud tent, which let you paint yourself, and your friends, in red, yellow, purple, blue and green mud. When the tent ran out of water to mix the mud, the color-happy festival goers used beer and soda. Since "paint your neighbor" was the name of the game, I was soon a sticky, beer-soaked cacophony of color.
As the drizzle turned to rain, the colors ran into each other, and soon all the people were gray, too, just like everything around us. While there was certainly a great deal of good, clean (read: muddy) fun, the prevalent vibe was drunkenness, and by about 6:30 p.m., we were putting the first of the girls to bed. Mimboks don't have actual beds, just blankets and pillows, and everyone sleeps on the floor. Ours was about the size of a standard bedroom and slept all nine of us very cozily.
The rest of us cleaned up the best we could in the bathroom with near no water pressure and headed back into the rain. The beach-side auditorium was packed with people watching the Korean song and dance. We braved the ever-increasing rain to watch an amazing fireworks display, but then traded the monsoon for a bit of quiet conversation and later, a raucous norae bang (private karaoke room), where we belted everything from Avril Levigne to Journey.
We called it an early night around 2 a.m., but we seemed to be the only ones. We woke to find the landings of our four-story mimbok covered with shards of broken beer bottles and enough blood to demand a trip to the emergency room. The icing on the cake was a sizable pile of human excrement on the second floor landing. But compared to other mimboks, ours was relatively unscathed, I hear.
Despite the typhoon raging outside, we went in search of lunch (convenience store instant noodles, called ramyan). Eventually the rains died down, but the gale-force winds persisted. We persisted right along with them, making the most of our last few hours in Boryeong before returning to Busan exhausted but boasting glowing, mud-enriched skin.
Check out photos from MudFest on my Facebook page.
Saturday, July 4, 2009
Fan death
If you go to sleep with your door and windows closed and the fan on, you will die. The fan will rob your bedroom of all oxygen and you will suffocate in your sleep.
That's the premise of "fan death," a very real, "scientifically-proven," Korean condition. It's part of the basic elementary science curriculum taught in local schools. The South Korean government lists "fan death" as one of the five most common causes of death during the summer in the country. Everyone from young children to the elderly live in fear that one day their handy electric fans will turn on them and snuff them out as they slumber.
"Children," I say to my students, "I sleep with my door and windows closed and the fan on every night, and here I am talking to you, alive and well."
"No Teacher," they reply, "Korean bodies are different. We will die."
You just can't argue with that.
Here in Busan, rainy season has begun, and I'm convinced the country's economy is sustained solely by umbrella sales. The rain either cools things off nicely or turns the city into a sweltering sauna. I've all but abandoned straightening my hair, instead letting it run wild in its embarrassingly frizzy state. My face is still wondering why we left cool, dry Colorado for this steam room and is punishing me with an ever-present oil slick. The humidity has also sent my hair and nails into a growth spurt ... strange things are happening.
Busan is a city of contrasts. Lush green mountains separate the many boroughs that make up the metropolis. Those boroughs, which hold about 3.5 million people, are filled with an uninspired concrete jungle of squat buildings -- in a cornucopia of pastel colors -- holding all types of shops and restaurants. These concrete boxes are juxtaposed by taller concrete boxes, generally apartment buildings, offices and malls.
I live in one such unimaginative 15-story high rise. Home is a two-bedroom apartment on the sixth floor of Building 3 in the Samsung Apartments. Front doors are all aluminum here. I'm not sure why, but it's awfully loud when you slam them. There's a little entryway where my roommate and I leave all our shoes for the other to trip over, and then you're in the kitchen/dining area. A two-burner gas stove is standard. It looks like a glorified camping stove, and it works just fine if you're not planning anything fancy. We have the luxury of a microwave and toaster oven, but conventional ovens are not standard kitchen appliances here. It should go without saying: we have a rice cooker.
The last roommate left a lovely, comfy sectional couch and big TV, but she'll be back to claim those at the end of the month, so Sarah and I are going to have to scrounge up some new furniture. Off the kitchen is the laundry room with a deep blue washing machine that looks like an overgrown bread maker. All the water from the machine drains directly onto the floor and into a drain at the lowest point in the floor. I still panic for a moment when I see three inches of water in the laundry room.
There is no dryer -- they're not common here. We have an enclosed patio with a large drying rack suspended from the ceiling, which can hold sheets and other larger items. Everything else dries on portable drying racks, and on a good laundry day, the whole apartment is covered with drying clothes. It generally takes a couple days for things to dry. Once dry, they lack that great fresh-from-the-dryer feel. Instead, they're stiff. And without a dryer, every little spec of lint and hair still clings to the clothes. I suppose it's a hassle, but you simply budget laundry time more carefully, and know that if you wash those jeans Sunday, it'll be Wednesday before they're on you again.
All in all, it's a comfortable home, and I feel lucky to be here.
If you're reading this, join the blog! Comment, and let me know you're out there, or I may fall into despair and abandon the whole damn thing. (That means you, Mom and Dad!) My own parents won't follow my blog ...
That's the premise of "fan death," a very real, "scientifically-proven," Korean condition. It's part of the basic elementary science curriculum taught in local schools. The South Korean government lists "fan death" as one of the five most common causes of death during the summer in the country. Everyone from young children to the elderly live in fear that one day their handy electric fans will turn on them and snuff them out as they slumber.
"Children," I say to my students, "I sleep with my door and windows closed and the fan on every night, and here I am talking to you, alive and well."
"No Teacher," they reply, "Korean bodies are different. We will die."
You just can't argue with that.
Here in Busan, rainy season has begun, and I'm convinced the country's economy is sustained solely by umbrella sales. The rain either cools things off nicely or turns the city into a sweltering sauna. I've all but abandoned straightening my hair, instead letting it run wild in its embarrassingly frizzy state. My face is still wondering why we left cool, dry Colorado for this steam room and is punishing me with an ever-present oil slick. The humidity has also sent my hair and nails into a growth spurt ... strange things are happening.
Busan is a city of contrasts. Lush green mountains separate the many boroughs that make up the metropolis. Those boroughs, which hold about 3.5 million people, are filled with an uninspired concrete jungle of squat buildings -- in a cornucopia of pastel colors -- holding all types of shops and restaurants. These concrete boxes are juxtaposed by taller concrete boxes, generally apartment buildings, offices and malls.
I live in one such unimaginative 15-story high rise. Home is a two-bedroom apartment on the sixth floor of Building 3 in the Samsung Apartments. Front doors are all aluminum here. I'm not sure why, but it's awfully loud when you slam them. There's a little entryway where my roommate and I leave all our shoes for the other to trip over, and then you're in the kitchen/dining area. A two-burner gas stove is standard. It looks like a glorified camping stove, and it works just fine if you're not planning anything fancy. We have the luxury of a microwave and toaster oven, but conventional ovens are not standard kitchen appliances here. It should go without saying: we have a rice cooker.
The last roommate left a lovely, comfy sectional couch and big TV, but she'll be back to claim those at the end of the month, so Sarah and I are going to have to scrounge up some new furniture. Off the kitchen is the laundry room with a deep blue washing machine that looks like an overgrown bread maker. All the water from the machine drains directly onto the floor and into a drain at the lowest point in the floor. I still panic for a moment when I see three inches of water in the laundry room.
There is no dryer -- they're not common here. We have an enclosed patio with a large drying rack suspended from the ceiling, which can hold sheets and other larger items. Everything else dries on portable drying racks, and on a good laundry day, the whole apartment is covered with drying clothes. It generally takes a couple days for things to dry. Once dry, they lack that great fresh-from-the-dryer feel. Instead, they're stiff. And without a dryer, every little spec of lint and hair still clings to the clothes. I suppose it's a hassle, but you simply budget laundry time more carefully, and know that if you wash those jeans Sunday, it'll be Wednesday before they're on you again.
All in all, it's a comfortable home, and I feel lucky to be here.
If you're reading this, join the blog! Comment, and let me know you're out there, or I may fall into despair and abandon the whole damn thing. (That means you, Mom and Dad!) My own parents won't follow my blog ...
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