DMZ Trip!

Last Sunday Cassy and I went on a trip to the DMZ with a company that sponsors different adventure trips around Korea for foreigners! Just in case you weren't aware, the DMZ stands for the Demilitarized Zone and is the formal land line that separates North and South Korea. And it only took us 35 minutes to get there by bus, so that made me even more aware of how close we actually are to North Korea! The trip was an all day event, and we made a few different stops throughout the day.

The first place they took us to was Freedom Bridge. That was where the political prisoners from the Korean war were exchanged in 1953:

This is at the edge of the bridge and as far as you can go; on the other side is a guard tower:

People who wish for the unification of Korea write messages on the ribbons and tie them all around Freedom Bridge:

This is also the place where people whose families are still in North Korea come to celebrate Chuseok (a Korean Thanksgiving type Holiday) since they are separated with their families and can't be with them.

They have a ton of really beautiful monuments there also honoring those who fought in the Korean war. This is the one for the United States:

Each blue triangle on the inside has a different picture for the four different branches of the United States Armed Forces:

While we were here we were able to buy some North Korean money before we got back on the bus and headed to the next place!

We had lunch next as a group at a traditional Korean restaurant. Traditional means we had to take off our shoes at the entrance and sit on the floor! It was pretty good, your basic rice, tofu soup, and 10 different side dishes.

After lunch we drove through Daeseong-dong (also sometimes spelled with a T), known as the "Peace Village" and is 1 of 2 of the villages located within the DMZ (the other one being a North Korean village). There are around 200 people living there, and in order to live there you must be a direct descendant of one of the original villagers. Even though they are exempt from taxes and military duty, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't want to live there!

There also used to be a very large US Army base that's now abandoned that we drove by on our way to the next place. They were moved south of Seoul a few years ago but after the war and up until then they were basically a "Human Fence". Meaning that if North Korea ever did invade the South than they'd immediately try to defeat and kill those US soldiers stationed at that base, and America would immediately enter into war against the North.

We headed towards the 3rd Infiltration Tunnel next. After the war, 4 different tunnels going from North Korea into South Korea towards Seoul (S.Korea's capital) were discovered. All were discovered by accident so they're not sure if they've found all of them or if there are more out there! The 3rd tunnel was discovered in 1973 and has the capacity to send 10,000 armed troops and vehicles into South Korea within an hour! To go into the tunnel you have to wear a hard hat and walk down a 300 meter path that is very steep. And then you walk through the tunnel that was carved out. We weren't allowed to take pictures down there so I don't have any of this part of the trip. After you walk through the tunnels, you have to walk back up that ridiculously steep path back up to ground level. Cassy and I were drenched in sweat by the time we made it back up!
Oh I almost forgot, some South-East Asian woman asked to take her picture with me at this point (well not really asked but mimed to. I get this a lot actually, I'm not really sure why since I saw plenty of other light haired, blue eyed, light skinned people around, but maybe I'm just the most approachable or something!) And then I had a man on a Chinese tour group come up to me and start practicing his english with me extremely loudly. Like everyone in the area stopped and stared at us. And all this time Cassy is standing next to me, but does anyone come up to her? No! Only I get to be in random photos and be yelled at in english by strangers. Oh well!

Ok anyways, back to the DMZ trip, at this same place was a museum and we also watched a short video about it's history. By the way, this whole time on the bus ride up and the areas surrounding these tourist sites are fences and warnings about land mines! Here's some pics from this area:

 A monument about uniting North and South Korea with the North map on one side and the South on the other with people pushing them together:

Museum pictures:

Me with random totem poles:

Next we headed to the Dora Observation Platform, which is where you normally could get a good look at the North Korean village in the DMZ, but since it was so foggy that day we couldn't see much. You also can only take pictures within this yellow box they're painted on the platform. Cassy apparently didn't hear the 5 times they told us about it and still took pictures from closer on the platform, she must of been out of it.

So as you can see, the visibility that day was really bad so we couldn't see much of anything.

There were a lot of signs about the unification of the Koreas throughout the trip, but our guide said actually only about 50% of South Koreans want to be unified, they're afraid of what it would do to the economy of their country.

The last place we visited was Dorsan Station, which is the last train station in the South (or the first one towards the north as they like to say once Korea is unified)

 This shows the map of where the train stations are and where it would go into the north. if the Koreas are ever unified, you'd be able to take this train all the way into Europe:

 Me with one of the guards, I look slightly nervous:

You used to be able to stamp your passport here, but about a year ago they stopped doing that since it wasn't a true border crossing, so you you buy a train ticket for 50 cents and stamp that. Somehow Cassy picked up the stamp on the wrong side and stamped her hand...

Cassy infront of the train that actually does carry some workers into the DMZ to work at a factory that also has North Koreans workers:

So that's my DMZ Trip! It was so interesting and maybe when it's nicer day I'll do it again come summer. Our guide said that it's possible in May they may open a North Korean village that people can visit! So since I'll still be here maybe I'll be able to go! We'll see!

I know this was a very long post and I actually have many more pictures on my Picasa web albums about it!

Thanksgiving and Seoul

So even though we had to work on Thanksgiving, the foreign teachers (including Sam who's Welsh) still tried to celebrate the best we could! My supervisor actually went and bought us all turkey sandwiches from Quiznos for lunch that day, which was really nice of her! And then we all went out to dinner at a Western restaurant here that was serving turkey that day specially for Thanksgiving! And on Friday morning I skyped with the whole fam who were celebrating in Houston. So I think it was a pretty great first Thanksgiving away from home (and outside of America!)

Our thanksgiving meal (they have pretzels at this restaurant, that's what sam's holding- they're really hard to find here!)

And then the restaurant's "Christmas" decorations:

Last weekend we went out in Seoul and in one area they had decorated with Christmas lights! It was the first ones we've seen so we got really excited:

Just FYI

So just in case you haven't noticed, on the left hand side under "Links" there is a link to my Picasa Web Albums, which has all these pictures from my blog and more! I don't always post all my pictures on here, so more of them are on those albums.

Eating Snails and Celebrating a National Holiday About Cookies!

I bet by the title you're intrigued about this post already, aren't you? Or maybe feeling slightly nauseous. But read on either way!

Last Thursday (Nov 10th) everyone from work went out for a Farewell Dinner for the Director. He's leaving to start up another school so I'll be getting a new boss in the next few weeks! We went to a fancy chicken place (sounds weird but it's true) for the goodbye dinner. In Korean you just order a bunch of main dishes and everyone eats off the same plate in the middle of the table, so the table ordered every kind of chicken you can imagine: fried chicken, chicken wings, chicken tenders, grilled chicken, roast chicken, jerked chicken, etc. The two side dishes were french fries and noodles with snails. SNAILS. It was put right in front of me on the table and at first I had no idea what was in with the noodles. And then they told me. And since I have never eaten snails before, I though, here's my chance! So before I could think too much about it, I stabbed one with my fork (surprisingly tough) and popped it in my mouth. It mostly just tasted like the sauce it was in (spicy of course) but it was so chewy. I mean I thought I would never stop chewing! But finally it was over, and now I can say I've eaten a snail, and don't really care for them too much! Here's a pic of the yummy delicious snail noodles:

The gray things in the bowl are the snails. And as you can see, the bowl is half empty since the Koreans really enjoy it!

On Friday it was Pepero Day, which is kinda like a Valentine's Day. Except they celebrate Valentine's Day so I dunno, it's uniquely Korean I guess! Pepero are these long butter cookie sticks dipped in chocolate. That's the most basic version, and then it gets elaborate from there. They have ones rolled in nuts, strawberry flavored, sprinkles, chocolate on the inside of the stick, etc. Pepero are very similar to Japanese Pocky sticks if you've ever had them. Anyways, at some point during the 80s this holiday started, no one knows why, some say the Pepero company started it to bring in business, but whatever the reason, it took off. It's a pretty big deal, all the kids were really excited about it all week! They even have Pepero stuffed animals. I didn't really think I'd get any gifts since I had heard kids only give it to their friends (not like back home where if you bring something to school you have to give it to the whole class!). But I really came away with a nice stash! Here's a pic of all the goodies I got:

And then the Director gave the foreign teachers presents too:

Needless to say, I have a lot of Pepero in my apartment right now. This past weekend Cassy and I went to Suwon, which is a city south of Songdo and took about 3 hours to get there by subway. I'll do a separate post about that later though because I have a bunch of pictures of it. Let's see, oh today I taught Arts & Crafts (I teach all sorts of random stuff) and we made necklaces! I took a pic of mine, they're Christmasy!

That last one's supposed to be Rudolph, and he looks even crazier because of the goggly eyes. Well I'm no artist (although my 7 yr olds think I am an awesome artist!! They are always so impressed haha). And then tonight I went and bought a Christmas tree!! Yay! They've been on sale since the end of October and I was afraid they were going to sell out of the one I wanted, so I thought I'd go ahead and get it. And then I put it up too! I also bought myself a stocking and hung that up too. Although I'm not sure Santa Claus is going to know I moved to South Korea. I'll post pictures of my tree later, I forgot to buy a tree topper and I didn't get enough ornaments, the tree is fuller than I anticipated. I can only carry so much on the subway at once! Oh they also had advent calendars so I bought one of those too! Now I need to start on my Christmas shopping since I'll have to ship them all! Alright that's all for this post, to end it I will say that it is freezing here! FREEZING!!

Halloween Festivities!

Ok so I have been horrible about posting to my blog this past month, I blame it on being sick for pretty much the entire month of October!  Anyways I'm determined to be healthy for the holidays so I have been eating citrus fruit like it's my job and taking all my vitamins religiously so hopefully I can enjoy myself a little more! But now let me tell you about October:

The Friday before Halloween Cassy and I made Caramel Apples!! Yummy! We had bought the caramels at one of the foreign food markets in Seoul a few weeks ago (and I kept them in my apartment, and it was SO hard not to open the bag and eat them!) but we couldn't find popsicle sticks so instead we stuck metal chopsticks in the middle! Here are our Korean style caramel apples:

Delicious! And then we watched "I Know What You Did Last Summer" on her computer. A classic.

On Saturday Sam, Cassy, and I went out in Seoul for Halloween! We threw together some costumes and went out in Hongdae, which is a University area, so there were tons of parties and halloween events going on and tons of people were in costume. it was really fun! Here's us before we left in Sam's apartment:

Cassy and I:

Sam and I:

When we first got to Hongdae we just wandered around to see what all was going on. In one of the open parks silent dance party going on, I don't know what the cool people call it, but basically it was a ton of koreans holding orange balloons, wearing the same giant black headphones, and bobbing along to whatever music they were listening to! No idea. We tried to get pictures of it but I'm not sure you can see it:

 Well you can see all the orange balloons at least. Next we went to a bar called Zen that was having a Halloween party and hung out there for awhile. They had super cheap drinks and we met some really nice girls from South Africa that were teaching in Korea also and hung out with them for awhile. Once we got tired of the music we went across the street to a huge club that seemed really popular called Club Cocoon. We had no idea what it was or the kind of music they played but once we got in there it was CRAZY. The guy that was DJ-ing was playing this crazy loud techno/house music and there were all kinds of laser and strobe lights going on, complete madness. And we were definitely the only foreigners in there. We were all kind of iffy about it because it wasn't what we were looking for but decided to stick it out because we had paid cover to get in, so we got our free drink and then started easing our way towards the stage. I tried to slowly and inconspicuously (although failed since we completely stood out) make my way towards the stage through the sea of Koreans, because there were a few people up on the stage and I thought we would have a good chance of getting up there since we were foreign. And the club was soooo crowded I wanted to be out of the madness! Haha and it actually worked! So we spent most of the night dancing and singing on the stage next to the DJ in front of a crowd of Koreans! The DJs switched halfway through the night and they played anything from the Ting-Tings to Jay-Z, it was a pretty amazing night. Ok here's some pics:

Sam and I in the crowd:

They had balloons rain down from the ceiling, confetti shooting and swirling around us like snow, and silly string type confetti bursting out all at different times throughout the night. They also threw out Halloween gummies into the crowd! Just a completely random night that I'll never forget! Ok Cassy took two videos while we were on the stage, the first one you can see glimpses of me when she goes to the side and the second one is of Sam. But mostly it's just so you can see the atmosphere of the place! This was also after the techno DJ had finished, so it's the second DJ:

Great great night. Unfortunately, I was already really sick on Saturday so staying out all night and drinking really sent me over the edge and I was dying on Sunday and Monday. Monday was our big Halloween party at school, no regular classes just Halloween activities all day and I had to call in sick! I was really really bad. Like couldn't make it from one side of my small apartment to the other bad. I was so upset that I had to miss school but there was just no way I could cut it. So sadly I will not be getting my perfect attendance bonus at the end of my contract and I missed out on the fun. Sam took a picture of my second graders though in their costumes:

Here's Harvard class acting like Zombies:

And Stanford class (all the girls were Princesses, scary):

That's my sum up of October and Halloween! And now I can't believe it's already the 2nd week of November! I forgot how fast Fall goes by. Anyways, I have to get back to work now, I'm only on lunch break, but I have more updating to do so stay tuned!