MYEONGDONG CATHEDRAL

AND SOME ADVENTURESOME SHOPPING

 

 

We travel not to

escape life,

but for life not to

escape us.

 

 

This last weekend, I went to Seoul to meet up with some friends. The only thing we had planned was to see the Myeongdong Cathedral, and we weren't planning on meeting up until 1 or 2, so Alora and I decided to meet up a little early and do a little wandering on our own. We met at noon outside a subway station somewhat close to Myeongdong. Right away we had to pull out a map to make sure we were going in the right direction (I'm sure we looked like tourists--which I guess we kind of were for the day). We found our way pretty quickly (thank goodness Korean characters are much easier to read than something like Chinese). We started walking and, well, of course we had to take a selfie to document the beginnings of our adventure.

 

 

 

Not long after this photo was taken, we came upon a pretty church at which it seemed they had just had a wedding, so we snuck over and snapped a couple pictures.

 

Our first view of the church.

A little closer view.

 

Had to sneak a picture of the lady in her
traditional Korean dress.

Here it is a little closer. FYI the traditional Korean
dress is called a hanbok.

 

After a little wandering around the grounds, we noticed the church was in fact the Myeongdong Cathedral we were supposed to be meeting our friends at, so we decided to book it out of there. In our defense, we didn't think the cathedral would have been that close to where we were, but apparently it was.

 

After our brief and unintentional tour of the cathedral, we went for a drink and I had my first ever bubble tea (which I've heard many a good thing about but never tried). I tried the honey milk tea and it was quite refreshing.

 





 

We drank our bubble teas as we finished our walk to Myeongdong. It was such a nice day: warm, but not too warm, a tad humid, but the sky was overcast so the sun wasn't beating down on us. When we finally got to Myeongdong, we still had another hour to kill before meeting our friends, so we decided to do some shopping (since my summer wardrobe is still sorely lacking). We happened upon a few gems. The first was a pair of maroon leggings, but they weren't just any maroon leggings...

 

I'm not sure who this guy is, but he's fabulous
enough to warrant a crown...

 

Here's a close up so you can really soak
in the pure awesome that are these leggings.

And here are just a couple other priceless finds :)

The two essentials for an amazing shirt:
pink and unicorns.



I have no idea what possessed someone to combine
a pin up girl and a Star Wars storm trooper...
In defense of the shirt, it did look rather comfortable.



Our friends showed up shortly after our shopping excursion came to a close and we decided to get lunch before heading back to the cathedral. We ate at this cute little Italian style restaurant (and I have to say the panini I got was absolutely delicious!!!). We meandered back to the cathedral and walked around for a while. We got to check out the inside as well and I loved all the stained glass windows!

The view when you first walk into the cathedral.

I looooove stained glass windows!

This is near the front of the cathedral.

The ceiling (I can't remember what this
architectural style is called...someone help me out here!).



Pipe oragan

An outside view (as much of the cathedral as I could
get into one picture)

I couldn't get the spire and all of the base in the same picture :(

Closer to the back

Out back they had a statue of the Virgin Mary where some people
stopped to pray.

And finally, a view from the back of the cathedral.







 After all the walking around (it was probably 4 or 5 by this time, so we'd been on our feet a good 3-4 hours already) we took a short rest out back and talked for a while. We talked about everything from our jobs to our Christmas plans (not that we really have any yet...). Then we decided to kill a little more time by going to a park. Sadly the park was closed so we looked on our map and found another park. That one happened to be closed too, so we settled for a nice stroll down the river (although it was actually more of a stream than a river). I was very pretty and it was below the street level and there were lots of plants growing so it seemed like we were getting away from the city for a while.

 

Our first view of the river from the street (like I said, more
like a stream than a river).

Another street view, this one with more greenery.

We decided to stop under a bridge and enjoy
how cool it was.

We even joined the crowd in taking off our socks
and shoes and dipping our feet in the water. Can
I tell you how nice that felt after so much walking?

Apparentlly the river is a popular couple spot.
I swear almost everyone we saw was with their
significant other, old and young alike.

And a final picture to commemorate our day together!

 

That ended our trip with friends, but my weekend wasn't over yet. Alora, great friend that she is, offered to let me stay at her place that night so I wouldn't have to take the hour and a half trip back to Incheon then have to take that same hour and a half trip back to Seoul the next morning for church. Because I hadn't planned on staying the night, I needed a few essentials (including church clothes), so it was back to shopping we went. We ran into some puppies on our way in to EMart (another store like Home Plus, which I mentioned in a previous post, which is basically a Walmart). The puppies were so tiny and adorable, but I couldn't get a good picture because they were being fed so they wouldn't face my direction. Still cute though :)

 

 

 

Church clothes, shoes, PJ's, razor, and a toothbrush later, and we finally got to Alora's place just before midnight. We had thought we might watch a drama together before hitting the sack, but we were both waaaaay too tired for that.

 

So that was my adventuring this weekend. I was so puckered out after that! I slept like a rock Sunday night and most certainly didn't want to get up the next morning for work. Oh the woes of having a social life...

 

 

Never stop wondering.

Never stop wandering.

LEARNING KOREAN

IN KOREA

 

 

A different language is a different

vision of life.

 

 

I knew coming to Korea that I wanted to learn the language while I was here. I knew to do that effectively, I would have to find a class (I don't push myself much without outside influence, so a class was and is a necessity). I had a good start. In preparation for coming to Korea, I started doing everything I could to help me learn the language and learn more about Korea, its customs, and its culture. Some of those things included listening to Korean music, watching Korean television, and learning the Korean alphabet (한글 pronounced "hangeul").

 

 

Some people might discount kdrama and kpop as weird and...well "foreign." I found that though I didn't learn a ton of Korean from kdramas and kpop, it at least got me used to hearing the language even though I didn't understand it. This actually helped me immensely when it came down to overcoming culture shock. I've heard stories from friends of their experiences with culture shock and mine doesn't seem to be as extreme. I attribute that to two factors: first, I work at a school where the vast majority of the employees speak English and they are willing to help me out with things like finding a doctor who speaks English or helping me talk to people at the bank. Second, I was so used to hearing Korean, that the fact I coudln't understand anything anyone was saying wasn't shocking or uncomfortable for me.

 

A few months before I was set to come to Korea (actually I hadn't even signed a contract yet), I started trying to learn 한글 (the Korean alphabet). By the time I got to Korea, I had most of it memorized, and though I still couldn't pronounce everything correctly, most of my Korean coworkers were impressed that I could read 한글 at all.

 

I thought there would be far more opportunities to learn and practice Korean than I've had so far. At school, English is the main language spoken. The only time Korean is allowed is when an argument or fight needs to be resolved between students and they are having a hard time explaining what happened in English. There is only an hour, possibly two, where I am around teachers instead of students, so I don't have much opportunity to practice my Korean with my Korean coworkers. So the only other opportunities lie with my weekly grocery shopping (trying to talk to the cashier for a measly 30 seconds), stopping random people on the street (not really an acceptable thing to do in Korea), or make more Korean friends so I can practice with them (which is a work in progress).

 

This led me to finding a class I could attend. However, I wanted a class that would be close to my house (seeing as I didn't want to travel too far after work) and one that was reasonably affordable. I happened to stumble upon an online course through a Facebook ad. I now attend the Korean Digital Academy, which I am enjoying so far (even if the class progresses quite quickly). I like it because I can do it from home (hello pajamas!) and because the founder is actually Canadian (though he now lives in Korea and speaks Korean fluently) so he understands the process of learning Korean and he can explain certain concepts in ways we can better understand. The classes are small (my class started off with 5 people, but we're down to 2 now) and are held once a week for an hour. The way the classes are structured, you have instructional videos that you watch and study previous to the actual live session. The founder of the courses put the videos together, so all the explanations are done in English. Then we have the live session (which lasts for an hour) with a native Korean speaker in which we practice the content of the instructional videos for the duration of the class. Also provided are worksheets you can download and/or print with all the relevant information as well as practice worksheets.

 

Korean, so far, has proven a challenge for me. I've always been good at pretty much any subject I take, even if I don't particularly enjoy it. I've always steered clear of languages because I knew they were a great weakness for me. I deliberately took the math/science route in college rather than the language route to avoid having to take language classes. I never intended on learning another language until I made the decision to come to Korea. And I have no idea why I'd put myself through such a grueling process again, but I think I'd also like to learn Japanese or possibly Mandarin. Teaching in Korea has proven to be a great experience so far, and I could easily see myself either staying here for a few years (maybe eventually moving up to a university teaching position) or traveling to other countries like Japan or Taiwan to teach as well. To top it all off, I'd like to get into a graduate program (one in particular has already caught my eye). That may have to wait until I'm a little more settled and have a little more time on my hands. I don't know if I could handle a full time job, full time graduate courses, and possibly an extra language course on top of that (maybe by then I'll have moved past Korean and be on to Japanese...) and of course there's always a social life to keep up with as well. Good thing this is all at the very least a year or two in my future, so I have some time to plan it out :) And somewhere in there I want to move back to Hawaii, though I have no idea what I'd do for work. Maybe by then I'll be fluent in at least one other language so I could look into being a translator of some kind...Anyway, I'm just rambling now, so I'll stop. I'm planning on doing another couple posts soon though. I'm thinking one I'll dedicate to some habits I've been picking up in Korea that will put me on some people's list of "strange people to avoid" list, and probably another dedicated to unique quirks of Korea like what might be seen as offensive here that wouldn't be in America or vice versa. Until next time!

 

 

Speak a new language

so that the world

will be a new world.

LONG

PAST

DUE

 

 

Everyone is a reader...

Some just haven't found the

right book yet.

 

I have been sorely neglecting my blog of late, so I've decided even if I don't have any adventures to report on, the least I can do is throw out a book recommendation (because that hasn't been done in an age and a half, and by that I mean about three months...oops).

 

The book (or actually books) I'm recommending this time is a trilogy (there are seriously so many trilogies out there, so I'll take pity on you and won't make you guess which trilogy I'm talking about). The Selection trilogy is an interesting mix of a semi dystopian society based in a post World War III world where a new nation (consisting of part of what used to be the U.S.) is waging a war on three fronts. They are trying to keep their freedom from the Chinese who previously had control over the U.S. (which is more of an undertone in the books) as well as defending against Southern and Norhtern rebel groups (which is what truly drives the plot of the story). There is a caste system that was put into place: 1-8, 1 being the royal family (the nation is run by a monarchy) and 8 being beggars on the street. Level 2 is basically the nobility with celebrity jobs like models and actors. Level 3 are educators of any kind like professors, philosophers, writers and the like. Level 4 are farmers, insurance brokers, business owners, etc. Level 5 is artisans like painters and singers (which is the caste of the main character). Level 6 are secretaries, store clerks, housekeepers, etc. Level 7 are heavy laborers like gardeners, constructions workers, and farm hands. And level 8 are the homeless who often suffer from some kind of infirmity--physical or mental--like addicts, the menetally handicapped, or simple runaways.

 

 

 

 

 

Each time a prince comes of age, a drawing is done nationwide to choose candidates for the next queen-to-be. Girls from across the nation can voluntarily enter their names into the drawing in hopes of becoming a princess and improving their station in life. If you're thinking this sounds an awefully lot like the bachelor, you woulnd't be far off the mark. This series is definitely geared toward people of the female persuasion, but for those who aren't much into chick flick, over-the-top romances, don't worry too much. While this book has its cheesy, angsty romantic parts, it is also strewn with some mystery, danger, and intrigue as well. It had enough to keep me interested throughout the seires and the characters were believable--in my mind at least (remember this is strictly my opinion and you can think of the books what you will)--and while they made many stupid mistakes, they did grow throughout the series--some more than others.

 

The main character, America, is a girl from the fifth caste, from a family of artists. She is a singer and plays a few instruments including the piano and the violin. She is determined not to enter the drawing, but is somehow wrangled into it and what do you know, she gets chosen (not much of a surprise considering you wouldn't have a story without that happening). It's true that a lot of the story (mostly the romantic parts) are quite predictable, but there are a few plot twists that make the overall storyline interesting. I wouldn't say this is one of my absolute favorite series, but it kept my attention well enough that I felt it deserved a recommendation. I truly did enjoy this series even if it was a bit more of a guilty pleasure book rather than a great scholarly example of literary genius. I also love that there are instances where the author (Kiera Cass) makes you think about certain issues like what it would be like to live under a monarch, what traits a good leader should have, where to draw the line when it comes to making decisions for a nation, what is worth sacrificing and what is not, etc.

 

So in short, if you love romance with a mix of mystery, intrigue, and danger thrown in--and even a tad bit of politics--these books are most definitely for you. If you like dystopian, you might like these books, though they are not so obviously dystopian as The Hunger Games. I would deem these books a good summer read, books you could take out to the beach and enjoy during those instances you don't have anything better to do but pass the time.

 

That's the thing about books:

they let you travel

without moving your feet.