The Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square

On Saturday, I had the chance to explore a little bit of Beijing, and decided to head to the center of the city to see a little bit of history and culture.

My first task was to figure out how to get from the apartment to the subway station, and how to navigate the subway. I figured that out with relatively little trouble, although the transfers are not quite as well marked as I've seen on other subway systems. However, I made it without any trouble.

The square and the palace were both really huge, and I spent several hours walking around and exploring. It was quite hot in Beijing on Saturday, so I kept buying water and trying to stay cool. After I'd explored for awhile, I was feeling really hot and still kinda jet lagged, so I decided to call it a day and head back to the apartment.

As I said, the Forbidden City is really huge, and they have it set up so that you enter at one end, walk all the way through, then exit at the other end. I hadn't realized that before, so I hadn't figured out the best way to get back to the subway system. The only thing I could figure out to do was walk all the way around the palace complex and hope I'd eventually end up at the spot where I started.

I'm still not quite used to the heat here, because it isn't this hot in Indiana yet, so I'd been struggling to stay hydrated all day long. I wasn't feeling well, and something I'd eaten or drank wasn't sitting well with me. It was a rapidly deteriorating situation as I started on my trek. I did finally find the subway, but I was approached by a number of people wanting to sell me things, wanting to take me to their art gallery, or doing other things that are known to be scams around the Forbidden City. I was so exhausted and felt really poorly by the time I got on the train.

The subway was really crowded, and it was really hot. There wasn't a lot of air flow on the train. I thought I was going to faint or something, so I decided that today was one of those days where a taxi was just the best solution. I got off of the train and went up to the street to try to find a taxi, but there were no taxis to be found.

I ended up wandering around for nearly an hour trying to figure out how to get home, or how to find someplace that was cool or had a bathroom. I saw someone carrying a cup from Starbucks, so thought I should give that a try. As I was looking for the Starbucks, I found a Korean cafe chain that I loved, so I went there and things were better! After hanging out for awhile at the cafe, I decided to start my search for a means of transportation back home again. I went back to the street, and was able to find a taxi. I showed him the apartment address written in Chinese, and off we went!

I thought this was the end of my adventure, but it wasn't quite. We got up to the general part of the city where I'm staying, and the driver stopped and made me get out of the cab. I wasn't entirely sure where I was, so I said a quick prayer, picked a direction and started walking.

Thankfully, after about a block, I recognized a store and was able to find my way back to the apartment. It has been quite some time since I've had an adventure of this sort. There are so many things I love about cross-cultural experiences, especially ones that are a bit more long-term, but sometimes I forget just how stressful it can be trying to get your bearings in a new city.

Here are a few of my favorite pictures from the day. Enjoy!

Hello from Beijing!

After all these years of trying, I've finally made it to China. I survived the flight, saw movies of varying quality, managed to not lose my luggage, and made it through my first Beijing taxi ride.

The last few days have been full of settling in kinds of things. I now have a Chinese phone number and data on my phone. My suitcases are all unpacked. I've figured out how to navigate public transportation. I am staying with a family, so I haven't had to do any shopping for food yet, but I'm looking forward to that in the coming weeks. 

I've already started doing a bit of teaching. The student population is a little bit younger than I was expecting, but the kids seem mostly sweet and well-behaved. I'm just going to have to reach way, way back into the Camp Chazon days and early months in Korea to remember tricks for entertaining groups of children. 

I didn't have any students today, so I ventured out to see the Forbidden City and Tienanmen Square. It's always an amazing experience to see something in real life that you have read about for years. The sky was blue today, which was exciting, but it was quite hot. The temperature was around 90F/33C, so it was pretty awful to be out in. There is lots of shade in the Forbidden City, but Tienanmen Square was brutal. I didn't stay there very long. 

I did lots and lots of walking today, and I'm really regretting the one thing on my packing list that I forgot to put in my suitcase -- my tennis shoes.... I'm going to have to try and figure something out, although I am in the Land of Tiny Feet where it is always challenging to buy shoes. 

I managed to navigate the subway without getting lost, and I also made it to the entrance of the Forbidden City without getting lost. After I finished my tour of the palace, I discovered that I couldn't get out the way I had come in. I wandered around for awhile, managed to get myself lost, then managed to find my way home. It is all a great adventure! I'm just thankful for GPS enabled phones and map apps!

It has been hard to form a real opinion of Beijing so far. The part of the city where I'm living is far more residential than anything else, so it is quiet and not very crowded. There are loads of trees, and lots of rose gardens and other flower beds throughout the neighborhood. It's nice and calm up here, but there's also not much to do or see. I had a chance to see a bit more of the city today, and it was much more consistent with my experiences in Asian cities. I'm excited to continue to explore the city. I'm trying hard to no compare everything here to everything in Seoul. 

The school situation will be good, I think. And the apartment where I'm staying is quite nice. But neither of these things are what I thought they would be based on conversations and emails before I left. It has been a little bit hard trying to deal with all of the change, miscommunication and adjusting expectations as I'm going through the worst of jet lag, but the jet lag is getting much better, so I hope that my adventurous spirit will revive itself soon!

I'll try to post some pictures from my outing today sometime soon, but my unrestricted internet access is a little sketchy sometimes, so I'm not sure how long it will take to upload photos on here. I did manage to get them on facebook, so you can check there if you would like!

Back in the swing of things...

It was wonderful to be back in America for a month, but it has also been good to get back to normal life and routines. I didn't take nearly as many pictures in Indiana as I do in Seoul, so here are a few random highlights, although this certainly isn't a comprehensive overview. 

I always forget how much I love American beef. In Korea, I usually eat Australian beef. It's good, but not quite the same.... 

It was great to get to catch up with all of my friends and family. I got to wine and dine my grandpa at Bob Evans one morning. 

Thanks to wonderful stores like Hobby Lobby, I was able to reconnect with my inner craftster. 

Isn't it amazing? There's lots of pepperoni, REAL cheese, and it didn't cost $35!!

I made some Korean food for my family, but I'm not sure if they enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed the American food. 

It was amazing to walk into a shoe store, and know that they would carry my size. I stocked up for the year. 

I also reconnected with my past self. I guess this is proof that I've never liked mornings, and probably never will. I look just about like that now when I wake up. 

I did go through quite a bit of culture shock when I was back. I guess it makes sense, going from scenes like this: 

and this: 

to this:

My flight back was a little round-about... My flight from Chicago to Tokyo was delayed by almost 24 hours. I got on the phone, and after an hour and a half figured out a different way to get home. This was the good news. The bad news is that I now had a layover in Munich, Germany. It was almost 9 hours to fly from Chicago to Munich, then another 10 1/2 hours from Munich to Seoul. I was so incredibly happy to make it back to my apartment after all of that. Unfortunately, my luggage didn't make it until a few days later. But it was nice to not have to try to pull large suitcases up the big hill outside of my apartment. 

Things have been plunging ahead at work as well. The new semester starts on Friday, so we've been doing lots of meeting and preparing. It's going to be quite a busy semester. I'm teaching at least five different courses, possibly six different ones. It should be an adventure. We had a welcoming ceremony for the incoming Freshmen last week. The foreign faculty had to sing a welcome song in Korean. It was pretty terrible... They also made us put on academic robes and hoods and mortarboard hats and process through the auditorium and sit on a stage. As we were all donning our regalia, there were lots of Harry Potter jokes flying around the room....

Finally, just to leave off with a little bit of the whimsical randomness of Korea, here is a karaoke room mascot and the American Santa from the Santa display at my school...

What I've been up to

So things have been a bit quiet around here lately. That's more because I've been really busy than because there's nothing to write about. So now I have quite a few things to catch up on as far as blogging goes. But here's a sneak peak.

My friend Beth is visiting from America, so she and I have been out and about doing fun things, discovering quaint places and ridiculously cute things, and eating amazing food. I've also been teaching an English camp for elementary school students, and that certainly takes up a lot of time. Without further ado, here are a few highlights.

This is a chai tea latte. It will change your life. It's amazing. And the spoon has a face. 

The inside of yet another cute cafe. 

Some of my crazy kids during English camp. 

I found amazing elephant earmuffs!! Expect to hear more about these later. They've become quite significant :)

This is Beth's first proper meal in Korea. 

This is the strawberry smoothie that changed Beth's life. It was pretty awesome to sit back and watch. 

We were shopping for books, and we saw this series of English books. I'm not sure if I would feel encouraged or depressed if I were studying from them. 

More of my crazy kids. 

A hysterical translation of a text message. It sounds so apocalyptic. 

We got some free cookies! They were really delicious. 

Another amazing cafe. This cafe was amazing for a number of reasons. Again, expect to hear more about it. 

One of the reasons the cafe was so amazing was because it served REAL APPLE CIDER!!! Like, it had tiny pieces of apple floating around in it, and it was served with a real cinnamon stick. It was the most amazing thing I've had in a really, really long time. The strawberry smoothie may have been the best moment of Beth's life, but this apple cider was pretty close to mine. 

I got a ridiculously adorable passport cover!!

She winks at you!!

We got Korean style porridge for dinner tonight, and as always, it was a treat. I got pumpkin porridge with rice balls and red beans, which is a whole lot more delicious than it sounds. 

Finally, Beth and I got matching bear foot slippers with little claws that stick out. It was pretty amazing. And they were super cheap! I'm mostly just excited that I found shoes in Korea that actually fit...

A Terrible, Horrible, Rotten, No-Good Kind of Day (With a Happy Ending!)

Do you ever have those days where nothing seems to go right? That happened to me this morning. The batteries in my alarm clock died, so I woke up 40 minutes late for work. I'd planned to get to work a little bit early, so I was still ok, although it was going to be close. I threw on some clothes and dashed out the door to catch the bus. The bus wasn't as crowded as it normally is, so I thought maybe things were going to go well! How wrong I was...

About 13 seconds after I get on the bus, we get stuck in a significant traffic jam. It lasted a good 20 minutes. Apparently, there is a good bit of difference in the traffic pattern between 7:30 and 8:15. I was really concerned that I was going to be late for my first class. It was at this point in the commute that I heard sirens. Lots and lots of sirens. There were 5 fire engines that were trying to work their way through the traffic and congestion of Jongno. Normally, the bus travels in it's own happy lane, and this helps the bus schedule remain fairly accurate. But the bus moved into normal traffic to accommodate the fire engines. Which was all well and good. However. The fire engines kept getting cut off by crazy taxi drivers who were dropping off and picking up passengers, so it still took them forever to get past where we were, as the bus driver is doing some serious braking/accelerating maneuvers in the rush hour traffic. 

I was standing in the bus, holding on for dear life, thinking about how to handle the potential lateness when I heard this sound and felt something warm on my leg. I looked down, and the old man who was sitting in front of me had decided to vomit all over everything. Including my leg and shoes. The bus was still fairly crowded, so I didn't have that many places to move to. The second spew mostly missed me, but I was caught in a little bit of splatter. By the third spew, I was able to move enough out of the way that I didn't get caught in anything.

At the next stop, a whole bunch of people got off the bus. I didn't have time to either go back and change clothes or to even get off of that bus and wait for the next one. So I had to spend the next 30 minutes on a bus that smelled of vomit, with wet and sticky pants legs, wondering what in the world I was going to do when I got to school.

I finally made it to school. I walked into my office building at 9:07, and my class was supposed to start at 9. I went to the nearest bathroom I could find and did my best to clean up. It looked much better, but I still smelled kinda funny. I dashed to my office, grabbed my books and ran to my first class. Normally, I really enjoy my Friday classes. The students are engaged and we have fun. But today they basically refused to talk. Both my writing and my speaking class remained painfully silent. Maybe it was the morose weather? Maybe it was the strange smell emanating from the front of the classroom... Who knows. But they were a most difficult lot to teach.

By the time noon rolled around, I was having a rather difficult time. I didn't have time to eat breakfast this morning, due to the unfortunate alarm clock incident, so I was rather hungry. I was getting a headache from the vomit odors that persistently clung to my pants and shoes. I had one more class that was supposed to go from 12-3, then I had a makeup Korean class from 3-5. I wasn't sure I could make it through all of them.

I went to my 12:00 class, and we went through some student presentations. After the presentations, I decided that the circumstances were extenuating enough that I was going to cancel the rest of the class and go home to change and shower. Thankfully, the bus ride home was uneventful, and I was able to rid myself of the lingering souvenirs of the morning.

I texted a couple of friends to see if anyone was interested in getting some dinner tonight, but they were all busy, so I was left to my own devices. I decided that I was going to be very brave and attempt to have a pizza delivered to my house. I went to the Pizza Hut website to see if I could figure it out. I found the place where you were supposed to register, but it didn't like my name and ID number. I'm not sure what was up with that. I got frustrated and decided to check out Papa John's. But there aren't any Papa John's around my apartment. Finally, I went to the Domino's website. Lo and behold, they had an English website! It was like the clouds had parted and revealed rays of sunshine.

I successfully registered for the website and downloaded the 11 (that isn't hyperbole, it was actually 11) pieces of software, plugins and add-ons that were required by the website to function (God bless Korean web design...) and placed my order. The website was in English, but the program that was necessary to pay with a credit card was all in Korean. I had to go through a long and complicated authentication process which involved secret words, text messages and emails, and I finally paid for my pizza.

A mere 25 minutes later, my doorbell rang and I was greeted by this:

Then I opened the box and saw this. It looked and smelled wonderful. I'm happy to report that it was just as delicious as it looked! I'd ordered it with extra cheese, so it was pretty similar to a real, American pizza!!

Of course, this was still a pizza order placed in Korea, so it came with garlic dipping sauce, two packets of hot sauce, and two containers of sweet pickle slices. All of which are still sitting on top of my oven awaiting a cold and lonely fate in my food recycling bin. 

All in all, it was a pretty trying day. I'm not entirely sure that I'm able to laugh about it just yet. But. I have officially added a new skill to my "living in Korea" list, and that's a pretty exciting thing!

Adventures in Dongdaemun - Culinary and Otherwise

My friend Stacy and I decided to go to the Dongdaemun craft market again today. We both needed a few things for some craft projects that are in progress. We were on a mission to find buttons. We both needed very specific types of buttons for a project. The buttons are on the same floor as the jewelry making supplies. 

In Korea, accessories are a very big deal. They are cheap and plentiful, and some of them are like nothing I've ever seen before. Koreans especially seem to love headbands. Some of the headbands here are amazing. They are big, and sparkly, and have feathers poking out of them at all angles. I've purchased a few of the amazing, sparkly headbands over the past 15 months, but today I experienced headbands like never before. 

This is Kate Middleton. She's wearing a type of hat that is commonly called a "topper". It's small, and it doesn't actually fit on your head, you just pin it on top. Sometimes they can have a brim, like this one does.

Or sometimes, they're a bit more feathery. It seems that Koreans have taken the idea of the topper, and attached it to a headband. I tried several of these on, and really liked them. However I decided that they probably wouldn't be appropriate for most of the places that I go, so I regretfully left them in the amazing headband-topper bin. Stacy and I explored the rest of the floor and found the buttons we were looking for. As we were getting ready to leave, we both saw another store with the amazing headband-toppers. Only these were different. 

These were fuzzy! As you can probably deduce from the above picture, I did in fact come home with one of the amazing headband-toppers. 

Isn't it fun?!? I thought it was pretty amazing. 

I thought that this was enough adventure for one day, but clearly I underestimated things. Stacy and I have gone to Dongdaemun several times together. To get there from our meeting point, you have to walk through this alley with a TON of street food and other assorted things for sale in these tiny kiosks. Some of the street food looks a little strange, and I've been toying around with the idea of taking some pictures for awhile now. But it was always too crowded, or it was too dark, or I just didn't feel like it. Today the crowds were pretty light, relatively speaking of course, and it was still daylight. So I snapped a picture of this food stand. 

There was one type of food in particular that has been catching my eye as being Very Strange and Odd. Can you guess what it is?

This is a hot dog, dipped in batter, rolled in french fries, stuck on a stick and deep fried. I'd never seen anything quite like it, even at the State Fair. 

Not only did I take a picture, I actually took the plunge and spent a whole $2 to buy one in the name of investigative journalism. Stacy and I both tried a little, and were both surprised by how delicious this was! It certainly isn't something I'd eat every day, or even every week. It looks like a heart attack on a stick. But it was pretty amazing.  

After eating the heart attack on a stick (I feel like it needs a better name...) I stopped at a fruit stand and bought a giant pear to cleanse my system. 

Dumpster Diving, Korean Style

One of my friends came over for some tea and cookies tonight. She and I met relatively recently, and this was her first time coming to my apartment. I met her near her bus stop, and then we walked over to my apartment. As we got close, we noticed these giant cabinets that were in the trash area. We stopped to look, and we discovered that they were gorgeous and in really good shape. So, we decided that I should adopt one of them.

It was a little awkward, but not terribly heavy. We walked it up the two hills that are between the trash area and my apartment. This is when the problems started. You see, the hallway in my apartment building is a little bit narrow. And there is a set of stairs and a corner you have to turn before you get to my apartment door. We had a few problems getting it all around there.

We were most of the way up the stairs, and starting to figure out how to twist and turn the cabinet to get it to fit around the corner and into the door when my landlord comes out of his apartment and asks what we're doing. At least, I think that's what he asked. He doesn't speak any English, and I was too busy trying to balance a wardrobe on the steps to give too much thought to Korean translation.

My landlord is pretty cool though. He squeezed past the wardrobe, up the steps and helped my friend and I get it into the apartment. It was quite hilarious, I'm sure... Two blonde haired women and an old Korean man trying to communicate with motions, grunts and random Korean words that we all threw out there, balancing a wardrobe up the stairs and around the corner. Thankfully, we finally got it into my living room. That's where it is sitting now. Just kinda hanging out. I think I need to move some furniture in my spare room to make it fit, but this is really good.

There are no closets in Korean apartments, so you need a wardrobe type thing. I have one, but it's a bit sketchy, and really, really tiny. This one is at least twice the size of my current wardrobe, and it is much, much prettier! Now I just have to figure out what to do with the old one... In the meantime, I have this sitting in the middle of my living room, and a great story about dumpster diving and furniture moving in Korea ;)

Adventures from Monday

Today was a rather random and unusual day at school. For starters, Monday is my super, super long day. Like, I'm on campus a minimum of 13 hours kind of super, super long. I consider it a testament to how much my job situation has improved from last year when I actually don't mind the ridiculous Mondays, and still come home saying, "I love my job".

Normally on Monday, I teach two classes in the morning, then I do lesson planning, grading and administrative work from about noon until 6, and I teach a class from 6-9. Today, we started study groups. These study groups are extracurricular activities. They are open to the entire student body, and girls who want a chance to improve their English without actually taking an entire class can sign up for these groups.

The faculty was told that we could choose any topic we wanted for our study group. I wanted something that would be reasonably helpful, but wouldn't require tons and tons of prep on my part -- so naturally I offered a speech and debate study group. I wasn't sure what to expect. I'd been told horror stories about students who couldn't speak any English, or groups that were so mixed it was impossible to do anything with them. I'm happy to report I found myself in neither situation today.

I have 15 girls who signed up for my study group, and all of them speak excellent English. They are all political science, diplomacy, pre-law and economics majors. They all have a deep interest in politics, current events and giving speeches. They genuinely want to learn to be better speakers, and improve their technical knowledge of English. I was quite excited! Today, we practice introduction speeches. One of the questions I asked them to answer was why they signed up for this class.

There was a group of six girls who were obviously friends outside of class. It turns out they are all on the Model United Nations, which is where groups of students are assigned to a country, and they have to research that country's position on a given topic, and engage in mock UN sessions as if they were actually representing said country. My girls were assigned to America.

On Thursday, they have to do a presentation about nuclear proliferation in North Korea and the six party talks. They were very excited when they heard that I knew about giving speeches and I was American. After class, the whole group of them approached me. They had two requests to make of me. They wanted to know if they could take their picture with me and post it on facebook (which they did, although I didn't get a copy of it) and they wanted to know if I'd be willing to advise, strategize and coach them regarding the political position and culture of America. It's not exactly the debate team at Purdue, but it's close enough that I'll happily take it!

The other strange and unexpected thing that happened to me involved another student. One of my writing classes has their first assignment due soon, and they are very nervous about it. We've been doing all sorts of work in class together, but some of them wanted to come meet with me and talk about their specific assignment. One of these students dropped by during my office hours today for a writing consultation. I looked up from my desk, and I about fell out of my chair. She was wearing an Indiana Pacers hoodie.

I asked her if she liked basketball, and she said she didn't. So then I asked if she'd ever been to Indiana. She'd never heard of Indiana. I asked of she'd ever been to America (which she'd heard of) but she hasn't been there either. I told her that the team on her shirt belonged to the city where my parents lived, and she thought that was very strange. I don't think she even really knew the Pacers were a basketball team. I have no clue where she got a Pacers shirt in South Korea, especially without having any connection at all to Indiana... but there we have it.

As I was shuffling through my various folders to get all of the paperwork I needed for this writing consultation, the student fell in love with all of my folders. I hadn't thought about it too much. I went down to the campus bookstore and got folders for the various classes and admin things I need to do this semester, and just went from there. But when I started to think about it, I realized that some of them were pretty cute. Just to keep this from being a post with nothing but words, here is a sampling of the folders that are readily available in South Korea.

What folder set would be complete without Pooh and Tigger? I looked for Piglet and Eeyore, but alas! they didn't have any. Contrary to what these look like, they aren't fuzzy. That would have just been too awesome for my brain to handle. 

There's something about frogs and princes that this folder reminded me of....

I'm pretty sure that this isn't the officially licensed version of Minnie Mouse. After all, the folder was only $0.60. 

This one just makes me happy because I'm teaching a class about fairy tales this semester, and it seemed like it was strangely appropriate.