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...

Chinese Lantern Festival

It's been really great to spend time with all of my friends and family while I've been back in America. I've had lots of great conversations, good food, and just time to hang out and not do much of anything. I've also experienced some culture shock being back in the US, but that is a subject for another time. All of this stuff has been wonderful, but it isn't very blog-worthy... So there hasn't been much posting. However, on Thursday and Friday, I got to participate in the Chinese Lantern Festival that my church does for the international  student community at Purdue. 

On Thursday, a group of us took over the church gym and set up tables and chairs, and as many decorations as we could find in Indiana. 

There was a stage and a white board for the games and entertainment that would occur throughout the evening. 

Chopsticks play a very vital role in our celebration. Not only are they used to eat all of the food, there is a chopsticks contest. It involves picking up dried beans and dropping them into a cup. This is timed, and the fastest person is usually quite fast. I think it was something like 30 dried beans in about 16 seconds? It's crazy. 

There were so many people there. We set up chairs for over 150 people, and there were barely any empty seats to be had. It was pretty cool!

One of my primary duties on the night of the actual Lantern Festival was to serve food for a few tables. There were the very interesting appetizer combinations of potato chips and kimchi on the tables when the guests sat down. We also served bows of rice, thin noodles with pork and cabbage, beef and broccoli, a spicy tofu dish, General Tso's Chicken, and homemade pork dumplings. At the end of the meal, we also served traditional Chinese sweet dumplings. It was delicious food, and there were good friends to share it with. I assure you, they are good friends, despite the face that John is making in this picture. 

Most of the students were Chinese, but there were people from a variety of ethnic backgrounds there as well. We played games based on American idioms for the students to earn points for their table. Each table also had a lucky red envelope with $5 taped to the bottom of one chair. 

I know how much I love being able to celebrate Western holidays with Western traditions while I'm in Korea, so it was really wonderful to be able to help provide a small taste of home to a lot of Chinese students who are studying in America. 

Hello Kitty Cafe

Beth and I met up with another friend named Sarah while we were exploring Hyehwa. I knew this really good cafe that I wanted to go hang out in while we were there, but when we arrived, it was all full. So we had to find someplace else to go. As we were walking around the street, we looked up and saw this. 

We decided that it was pretty high up on the list of things that Beth needed to experience in Korea, so off we went. 

It was SO pink inside. It was almost too pink, and this is coming from the girl who did her Sophomore dorm room in Disney princess...

There were adorable Hello Kitty cameos on the walls. 

The bathroom was appropriately pink as well. 

"It's nice to see my tiny friends again" These reminded me of care bears!

The chairs even looked like Hello Kitty, complete with button eyes. 

Of course, the drinks came with Hello Kitty foam art. 

We also ordered what seems to be a distinctly Korean coffee shop tradition. This is called "Yogurt Bread", and it is literally a massive slice of white sandwich bread, sliced into chunks, topped with frozen yogurt and strawberry sauce. You can get honey bread, chocolate bread, cheese garlic bread... This was my first time to actually try some though. It wasn't too bad. 

The coffee mugs were adorable. I really do like the little Hello Kitty cameo design. I love all things cameo. I may or may not have come home with one of these mugs :)

Story Run

I have a new favorite restaurant in Seoul. Well. I don't know if it's actually my favorite, but it's pretty awesome. Beth and I found it while we were in Hyehwa. It started when we were wandering around in the early afternoon, and we saw this. We thought that it was just a cool book painted on a random wall, until we read the subtitle. Chicken and Tomato? What kind of subtitle is that? It turns out, this was an advertisement for a restaurant on the other side of the wall. 

We walked around, had a look at the restaurant, and decided to keep wandering. We wandered and wandered, and finally got hungry. So we decided to try out this interesting looking chicken place. Only we couldn't find it again. We walked in what might have suspiciously looked like circles to someone who was less informed for nearly 30 minutes. We finally found the restaurant and decided that it had better be pretty awesome after all the trouble we went to trying to find it. 

We ordered our chicken and they brought this to us. It is mozzarella cheese, half a cherry tomato, half a basil leaf, two tiny dried peppers and a few sliced mushrooms. 

We were also asked to choose two kinds of sauce. We didn't really have any clue what was going on at this point, but we picked marinara and garlic, because those were the two sauce names I could understand from the list that was given to us :) It turns out that they are little fondue bowls that stayed nice and warm on these little candle holder things. 

There was a definite fairy tale theme going on throughout the restaurant. These were the dinner plates, complete with the White Rabbit. 

This was the chicken we ordered. It's homemade potato chips on the bottom and chicken strips on top. Believe it or not, this dish was called "Alice Healthy Chicken" on the menu. 

Beth is pretty excited about starting the meal!

Here's how it works. You get a piece of chicken on your fork. 

You thoughtfully consider which combination of dipping sauce and add-on (cheese, basil, etc) you want for your chicken. 

Then you enjoy. It was surprisingly delicious!

It seemed like each of the dishes had a different character on them. I guess this is Alice, but I don't know that for sure. 

She was just kinda hanging out on what could be a cloud or a wisp of smoke, or even a magic rug. 

There was even the Little Prince drawn on the door. All in all, it wasn't too expensive (less than $10 per person), it had charm and novelty, and the chicken was quite good. I highly recommend it, but I'm not sure I could give clear directions for how to get there. It's close to Hyehwa exit 4 though. Walk straight out of the exit, don't turn left. It isn't too far down that road. 

Seoul Neighborhoods: Hyehwa

I wanted to show Beth some of the different parts of the city, so we went to Hyehwa to explore for a day. There is some pretty awesome street art in Hyehwa.

It seems like everyone here has small dogs. Perhaps this is because they have small apartments as well. Regardless, it also seems like people really love dressing their dogs in ridiculously cute outfits. There was a street vendor who was selling all of these doggie outfits. 

This is the official symbol of Seoul, but this particular version of it just reminds me of the Cheshire Cat. 

There was a street vendor selling these fish cake things. I really don't like them, but they are EVERYWHERE. 

It's fish that has been ground up into a paste, then made into flat sheets that are cut and scrunched onto the sticks. The sticks of hardened fish paste are then boiled and people eat the fish and drink cups of the water/broth they've been boiled in. Perhaps there is some seasoning that goes into all of it. I don't know. But I'm not a fan of this particular kind of street food. 

There was a statue that had this inscription on it. 

The Lamp of the East

In the golden age of Asia

Korea was one of its lamp bearers

And that lamp is waiting to be lighted once again

For the illumination in the East.

Which is all well and good... But look at the top part of the statue. 

Haagen-Dazs. Accessorize London. Kraze Burger. The contrast just amused me. 

Donating blood has never been such a cheerful experience!

This is a general view of an average street around Seoul. Lots of cars. Lots of people. Lots of signs. 

Hyehwa does definitely have some unique architecture though. It's difficult to find buildings like this in the rest of the city. It is the theatre district, so it has a fun, artsy vibe. 

And lots of cool coffee shops. 

This is something I encounter in lots of places around Korea. I'm constantly amazed that there aren't more electrical fires. 

I have no clue what a music monster is, but I want one! It's so cute!

There were also some really fun stores to browse around. 

The Shop of original sensibility. 

It had lots of fun knick-knack types of things. 

I don't really know what to make of this, but we walked around a corner, and there it was. 

If you want happiness, all you need to do is come to this store! They sell it by the cup. It was right next to this store:

The small text says "Casual Wine & Bar". I've always wondered what made casual wine different from formal wine. 

This was a fun mural that was painted next to the lock museum. 

I've heard good things about this jazz club, but I've never been to it. 

You should really never question what you find in Korea. Why in the world would it cause confusion to walk down the street and see a MASSIVE statue of Gandalf the White? 

In just one building, you have a Texas Western Ice Bar and Beard Papa's. What more could you need?

More cars, lights and people. 

How this combination of chef and chimp is supposed to make me want Italian food is a mystery to me, but there we have it. 

Finally, this store was the piece de resistance for the day. It's called "Dong Bang". The "Bang" (pronounced bahng, not like a gun) translates to bread. I think the "Dong" part is self-explanatory :)

The employees had great uniforms. They were also really friendly. 

This is what it came out looking like. It was surprisingly delicious. It was like eating a cupcake, only the frosting was inside and it was all warm and gooey. It's also hard to see in this picture (which is unfortunate), but it has a little face on it. Awesome.