I've thought for awhile now that I should order a daylight alarm clock (a/k/a sunrise alarm clock). I am not a morning person. I love sleeping. I do not wake up refreshed and ready to start the day. I wish I could afford to pay someone to come into my house every morning and physically roll me out of bed. It would have to be a stranger because if anyone I knew did this to me I would never forgive that person, even though it had been done at my request. The first feeling I feel upon waking up in the morning is an intense anger that you could probably accurately describe as "rage."
It's possible that Adam Dachis made this image to describe my reaction to someone waking me up.
It's not something I'm proud of.
So I thought that a daylight alarm clock would be worth a shot because it might work and it couldn't make me less likely to get up in the morning. But I'm cheap, so I kept putting it off. But the other day, I broke down and ordered one. It should be delivered today. I'm super excited.
I can't wait to try it out. Of course, I'm still feeling under the weather, and I have mucho sick time to burn, so I will probably stay home tomorrow, obviating the need for the alarm. Then again, I could set my alarm and see how I'm feeling in the morning. That wouldn't be the best test of my new alarm clock, because if it didn't work or just made me wake up angry (like every other alarm clock ever), I wouldn't know if it was because the alarm clock doesn't work well for me or because I'm cranky from not feeling well.
But I'll probably try it anyway because I cannot resist new gadgets.
On a different note, I'm so grateful for Anipang. It turns out that when you can't get to sleep because your head hurts and your throat is killing you but you are too exhausted to even watch t.v., you can still play Anipang to pass the time. I wish I could say that my scores have improved these past few days, but alas, not so much.
I seem to have developed a cold. I can tell that I really don't feel well because it's noon and I'm still wearing my pajamas. Usually I can't stand staying in the pajamas I slept in for any real amount of time after I get up in the morning. Sometimes I want to lounge around in pjs, but in that case, I change in to a different set of pajamas, or just some yoga pants and a t-shirt. Never the same pjs that I slept in. So when I don't mind not changing clothes, I know I don't feel well.
I would rather have a cold than a stomach virus or strep throat, but of course having a cold isn't exactly fun, either. I'm grossing myself out with the coughing and the phlegm, and then of course there's "the smell." Whenever I have a sinus infection or similar trouble in my sinuses, I can smell this smell, and all I can think is that I'm smelling phlegm. Disgusting, right? That's why I shared. I don't want to be the only one grossed out. I'm selfish like that.
Now that I've shared that with you, I guess I should go take another nap. I've been awake for two whole hours, and I think that's long enough to earn another nap.
I will leave you with a link to a post from two years ago, when I also had a cold and had to purchase new tired for my car, which I think is way worse. It kinda puts having this cold in perspective. But back then I was also in the middle of my running phase, so I was in better shape overall. I guess I should start exercising again. But not now. Now, I nap.
Greetings, all! I hope the new year is treating you well so far.
I don't make new year's resolutions because if you think that you need to make a change, you should just go ahead and do it. But this year, the timing worked out that the break I was taking on a few projects came to its self-imposed end point right around the end of the year. That means that although I don't exactly call them resolutions, I have re-started some projects that I took a vacation from after Thanksgiving.
Unfortunately, I'm having my usual overkill problem on new projects. Whenever I pick back up a project after a break, I'm excited about what I am going to accomplish now that I'm rested and newly invigorated. I overestimate how much spare time I'll have, as well as how much energy I have, and I underestimate how much time I'll have to give to those unplanned activities that pop up and can't be put off. So then I start taking on even more projects. I have perhaps too much on my plate right now.
But I'm actually learning from past mistakes! Last night I decided that, while I can still do those new projects, I can't start on them until March, when I expect to have wrapped up some of the other things I've got going on. It's possible by then that I won't even still won't to do the Brand New Great Idea Of Thing For Me To Learn by then, and then I'll just have some free time. That would be really nice.
So, sadly, reading a textbook on immunology, learning to code, and catching up on all the latest updates to federal tax law will have to wait.
As you can imagine, I am a lot of fun at parties. I tell myself that I don't get invited to a lot of parties anymore because of my food allergies, but it's probably more about how quickly I make the other guests leave.
I don't have a lot else going on. I took a break from working weekends during the holidays, but I'm going to have to start doing that again. I really wish I could talk about work on this blog, but the people I'd most want to talk about do not have a sense of humor. If by any chance they found this blog, there would be so much of The Drama. But you guys are missing out. It's like "The Office" in there most days. I really, really want to talk about our Halloween party, for example, but the fallout would be too great. I'm not exaggerating--NO sense of humor.
In other news, I seem to be allergic to everything now. I have tried doing a rotation diet to figure out what it is that I'm reacting to, but I can't pin it down. I even tried cutting out coffee for a few days. My conclusion: if I can't figure out what the problem is, there's no reason to cut out either coffee or chocolate.
In pop culture news, I'm mundo excited about the new episodes of "Arrested Development."
Anyway, best of luck to everyone on their plans for the new year!
This year I decided to give baked goods as Christmas presents to most of the people on my list. It's kind of a long story about why we're going this route, but part of it has to do with the money and stress that all of our family members tend to put into buying each other gifts. We figure that baked goods are something pleasant to receive and also that eventually our family members will realize that they really aren't ever getting a new shop vac out of us, they'll stop trying to buy presents for us. Hopefully, this will be our year because we already warned them that if they wanted to buy us presents, they could, but we wouldn't give them a wish list, and all they were getting was cookies.
So this led to a lot of baking. I'm inordinately fond of eating, but I don't enjoy kitchen time at all. Because of my bright baked-goods-as-gifts idea, however, I spent a whole lotta time in there last month, with mixed results. The first round was making peanut butter cookies and chocolate cookies for our friend JK, who always gives us homemade toffee at Christmas. The chocolate cookies spread into lace cookies for some reason, so that was kind of a bust. Then one batch of the peanut butter cookies was cooling on the cooling rack when, for no apparent reason, it just fell off the counter and onto the floor. RR and I gave some serious thought to eating them anyway, but we were able to restrain ourselves. But oh, what a waste of cookie. That did not give us confidence about the our baking mojo and made us think we'd entered "a phase," something that happens with us on occasion, when for some reason or other everything we make turns out terribly. I immediately began warning all of my friends that their Christmas cookies might be not so great.
The next round, fortunately, turned out much better. Expensive, but better. We may have saved ourselves the trouble of figuring out what to give people, but we did not saving money at all when you add up what we spent on ingredients. But after the first disappointing round, everything we made turned out fantastic.
One round of peanut butter cookies we made at our parents' house. We suggested coming over and making cookies together while watching a Christmas movie, and they said that sounded fun. But then when we got there, my dad didn't want to watch a Christmas movie because he's already watched all the ones we like because they'd been playing on cable non-stop. And then the extent of their helping with the cookies was in that they did some taste testing for us. So that was not as much fun as we'd hoped it would be.
We had one more go-round the next weekend, making stuff for our family. I didn't even care at that point if they liked what we made them because I know how much effort I'll be putting in to make the stuff. It took forever. But we made pecan bars that were so good I briefly thought about eating them myself, as well as peanut butter cookies, billionaires, and pralines.
It's no wonder that I put on weight in December. You have to sample as you bake because you have to make sure that you aren't giving away food that looks nice but tastes awful. And so even though we gave away far, far more than we ate, we still got pretty tired of chocolate, or really anything sweet. That would have been fine except that we bought a lot of chocolate to eat on the day after Christmas, when we thought it would be fun to sit around reading, drinking coffee, and eating an inexcusable amount of chocolate. By the time Christmas rolled around, that plan didn't seem so fun. I hope that chocolate freezes well because into the freezer it went when we reached the breaking point.
I’ve been working on some other posts, but work has pretty much consumed my life lately, so it’s slow going. But I didn’t want to completely abandon my blog until things cool down, so I thought I’d write something quick about entertainment/pop culture. Filler material, this is what my blog has become! Pretend it's very insightful.
First, some Korean stuff. I know, that’s all I ever write about lately. I don’t watch a lot of television, and when I do, it’s usually so that it can help me with my language learning, so it’s either French or Korean. But the French television I can find over here is honestly not that good. The one show I liked, YouTube shut down the videos, so I can’t watch it anymore.
So, anyway. K-pop. I don’t listen to it much because I don’t listen to pop music much, so I can’t make many recommendations. Earlier this year I thought K-pop was taking an interesting turn in the direction of being, well, interesting, but I think I was mistaken. The K-pop star Junsu came out with a song, Tarantallegra, which I was determined to hate for its stupid name alone. And as I started watching the video so that I could hear the song I was ready to mock, for the first part of the video, I was happily surprised—surprised by how it was so much worse than I thought it would be.
Let me back up and fill you in on why my expectations were so low, even aside from the song’s name. I had heard two songs involving Junsu before. One, when he was a member of the boy band TVXQ. After hearing about one of their songs from EYK, RR and I pulled up the video. The song was pop-y but catchy, so we watched the video to the end. The guys seemed like good dancers. And then, then, at the end of the video: dancing ninjas. That’s not ok, you guys. Ninjas don’t dance in k-pop videos, and if they did, we wouldn’t see them, they’d be too stealthy. I guess these ninjas were ninja-like in that we really didn't see them coming. We completely did not expect them. So, anyway, cool factor—gone. This was a band we would not be taking seriously.
Then that group broke up, and three of the members—including Junsu—formed a new group, JYJ. We had heard that the split was due to issues with management, so we thought, awesome, sticking it to the big corporation, we should support these guys, even though we aren’t really pop music’s biggest fans.
We saw exactly one video, which we couldn’t even make it all the way through: “Ayy Girl.” If you like that kind of music (I don’t), I guess the song is good, but I defy you to defend that video. It was awful, in the kind of way that makes you wonder if it had been meant as a joke. And that was the end of our ability to support JYJ.
So, anyway, apparently Junsu came out with a solo album as well, which I didn’t know anything about because I don’t keep up with K-pop and I didn’t know the names of any of the band members anyway, so if I had heard "Junsu has a solo album," that would have meant nothing to me. This song was off that album, I guess? I don’t know. Anyway, so I started watching the video, and Holy MST3K-worthiness, Batman. The clothes! The clothes were so Vanilla Ice! And then he started dancing. And the dancing was so very Vanilla Ice-esque! I was delightfully horrified. I had thought that we humans had all agreed that anything remotely reminiscent of Vanilla Ice was something we’d never accept again except as a joke. But here it was, on my computer screen, apparently not a joke.
But then, you guys, I had to change my mind. As the video went on, it became clear that this song was an actually catchy dance song, and this guy can actually dance. And I don’t mean that this guy has memorized a lot of complicated choreography, I mean he makes it look easy, like his legs just move that way. That's the kind of dance skills I envy. Gene Kelly, Bi/Rain, Jane Powell kind of talent.
But what makes the video interesting is the androgynous role that Junsu takes in the video. There are other groups I've seen that have an androgynous member, but always in a "that's the cute one, that's the best dancer, that's the best singer, that's the androgynous one" kind of way. This is the first time in recent years that I've seen a pop star, K-pop or otherwise, be aggressively, purposefully androgynous, in a "I'm hereby challenging all of your views on gender roles and who you are or believe you should be attracted to" kind of way, a "I dare you not think I'm sexy right now despite how confused you're feeling" kind of way.* That's interesting, and it’s different. I was really excited for a bit that we might be seeing a new direction in pop music that would make it interesting to watch again, culturally-speaking. I think RR got tired of me talking about it, frankly.
*I can't say I find him attractive because, he’s, like, 12, or enough younger than me that he might as well be 12. If I were a teenage girl, I’d probably think he was cute. As it is, I just want to tell him to put a shirt on under his jacket.
But instead, next from him we got dancing pirates. Just kidding! It was just a normal looking music video. I don’t know, maybe the song is good, I watched about 3 seconds of it. Maybe there were pirates later on in the video. But from the part I saw, it wasn’t signaling that he was interested in challenging cultural norms, so I’m back to not paying attention to K-pop until someone tells me that somebody’s doing something to make people uncomfortable in the right kind of way.
And now for something completely different. Here's a super cute video (love the ending) for a mellow song by Busker Busker. While we were in Korea back in May, our friend MJ told us that this was her favorite Korean song at the time, which made for a nice bonding moment. I love it when you discover that you and your friend love the same song, plus now we have a new song to add to our noraebang repertoire. Even months later, it still has the ability to chill me out when I’m having a bad day.
If this song doesn't mellow you out a little bit, and you don't think this video is even a little bit adorable, then you probably also don't like sunshine or Wes Anderson films or that cute little noises that babies make.
Speaking of Wes Anderson, I still haven't gotten sick of that one Hyundai commercial he did. And I can bring that up here because it's pop culture-y and because Hyundai is a Korean company.
As for t.v., we finally finished watching “History of the Salaryman,” and I still say that this is one of the best t.v. shows I've seen in a long, long time. I agree with commenters who say that the show would have been better if it hadn't changed from a show about character development into one of good guys vs. bad guys. But even though it could have been better, it still makes my list of all-time faves. [And it got us to watch “Dr. Champ” so we could watch Jung Gyu Woon as a character we didn’t hate, and although that series was highly, highly predictable, it was also seriously adorable. Sometimes you just need cute.]
Kim Seong Oh has a small role in “Salaryman,” and while watching it I realized that he was also in two of my favorite movies (Ajusshi/Man From Nowhere and Kiss Me, Kill Me, both of which I've written about on this blog). And he played (believably) a totally different character in all three. So I guess I should be a fan of his, too, seeing as how he's proven himself to be a skilled actor.
As far as Korean movies, we recently saw "The Thieves" in the theater. I had a few quibbles with it, and I didn’t like that it made me sad in parts, but I liked it overall. If you like heist/caper films, this one is worth watching.
On the Europe front, PBS recently aired another series of the Wallander adaptations by Kenneth Branagh, which you know I like. I only got to see one episode, but it was as tense as always. I really hope Netflix starts streaming it soon. This series is beautiful to look at and very suspenseful, very well-acted. And speaking of Wallander, has anyone has seen any of the Swedish adaptations? I think I can get the movies on Netflix, but I wasn’t sure if they were any good. I may just have to watch to find out.
As far as U.S. television goes, I don’t watch it much because I can never remember when stuff comes on, but I have been enjoying “Elementary.” I pick holes in every episode, but I still like it, possibly because I just really like Lucy Liu. I know some people get all twisted up with annoyance about how CBS is trying and failing to copy the British “Sherlock” series, but I’m not one of them. For one thing, the shows are entirely different, and I don’t think adaptations are like the Highlander and THERE CAN ONLY BE ONE. I would be happy if there more Sherlock Holmes adaptations on, each take a little different. And furthermore, although some episodes of “Sherlock” are fantastically good (the pilot episode took me from being skeptical about a modern day Holmes to being 100% on board with it), others . . . aren’t. The acting is always very good, but the plots/scripts of some episodes should not win any awards.
So that’s it for my long, not that helpful pop culture post. Does anyone have any good foreign films or t.v. shows to recommend?
Wednesday morning we got up, finished packing, went downstairs for our taxi, and headed to the airport. We enjoyed the view from the taxi on the way back. We were able to see a little more of the city, the Han, and (I think) the ocean than we had on the train ride in from the aiport because we'd been busy talking to MJ instead of staring out the windows. We enjoyed the view. It was raining, and I always like to see what a city looks like in the rain. We were a little distracted by this monitor-thing the taxi had on his dash. It was like a GPS, but it kept beeping at the driver and talking to him, but it didn't seem to be giving him directions. Finally RR figured out that it was telling him that he was speeding. Yeah, he pretty much sped the whole way there. By a lot. I had heard some crazy things about some Korean drivers, and maybe everything I'd heard is true, but as far as I can tell, a taxi driver is a taxi driver is a taxi driver. That's a big generalization, but come on. You know I'm right about that. I've only ever been driven by two types of taxi drivers: (1) chatty drivers who drive too slowly because they spend too much time talking and not enough time focusing and (2) drivers who are totally focused on getting to the destination as fast as possible and are completely unconcerned about the safety of their passengers. So this guy's driving didn't surprise or bother me.
At the airport, we returned our rented cell phone and bought a few things at some of the shops at the airport. They have some pretty nice shops at that airport. I could probably spend a whole day there. And I could be wrong, but the prices didn't seem as marked up as the stuff at the U.S. airports I've been to.
The flight back was not the best flight I've ever been on. Poor RR did not feel well at all, and I think she threw up twice. I spent at least 7 hours trying not to throw up myself. I rewatched the movies that I'd watched on the way over, plus the new Muppets movie, which I enjoyed. I don't know that it goes well with the other movies in the Muppet oeuvre, but I still liked it. I also watched part of a Korean t.v. movie that I didn't have time to finish. I cannot find it online anywhere, and I don't know how it ended. This will bother me for a long, long time. It wasn't even that great of a movie, even for a television movie. I know I can accurately guess how it ends. But I don't know. And I feel like I need to know, and not knowing will leave this tiny hole in me, like I'll spend the rest of my life feeling incomplete.
That seems a little over dramatic. Probably I have been watching too many k-dramas.
Another problem with the flight? One row back and to the left of us, a couple sat with their small child. He was somewhere between 4 and 6. I don't know. I can't tell with kids. We should have known he'd be a troublemaker because while the passengers were still boarding, he had already begun ordering his mother around. He started with an angry "Mom, sit down," and he just never stopped. The kid was a brat and didn't shut up for the entire flight. I certainly don't enjoy being stuck on a flight with a child that won't stop crying, but realistically, there's only so much a parent can do with young children. It's to be expected from kids if you're traveling on a commercial flight, and you can't expect parents to never, ever travel. Allowances must be made if we expect people to keep procreating.
But this kid was not just a young boy with the short attention span that all kids have. No, he was a brat to his parents the whole time. I don't blame him, I blame his parents. These were not parents who have tried and have just given up. I see those parents in the stores all the time, pleading with their children to just behave until they leave the store. These parents, however, were not at all concerned with how their kid behaved. They didn't even try to get him to stop. They had completely given him the control in their relationship. They just ignored him, which clearly didn't work. The whole flight, y'all. The WHOLE flight. Thirteen hours. No, wait, I take that back. About ten minutes before the plane landed, he fell asleep. I don't blame him. Being that awful will wear a person out. I really hope that the parents had just had a really exhausting trip and normally at least try to help their child grow up into a functioning adult. Otherwise, he will have no real friends in life.
Moving on to my favorite topic: food! As I think I mentioned in my post about the flight over, we again ate the Jain meal, which was delicious but definitely contained something we reacted to. It was the height of stupidity to eat it on this trip considering we already suspected a problem with it from our flight over. The fact that we ate it again when they served dinner was indefensible. Yes, we didn't want to seem rude by refusing to eat the meals we had ordered, but I'm sure the flight attendants couldn't care less. And if we had had some kind of serious reaction, that would have been way more inconvenient for the flight attendants than the inconvenience of heating up food that nobody ate.
Because of the combination of my already developing motion sickness with the nausea that often accompanies an allergic reaction, neither RR nor I felt at all well. Because of that, I started eating the food I had brought on the plane with me because sometimes eating bland or absorbent food (like bread) will help settle my stomach. So I ate some gluten-free rolls that I had brought on the trip. Then I ate a rice cake. Then I ate a ginger cookie because the cookies was soft and because ginger supposedly helps with nausea. I say supposedly because the only time I'd ever tried it before was before I had learned to love ginger, and the taste of ginger ale at that point was enough to make me gag. Anyway, I didn't stop there. I pretty much ate all of the food I had left over from the trip. I figured I didn't need to ration it anymore since it's purpose--to feed me on the trip--was over as soon as the plane landed. And that's true. But just because you can eat an enormous amount of food does not mean that it's a good idea to do so. I started off pretty well, pacing myself and trying not to eat more calories than I would normally consume in a day. But after awhile I got confused about what day I was supposed to be counting calories for--do I finish out the Korea day, or do I just go ahead and start on the next (well, technically, previous) U.S. day? Do I go by Korea time or U.S. time? After awhile, I just said screw it, I'm nauseated and I love food. Of course, at some point in this it did occur to me to just stop eating, but . . . I didn't. Sometimes when I don't feel well, I'll just keep eating on the assumption that at some point, it will make me feel better. It never does unless the reason I'm nauseated is hunger, but I still keep trying.
Anyway, back to Korea. Or rather, back to us coming back from Korea. Next up: customs for the uninitiated!
When we finally landed, nauseated and exhausted, we then had to figure out how to navigate through customs. We didn't understand that we didn't have to list every single item we purchased on the customs form, so we started out using a bunch of them. We couldn't understand why pretty much everyone on our flight only needed one form. Thankfully, someone came along and told us that we could group things together, so, for example, we could list "souvenirs" and then state the value of all the souvenirs together. That made things easier. Of course, I still had to list everything I had bought so that I could figure out how to value everything. As I wrote my purchases in a notebook, I realized, "oooooh, this is where all my money went. Food and beauty products!" It seems there's truth in that expression about how you can't run away from yourself and no matter where you go, you'll still be you.
I realize that most people probably just guess at the value of the stuff they are bringing back from overseas, but we do not do that. You know how in the movie French Kiss, Meg Ryan's character gets mad at Kevin Kline's character for using her to smuggle a plant into the country without her knowledge, and she demands to know what would have happened if she'd been caught, and he responds basically that someone like her would never get stopped because she would declare a pack of gum? That's us. We are that type of person. We are not scofflaws. And if we decided to deviate from our comfort one and not to declare something, we'd spend the rest of our lives feeling guilty--and a little nervous that at some point, we'd have the feds knocking on our door wanting to know why we didn't see fit to declare that candy bar or those Q-tips.
That being said, when I glanced over at the form RR was filling out and saw that she had dutifully noted "brown rice" on the form, I thought, "Mistake!" Thanks to one of our friends who spends almost as much time out of the country as he does here at home, I was pretty sure that uncooked brown rice was something that they'd have to inspect before letting it in. I didn't think RR was going to wind up in the slammer for trying to bring back food, but I did think it would complicate our departure from the airport. And it did. The man who went over her form before stamping her passport to let her back in the country told her he didn't think it was a big deal, but he knew the customs inspectors would want to look at it, so he marked her customs form. Then when we got to the customs part, the man who looked at her form said he didn't think it mattered, but since the first guy had flagged it, he had to inspect it. I don't think those two departments are communicating very well.
I had no idea what was going on with the customs part because I'd been passed through already and wasn't allowed to wait for her in that area. Meanwhile, my mom, who was our ride home from the airport, was texting me frequently wanting to know what gate we were near and how long it would be. And that was interrupting my response to our well-traveled friend who had texted me a welcome back to the country message asking how our trip was. And here I will say that he is a much better friend than I am. He knew not only the day but pretty much the exact time that we'd get out of customs, whereas when I never know where he is. We spend a lot of time doing this: Me, texting: "Do you want to go to the movies this weekend?" Him: "Well, like I told you a few days ago, I'm in [Hong Kong/Mainland China/Italy/Paris/Mexico/India], so . . . no." So anyway, I was trying to text two people at once, including my mom who would send me a new text while I was still trying to respond to her previous one. All I could tell her was that I didn't know how long we'd be because I don't know anything about customs and I was waiting for RR, who'd been stopped by customs because of a bag of rice. Fortunately, it didn't take long for her to get passed through. I think absolutely none of the guys dealing with the rice situation really wanted to spend time dealing with rice.
So, anyway, we left the airport, and our mom took us back to my parents' house, which isn't far from the airport. I'd left my car at their house, so we went by there to pick up the car. We were ok on the sleepiness level on the drive home, probably from the adrenaline we got from getting home. But not long after we got home, it became apparent that our plan to stay awake to avoid jet lag was going to be difficult to stick to. I cannot remember the last time I felt that sleepy. Everything was painful. We watched movies to stay awake, by which I mean we stared at the television without comprehending anything we saw. It was awful. I think it would have been fine if we'd been able to sleep on the plane, but thanks to motion sickness and That Child, that didn't happen. We finally allowed ourselves to go to bed a little after 7 p.m. When we woke up on Thursday, we weren't too off schedule. The weird thing was, it didn't feel like we'd been out of the country at all.
And that was it for our first trip to South Korea. I hope we can visit again--and that next time, we don't have to fly economy class.
Tuesday was our last full day in Korea, and we were determined to find a place to buy cute Korean office supplies. We were, however, defeated by the confusing layout of Korean roads, at least in Seoul, anyway. No grid system here, my friends! Street signs? Maps labeled with street names? Please. Those are for wimps! Nope, nothing to guide our way there but a few sites on the internet that said to take a certain exit from a certain subway stop, walk straight ahead, and turn right by a pharmacy. Well, we walked quite a ways and never saw a pharmacy.
We were able to find a different set of directions, which were actually substantially the same, except they named a different subway station and exit. We tried that one, too. Never did find that pharmacy. Many blocks were made that day, and nary a stationery store was seen, despite much walking and google-mapping. We did, however, find Doota, which we decided to visit despite it's ridiculous-sounding name. But not for shopping. No, we spotted Doota while sitting forlornly on the ledge of planter-bench-thing, eating our snacks, when we saw Doota across the street. One look quick online search revealed that Doota had both a coffee shop and an information desk. And so, we ventured across the busy street on the promise of coffee and the hope of an English-speaking person at an information desk who could direct us to the stationery street.
We didn't like the coffee--not their fault, I just don't like iced americanos but keep on buying them. The woman at the information desk did speak English, but she couldn't direct us to where we wanted to go. She just pointed us in the general direction and said we'd have to ask someone else on the way because it was too complicated to describe to us. Basically, we'd have to get directions from a different person for different sections of our trip there. Um, no thanks. That just seemed like an excellent way to come up with a blog entry titled, "How I spent three days wandering lost in Dongdaemun." But the good part of us wandering around for awhile is that we came across Dongdaemun Gate, which we would not have seen if we'd known where we were going.
[Side note: speaking (sort of) of Korean fashion, here's something we noticed. Well, I noticed after RR pointed it out. There seem to be a not small number of women walking around sporting white shirts with dark-colored bras. Is that a thing now? Is it a world-wide trend or just a Korea thing? Over here that's considered kind of tacky. Don't get me wrong, I totally did that in college in my "I wear what I want, damn the conventions" stage of life that most college students go through. And for me that stage lasted a few years after college, too, I'm not going to lie. But women over college age generally don't do that here. Is it just me? Are we just really behind the times here in Texas? Is this my sign that I'm officially old now? Is this my "hey, kids, get off my lawn" moment?]
Before we left Doota, we decided to make use of the restrooms. One of our unwritte rules when out and about is "Go before you go," meaning that before you leave a place that probably has a decent bathroom, you go make use of it because you don't know when you'll next find acceptable facilities. On our way up to the floor with the restrooms, we saw lots of shops with clothes that were very "us." Unfortunately, we'd already spent all our budgeted shopping money. Regrets, we had them. I could have happily redone my entire wardrobe based on some of the clothes I saw there.
And while I was in the restroom, I got treated to a Phil Collins song being played on the sound system, and not even a good Phil Collins song. Even in Korea, the shopping center background music of choice is easy listening Top 40. Like death, it's inescapable.
On the way home, we decided to try and find the Institute of Traditional Korean Food. We didn't want to go to the museum part. I mean, we did, but we didn't have time, so we prioritized. In other words, yes, we wanted to go to the cafe part and buy more dduk. We did find it and were disproportionately proud of ourselves for doing so. Inside the cafe, it looked just like the little tea room restaurants that old people love so much over here. I have spent a lot of lunches in those tea shops, so I immediately felt at home. And then we bought more dduk than we needed. The street that the Institute is on is completely lovely and charming, and I wanted to move there immediately.
Chocolate castle on the left, Jilsiru Cafe on the right
Right across the street was Chocolate Castle, a place I'd read about that makes and sells--you guess it, chocolates. It seemed fortuitous that here was a place I'd read about and wanted to visit and I hadn't had to try and find it on our my own. We took that as a sign that we should definitely patronize Chocolate Castle. Actually, the sign outside said "Chateau Chocolate Castle," which technically translates to Castle Chocolate Castle, or Chocolate Castle Castle. We decided to give the proprietors the benefit of the doubt and conclude that the sign only says "Chocolate Castle," just in both French and English. Of course, the packaging the chocolate came in said "Chocolate Museum," and we weren't sure how that fit in. But you know what? We didn't care. Those chocolates were fantastic, so if they want to call their store Castle Chocolate Castle Museum, that's ok with us.
We weren't able to ask the woman behind the counter about ingredients because we don't speak enough Korean to ask if any of it was safe for us. But we bought some for friends and family, and we bought a drink (called "chocolate elixir") for ourselves. Y'all, it was so good. I was pretty sure I had a mild reaction to it, but I didn't even care. The woman was so nice, and super sweet to RR for her conducting the transaction in Korean. If we lived there and spoke fluent Korean, I'd probably get annoyed if people were always surprised and patronizingly "good for you!" when finding out I spoke the language. But I don't speak it, and we were clearly tourists, so it just came across as encouraging and sweet. If you find yourself in Seoul, I suggest you go and treat yourself.
On our way home, we came across one of the other palaces we'd meant to go to, and then we discovered that we were quite close to our hotel. It meant we didn't have a long walk back, which was nice, but it also made us wish we'd walked in that direction earlier in our trip. We really liked that area and would have liked to have spent more time there exploring. Oh, well! Maybe next time.
Oh, I forgot to say that in the morning, before heading out on our fruitless stationery excursion, we had swung by De Chocolate Coffee in Insadong to buy some gifts for folks back home. Some people really like souvenirs, others just think of them as something they want to throw out but feel they have to keep, so we thought we'd buy food for our family members. That way they'd know we thought of them, but they didn't have to keep some trinket they had no use for. Anyway, as a name, De Chocolate Coffee doesn't really make sense, in French or in English. But considering how many places here in the States try to use French names to sound fancy, only to end up looking ridiculous to anyone who understands French, I'm not going to pick on this place. From what we were told, the dark chocolate that we brought back from there was very chocolatey and enjoyable. Of course, the people telling me this are very not picky about chocolate, so keep that in mind if you are trying to decide whether to go there. The poor young guys working the counter looked terrified when we walked in, so I'm guessing that English is not their strong point despite working in a very touristy area. We did our best with our limited Korean--ok, RR did--and we walked out there with most of what we'd wanted.
And that was pretty much it for our last full day in Korea. On our way back to the hotel, we stopped at the 7-11 across the street to buy some of the interesting looking snack items we'd seen there for our family. If your family appreciates a good showing of Engrish, then the 7-11 is a good souvenir destination. When we got back to the hotel, we asked them to arrange a taxi to pick us up the next morning, and we went upstairs to pack and crash for the night.
I had a good time all in all. I'm just sad I didn't get a chance to see the famous Koreanpylons. I'm joking but also serious. In many a K-drama, the characters will go to the Han to break up, to argue, to threaten someone, to divulge a secret, or to ponder over an Important Decision, and the two-guys-fighting scenes always seem to happen near pylons. I love drama cliches. Well, not if it ruins an otherwise original, quality drama. I guess I should say that I love spotting and making fun of drama cliches. As a result, every time we crossed over the Han on our way to some destination, I had a hard time not laughing. I really wanted to be able to go to a spot by the Han, lean on the hood of a car, and have RR take a picture of me looking pensive. I feel like my trip wasn't complete because I didn't get to do that. But I can't really complain. The only problem with our trip was that we had more that we wanted to do than we had time for. Next time we go, we'll plan better.
The next day was Monday in Korea. The first thing on our agenda was to go see some palaces. Actually, the very first thing on our agenda was to go back to the book coffee shop we had gone to with MJ before and treat ourselves to an iced mocha each. It was yummy. Having been both cooled down, sugared-up, and mildly caffeinated, we were ready to tour. Before we went, though, we had to make a stop at a store in Insadong. See, while we were sipping our coffees, RR and I discussed what souvenirs we wanted to bring back for our friends and families. For my friend K, I wanted to bring back either something very Engrishy or something completely bizarre. I was describing the kind of thing I wanted, and RR said that she hadn't yet seen anything really terrible yet. I leaned forward to say conspiratorially, "I have." She reacted with the appropriate level of enthusiasm. And what was this thing of which I spoke? Sadly, I don't have a picture of it. On our previous trip to Insadong with MJ, I'd walked past a store with a table outside that was filled with knick-knack type items. On that table was a creepy and possibly offensive statuette figurine thing of a small white boy. It wasn't quite like this, but it was of that genre. I couldn't say anything at the time because MJ was there, and I didn't want her to feel any sort of responsibility, as a representative of her country, for the creepy thing. But it was definitely weird. So on our way to the palace, I showed RR, and she was suitably horrified. I don't know why I didn't buy the thing. I will probably always regret it.
We headed north toward where we thought the first palace was. Turns out that we were pretty close to it. We had figured it was probably walking distance, but we hadn't realized how close it actually was.
We joined up with the free English tour, and I'm glad we did because it was quite informative. I don't normally like tours, but this one was worth it. Having the background information made it even more interesting. Some parts of the palace we already knew something about from watching an old episode of 1N2D--who knew television would actually be helpful! Also, that place is huge. The movies and t.v. shows don't do it justice. We very much enjoyed our visit to the palace. I felt bad for our tour guide at the end because no one asked questions. I wanted to tell her that I can't speak for other cultures, but Americans generally don't ask questions unless they are a particular type of person that the rest of us all hate. You know, the ones who either ask stupid questions that reveal some sort of ignorance or, worse, bigotry, or who ask questions just to hear themselves talk. Sometimes you do get genuinely curious people, but that's rare. And even when you have a legitimate question, usually we don't want to ask questions for fear of making ourselves look ignorant, or of annoying everyone else who just wants to leave and now has to wait for the answer so they don't look rude for leaving while the tour guide is talking. Is that a universal thing or just an American thing?
On our way out, we passed the Korean Folklore Museum, which is on the same grounds as the palace. Surprisingly, RR did not want to stop in. I say surprisingly because normally there isn't a museum that she doesn't want to see. But we had a lot of walking ahead of us, and we didn't want to wear ourselves out. Later, however, we realized that the museum probably had a gift shop, and we were annoyed with ourselves for not thinking of that while we were there. Museum gift shops are one of our favorite places to visit. But maybe next time, right?
On our way back to the hotel, we walked down Gamgodang-gil, a street near the palace. We weren't exactly sure where we were going, but we'd heard good things about that area and were pretty sure the street would get us where we wanted to go eventually. I'm so glad we went that way. The street is lovely and a perfect example of why Americans today are idiots when it comes to transportation planning. It's perfectly possible to have a street that cars can drive down but yet encourages use by pedestrians--and is actually safe for them. I don't blame the planners who originally came up with our terrible modern cars-only street designs--they thought they were making the roads safer and more efficient, and they had no idea how badly it would turn out. But I do blame today's engineers, city officials, and most of all, city residents who insist that the way we design roads is the only way we can design roads, the only way for emergency vehicles to be effective, the only way to be safe for pedestrians, the only way to have efficient city traffic. I resent the people who panic at the thought of Something Different. So while I really enjoyed the walk, it was a bittersweet experience. The whole time I thought about how much more pleasant our neighborhoods would be if they had just a few streets like that one. Go over to RR's blog if you want to see a picture of it. And here's a picture of a different part of the road, courtesy of google street view.
We had already decided that after seeing the palace, we were going to head back to Myeong-dong, which we did. I'd like to say it was because we wanted to do some bargain hunting, but the truth was that we wanted more chestnuts. Yes, we went for food. But we did do some shopping while we were there. We wanted to buy some makeup for our teenage cousin. Of course, while we in one of the shops, I wound up getting suckered into buying some cream for myself after the saleswoman pointed out it would be good for my skin, seeing how my face looked so dry around the eyes. Apparently, skin care salespeople in Korea use the same techniques as skin care salespeople here in the U.S. Later, I looked up what I had bought and found out it had snail in it. I know that should have been obvious since it said "escargot" on the label, but I guess I didn't think it was supposed to be literal.
By the way, one of the samples I got from something I bought was described as having placenta protein in it. I threw that one out.
After we did our cosmetic shopping, we went to Shinsegae department store to the basement area, which sells groceries. We wanted to buy some bok choy and some mushrooms to throw into a soup with our dduk. An older woman who worked there took the package of bok choy that we had selected away from us and gave us a different package, pointing to the price tag to show us that it was cheaper. And then she took away our mushrooms and gave us a different pack, pointing out that they were fresher. She was really sweet and managed to help us even with the language barrier. I know some Americans have had some issues with customer service while visiting Korea, and some Westerners have had to deal with issues with racism/prejudice, but while we were there, we didn't have any problems. Everyone was very welcoming and helpful to us.
So, anyway, we headed home by subway. All by ourselves! And back at the hotel, we made what turned out to be really, really good soup. And we had survived our first full day in Korea all by ourselves. MJ and Husband had nothing to worry about.
In the last week, I've had to replace my modem and my car's engine. I'm not too concerned about either of those events, because that's how life goes. But it wrecked plans I had for doing fun things with money I'd saved, and it put me behind on things that involve the internet (like this blog). But bear with me, and hopefully I will have more time to blog, and more interesting things to talk about than car engines and modems. In the meantime, you will have to make do with a few more posts about my vacation.
Sunday was the wedding. We weren't exactly sure how to do our hair, never having been to--much less in--a Korean wedding before, so we just did what we'd do if we were attending a wedding in the U.S. "Done" but not too fancy. We took a taxi to the wedding location because we didn't want to try to take the subway in the heels we were wearing. We were in Insadong, and the wedding was in Gangnam, so it wasn't a short taxi ride, but it wasn't exactly long, either. Nevertheless, it was long enough to make me regret sitting. I had taken the time to steam my dress--with a steamer we bought at E-Mart and then lugged home on the subway--but it was linen, so of course by the time we got there, I looked like I had slept in it. When she saw me, MJ assured me that I didn't look that wrinkled, but she wasn't wearing her contacts, so you can't take her word for it. RR looked lovely. Her dress was not wrinkled, or if it was, you couldn't tell because the skirt was pleated. So maybe I looked like a homeless financial adviser, which I guess doesn't make me seem reliable after all.
The lobby area of the wedding hall
Where the ceremony took place (L) and the room MJ sat in and greeted guests before the wedding (R).
We enjoyed the wedding tremendously, although we were quite a bit confused by parts of it. Despite the fancy dress of the bride and groom, the whole process is much more informal and ritualistic than the weddings we're used to here in the States. There was no rehearsal--right up to the time she entered, MJ had no idea where she was supposed to stand when she got to the front of the room or what she was supposed to do when she got there. And she didn't seem nearly as bothered by this as I was. I was a little anxious for me and RR because we didn't know what we were supposed to do as bridesmaids, and MJ didn't know either because apparently bridesmaids aren't so much a thing there. But I was really anxious about what she was going to do. People don't pay that much attention to bridesmaids, but everyone looks at the bride. If I had known how informal and non-ritualistic the wedding was going to be like, I'd have been completely comfortable with winging it.
Yes, the wedding was also shown on the screen for guests in the back.
I'm sure I annoyed MJ by my asking her several times, "But what are you supposed to do? Shouldn't you ask someone?" As it was, my anxiety about her not knowing the plan reflected our different personalities and how our relationship works. MJ tends to wing it, even on the big things like weddings and finding an apartment in the city you're moving to in a few months, whereas I'm more of the "THERE MUST BE A PLAN!" type. But apparently for Korean weddings, you don't need to know the plan, even if it's your wedding.
I did ask MJ how we should walk--did she want us to have our hands by our sides, or clasped in front of us, or what? And that's when she realized we didn't have flowers or anything. The wedding planner grabbed some lilies out of a vase, handed them to us, and told us we needed to be sure to put them back after the ceremony. That was pretty quick thinking on her part, and it looked like that had been planned the whole time.
So we entered when we were told to by the wedding hall staff, then we walked to the front when directed to, turned at the front of the room, gave a quick bow, and then sat down with MJ's family. RR had asked MJ if she wanted RR to hold her bouquet, or adjust her train, or any of the maid of honor type stuff typically done here in the States. But MJ told her, no, she didn't want RR to have to do any chores. And no assurances that this is what bridesmaids--bridesmaids--do in the U.S. could persuade MJ that it was an ok thing to expect of her. But I guess it kind of makes sense. If there isn't a true bridesmaid tradition in Korea, then it might look weird to the guests that one of your friends is performing what's seen as chores and doing what the employees of the wedding hall normally do, instead of merely enjoying the wedding.
RR and I were completely confused by the cake-cutting. Here, of course, you serve the cake to your guests at your reception. That's pretty much the highlight of the event for the guests who are not related to the bride and groom. At U.S. weddings, two things matter to the guests: is there going to be an open bar and is the cake any good. Everyone looks forward to the cake. There is much speculation about what kind it will be. Everyone is disappointed when it's some weird flavor. No matter what else happens at the wedding, if the cake isn't good, it will always be mentioned in discussion of the wedding. "How was your friend's wedding?" "It was ok. It was pretty, but the cake was terrible. I don't know what they were thinking." We seriously like our wedding cake. And of course there's the quaint ritual of the bride and groom feeding each other cake. It's antiquated but cute, it's expected, and it marks the point of the reception at which it no longer feels terribly rude to leave. Yes, you're supposed to stay until the bride and groom leave, but if you have to leave early, you wait at least until they cut the cake. And that's exactly what people say when you tell them you have to leave early. "But you're going to at least stay until they cut the cake, right? You have to stay until they cut the cake!"
So, based on our friend's wedding, they've sort of borrowed the cake-cutting tradition in Korea, but it's not served to anyone, and it's not cut at the reception. No, what happened was, at one point in the wedding, some people--I think employees of the wedding facility--rolled the cake out on a wheeled table, MJ and her husband cut it in half with a giant knife, and . . . then the people wheeled the cake away. That was the last we saw of it. I don't know what was going on there. RR and I looked at each other like, "What just happened?" And of course the fact that they have a designated bouquet-catcher, rather than the random throw into the crowd of single women tradition we have here, I don't understand that, because it seems to defeat the entire purpose of the bouquet-toss. I'm assuming it has a purpose, just one I'm not aware of. But it was very uncanny valley-esque. Just when we thought we understood what was going on . . . we didn't.
The bouquet
After the wedding, the guests and MJ's family went downstairs to partake of the buffet. We were allowed to stay behind and watch as MJ and Husband and his family went through a traditional Korean wedding ceremony of some sort. We didn't understand what was going on,and it wasn't explained to us, so I can't tell you much about it. All I can say is that MJ and Husband put on fancy traditional wedding outfits, and they were very pretty.
By the time that was over and we went downstairs, most of the guests had finished eating, and many of them left soon after we sat down. That meant we didn't get a chance to talk with MJ's friends or Husband's friends, which was disappointing because we would have liked to have talked to people they grew up with. But I don't think they really spoke English, so I guess it was moot. After the wedding, her husband's sister drove up to the subway stop so we wouldn't have to try and find it on our own. His family is really nice.
We wanted to try and find a store that would sell a camera battery, since ours was dead, but apparently there is no place in Korea that sells Canon camera batteries. I mean, obviously, that can't be true, but it felt true. Even the concierge at our hotel couldn't think of any place but the Yongsan electronics market. We didn't want to go all the way there just for a camera battery, so we had resigned ourselves to just having inferior camera phone pictures from our trip. After much online searching, we figured out that there was supposedly a Canon store in Gangnam. On the way home from the wedding (after changing into more comfortable shoes and taking off our hose in the subway bathroom, which had the one and only squat toilet that I saw the whole time we were there), we took the subway to the part of Gangnam where the store was supposed to be.
We walked around quite a bit and--surprise!--never found it. We didn't want to ask for directions because we didn't want to walk up to random people and ask if they spoke English. In my admittedly limited experience, no matter the ethnicity, nationality, or culture of the person you are asking for directions, 9 times out of 10 the person will feel terrible if the person can't help you, like somehow the fact that you are having a terrible time is all that person's fault. In retrospect, we should have just stood in one spot and done our best "we are so lost and helpless right now" body language and facial expressions. It's highly likely that someone who spoke at least some English would have taken pity on us. But we didn't think of that. And then it started to rain. And with that, our solo excursion into Gangnam was over. We headed home in defeat, accepting that the rest of our trip would be documented solely by our inferior cell phone cameras. And I'd like to say that despite the fact that we walked past a building that, from it's signage, appeared to be affiliated with KBS, I did not happen to run into Uhm Tae Woong. So disappointing.
We managed to get home without incident, despite MJ's fears. As we walked up the steps at our subway stop, there were some drunk ajusshis in business suits going down the stairs, and judging from the expressions on their faces when they saw us and the "Aaaahh!" that followed, they seemed quite friendly, harmless, and interested in talking to us. But we kept walking. We don't speak korean well enough to deal with salarymen on their way home from hwaeshik--it was Sunday, so maybe they were on their way home from a wedding, too, and not a work-affiliated drink fest, but whatever they'd been up to, it clearly involved alcohol. I've never been good at communicating with drunk people, even without a language barrier. So we did not engage.
Then, as we were walking the last few blocks to our hotel, I distinctly heard a man start singing 10cm's "Americano" as we walked past him, but maybe he was selling coffee, or maybe he's just a 10cm fan.
On the way home, we stopped at a nearby corner store to by dduk so that we could make ddukbokki with the pepper paste we had packed and brought with us. The woman who sold us the dduk asked us in Korean if we were twins, and when we said we were, she told us we were pretty. We had that exact conversation a lot while we there. This is why I decided that, in this area, Koreans really are very polite. Sure, your Korean friend might tell you to your face that she thinks you're fat, and ajummas will elbow you out of the way to get to the front of a line, but strangers kept telling us that we're pretty when we're actually extremely average. Of course, it could just be the twin effect. I think that sometimes when people see twins, they think what they're seeing is interesting, or just kinda cool (science!), and they don't really have a word to describe the impression that our appearance makes on them, but they know it's a positive feeling, so they conclude that it must be that we're pretty. I'd be interesting in knowing if this happens to other twins that aren't supermodels.
After we got back to the hotel, we changed clothes and walked around Insadong a bit, trying to find Bizeun, another store that sells dduk. As you can maybe tell, we're big fans of dduk. Bizeun sells a different kind of dduk, more like dessert than for making ddukbokki. We were glad we found the store and found some plain rice cakes we thought we could have, because when we got back to our hotel, we were too tired to actually cook. So no ddukbokki for us that night. Instead we watched 1 Night 2 Days and ate the Bizeun rice cakes with peanut butter. No complaints there. It was kind of like eating a peanut butter sandwhich on white bread--kind of spongey, slightly sweet. It was delicious. DELICIOUS. We immediately decided that when we got back home, we'd throw out the frozen rice flour that was all kinds of freezer burned in our freezer, buy some more, and finally make some rice cakes for ourselves.
Confession: we did buy the flour, but we have yet to make the rice cake. It is probably freezer burned by now. We did, however, make the ddukkbokki type of dduk, which we discovered is very good pan fried then topped with peanut butter.
Anyway, it was all in all, an eventful day. And MJ had become an ajumma, much to her dismay. And if you think I'm too kind to call her ajumma to her face, you don't know me very well. I can't NOT do it.
