beautiful in asia

i've found the ideal way to boost my self-esteem. simply live in asia. or, i suppose in any place where blond hair and blue eyes are not the norm. here, in this land of the dark haired and dark eyed, i am unique. and, being unique brings on the compliments daily. if not hourly.

here, i am beautiful.

last night, in midst of a few koreans, i received the following comments. this, mind you, is one evening out of 6 months. and this, i promise, is very typical:

"do you have a boyfriend in america? i'm sure you do. you don't? i don't believe you, you're too beautiful."
"you have beautiful hair, the color is so wonderful, i want to steal it." (this said while holding some of my hair)
"you look like you exercise a lot. you do, i'm sure. you are so in shape." (huh?)
"you have a voice like a professional singer, wow."
"your face is so thin." (huh?)

seriously. if you're having self-esteem issues, come to south korea. they layer on the comments like a religion.
leaving this might be the hardest thing about leaving korea. does that make me vain?

don't worry, i haven't gotten fat

a lot of people (my mom included) have noted the fact that most photos that I post involve the consumption of food. and, it is accurate to say that most of my activities these days involve food. but, fear not, i have not gained 45 pounds or something (no pounds, actually).
of course, the reason for eating so often with no-english friends is because it keeps our mouths full, avoiding the necessity to use words. lots of pointing and smiling and yums, and few words are required. not to mention that it seems to be a general rule of thumb that koreans not only love to eat, but have an phenomenal ability to pack it in. these folks can eat. yet somehow, their waist stays the size of my wrist. disgusting.

but yes, in case you noticed and in case it concerned you: it's not just bias blogging, i really do spend most of my time eating. and no, i haven't gotten fat.


here, eating again:
katie (from my posse crew and my new next door neighbor) had me over for some homemade dkukbukee and other glorious things.

the pretty train

the subway is so clean in seoul. and the stations are so nice, almost pretty.

Mexican and other foreign things in Seoul

i did get cool shades today, but these aren't them. these are the cool shades that katie got.
coffee bean coffee. (l-r: katie, eunice, esther)

our plates at the vietnamese restaurant were all women in these great poses. we did our best to imitate it. :)
YUM. go vietnam!
the Mexican restaurant didn't even have Korean on the Menu. it was entirely in English. where am i?
good ol' korean style mexican: Poncho's
they celebrate st. patrick's day in seoul, by the way. well, at least the non-koreans were.
real chips. real salsa. real burritos and tacos.

Somehow I had been under the impression that there was not Mexican food in Korea. I was wrong. On Saturday, my Korean friends (Katie, Eunice, Esther) went with me to Seoul with me seeking Mexican food. The funniest part was that none of them had ever had it before. Try explaining a taco to someone who doesn't speak English. And, they kept saying, "this is so spicy, it's such a different kind of spicy". It was quite amusing, considering that korean food is some of the spiciest food i've ever had. To me, the food hit the spot I had so badly been craving (because, let's face it, all the kimchi in the world will not satify one's need for salsa). As for my korean posse, they say they liked it, but i'm not so sure that they loved it.

A word about the neighborhood of Ietaewon. This area is where we ate the Mexican food. It's an area I had heard much about, but had never been to before. But apparently, this is where every other non-korean in Korea migrates to. I had heard it referred to as "the little america" of Seoul. But, i was not prepared for the culture shock. I've been in Korea for 6 months and have seen maybe a total of 50 non-koreans over that time. In Ietaewon, I counted 50 in about 15 minutes. I confess, I resented all the foreigners. I kept saying, who are these people, why are they all in Seoul? It was fun to see so many familiar american old-faithfuls (Hard rock cafe, Burger king, Quizno's, etc...) but, the people i could have done without. because, though i miss a thousand things about america, obnoxious drunk american military boys shouting profanities out of a bar is not one of them. i kept apologizing to my friends.
after our mexican lunch, we did vietnamese for dinner. we could have chose anything. within one block, we saw french, thai, indian, american, mexican... i honestly didn't feel like i was in korea. actually, it felt a lot like london for some reason. and honestly, i wasn't ready for all the unkorean things. it made me feel weirdly violated or something.

a warm house and a house warming party

in case you missed it, the teachers got a new place to live a few weeks ago.

we threw a little house warming party for the korean church people on friday night.

these photos are of my new place and of the outside...the landscape is impressive.

and, a few from the house warming party.

all dressed up with nowhere to go

adorable, irresistible kevin.
he came to school all dressed up with tie, collared shirt and sweater, two days this week.

cookouts and almost belonging

i've been in korea for nearly 6 months. and this past sunday was the first time that i really felt like i was part of the church family that our school is connected to. i don't know why exactly (well, because of the language barrier and because of the fact that being at church feels like being at the job i hate...since job and church is in the same building is part of it) but, it's like, though individuals were kind to me, i just felt like the foreign teachers were seen as just that, foreigners. separate. isolated.
but this sunday, the teachers were invited to a cookout at our new neighbors house. (our new apartments are directly beside two of our church members' houses). the cookout was delightful, complete with wonderful food from Costco. Yes, they have Costco here (in Seoul) though i've yet to go. but yes, it seems to be the exact food that they have in american Costcos. Muffins, apple pie, potato chips. Fun times.
And yes, i really felt like "one of the family". I really felt like i was with some bilingual friends, beckoning in the start of warm days. i really felt like i maybe, sort of, almost belonged.
Almost.

my friday and saturday adventures

the russian dancers (explanation to follow)
the fireworks (explanation to follow)
view from the boat (explanation to follow)
the russian dancers posing with the birthday boy, Gary
esther (joseph's daughter) and teacher, chris
joseph's kids, esther and joshua waiting to eat on the boat
the boat
Mom's Touch fried chicken (above)

there had been some mention of going to see a movie in seoul by one of the mothers at church/school. i had assumed that if it was happened, i would be told, so when friday night came, i was lounging around my apartment and got a knock on the door at 10pm. it was the mother. apparently the movie outing was still on and happening immediately. i changed out of my pajamas and joined the entourage of mothers and set out to see a 11:30pm movie in Seoul. It was "My Blueberry Nights" with Jude Law and Norah Jones which comes out in the states next month. (ps: it was little disappointing in my opinion...but still worth seeing). So, at 1:45 am when the movie finished we then set out to find a cafe to hang out in. i'm thinking, goodness, these mothers have an impressive amount of social ambition for 2am.
finding a place to hang out at 2 am is similar to the frustration you find in america when you want to find a place that is open all night. it's either closed or frightening. so, we stopped at some places, but ended up finding nothing that satisfied. however, as the sole english speaker, a lot of the explanation about what we were doing remained unknown to me. so, i just followed the socially ambitious nocturnal mothers around and did what they said.

regardless, i arrived back back to my apartment at 3 am. call me old, but staying awake till 3 am seemed ridiculously challenging.

then, saturday, joseph (my boss, the headmaster) took me to what i thought was a youth outreach in Seoul. but, in typical fashion, it was more of a "how to learn english" seminar for college age students.
i must confess, it was horribly boring (especially with my lack of sleep from the wild night before) but, the rather lengthy day in Seoul proved worth it.
before the seminar, we met up with some of joseph's relatives to celebrate a cousin's 13th birthday.

we ate a place called "Mom's Touch" but, the two others teachers with me (Chris and David) and i couldn't resist calling it "Mama's Touch" or, my favorite, "Mom's in Touch". It was a fried chicken and hamburger fast food restaurant.

Then, after the seminar, we went to the 2nd part of the birthday celebration, a two hour dinner boat cruise. this was a "surprise" for chris, david and I...and let's just say that when I set out at 11 am to go to a "youth outreach" i didn't think i'd be ending that evening with an extravagant dinner cruise. there were even fireworks shot out of the boat. it was, to say the least, an exciting night.

the cruise included, but was not limited to, the following:
fireworks
buffet of ridiculously expensive food
russian dancers
wine
chinese traditional dancers.

and we were the guests of the birthday party, meaning, it was all free. :)

the only sad thing was that my camera battery died about 30 minutes before the cruise was over. too bad. so, when i tell you there chinese traditional dancers, you'll just have to take my word for it. :)

and though it was fun, it was entirely more than i had signed up for and i felt completely drained when i got home around midnight saturday night. i was exhausted.

but hey, there were russian dancers, so i really can't complain.

church in seoul

here is hannah. the girl whose hair gets short everytime i see her. always an adventure. and, below is my food...this whole tray (squid, rice, spinach, soup, coleslaw, other things which i eat willingly yet have no idea of what they are....) all totaled less than 5 dollars.

after much begging and convincing, i was granted permission to miss one sunday of church at our church/school and attend a massive mega church in seoul with hannah teacher. imagine the nerve i had, asking to miss one sunday after being there faithfully for 5 months.

we took a bus from yangpyeong and then subway-ed our way to Love Church. we did the english service followed directly by the korean service. lots of church. the korean service was especially fascinating, being literally squashed into a pew with multiple koreans in a huge sanctuary were i was literally the only non-korean. and of course, understanding about 1% of what was said.
after the church marathon, we went to a korean food court. picture it like this: your local shopping mall's basement food court with about 20 food choices all, from what i could tell, korean food. so, logically, after an inner battle of indecisiveness, i went with the korean food.
ma-she-sa-yo.

a night on the Yangpyeong town

heart shaped espresso. for me, that was a first.

catching up #2

here's the cafe the preschool teachers went to. creatively entitled: Cafe.
As a sort of "end of the semester celebration", the preschool teachers went to a very fancy cafe for lunch last week. this above picture was one of my 5 (?) courses. very delicious.
this was the wine on the wall.
our waiter was very, very tall. plus, the tables were a bit low and we sat on couches so, our very tall waiter seemed even taller.
here is sally and anna. two of the preschool teacher people.
Devote one's life for shoes. i think i found the mecca of shoes on this street. this was a night in seoul last week.
it is strange drinking caribou coffee in seoul. it seems too wild, wild west or something.