At 인제대학교 Inje University, they held a presentation because this year celebrated 50 years of diplomatic ties between Korea and the Netherlands. It was interesting to hear English again and not only that but in a different accent than the American accent. Yes, we as Americans have accents. Big shock. Haha. The ambassador Paul A. Menkveld doesn't speak Korean and so he had a translator which made me think: how stressful and full of pressure. You really have to pay attention and be able to switch back and forth without thinking.
Many of 박 교수님 Professor Park's students attended the lecture so a couple of them wanted to hang out after the lecture. Michelle, Ben, Steve, and I went with 박민주 Minju and 이충호 Choong Ho to a cafe where we got smoothies, iced hot chocolate, 과일 밭빙수 shaved ice with fruit and red beans (gwa-ill-paht-bing-soo) and get this garlic toast with whip cream. Sounds gross? It was actually amazing! I think the whip cream is lighter than Cool Whip and so it wasn't thick, sweet, or gross like we were expecting it. After we tried it with whip cream, we couldn't stop haha.
과일 밭빙수 Shaved ice with fruit and red beans. ^.^ So good! We ate most of it and then I realized that I needed to take a picture of it.
Garlic toast with whip cream ^.^
Michelle and Ben at least have never had 감자탕 potato stew/soup (kahm-ja-tahng) and so we out and had some at 이바돔 Ibadom restaurant. Awwww....so good. They gave us so much. It was impossible to finish it. 감자탕 potato stew/soup if you have never had it, has obviously potatoes in it but vegetables, meat, and it's cooked in this spicy broth. I recommend eating/trying it!
감자탕 Potato stew/soup before it's cooked. ^.^
To shake off all that food we had today, we walked everywhere and stopped by a couple parks. It's so pretty at night here. We're so grateful that 김민주 Minju and 이충호 Choong-Ho were so willing to take us and spend the day with us today. They really tried to make sure we had a good time and we did!
We got to visit 울산 Ulsan today! Even though we didn't go to the city part of 울산 Ulsan, I thought it was a pretty city. Just the nature and looking around was pretty. We went to 울산 Ulsan because they have petroglyphs preserved in an area and a nice museum on petroglyphs.
Originally we were supposed to go to 안동 Andong because they have these villages preserved from centuries ago but because we ran into some troubles beforehand, we decided to postpone going to 안동 Andong because it's too far away/a couple hours away that because we ran into some troubles, a short visit wouldn't do it justice so we decided to visit 울산 Ulsan.
The main trouble that we ran into was when Dr. Peterson went to the bank. He had trouble withdrawing money from his account and the bank in Korea and his bank back home weren't helping. We were at the bank for 3 hours. At first, we thought it wouldn't be bad. Great studying time! Unfortunately after an hour or two, it's hard to study. We thought we were going crazy.
Before going to 울산 Ulsan, we went to this Buddhist temple where they had painted pictures of Buddha on the walls recently comtemporarily. It was new because of the paint and the style looked different. They had these cool panels that taught a lesson about enlightenment. It starts out with a boy seeing footprints. That represents searching for discovery. The boy comes across a brown cow. He wrestles with the cow and it's very difficult at first. That represents coming across an idea and you wrestle with it at first because it's new and it doesn't make sense. The brown color of the cow represents confusion and lack of understanding because a new idea is foreign to one's understanding. The boy finally stops wrestling with the cow and then the cow starts to turn white. That represents when you stop wrestling with an idea and start to accept an idea for what it is, it then becomes clear to your understanding. Then the boy rides the cow. That represents one finally understanding the new concept and it working in harmony with his thoughts.
제주도 Jeju-do statues at the Buddhist temple.
The museum was in the shape of a whale! Haha how cool is that? Each city in Korea has a mascot and 울산 Ulsan's mascot is a whale. I think it's because 울산 Ulsan specializes in shipmaking so they chose a marine mascot. In 김해 Gimhae, they have some type of mythical creature and in 서울 Seoul they use 해치 haechi which is that fire eater mythical creature featured on 경복궁 Gyeongbok palace. But anyways, a whale shaped museum is just rad.
On the steps there were painted whales and symbols.
We looked at the museum inside which was really neat. Man, the museums here, I would have gotten bored a long time ago if they weren't nice and interactive. We were told that we had to hike towards the petroglyphs. We were hiking for a while and didn't see anything and we thought we were going the wrong way and so we went back. We found a way to drive there and when we got to the place, we found out we were on the right track all along. :-( Disappointing huh?
The petroglyphs were on a wall that was a couple feet long. Some of them looked faded/weathered away but some you could see clearly.
Petroglyphs
아름다운 울산 Beautiful Ulsan!
Near the petroglyphs
We were tired and hungry from hiking, waiting at the bank, and driving everywhere. Dr. Peterson was the most tired of course. Jet lag plus driving everywhere. He took us to Orange again for dinner! YAY! We were so excited. Doesn't meat sound so good after hiking? I thought this part of 울산 Ulsan was so pretty and you know I'm not one moved/blown away by nature. Just walking on the path and looking at the green mountains, rivers, and sky was more than words can express. Korea is so beautiful! You don't have to go far to find beautiful things here.
It was more historical sites today. Our first stop was 포석정 Poh-seok-jung. At 포석정 Poh-seok-jung, it's a courtyard part of a palace. I'm not as eloquent speaking about Korean history as well as Dr. Peterson but I'll try my best from what I understood from the lecture. It is believed that this area was used by the royalty for drinking and partying. However, they believe that it wasn't completely accurate. The country was at war at one point and it said the king was here at the time. If he knew his country was suffering, he wouldn't be drinking and partying here so they think that the courtyard had other purposes.
Our next stop was 김유신의릉 Kim Yushin's tomb. However, they don't know for a fact that it's his tomb but they assume that it's his tomb. What they have found out about thed tomb is that it was an important figure, fit enough for a king. We had a joke going on a little bit that we saw 김유신 가짜 릉 Kim Yushin's fake tomb. This tomb had something similar to one of the other tombs that we saw earlier; it had the 12 zodiac animals surrounding the tomb.
The next part was pretty fun. We went to a pottery place in 경주 Kyeongju. They had pottery from various periods of Korean history. We saw lots of green celadon from the Koryo dynasty. The green celadon is known for being one of the most beautiful pieces of pottery of all time. And of course it is; it's so pretty!
Cute cups!
They had a sciences museum nearby that we stopped at. They showed astronomical discoveries people of Korea found. They also showed how the Buddha statue in 불국사 Bulguksa and 석굴암 Seokguram was put together over the years. I think 경주 Kyeongju has become our home now. We've been there so many times. We stopped at a convenient store for dinner. I had the best 김치찌개 kimchi jjigae ever!
So good :-) I thought it was really funny that they gave me more 김치 kimchi as a side. As if the 김치찌개 kimchi jjigae didn't have enough 김치 kimchi in it already.
After dinner, Dr. Peterson asked us while we were in the van if we wanted to visit North Korea. All of us thought that meant the DMZ but then we thought it was a joke because the DMZ is at the top which would have been more convenient if we were in 서울 Seoul but we said sure anyways because we wanted to know what he meant. There's a place in 김해 Gimhae that is exactly like North Korea in the way that it looks. When we got there, we had the chills. It was deserted and the people coming out of there looked embarrassed. It was dark in many places and corners. It was pretty creepy. My camera made the place look a bit lighter. Even though it wasn't dark outside, it was a bit dark outside looking at this place.
I think the study abroad has been wonderful so far because of what we learned, seen, and studied as well as the other students on the study abroad. We've laughed so much while being here because we play on each others' humor. Tonight we had an 애교 aegyo battle. 애교 aegyo if you're not familiar with it, is associated with Koreans. It's when people, especially girls, will act cute and sometimes complain a little bit. Girls usually do it towards their boyfriends or people if they want something. Sometimes boys do it too but it's more of a girl thing. It can be perceived as a cute, funny or it can be viewed as annoying, immature, and childish. Since I can't upload the video right now, we all thought Victoria would win because she does it a lot but in the end Kenwood won. His was hilarious and so true!
This is 썬니 Sunny from the group 소녀시대 Girl's Generation doing 애교 aegyo. In my opinion, most of the time, it sounds annoying but I felt that many girls, who do 애교 aegyo, do it like her.
This is 민호 Minho from the group 샤이니 SHINee doing 애교 aegyo. Many guys don't like to do it unless they're trying to be funny. He's popular in Korea for being good looking and many other things. Surprisingly, some guys are good/cute at doing it!
I don't know if I mentioned it already but Dr. Peterson came home a couple days ago with his daughter Joy. She's shy but very sweet. Dr. Peterson took us out to lunch for some great meat. I died of happiness.
So good because it's good meat and better because we grilled it.
김수로왕릉 King Kim Suro's tomb is just down the street from our house so we went and visited it. We made Kenwood do the 3 bows (what you do at your ancestors' graves) at the tomb. The place/memorial for the tomb is nice. 김소로왕 King Kim Suro was the king of the 가야 Gaya dynasty during the Three Kingdoms period in Korean history.
김소로왕릉 King Kim Suro's tomb/memorial
김소로왕릉 King Kim Suro's tomb
Kenwood doing the 3 bows.
That was the main event/site we had to see and the rest of the day was free time and language practice. Kenwood and I went to this meeting place for those who have the last name 허 Huh/Heo. At the meeting place, they discuss many things and among one of those things is geneology. However, when we went to go find out what the place was like and see if we could talk to someone, only a gardner came out and he sounded like he wasn't interested in talking. He was pretty short in his speech so we didn't get a ton out of him.
Dr. Peterson then had us look at a few houses behind our houses. We thought they were just houses but found out they were places where it showed people what it looked like inside shrines where people have their spirit tablets placed. It was really neat to look inside since many of the shrines we haven't been able to look inside of them.
Haha isn't this baby cute?? This is the branch president's baby daughter. I've decided that Korean and Indian babies/children are the cutest hands down. Sure all babies are cute but some are cuter than others haha jk lol.
The mission president from the Korea Busan mission was released and had his farewell fireside today. It was an option to see it or stay home and relax. Only me, Dr. Peterson, Joy (his daughter), and Stephen attended as well as the missionaries that we met at the branch, and 수경 Soo Kyung who is an investigator and a student at 인제대학교 Inje University.
We first took a taxi (they drive super fast here) and then we took the subway. While we were on the subway, this man wearing a banner came up to the missionaries. At first, we thought he was joking with them but then he started yelling and getting really upset. This caused a commotion on the subway because the subways here are quiet and people keep to themselves on the subway. So everyone and their dog could hear him. I didn't understand everything he was saying but I heard him say, 'How dare you wear Jesus Christ's name on your tags? Do you think you're greater/higher than him?" The missionaries didn't say anything to him and good thing they didn't. The man was from another Christian church but I didn't recognize the name. I was scared to death and so was 수경 Soo Kyung. Everyone on the subway just looked at the man weird or didn't say anything. A couple of them had looks saying, "He must be crazy."
It's pretty embarrassing but I think Christianity has gotten a bad rap here. Many of the Christian groups have caused trouble here. Like on the news while I was at 숙희 Aunt Sookhee's house, there was a news report that a radical Christian group cut down lanterns for Buddha's birthday, upsetting many people. Who wouldn't be upset at that? Also, this has definitely happened here. Many people here claim that they're Christian, but they don't act like it. It's really sad. 수경 Soo Kyung told me that that man really scared her and how could he claim that he's Christian if he acts like that to people? She told me that she saw this card that had a heart in the middle and religious symbols circling the heart. She said that religions form around love. That's what religion is about. I thought that was pretty cool what she said.
Well, what an interesting way to go to a fireside. Get yelled at about being a Mormon right before a fireside. Haha you think life can't be any more coincidental than that. It was weird hearing English in a church setting again because we've been so used to hearing Korean for the past few weeks. The mission president's wife doesn't speak Korean so she had a translator but the mission president (obviously) spoke in Korean. At first the secretary spoke and it was funny because he purposely spoke in Korean with an American accent and it was hilarious. Everyone busted out laughing.
So if BYU and Utah are small worlds, Korea is smaller. Especially if you're Mormon. At the fireside, I noticed this one kid who looked familiar. We were talking in Korean and I asked him if he by chance attended BYU and if he took mission prep with Brother Bott. He said he did and then we just bursted into English haha. His name is 임종민 Lim Jong Min. It turned out that we had the same class, saw each other once maybe when everyone was leaving. Haha small world. At the fireside, I met some other missionaires and talked with a few people. There was this old man trying to have a conversation with me but he's really hard to understand because of his dialect and that he's old. But it's a good thing because most people say that he's a bit hard to understand here (they're Korean too). Haha I felt so dumb talking to him thinking, "I really can't understand everything he's trying to say. What's wrong with me?" I guess that's a relief if others have a hard time too.
Haha he looks so tall and I look so short in this picture.
What a great way to spend the weekend! At the beach! All of us wanted to go to 부산 Busan since none of us except the returned missionaries have gone there. We thought that the weather would warm up but it didn't so at the beach, the weather was pretty cool. Too cold to go swimming or play in the water. We took a bus there which was fun.
We just barely missed the bus so we had to wait for the next one. Luckily, it came faster than expected.
We decided to eat lunch at this 볶음 밥 fried rice (boh-geum-bap) restaurant called 유가네 Yoo-Gah-Neh. The food was really good and they made it right there in front of you. However, the floors were really dirty when we walked in. We could feel our shoes sticking to the floor. Gross!
We're off to the beach! I tried to get more pictures of 부산 Busan but we were in a hurry to get to the beach. i could only get this building haha. Which in the end, I don't know why we hurried because there wasn't a lot of people there. Probably because the weather was cool.
So we didn't pick the optimal day to go since it was windy but it was fun to relax and play in the sand. Plus, we just finished our test on what we've learned so far a couple days ago which took a long time to prepare since we've seen and been to so many places. That test took close to 3 hours! We played on the beach and took naps. However, everyone else woke up before I did and went exploring....and left me on the beach! I was like, "Where are you guys????" I had no idea where they went because the beach is huge. I told them when they got back to always wake me up.
해운대 Haeundae Bach
You think that in this picture I would be a tall person haha lol.
I've been in Korea for a little over a month and I have a month left here! SAD NEWS!! :-( I love it here so much. Where did time go??
Today was super frustrating. Dr. Peterson wanted us to go see these dolmens....yay.....not really. The idea of dolmens at first were cool but now that we've already seen them, seeing them again isn't all that exciting. On top of that, we got split into groups and had to do language practice: asking for directions on how to get to the dolmens. It was me, Benjamin, Stephen. Michelle, Derek, and Kenwood. Victoria, Rachael, and Juni. We each had to take a different bus number that was going to the dolmens but the seniors/return missionaries made us ask for it in Korean. However, we weren't quite comfortable asking directions yet. What didn't help was that Stephen thought helping Benjamin and I know Korean was not saying anything at all and figuring it our on our own. ABSOLUTELY NOT! Benjamin and I got frustrated and told Stephen that he needs to help us, not abandon us completely. The difficult thing about the location of the dolmens is that not only is it far away and a couple hours by bus but you have to transfer. For a while, we had no idea of where we were going.
Finally, we got there....and it started raining. Good thing I had my umbrella. I actually don't mind the rain. I love it because I hate hot weather. They had a little museum and then a few dolmens at the location. We just looked around because we've seen and studied dolmens before. There wasn't anything special because we already knew of it.
In case you don't know what a dolmen is, they are early editions of tombs people would bury the dead in. Dolmens have been considered a treasure here in Korea because not only are they centuries old explaining about civilization, but there are many preserved here in Korea.
I wanted to practice photography with my camera. Isn't that cool? It's a spider web!
We walked around for a restaurant because we were starving. We found this Chinese restaurant nearby. Yeah, we're in Korea eating Chinese food. Lame! Actually, it wasn't lame. Chinese food prepared by Korean people is amazing. :-) This restaurant was especially good and they were so kind to us. I don't think they get a lot of business and so when we came in, they were extra nice to us. They gave us free 군만두 dumplings which I adore and they gave us a discount on our meals.
Since no one knew this area well, it was hard to find transportation back. I think we searched for a good 30 minutes to find a bus. Transportation I think has been the majority of today. Although it's pretty to look at, sitting in a vehicle for long periods of time and doing it for many days is exhausting.
"5 Bums on a Bench". This is our band name. While we were waiting for the bus, we were really tired and so a couple of us sat on the bench. Someone mentioned that we look like an alternative band and to pose for our debut cover. Doesn't this look legit? :-) These are our positions based on Korean pop bands haha: Michelle - Leader (she's the oldest). Kenwood - Prince (he's a descendant from 김수로왕 King Kim Suro). Stephen - Sturdy. Julianne - Flaming Charisma Glare. Victoria - 막내 Youngest (mang-nae).
