Jill in Korea - Vol. 1: Monday - Friday

Jill's visit to Korea was so epic (or maybe my writing about it is so long winded :) ) that it warrants three separate posts - here's the first one.

We got back to Seoul after a smooth-ish flight situation (nothing happened that made us miss flights and we received all of our luggage, so I chalk it up to success!).  To make a long, boring story short, I would advise my dear readers to avoid flying through China, unless, of course, you are visiting China, in which case you wouldn't encounter the problems we did.  By the time we got through customs and claimed our baggage, it was about 10 pm.  This didn't worry me, since it doesn't seem too late, right?  Wrong.  We missed the last bus back to Gwangju.  Ordinarily, this wouldn't have been that big of deal, but we had to be at school the next day at 11 am and the last thing I wanted to do was sleep in an airport to catch a 6 am bus.  Instead, we opted for a taxi.  It cost more than I'm willing to admit, but it was totally worth it when you factor in the comfort of being home, the curbside drop off and the travel time that was cut in half.

Here is a break down of what our week consisted, minus Winter Camp which warrants its own post:
Monday:  We were tuckered out from our trip, travels and teaching so we decided to take it easy.  We went to E-Mart to visit my duk boki pals for dinner.  We split an order of duk boki and Jill also saw a skewer of vegetable, rice cake and what I'll call sausage, though I'm pretty sure it was not in fact sausage.  This skewer was bathing in a very spicy sauce, but we weren't afraid.  We weren't afraid, that is, until we took a bite from the skewer.  That is the first time since I've been in Korea that I felt as though I was a fire breathing dragon.  Wowza.  The rest of the evening was spent shopping for food at E-Mart since my cupboards were bare and watching movies.

Tuesday:  Jonah (Dionne's son who helped at Winter Camp) is an avid photographer, so Jill and Jonah talked shop during the school day.  Jonah told Jill about a camera lens he found in the famed Yongsan Electronics Market for real cheap.  Jill's ears perked up at the sound of acquiring cheap camera equipment, so we set off for some deals.  I had never been there before so I had no idea where we were going once we got to the area of town.  Jonah gave Jill directions, but we got confused and just ended up wandering around.  This market is huge, as in, 20 buildings housing over 5,000 shops.  Jill had decided before we got there that she probably wouldn't purchase anything so our adventure became a night of wandering aimlessly, taking in Jill's first taste of Seoul.  We stumbled upon a street of bootleg dvd tents and bought five dvds for roughly $7.50.  Not too shabby.  We had a very Korean dinner of soup and sides before coming home to watch our movies.  

Wednesday:  We ventured to Gangnam so Jill could experience the famed fish pedicure.  We sipped our obligatory lattes while we tried to plan our weekend adventure.  As this was my first hot drink at the Dr. Fish Cafe, I was pleasantly surprised to find their affinity for latte art!  All I could master in my days as a barista was an ill-fated accidental heart, so these works of art were particularly impressive to me.

After our lattes, we headed over to the fish tanks.  Since I've blogged extensively about fish pedicures in the past (see: here and here), I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.  Let's just say, Jill is a giggler.

The fish - doin' work.

After the fish finished their business (Jill could honestly feel a difference :) ) and we did a little bit of shopping, we stopped for dinner.  We went to a place that looked really busy, which is an indicator that it serves good food.  We sat down and tried to order what we thought everyone else had, which looked really good.  After perusing the menu, we made what we thought was a delightful choice.  We also ordered beer.  Since I don't drink that often, I forgot that the beer here is served in huge bottles that usually serve two or three people.  We ordered two bottles.  We got a funny look from the waitress, but she brought out two bottles nonetheless.  When she arrived at our table, she had another kid with her.  They saw the look on our faces when we saw the size of the beer bottles, had a quick discussion between them and took one of the bottles away as they opened the other one.  Many minutes later, after many other customers who were seated after us had been served, we still hadn't received our food.  We soon understood why.  In Korea, many restaurants make their specialty dish in very large quantities so that they can serve it pretty much on demand.  Apparently, not only had we failed to order what everyone else was eating, but we also managed to order a dish that they don't often make because they actually had to cook our meal rather than merely dish it up like that of what everyone else had ordered.  Oops.  Whatever it was that we ordered (stir fried veggies, spam (!) and other meat...probably pork) was not a hot commodity, but it sure did taste good!

Next, we hit up my favorite dessert cafe.  We ordered some sort of cheesecake ice cream and a piece of cake to share.  What we received was definitely not cheesecake flavored, but rather some sort of chocolate fudge situation.  We decided not to make a fuss and just eat it.  A few minutes later, the server guy came over with our cheesecake ice cream in tow.  He assured us that the chocolate ice cream was merely a sample.  Sure it was, buddy.  :)

On the way back to the subway station, we decided to try out one of the media poles that are stationed every hundred feet or so.  These are the poles that give directions, news and weather reports and take pictures that can then be e-mailed to those who partake.  Of course, we did.

E-mailing our picture to Jill...

Thursday:  Since we had a very big weekend planned, we decided to stay in Gwangju Thursday afternoon and night.  We made a trip to the post office because we both had letters to mail and then we walked around the market and random side streets.  We happened upon what is now my favorite Gwangju cafe, a small, trendy hole in the wall called Brown Story that sells organic coffee, makes delightful lattes and serves lemon water.  I'm in love.  On the way to the post office, we had run in to my friend Tara and invited her and her fiance Joe to join us for dinner at our favorite shabu shabu restaurant.  Tara and Joe are planning to spend some time volunteering in Chile before starting a tour business in New Zealand.  Since Jill studied in Chile for six months, it was a perfect time for them to chat.  We had a great dinner with great conversation.

The shabu shabu spread

Friday:  That morning before camp, we booked beds in the Yellow Submarine Seoul Guesthouse 2.0, a hostel in a neighborhood known for its nightlife.  While there were several hostels in the neighborhood, I've always been a sucker for a good gimmick, thus making the Yellow Submarine the obvious choice.  We chose correctly.  About a 10 minute walk from the subway, it was in a quiet area, but close to everything we needed.  I highly recommend it!  Anyway, once we dropped our stuff off at the Yellow Submarine, we hopped back on the subway to meet Diane and Maria in Myeongdong.  Before we met Diane, Maria, Jill and I grabbed some street food to tie us over until after the show we were about to see.

Jill ate a corndog that was fried with french fries in the batter.  Awesome.

Duk boki (for Maria) and a plate of cabbage and mandu (for me).  Amazing.

We had plans to attend the famed NANTA! show.  (NANTA! is similar to Stomp!, but uses cooking utensils instead of industrial materials.)  It also involved audience participation.  In addition to claps, cheering and stomping, twice during the show, the cast came out to the audience to choose people to come do things on stage.  At one such point during the show, I was chosen to come up on stage along with an older man to try the soup they had just concocted.  Since the plot of the show is that the cooks are preparing food for a wedding banquet, they use these two people as the couple for whose wedding they are preparing the meal.  At the end of our time on stage, they made us walk arm in arm downstage while they threw rice at us.  Jill illegally took pictures of this monstrosity:

eating soup with my new husband :)

As the show ended, they projected our picture on a large screen at the back of the stage.  As we walked out of the theater, I was handed a keepsake photo of my onstage experience.  Delightful.  The show itself was quite fun and entertaining!  We really enjoyed it!

Our final stop for the night was dinner.  We enjoyed a dinner of chicken galbi which is chicken, vegetables and rice cakes all stir fried with some spicy sauce.  Then, they fry rice once the rest of the food is gone.  So good!  We made plans for the next night before we parted ways with Maria.  We called it an early night because we had to be at the USO at 7:00 am sharp for our tour of the DMZ.  Stay tuned for the rest of the story...

Jill and Diane imitating Korean picture taking culture

The whole group