Diplomatic weekend in Andong

So here begins another strange tale of our life in Korea. I read a Facebook page called Korea for Kids and awhile ago there was a post about a weekend trip to Andong for the mask dance ( cool Halloweeny trip I thought) it said to e-mail someone so I did. She e-mailed me back and let me know that we were welcome to join the trip but the return bus on Sunday would not get into Seoul until midnight. I figured we could pull that off - Olive would just sleep on the bus and it was all free. Food - lodging -busing and tours.

So we decided to go, it seemed great and the agenda heading told that it was a trip for Diplomatic and Foreign Families. Who would be along? We assumed there would be other kids and some diplomats. Well we were right about the diplomats but not about the kids.

We had to meet them at 8 am at a hotel in Itaewon which is pretty far from our house so we set off early around 7 am. Well we approached the hotel in a funky way and wound up being 30 minutes late anyways. We had walked up a huge hill (the back entrance of the hotel) and were all hot and tired. They were all waiting for us --oops. We boarded the bus and not another single kid was along. It was mostly older folks and a few youngsters mixed in.

Off we went for a 3 hour bus ride to Andong. Strangely enough Andong was one of the places that John had visited on his trip so we were anticipating a lovely time. Olive slept on the bus and I think Netta did a bit too. The first place we went was a traditional Korean home. It was really beautiful and old and they treated us to a lovely snack. We saw the women working in the kitchen and the garden where all the food is grown. There was a beautiful garden there and some dogs with little dog houses that Olive loved. I will post photos in the next post.

There was an old building there that was used for a shrine and it was really beautiful. It was a bit weird there because apparently women are not allowed in the shrine building. Also the women were so obviously working their asses off making all the food and more talk was made of thanking the host than the women who were working so hard. We, of course, thanked the cooks and complimented them on the amazing snacks. The snacks included some lovely rice drink with ginger, peanuts and cooked rice. It was spicy and yummy.

Then on to lunch - which was an ancestor meal. Basically the people in this area practiced honoring the ancestors with food so often that the food became a meal that is very popular in that area. John had eaten at the same restaurant with his tour so you have already seen the food if you read his post.

I can't seem to find the time this week to finish this post. So I am publishing it unfinished and to be continued. Hopefully there will be time to finish the tale this weekend.

Korea foundation fall field trip

"Swallow" is the name of our new kitten. She is cute, but a bit of a wacko at times, biting your ankles in the middle of the night, stuff like that.




Hi everyone! John here. This week I went on a field trip with the Korea Foundation (who is supporting our time in Korea.) Most of the Korea Foundation fellows came along. It was great.

Here's me trying my hand at the whole close-up-of-a-weathered-object-that-others-might-overlook thing. It's from Hahoe, a village in Northern Gyeongsang province. Hahoe is surrounded by a dramatic bend in the river.


This tree is over 600 years old, and is considered a minor deity by the villagers. People come and write wishes on little slips of paper and tie them to the twine fence surrounding the tree, and to the tree branches and leaves within reach.

Here's the traditional Korean house, in Andong city, that we stayed in the first night.

Below is the room we stayed in. The floor was very hot. Too hot. I felt like I was being cooked.













it felt great to rub my hand on this buddha's belly. I'm at Jijiksa temple, in Gimcheon.
T0 the left is a traditional Korean breakfast. It looks suspiciously like Korean lunch and dinner: kimchi, rice, soup, and little plates of veggies and fish and whatnot. Below, is buddha followed by a thousand disciples. If you look closely, you can see that one of them is a standing baby.
the picture below was taken at Yeongju Sosuseowon, a private Confucian academy where they studied Chinese literature and Confucian philosophy. The inscription on the rock means "respect." It was written at a time of political intrigue and factionalism. But after they carved that in the character, everyone treated each other with... you guessed it.
To the left is one of our lunches. It's bulkogi, beef marinated in Doenjang (Korean miso.) Accompanying it on the table are little dishes of kimchi, raw garlic, hot peppers, and things like that.





This tree is also really old, about 550 years old, in Yangdong village. Yangdong was recently (two months ago) declared a world heritage site by UNESCO. It's quickly being overrun by tourists like me. We wandered in and out of yards taking pictures of everything while they made dinner and did homework. It was weird. But the village is amazing.


This is a set of steps made of rough stones. I see a lot of stairs like that in Korea. It's a cool aesthetic, but it must be hell on the old and limited of mobility.






















The alien with the sunglasses and surfboard and the alien with the mark of the beast on her forehead just love Korea.








These statues guardians of the Buddha, typical residents of the second gate at a Buddhist temple in Korea.

Sorry about the pictures being in random order--- I put them on in order, but they came out all weird. No idea why. Hopefully it looks ok on your computer.

New nameless kitty

Here is the new cutie with Netta. She was worn out after chasing everything in sight for hours when she first arrived. She does not seem afraid and explored the environment quite thoroughly.
Olive really wanted to hold her all night. Finally asleep she was still enough to be on Olive's wiggly lap. Happy, happy.
Just moments after she arrived. With a little carrier bag, shampoo and grooming tools, food, bowls, and treats. It was a huge bag of stuff - oh my.
These are from the National Museum of Korea. John, Netta and Olive went there today to give me some time to be sick.
Cool spoons.
Yet another view of Seoul Tower. Netta loves to find the tower when we are out and about. We haven't actually been there yet we will have to go soon.

That's all.

sick

A paper tiger at the BICHE festival that I wrote about last time. At night these lit up from inside.
John and Netta kicking it on the couch.

I am sick - incredibly full of snot. Couldn't sleep last night at all as whenever I laid down I felt as if my head would explode. John has taken the kids to the History Museum so that I can sleep - but I still can't sleep. I just had a huge bloody nose and now am nervous when I lay down and my nose starts dripping (as it has been doing for 24 hours straight) that it is blood. Yuck!

Last night was Audrey's Memorial and we attended via Skype. I feel so grateful for all those who worked hard to make that happen. It meant a lot to me to hear the stories about Audrey and catch a glimpse of all those lovely folks joined together to celebrate her life. There was poetry, singing and dancing. It was really nice and allowed me some time to cry - to remember all that being in Audrey's life has taught me and my family and how lucky we all are for having been a part of her amazing life. I will miss her very much. I still wish I could hug some of those people - I guess that will never happen via Skype. Oh well I am grateful for what there is.

On another note I am starting a job this next week (if I am healthy enough). I answered an ad on Craigslist for childcare for a family at SNU. I met them last week and they seem really great - I am hoping the job will be fun - I will take Olive and Netta so that is convenient. Hopefully it won't be too crazy. Netta and the 5 year old little girl Nadya seem to play well so they will probably be pretty easy. The toddler (Olive) and the 1 year old little boy Thor - well we will see if I can pull it off. I am excited to try and it will help out financially around here. It will just be 2 days a week for about 4.5 hours each day. I'm sure I will have plenty of stories to share about how it is going. If I have enough energy to write after watching all of those little folks.

Other exciting news here is that Netta and John finally asked our landlady if we could have a kitten. We asked when we moved in and she first said yes and then we heard no. Netta has been really missing the cats at home (so have I) so she worked up her gumption to ask again and our sweet landlady said yes. So we have been looking and yesterday we met a little cutie who Netta and John will go pick up and bring home later today. The people who have her said their landlord won't let them keep her. She looks a lot like Dahlia's cat Roscoe. Very cute and Olive really wanted to hold her ---many times. I'm sure there will be pictures and many stories to follow. Any name ideas out there?

Well off I go to meet John and pick up Olive so that they can go get the kitten. I will write again soon.

Bucheon Intangible Culture and Heritage Expo (BICHE)

This is the entrance to the expo. The grounds were covered with beautiful sculptures and art projects.



Netta in one of the sculptures.

This was a mask dance performance that we watched. Netta liked this drunk character. He was very silly.

We made necklaces with an intangible treasure. Olive was sad because she wasn't able to do one because we were using exacto knives so the wonderful artist just came over and helped her to make one. He was so kind and Olive really enjoyed being able to make one.


This man was an intangible treasure who was painting fans. He has two brushes in one hand and was switching between them. Netta noticed that only one had paint on it and the other one he was using to blend colors on the fan.
Netta in hanbok.
Netta being interviewed about hanbok. They asked her if she liked wearing hanbok. What it was called and what it's name means. She knew it all!
Netta playing with the spinning frisbee thingy.



John crossdressing again.

John and Netta doing some rock sculpture.
Netta making tashik with the intangible treasure of tashik.

Netta with a lit up sculpture.
This next section is about our tour of the DMZ. It was interesting but not the best tour we have been on. It was a lot of driving on a bus and only a few minutes in each place. Also we were interested in the wildlife that has developed in the DMZ now that fewer people live there but there was only a casual mention of that by our tour guide. We wanted to see some less touristy and more wild places. But with all of the security I think we need to find a tour more catered to that and try again.
This is in the DMZ. This was a sculpture that Netta really liked. Inside of the ball was a raised South Korea on one side and a raised North Korea on the other. The two sides were being pushed together by people from each country. Netta is helping of course.
The view of North Korea. Very barren and different from the tree covered mountains on the South Korean side. Our tour guide said that North Korea has burned most of their trees for fuel. It looked sad and bleak.
An old locomotive that was left in the DMZ.
There were also tunnels that have been discovered that were built by the North Koreans - we couldn't take pictures there. John and Olive went down in one but Netta didn't want to so I stayed with her.

After our tour we were dropped off by the COEX mall which houses the kimchi museum. We have been wanting to check it out so we went and took a look. A lot of plastic food and some free samples. Pretty fun.
Silly staged photos begin........


That's all for now. More to write later --Olive is up and I am back on duty.