Dancing For the Mayor

What a fun last few days! Chuseok festivities are winding down and now we are back to business at school. The past few days have been quite eventful so I thought I would fill you in on some of the details. Firstly, Saturday and Sunday I did not do anything blog worthy. Stayed outside enjoying the weather as much as possible, but most of Bucheon was shut down because of the holidays. Monday, Shanna and I ventured to Bupyeong underground market which is only a couple subway stops from us. She made me lead the way through the buses and subway so that I could learn how to do it on my own (what a good teacher!). We made it there safely, and began to navigate our way through this huge maze of endless clothing, make up, phone, shoes, and accessories stores that line the halls. I wish we had a map of the entire place because it must look like a bowl of spaghetti based on the way I felt as we wandered through. If you saw my last photo update on Facebook you would have seen some great t-shirts and sweatshirts I found with slightly-incorrect English on them (people call is "hanglish" here. A mix of hangul, the korean alpaabet, and English). If you aren't on Facebook, here is a little taste of what I saw...

I completely understand if you are as excited as I was about these shirts. These as well as the rest of them we found were like little nuggets of gold in a sea of faux brand name, knock-offs, and polyester! Found a few things to add to my wardrobe though...one may or may not be a sweatshirt with a pocket that has a mustache and top hat...its fine...moving on...

So that was Monday! Tuesday we were back at school for an awkward day full of classes with only 1 or 2 students in them (aka game day) and that brings us to Wednesday. As I think I've mentioned before, this Wednesday I signed up to go on an organized trip through a program called Adventure Korea. This program comes up with fun things to go, places to go, and people to meet for groups of foreigners in the area. They have a whole website that is constantly updated with new, for the lack of a better word, "adventures" for you to sign up for. I decided to use my second day off this week to go to Gongju which is an ancient capital city of Seoul. The day began with me taking a taxi at 5:30 in the morning to the Hongdae station located right near the Hongik University campus. My taxi driver dropped me off on a corner of a street, unable to tell me exactly where the subway was...so I began wandering around the side streets running into young Korean students who were just ending their festivities from the evening (this observation was based on the number of people being carried and those who decided to fall asleep on the side of the street). After walking around without finding signs for the subway station I needed, I ran into a convenience store to scare a poor little Korean man behind the counter by speaking English so early in the morning. He pointed the complete opposite direction of where I had been walking. After following his guidance I found the station (yay!) and staked out a spot to wait for the Adventure Korea bus.

Once the bus came I met a few of the others who signed up for the trip. There was a small group who had all met through their public school orientation the year before (again, I was the bambi in the group). There were girls from Scotland, Ireland, England, and Canada, and then a guy from Minnesota. The whole bus was eventually filled with more people whose nationalities ranged from American to Italian. Our guide provided by Adventure Korea, Max, was a hilarious little Korean man who just said cliche English phrases in a super excited voice to get us "pumped up". He was great! Our first stop was the Gongju National Museum which had artifacts excavated from the region. It was here we found out that we would have a full out camera crew following us around all day...weird...more about that later.

The poor interpreter, Mrs. Kim, really tried her best to keep 40 something English speakers engaged and focused on looking at old pottery...it was difficult. I stuck with her as others in the group began to wander the museum, and she actually had a lot of insight into the artifacts, but just had trouble communicating it exactly how she wanted to. Very little was translated into English, so I had her explain a lot of the signs and purposes of things. We all felt that we got the speed-tour of the museum. There was not much time to slowly walk around and see each item, not that we could read the explanations anyways. One highlight of the museum was actually the informational video explaining the museum and history of the Baekje empire. At one point during the film the word "onry" was used. As the English teachers cringed and shook their heads, the Koreans in watching the video did not seem to notice the "hangrish" that had just occurred in an official museum video!

We then got taken to the ancient Songsan-ri tombs and the Royal Tomb of King Muryeong. While the tombs were actually just recreations, they were still cool to walk into and see what they might have looked like. In one area that showed relics and jewels found in the tombs we saw a bright neon eraser...which after some debate, we decided was not found in the ancient tomb. 

ancient eraser found in a tomb

One of the coolest pieces in the museum! The Buddha is made out of string and gold beads!

After the museum legs kicked in it was lunch time! We headed to the Baekje festival area and were let loose for an hour to find food! We found 파전 (pa-jeon) which is basically a Korean pancake with veggies and seafood usually (Ours had octopus tentacles- only in Korea!) We were then scooped up on the bus again to go chestnut picking! It was around this time that I began to feel a bit under the weather. With body aches and an intense headache, I was not feeling up to any intense chestnut adventure (as they tend to be, you know). I sucked it up and tricked myself into thinking that I felt 100% which semi-worked! 

Anyways, for chestnut picking we were given a small bag...and that's it. Hiking up the side of a mountain, we found lots of porcupine-spiked-extremely-painful-when-you-touch-them chestnut shells. After getting a quick lesson of how exactly to extract the chestnuts (flash to Harry Potter trying to replant a mandrake...sorry to the non-potter fans out there) we were released on the mountain side to get picking! I got kind of good at it eventually. As I gathered I wondered what in the world I was going to do with a bag full of chestnuts when I got home... 

 The camera crew walked around the photographed/video taped us attempting to not get spiked to death by chestnuts. I decided to give them a taste of their own medicine and turned my camera on one of them- he played along haha

After chestnut picking it was back to the Baekje festival but in a new part with traditional costumes, crafts, and food making areas. The entire group was given hanbok shirts to wear throughout the day. These only increased the stares from Koreans who were also attending the festival, which we all loved of course...We were given about an hour of free time, during which a group of us who felt like we had been awake for 5 days straight found some seats at the Jindallae hwajeon (진달래 화전), or yummy pancake, station and rested there until it was time to meet up again as a group.

The final event for the day was actually being a part of the Baekje festival parade! We were given a banner to hold and everything! A tad embarrassing, but when will I ever get this experience again right? Anyways, after waiting for a while for the parade to get going we begin walking down the main street of the town, waving to the parade-watchers on the sidewalks. Feeling like celebrities, cheered and waved all the way to the main stage. That's when we got the news...

Apparently we had been given the "opportunity" to perform Gangnam Style in front of the mayor of the town, other officials, and hundreds of Koreans watching the parade. Now I know what you're thinking, "there is no way you did that", "you're making this up to make your blog become famous and make millions of dollars", "you've got to be pulling on my leg"- Well foreseeing this lack of belief from my adoring friends and family I've captured the entire experience on video. Here you have it! The brave souls of the Adventure Korea group giving an unrehearsed, impromptu performance of Gangnam Style to the town of Gongju!

One of the most surreal yet simultaneously embarrassing moments of my life. We all were in complete disbelief that it actually happened! Apparently it will be on the news? I am still looking through various Korean news sights to find the footage for you all. I will keep you updated! After that life-changing Gangnam Style experience, we headed back to the bus to return home after a long and exhausting day. When we finished the parade it was only 7:30pm but we all agreed it felt more like 1 in the morning. The last obstacle for me was navigating the subway and bus systems to get back to my apartment on my own! With some help from another "Adventurer" I made it back to the subway near my apartment, then found the correct bus and bus stop to get back around 11:30! By the time I got back my whole body hurt and I felt like I had been hit over the head with a bag full of...chestnuts...After taking some nyquil I immediately passed out hoping to feel better then next day!

Overall, my first solo journey was a complete success! I got a bag full of chestnuts, a free bottle of Makkoli (rice wine..which I gave to my program director this morning at school...he then asked if I wanted to have any right then...rain check Solomon! haha), AND we were given the hanbok shirts as souvenirs! Met a lot of new friends who I hope to meet up with on more trips throughout my year here!

I brought my chestnuts to school today as well, because honestly...what was I going to do with a pound an a half of chestnuts...and the school cook boiled them for the teachers' afternoon snack! They are absolutely delicious! I took the rest home with me so now I have snacks to last me for a few weeks :) For now I am going to try to rest, get my voice back (as I currently sound like a 12 year old boy going through puberty) and recover from this cold asap. Saturday some of the other teachers and I are headed on a trip to a wine festival, for which I obviously need to be a the top of my game mentally and physically to enjoy some delicious wine! As you know, a blog update and pictures will obviously follow along soon after.

Miss you all! xoxo

Korean word of the post: 놀라움! (nor-ra-oom) "surprise!"

xoxo