Dakgalbi Lunar New Year

새해 복 많이 받으새요! (Happy New Year!) Well, "Lunar" New Year that is. Korea, being the party country that it is, celebrates both the solar new year (January 1st) as well as the lunar (falling somewhere around January or February). This holiday, referred to as Seollal (설날), is celebrated by families all over the country. The majority of families will gather at a grandparent's house to enjoy a traditional meal including dishes such as tteokguk (rice cake soup). The most important part of the holiday, according to my students, is when the children bow to their grandparents and receive some pocket money (sometimes a lot more than spare change). At Little America last week, we taught our students the correct way to bow, as there are different bows for girls and boys. Last year, I was able to wear a traditional Korean dress (hanbok) and wish the students a Happy New Year. This year, it was Kaitie Teacher's turn!

Boys showing their bows

 

 

Kaitie Teacher in the traditional Hanbok!

With a three-day weekend, my friend Dan and I decided we wanted to get out of the bustling city and see a different part of Korea. From Yongsan Station in Seoul, the ITX train (similar to the KTX) takes you out to a city called Chuncheon. This city is the capital of Gangwon Province, in the Northeast county of South Korea. When we first talked about Chuncheon, I had to be honest that I had no idea what to do once we got there. After some research, and help from Dan, we came up with some places to go and, more importantly, food to eat. Chuncheon is well known for its Dakgalbi Street, located in Myeongdong (not to be confused with the other Myeongdong in Seoul...). After a relaxing train ride there, we dropped off our bags at the hotel and went out to explore in the relatively nice weather we had that day! While it wasn't warm, it wasn't freezing, which was perfect for a day of wandering around the area. When we first started walking around we noticed that the town was in a bit of an apocalyptic state...No one was around and there were barely any cars. It was slightly unnerving, though not unexpected due to the holiday season. It's a bit like the states around Christmas, when no shops are open and everyone is inside with their families. Anyways, we did stumble upon Dakgalbi street and decided to start the weekend off right- with a big pot of their famous food!

Literally...every restaurant is dakgalbi...

Before cooking

After cooking

 It's looking at me...probably just ate his brother...

 Overly full, it was time to walk off lunch by trying to find some of the places on our itinerary. First were some parks nearby. Chuncheon is surrounded by some large lakes as well as the meeting of the Soyang and Han Rivers. While I expected the water to be cold, I wasn't expecting the lakes to be frozen over! We wandered up to the Statue Park that I had read about and found one of these frozen lakes on which several groups of people were ice-fishing. Now, I'm not one to judge...you do what you want...but the sport of ice-fishing goes completely above my head. Why in God's name would you sit on a frozen lake, therefore freezing your butt off, to fish for whatever aquatic animal is still living underneath you? Anyways, there they were. I pray their fingers and toes recover without any serious side effects!

Book Statue

 

 

 

 Crazy Ice-Fishers

We continued walking after deciding not to test the ice and walk out on the lake ourselves. The next park had several statues, some basketball courts, a skate park, and amphitheater all there, I'm guessing, for warmer weather folks! Though some people (probably relatives of the ice-fishers) were out shooting hoops and learning how to rollerblade. 

We guessed it was King Se Jong, the inventor of the Korean language "hangul"

Penguins made of Ramen (not really...but it looked like it)

Swan Boats, for warmer weather

We decided to give our fingers and toes a break from the cold inside a neat little cafe we found called R. Mutt. This cafe serves as a small art gallery as well, displaying works of various genres around the venue. A piano sits in the middle as well, welcoming artists to share their gift. We ordered some coffee and a delicious sounding tiramisu and warmed up a bit before the second half of our walk.

It's chocolate I promise

Dan generously let me have a few bites

As we walked out, we spotted some old fighter planes up on a hill across from the cafe. Walking up, we find an old memorial with a few planes and statues. Dan made an excellent observation- These guys must have been incredibly brave to hop into one of these things and expect to be safe. They look like they could have been made out of old tin foil scraps.

We had some incredible views on this walk of the lakes surrounding Chuncheon. When we made it back closer to our hotel, we decided on a whim to travel out to the Soyang Dam. It is, according to a Korea travel site (could be biased), Asia's largest and the world's fourth largest rock-filled dam. Not sure if this is true, but it was pretty large nonetheless. The trip there took a bit longer than we expected. Not only were we going to lose light pretty quickly, we weren't exactly sure how we were going to get back down to the town...Oh well, this was a week for adventurous spirits. I'm glad we made it up there, as the view was incredible, especially with the setting sun.

 

When we were ready to get back to Chuncheon, we decided to check out a bus that was sitting in the parking lot nearby. Turns out our Seoul transit cards would not only work on this bus, but also it would take us right where we needed to be by our hotel! We grabbed one of our favorite meals, Vietnamese Pho, and filled up with some warm food to take off the chill of the day. Turns out, the servers at this restaurant had pretty excellent English. We decided to inquire with them the best way to get to Nami Island early the next day.

(Dan Miller Photography)

Our server directed us to take a taxi to the Chuncheon Bus terminal ($4) to get a bus ($6) to get another taxi ($3) to the Nami Island dock, where we got our Visa ($8) at immigration to take the ferry to the Island. Wait Laura...did you say "visa" and "immigration"? Why yes. I did. Namisum is an imaginary country. It declared itself a self-governing country. On the island, you can learn about several other independent countries located inside other, declared countries. A strange concept, but hey, we rolled with it.

Nami Island is really famous because of a Korean soap opera filmed there called "Winter Sonata". As this show was very romantic (apparently) the island has a very cheesy and couple-oriented theme. Despite this standard Korean touch on the island, I really enjoyed other more important aspects such as the abundance of books and a focus on recycled goods. All around the island there are little nooks and huts to grab a book (downside- all in Korean, upside- childrens' books! aka I might be able to read them!). Artists have created statues and fixtures all over the island, mainly using recycled items. This creativity and appreciation of the beauty in everything shows as you wander around Nami.

Hey, could have called home!

Column made of books

Very important discovery

 

Here come some more food pictures. To warm up again (this seems to be a theme of this trip) we stopped in to grab some food. Dan got one of his favorites, jjimdak, and I one of mine, bibimbap. They hit the spot and filled us up for the rest of the walk around the island.

 

Gotta love the colors

Dan knows

 

Frozen solid

 

 I stumbled upon the statue above with the woman breastfeeding her children and wondered what the story was behind this, well....revealing, piece of artwork. Reading the plaque, I found that this statue was created by a Chinese artist to represent two rivers (the breasts I assume) that run through and support areas of China (the children). Though it was surprising at first, after reading about it, I found the statue beautiful in a way.

After about 3 hours on the island, I wasn't sure I would ever be able to feel my toes ever again. Not one to complain, I said a silent goodbye to them as we made our way back to the ferry onto the mainland.

want to swim?

It's at these times I'm glad I'm friends with a weatherman. Dan had his nifty radar app up throughout the weekend and saw that the rain would come around noon. Leaving the island, the rain started to fall. I felt bad for those who had just arrived on Nami, as it wouldn't be too enjoyable. We spent some time inside crossword-puzzling (now a word) and reading until we had thawed and were ready to explore once more. Later on, it seemed the city had begun to wake up a bit. There were significantly more people out this night compared to last, and all of the shops were open for business. We wandered the bustling Myeongdong area looking into some shops for fun before getting our second (and final I promise) dakgalbi meal. We had to stock up on the real thing before heading back to Seoul the next day! An adorable 할머니 (grandmother) served up our food and began telling us stories about her family. She spoke very slowly and quietly, which I appreciated because I could actually follow her Korean for the most part! She has a sister in Chicago, and a brother in Canada. She then went on and told an elaborate story in there where I couldn't catch much, but we nodded and smiled, as she just seemed to enjoy talking to someone. I wish I could have understood her more. I'm sure she has an amazing life to talk about!

They provided aprons at this place (phew)

That night I passed out as soon as my head hit the pillow, which is extremely rare for me. Recently I spend the nights just thinking about how I should be asleep, but obviously am consciously not asleep. I guess all I need to do is walk around for two days straight in order to do this! I'll keep that in mind...

Waking up, it was a foggy, though less cold day than before. Our train back to Seoul wasn't leaving until 1:30 so we had a few hours to kill. After grabbing some breakfast we headed off in a different direction than we had explored previously. I found a museum on my Google maps, but unfortunately, things were still closed down for the holidays. Blindly picking a direction we walked, surprisingly far, around the city of Chuncheon. We found some sort of government building with an old temple-style gate.

Yup, a bit foggy

Am I cold? Of course not.

Making our way back to the station, we decided we made the most of the less-than-stellar weather and had a great trip being wanderers around a new city. I would love to come back again once it's warmer!

Can't believe it is now February! This month is not only my last with my three Ladybugs but also with Kaitie, Katrina, and several other friends I've made here, as their contracts are coming to an end. Next week, Kaitie and I are going to go down and explore Busan! I'm excited to have another weekend, although full and busy, totally worth it.

Until next time xoxo

Korean phrase of the post:
아 타조를 보세요!
(ah tajoreul bosayo)
"Oh look, Ostriches!"