Christmas in Korea

I feel like I already talked about Christmas traditions in Korea, but it bears repeating so I'll say it again: It's very different.

As far as I can tell, it's a commercial holiday. (Even more so than at home ;p) Historically, it's not a Christian country, so they have no reason to cherish it the way we do. It's a holiday shipped over from the US, like many things here, with a romanticised spin thrown over it so that it's mostly about spending quality time with your other half. Think of it as December Valentine's Day. Or just...December Sales Day where everyone conveniently has the day off.

It's not a big family event where people from all over the place gather to eat a lot of food. They have Chuseok for that! If anything, couples might exchange gifts whilst on a cute date, or parents might give their child a gift but according to my co-teacher that's where the line is drawn. It's not a gift-heavy occasion and even then it's quite often just money.

Because of this, there's also a distinct lack of Christmas decorations to be found. Sure, a lot of the shops we go to and big stations we visit have a tree set up somewhere, and a lot of cafes have snowflake decals and wreaths up on the windows and walls. But I'm yet to see big strings of lights everywhere in shopping areas, and extravagant window-dressing like at home. I'm not sure if I'm sad or happy about this.

When Nick was talking to his students about Christmas and Christmas Songs, they touched on the topic of Christmas carols. As far as they were concerned, any old Christmas song from the 80's and 90s is a Christmas carol. Ah, yes, All I Want For Christmas Is You, that age-old traditional Christmas carol by Anon. Actually, I don't think I heard a single actual carol. Maybe Silent Night, but with a modern cover and with a very different vibe to the quiet, solemn piece you usually hear in the streets.

Then there's the fact we barely had a break for Christmas. December 25th, that's it. No more, no less. We were in school right up until Christmas Eve, and back in the classroom bright and early on Boxing Day. So it kind of didn't sink in that Christmas had come until I was lying in bed on the 25th wondering why I wasn't in school on a Thursday. Usually there's a lot of build-up. The traditional adverts start to pop up, decorations stretch as far as the eye can see, and you can usually see trees dressed and lovely in living room windows. Music pumps out of stores everywhere and people start to ask you about your plans for the holiday. Christmas food is all over the place, people are frantically buying gifts and wrapping paper, and everyone busts our their favourite hideous sweater. Even most work places tend to have decorations and I remember well all of the Christmas-themed activities we'd do in school every year for the last few weeks of term.

But there was none of that, and it was a little bit confusing and jarring, even for me, the self-proclaimed Scrooge.

Actual and Post-Birthday Treats

So, to continue my boastful tirade of "look how wonderful my birthday was!", I'm writing this post. When I got home, after keeping things pretty secret (I didn't want much of a fuss) Nick presented me with a surprise birthday cake which was all kinds of airy cream and chocolate.

The strawberries on top were a sweet bonus, because I'd been growing a little strawberry plant for the past few weeks, and after finally getting it to sprout by placing it in the corridor...it vanished.

Either my Korean is terrible or nobody reads notes asking you to please kindly not steal my tiny little strawberry that could stand on a 50p piece. But either way, I was a little devastated and Nick convinced me it'd gone to bulk up and become part of my birthday celebrations. Dark.

Birthday cakes are pretty easy to find here for very reasonable prices and they're all far superior to the dry, cloying things you tend to pick up in supermarkets back home. They also have the added bonus of coming with candles, matches, and a little knife so you can celebrate anywhere and everywhere. Super cute.

We also joined Ziggy for samgyeopsal in the gogijip (it's literally called "Bupyeong Meat House") behind our apartment and found out that it's not only a great price but also really delicious! After gorging ourselves on pork and beef, we went to get some bubble tea and generally hang out for fun times. Thank you to you both~

EPIK Orientation

Timeframe context: Late September.

So this is a story all about how our lives got flip-turned upside-down, because we had about 3 days notice that the orientation week we'd been told we wouldn't have to attend was now happening and mandatory.

I'll be honest, we were pretty stressed, and annoyed. A week or two advanced notice would have been nice. I had my Open Class that week, and Nick was meant to be helping out with his school's sports day, so we were both pretty bummed (and I was scared I'd have to replan my class that I'd been working on for months now.)

Not to mention sharing a dorm when we have our own comfy apartment 45 mins away.

Not to mention orientation is meant to be for newbies. We'd been in Korea for 5 months, we didn't need to learn what a Korean school is like, and how to say "annyeong haseyo".

Not to mention we weren't in the mood to end up as glorified mentors to all the other inevitable newbies that would want to know everything about anything.

Bitterness and sulking aside, we went along, signed in, and...ended up having quite a bit of fun by going to lunch with Nick's roommate and one of their next-door neigbours. We found out they'd been here a while too (first clue).

Photo of some great people. And me. ;p

It turned out that, actually, a lot of the people there had been here at least a month (which made sense, considering the new intake had arrived at least a month or so prior) and the lectures we went to were at the very least vaguely aware of this and adjusted their talks to accommodate for us. Mood lifting.

Dongdaemun at night!

The first night we ended up with a few hours spare in the evening so we went for a walk with some actual newbies, who were very fun to talk to and I hope we managed to get them realistically excited for the coming year, haha.

We sat and talked for quite a few hours before heading back and preparing for the next day.
Did I mention I lucked out with my roommate? Yessss.
Did I mention the showers were very...Korean? Noooooo.

We were in a government dorm building, which was a bit old and...not mosquito-proof, but hey free accomms. The only problem really is that I forgot to pack a towel and Korean towels are...hand-sized. Not great for making a dash to the bathroom. So I would end up getting undressed IN the shower and hanging them strategically.

Chuseok | Osaka Day 3

The adorably-named 'scum tunnel' which wasn't scummy in the slightest and actually very safe

On day 3 we went to see Osaka Castle, which sounded like a renovated version of what we'd seen at Fukuoka Castle, so we were pretty excited to see what the drawings in the south could only try to convey.

Like Fukuoka, Osaka Castle is in a huge park. Being a much bigger city, this park was enormous. I don't think we even managed to see half of it, but it looked like a really lovely place to go for a walk and just chill out.

"please take the photo quickly, the fountain is blowing towards me"

Climbing up a lot of steep steps and an incline, we arrived at the moat, which was this strange mix of clear water which was green due to pond weed, and bright orange...moss? It was so odd, because they kept it separated using those chains of buoys like you get in swimming pools.

I forgot to edit this photo and it was in Cinestyle, so forgive me for the blandness.

It was hot and muggy, so we paused to get some cool drinks after our climb. As well as drinks, we grabbed a cup of shaved ice each, which was a little underwhelming. I think it's just I'm so used to ice cream that I was expecting something quite different (no, I'd never had a shaved ice before then)

Bright gems!

Walking through an enormous gate into a walled compound, we could finally see the castle. I have to admit, it would have been very well protected back in the day.

Apparently the man who ordered the construction of this castle LOVED gold. It was his favourite thing, and he had it put into and onto pretty much all of his possessions. The inside of the castle is a museum, and the lower floors are full of gilt hand mirrors, furniture, even weapons and armour. The building itself is no exception, coated in gold decorations.

On a bright white building, glittering in the sun, it was really something quite wonderful to see.

At the top, you can walk all the way around an observation terrace and see all of Osaka spreading out around you. It's interesting, like Seoul, to see all these modern buildings interspersed with very distinctly traditional buildings.

At the bottom of the building, before leaving, there was an old man with a rack of traditional-looking clothes and some extravagant-looking helmets that I think the captains and generals of the army would have worn. For a measly 300 yen you could get kitted up in an outfit and take some photos, so I went for it.

Can I just say, these people must have been STRONG. I mean, I'd assume so, what with them being soldiers, but the helmet alone weighed a ton, let alone the jacket, which I think would have gone over or under a fair bit of armour.

He also gave me a sword, which was probably a bad idea.

Of course I chose the deer antler helmet.

After that, we had a break and planned our next destination, which ended up being the NHK building not too far away.

NHK is basically Japan's BBC and a lot of their broadcasting buildings have sections that are open to the public to have a look around.

Inside we only really found a children's section. Anything else was in Japanese so we weren't totally sure what to do. Of course, we still went into the children's section, and because we were the only ones there the staff seemed quite happy to humour us and help us use the interactive attractions.

"...over to you, Nick." "Thanks, Chelle."

There are loads of different bluescreen interactions you can try out, including one with an autocue, where you read out a simple little news intro. Sadly, the Japanese doesn't translate well into English, so it ended up being a lot shorter, so you ended up with about 10-15 seconds of us pulling faces and dancing while we waited for the 'broadcast' to end.

Having exhausted that option, we got back onto the subway and went to Umeda, where we were hoping to get to the Sky Garden for sometime around the sunset, but we also realised that this is where the Osaka Pokemon Center is, as well as a huge anime/manga merch store Nick found online. Throw in the fact we hadn't eaten yet, and we just decided to have a night viewing.

It seems to be a trend in Japan that the train stations are also huge shopping malls, with a big food court on the uppermost floors. I had a hitlist of traditional Japanese foods I wanted to try in 'the Nation's Kitchen', and we happened across a nice-looking okonomiyaki restaurant.

Did you mean: om nom nomiyaki?

We had a set meal each, Nick had a standard okonomiyaki and I had a modanyaki, so we had half and half. It's kind of like a pancakey omelette with cabbage and a load of other nice fillings, such as fish or pork, and lots of onions, cooked on a teppan hot plate. I'm pretty sure they're only flipped once, then topped with a really great sauce, mayo, and those strange dry flakes that seem to be ubiquitous in Japanese food. I think it's onion of some kind. Modanyaki (from the english word "modern" also has some yakisoba noodles thrown into the mix)

Over to wiki for a better description: okonomi meaning "what you want/like" and yaki meaning "cooked/grilled". It also tells me that the burgundy-coloured sauce is comparable to Worcestershire Sauce (I agree), and that the paper-thin flakey things are bonito flakes, which are apparently dried tuna?! Huh. That would explain the fish taste.

We also had some fried onigiri, which were great. Enough said.

After that, we went down a couple of floors to where the Pokemon Center is.

I only took one photo, because to be honest it IS just a big merch store. But I got my now-customary Pokemon pressed-penny (maybe I should start to make a charm bracelet) and there was a Halloween event going on. I always feel a bit bad going into the Centers after a while, because I start to realise that I don't really know any of the Pokemon, because of course other than the few superstars from the first 150, they focus on the new ones.

Before I move away from Umeda I'd like to point out this mind-bending fountain I saw in the station's forecourt area:

The patterns and designs you see in this video are all jets and beads of water, on a constant scrolling reel of images. Occasionally it would show the time and name of the place. I still don't really understand how they're doing this.

The sun was dripping away by now, so we headed to our next destination: Mandarake. Nick had found it online as being one of the biggest comic book stores in Osaka. Sadly, I was scared to take many photos in case I got shooed out by a shop assistant for being improper. (I hate playing the "sorry, I'm an ignorant foreigner" card, haha)

It was about 3-4 huge floors of merch, one was just shelf after shelf of manga and doujins, like the photo above. There was a huge cosplay section, figurines, more comics, retro and vintage paraphernalia, and probably a ton of other things I've forgotten about. It was also weirdly themed like a cave...I'm not sure why.

Finally, it was dark out, and we resumed our search for the Umeda Sky Building. Considering it was on every tourist brochure and possibly also other things such as train tickets and souvenirs, we'd assumed it would be easy to find. A major attraction. The star of Osaka.

I don't know if we're just terrible at following directions but it took us a lifetime to find. After walking through the BIGGEST shopping complex I've ever experienced (Maybe I was just a bit worried and tired, but I would put it at being larger than Westfields in London or the Bullring by a long shot. Smaller footprint, but more floors.) we eventually managed to find a long string of tourists and a glimpse of a very tall, and worryingly far away building.

I think really it just looked further than we thought, but it still took us quite a while to get there. It was by no means a short walk from the station, haha. Maybe I'm just lazy. (yes)

The lower half of the building is mostly stores and...nothing. We had a mysterious trek up one leg of the construction, which was just long corridors, escalators and elevators. Finally, we came out somewhere in the region of the 20th floor, to find a queue. Turns out the queue was for another elevator, which in turn just led to another escalator, and finally we were in a doughnut-shaped room with windows all the way around.

So actually, I think it's free to come this far up the Sky Building, you just can't go to the Sky Garden without paying. Even then, it's not that expensive considering the view.

anime establishing shot or what

Every window was a) packed and b) wonderful. We managed to find a window tucked away somewhere that people kept missing and snapped away for a good while before moving on. We decided, sappy as we are, to get a lock engraved so we could attach it to the railings at the top.

The view from the top.

Firstly, it's a bit terrifying. Secondly, it's...quite scary. Being in the open air that high up is always a little unnerving, especially when there's a breeze coming in. But then you look at the view and relax a little because everywhere you look there's twinkling lights, faraway business and happy people. It's quite sweet. There's also a huge balcony under and around the balcony you're allowed on. No accidents here.

Many thanks to the lovely Korean family that took this photo for us.

We had a lot of fun confusing some of the many Korean tourists we saw while we were out and about. If we happened to bump into any or needed to talk to them, we'd wish them a Happy Chuseok (in Korean) and watch the cogs whirr as they processed the strange situation of having a Westerner talk to you in Korean...in Japan. I know I'd be confused if it were me, haha. Usually it led to a short conversation and lots of happy smiles, so I'm quite glad we did it.

Another fun point, they had a blacklight around the walkway, instead of bright white ones to dampen the view, which was nice, but it had an added bonus of making my dress glow the most incredible colours.

And that's it for day 3. Busy busy busy. For people that said they wanted a relaxing holiday, we definitely went and did a LOT.

Oh, and we met a cat on the way home. Hi cutie~

No? Okay. ㅠ__ㅠ

낙산 | Naksan Art Village

Continuing on from my previous post, we took a bit of a hike up to Naksan. I'm partial to a bit of street art, so this seemed ideal, mixed in with a bit of much-needed exercise.

The walk started off innocuously enough, with a lovely long mural next to an intriguing looking building in the ever pervasive trend of "industrial chic", egh. (Also, it was a lock museum. As in, a museum...about locks. Padlocks, door locks, safes...really?)

However, it wasn't long before we reached this:

Despite my laboured wheezing, I had enough time to appreciate the view, which just kept getting better. I have to say, the people that live here must be REALLY healthy. There's only one road up the whole hill as far as I can tell. Anywhere not directly on that road? Better walk, kid.

창경궁 | Changgyeonggung Palace

This blog post is technically one of two, because I like to keep everything compact and tidy, and I'm too verbose to have two locations in one post, even though we did it all in one day. Sigh.

We met up with Erin and Morgan to go on an adventure! We settled on visiting a palace AND an Art Village, because the great thing about Seoul is that there's hundreds of things to do and usually within a short distance of each other.

The palace we went to was Changgyeonggung. For only 1000 won per person, it's a great place for a day (or half-day) out!
History Lesson: It was originally a summer palace during Goryeo times, and later became one of the 5 Grand Palaces.

The weather was great, with blue skies, and not as much humidity as we'd seen in the days prior. As with many old buildings in South Korea, there's a lot of very intricate detail in the woodwork and decorations, as well as being very lush, with many trees and lawn areas. It's always nice to see places like this in the middle of large, busy cities.

The Korvia Summer BBQ!

Woo, it's been a while! In fairness, this is the longest-running and most consistent blog I think I've ever had (and, being a child of the internet, I've had a LOT of blogs...) so I'm not going to lie, I'm quite proud. It probably helps that my life is a lot more interesting now. Let's face it, "I went to a palace" is much better than "I slept for 13 hours then went on Tumblr" ;)

ANYWAY. Quite a few weeks ago now, Nick and I went to the Korvia BBQ. For the uninformed, Korvia is the recruitment agency we used to get our jobs in Korea. It's a great agency, with kind and caring staff and I don't think I'll ever be able to stop singing their praises. 

One of the many great things they do for their recruits is they hold a party or barbecue when the weather is good, to give teachers old and new a chance to mingle and meet some fellow English speakers. It's really nice when you're far away from home with very little in the way of home comforts. I'm quite lucky, because every day I come home to my own little slice of England, but for many people, especially those in more rural areas, I can imagine the homesickness can hit hard.

So, after doing some shopping in the morning (we wanted to buy a "thank you and happy birthday!" present for our lovely recruiter, Daisy) we hopped onto the subway and headed off for Yatap. Annoyingly, we had to take quite a convoluted route there, which meant that we ended up taking the same amount of time as some people that came from much, much further away! However, the subway here is very comfortable so I'm not complaining too much.

When we arrived in the right area, we found some helpful posters dotted around, and slowly the sound of very non-Korean voices drifted over. Yaaay~

Pictured above: the aforementioned sign, my plate piled high with lovely lovely food, and the obligatory photo of Nick eating and wishing I was doing something other than taking terrible photos.