Bukhansan Hike

A few weeks ago when Andrew had a day off, he and Mark went to the Bukhansan National Park on the north side of Seoul.  I've shared some pictures below, but the big story of the day is how much attention Andrew got from Koreans on the subway and on the mountain for wearing shorts to hike in the snow.  He kept getting yelled at.  Koreans on the other hand are always decked out in matching outfits before hitting the trails.  They absolutely relish their hiking gear- my favorite brand is called "Red Face."  Sounds right to me!

View of the peak from the subway station.

Trail map.

The trail must have been a little slippery in parts.

A small portion of the expanse of Seoul behind Andrew.

At the top, about 2800 ft.  See the white mountain lion?

Recycling Photos

I've mentioned before that Korea is crazy about recycling and I applaud them.  I choose to overlook the gigantic garbage heaps at the farms near our house and instead focus on city life where the streets and subways are nearly immaculate.  There's so little trash around that it's bothersome sometimes, because finding a garbage can on the street can be a quest of several blocks.

A few pictures I want to share.  First, this one is recycled from a blogger in Japan.  It's a garbage station inside Starbucks, where the customers are asked to sort their trash as they leave.  Pour the liquid in one hatch, place any food waste in another, stack lids and cups in separate bins, etc.  We see this in coffee shops and fast food restaurants all over the place.  So complex but so brilliant!

The next picture was taken near where I work in Seoul.  This huge bear-like thing is called a haechi and has been a symbol of Seoul for centuries.  It's made of used plastic water bottles and it reminded me of public art I'd see in Portland or something.

Haley's Huge Haechi.

Up Close.

Cellies

As you've probably heard, South Korea is one of the most "wired" countries on Earth, although I'm not sure what that term means exactly now that wireless is the wave of the future (pun intended).  All young, old, and in between Koreans have cell phones- smartphones to be more specific.  Even on the subway you can get a full signal here and a crazy number of people watch television on their phones.

 

Andrew and I are still in the Dark Ages with our dumbphones and the internet service to our apartment is spotty at times, causing us to curse it and call it "un-Korean."  But the basic cell plans and services are different than options in the U.S. in a few moderately interesting ways:

 

1.  You only pay for minutes on outgoing calls.  All incoming calls and texts are free.  So smart!  For that reason I don't mind the ten spam texts I get per day, all seemingly advertising a sale somewhere because the only characters I understand are the 20~30% and the !.

2.  There's no such thing as free nights and weekend minutes.

3.  All cell phone stores glow whiter than heaven and pump out loud K-pop music to entice customers.  If there's an especially good sale going on, they have dancers outside.

4.  The brand of my cell phones are LG (personal) and Samsung (government), both Korean companies.

 

The best and strangest thing about Korean cell phones and the reason for this blog post:

 

When sending a text, you can choose what phone number is associated with your text when the receiver gets it.  Meaning you can type a text to someone and then you have the option to change your phone number to a different one, leading to some pretty funny scenarios because it pops up on the receiver's phone as being from the person with the number you entered.  Andrew talks about sitting in meetings where he's texting inappropriate things to his friends but disguising them as coming from someone else sitting at the table.  I've been tempted on more than one occasion to text my boss from my coworker's number saying, "im lazy and haley does all my work. give her a big raise. :P"  But that might arouse suspicion, yes?  The possibilities are endless!

Keepin' House

We have a housekeeper.  She's glorious!  Without kids, pets, or entertaining anyone besides close close friends, we truly don't need one but it's a much better way to spend money than on marriage counseling, right?  Just kidding..... sort of.  Our first football season here, when Andrew had to dodge evil glares from a vacuum-wielding wife who was waiting for a commercial break to turn it on, we figured Korea must be one of those countries with access to cheap labor, right?  The quote from our realtor was a cleaning once every two weeks for roughly $45, not the major bargain we had envisioned (a live-in maid for $10 a day) but at this point I could not be deterred so she started the next day.  My mood improved tenfold on Saturday mornings knowing there was nothing waiting to be cleaned when I got out of bed.

The reason I'm writing about this is that the housekeeper speaks very limited English (although vastly more than I speak Korean) and we've had some funny encounters.  For a while she would fold our dirty laundry and put away dirty dishes out of the dishwasher.  Try as we might our signs and drawings wouldn't stop her, so now we do our own laundry and dishes on the night before she comes so she can fold the clean clothes and put away the clean dishes instead.  She uses chip clips to organize all the loose papers on our dining room table.  One time when we wanted her to wipe out the fridge, Andrew had the idea to put a sponge and cleaner on the floor in front of the fridge with a sign pointing to it, but with a smiley face so she knew we weren't mad.  She must get the chuckles too about the crazy way Americans do things. 

Recently we had another silly incident.  Here's what we came home to on the kitchen counter:

Does anyone know what ^^; means?  A very off-centered smirky smile?  Well, we didn't care at all that she broke the toothbrush holder but we were very, very glad to finally learn her name.  Here's the amputee's friends hanging in the bathroom:

Yesterday the housekeeper cleaned again, and this time I got a call from the realtor/translator saying she had bad news.  Eun Ha had broken something again.  This time it was a doll.  I had to rack my brain to think of any dolls in this house (aside from Andrew's GI Joes of course) and couldn't come up with anything, until further description indicated she meant one of the mini terracotta warriors we bought in Xian.  She beheaded the Captain, too funny!  But not surprising considering they were made in China and likely also made of dirt.... yes they were dirt cheap.  We glued on his head and the army is battle-ready again.  Sidenote: I set up a battle of terracotta warriors versus Nutcrackers and snowmen during the holidays.  Dorkfest!

Eun Ha made me realize that apparently I don't buy any souvenirs over $5 and there's nothing in my house I really mind breaking as long as I can sleep in on Saturdays and Andrew can watch sports in peace.

Happy Lunar New Year

Welcome to the Year of the Rabbit and Year 4708 on the Chinese Calendar.

Koreans celebrate the Lunar New Year with traditional foods, games, and rites, all performed at the home of their ancestors which makes for a massive mobilization of people and absolute gridlock on every transportation system.  The oldest son's wife is responsible for preparing and cooking the entire feast that customarily includes tteokguk soup, made of beef broth, pressed rice cakes, and fried eggs.  Not eating tteokguk soup would be the equivalent of skipping the turkey on Thanksgiving in the U.S.  The whole Lunar New Year holiday is centered around food because food is the traditional gift to wish for a prosperous year and food is an integral component in the ancestral rites performed. 

Beautifully packaged boxes of everything edible have been popping up in stores in the past month.  Similar to in Japan, here also the packaging is as important or more important than its contents.... So no using Sunday's comics as wrapping paper here.  Everything from oranges to raw meat, honey to olive oil, shampoo to spam- all these are available for purchase at a greatly inflated price.  



Here are some pictures from the grocery store in the basement of Pyeongtaek's Train Station.

Each box is over $150 worth of traditional stale-tasting Korean cookies made with honey, nuts and grains.

Packaged fruit in the produce section- one box of 12 asian pears was over $60.

Koreans go wild over Spam!  This box is about $50.  Mmm good!

I've mentioned before that Koreans are considered to be one-year old at birth, but another oddity about Koreans' ages is that they all turn another year older together on Lunar New Year's Day.  So this year, a baby born on February 2nd (before the New Year) will be one year old but will turn two years old the next day on New Year's Day, February 3rd, even though the baby is considered two days old to Westerners.  However, the Western calendar is used instead of the Lunar Calendar for all legal documents, so no 19 year old Koreans can buy beer in the States without a fake ID.