Sunday, September 30, 2007
Saturday, September 29, 2007
Domo Arigato [day 4/5]
We started our morning in Kyoto by changing our clothes and “freshening up” (as best you can in a grody stall) in the subway. Since it was still early, before anything was open, we just walked around the streets a bit. We had some sort of cheese toast for breakfast at some sort of Elton John-themed café (apparently?), and then found a bookstore, where I bought a Japanese fashion magazine (little knowing that they would become my new obsession). We went to the hotel where we were meeting our tour group, and tried to find them. It was a bit of an ordeal, they were NOT well organized like Gray Line (who, other than getting names completely wrong do really well). This fact became abundantly clear when everyone was piling onto the bus, and it comes to us (last in line, natch), and they tell us “Sorry. No room.”
EXCUSE ME? We paid like 6 trillion yen for this tour. There better be some damn room. Once they shuffled around the baby in the stroller, the old man in the wheelchair,
and the fat lady in the wheelchair, they found us some seats. We get on and start heading toward the back of the buSMASH. Whacked my head SO hard on this weird outcropping of bus ceiling. Some old ladies laugh at me. I swear at them under my breath. We head off to our first stop, with our new tour guide Cookie leading the way. She tells us about Kyoto, which used to be the capital of Japan, and is one of the worlds leading producers of Sake. I guess producing a bunch of drunks is something to be proud about. We get to Nijo Castle, and disembarSMASH. Oh yeah. I forgot to duck. Again. Old ladies laugh. I continue to not enjoy Kyoto.
We’re not allowed to take pictures at the castle, because it’s mostly made of paper. The best part of the castle is that it is NINJA PROOF!!!! I swear. I can’t think of a cooler thing to have done to someone’s living place. The floors have a special thing called nightingale flooring, and you can’t walk on it without it squeaking. In each of the rooms where the Shogun (who lived there) or the Emperor (who visited) might have been, there were secret panels and hidden rooms, where the good guys could hide, and bust out and kill the bad guys, if need be.
Out next stop, the Golden Pavilion, got me to thinking (it hurt ^^). What is must be like to be a monk. You vow to a life of poverty, and then BUILD A BUILDING MADE OF GOLD. Not only that, but then they charge people an admission fee to see it. And once there in, there are these pots where people just throw money. You don’t make a wish. You don’t get a prize. You just biff your money in. If I can’t be a shogun and live in a ninja-proof palace, living in anything made of gold would be ok.
Our next stop, the Kyoto Imperial Palace, was the home of the Emperor until the capital moved to Tokyo in 1867. The security here is pretty intense. We had to line up and they counted us on the way in and out. The palace is so big, and has so many separate buildings, that there is no point in a year when one of the buildings is not being renovated. It is actually pretty amazing, it has some huge, beautiful gates, and everything everywhere has 16-petaled-Chrysanthemums all over, the Imperial symbol.
After here, we go to the handicraft center for lunch (ALL YOU CAN EAT holla). It was sort of disappointing, since all-you-can-eat is a favorite phrase of both Bree Teacher, and me but we were too rushed to really work the buffet. Plus it was just sort of lame. So we hightailed it out ahead of our tour and went to shop the handicrafts downstairs from the restaurant. I was thisclose to buying an amazing Samurai sword, only you can’t take them on a plane (clearly), and we weren’t checking anything. Bree teacher bought TWO kimonos. AND won a prize from doing same.
We went to the lobby to meet the afternoon tour, which is some of the morning people, and some new people. The new people including. NOOOOOOOOO. My nemeses, Tweedle-dee and Tweedle-dum (newly christened). WHY GOD WHY, did they follow us 8 hours to Kyoto. Probably to fiddle with my gingerale. As long as our bus seats aren’t near theiSMASH. Crap. The afternoon is not starting well. Our drive to Nara was an hour or so away, and while I was genuinely interested in what Cookie was telling us, I fell asleep for the last bit of the drive, until we arrived at—
Todaiji Temple and Deer Park is perhaps one of the strangest collections of weirdness I’ve ever encountered. Let me break it down:
World’s largest wooden building
World’s largest Buddha
1100 “tame” deer (I say time because some of them, hilariously, attack Japanese school children)
Buddha’s guardians. For some of them, they ran out of money, so there are just some heads and arms lying around.
This guy...
The Buddha, they say, can hold 20 people in the palm of his hand. They also say that if you can pass through Buddha’s nostril that your wish will come true, and have a tree carved with a tunnel the size of Buddha’s nostril. So who would want to try, who else in the world, but my nemesis’ sidekick. So he gets down on the ground and crawls through Buddha’s nostril. Thanks. Way to give a good name to us Westerners. The Japanese all think you’re a freak.
[Now that I think about it, though, I did almost steal from a monk. It wasn’t my fault though. Bree Teach told me that the 5yen pieces were 50 yen pieces, so I used them as she told me. How was I to know the difference?]
The Kasuga Shrine, our last stop, is the most famous Shrine in Nara. It has 3000 antique stone and bronze lanterns, and it makes for quite a sight, even though they weren’t lit up. Shinto seems like a pretty awesome religion too. There’s no founder, no text, and it has 8 million Gods. Can’t find one you like? Just make a new one. Where there are 8 million, what’s one more!?
On our drive home, Cookie told us all about Nara, Kyoto, Geishas, and anything else that interested her. Man, this lady could TALK. We wanted to see the Geishas, but we were too far away, so we asked her about shopping instead. She told us a few places, and we checked them out as we waited for our bus to take us back to Tokyo. We found a few weird mall-type structures that were pretty cool, but before long, the bus came, and we were back in the cramp, for our (somehow 2 hours longer) return trip.
Our last day was fairly uneventful.
We got off our 9 hour bus ride in Tokyo, and pretty much got right on the 75 minute subway ride to the airport. Here we had lunch (the world’s most expensive sushi, I think), and then got on our 2.5 hour flight. When we got back in Korea, we had a 90 minute bus ride back to Seoul. Needless to say, I was glad to be standing up when I got off that bus. On the whole, though, Japan is definitely a winner.
EXCUSE ME? We paid like 6 trillion yen for this tour. There better be some damn room. Once they shuffled around the baby in the stroller, the old man in the wheelchair,
and the fat lady in the wheelchair, they found us some seats. We get on and start heading toward the back of the buSMASH. Whacked my head SO hard on this weird outcropping of bus ceiling. Some old ladies laugh at me. I swear at them under my breath. We head off to our first stop, with our new tour guide Cookie leading the way. She tells us about Kyoto, which used to be the capital of Japan, and is one of the worlds leading producers of Sake. I guess producing a bunch of drunks is something to be proud about. We get to Nijo Castle, and disembarSMASH. Oh yeah. I forgot to duck. Again. Old ladies laugh. I continue to not enjoy Kyoto.
We’re not allowed to take pictures at the castle, because it’s mostly made of paper. The best part of the castle is that it is NINJA PROOF!!!! I swear. I can’t think of a cooler thing to have done to someone’s living place. The floors have a special thing called nightingale flooring, and you can’t walk on it without it squeaking. In each of the rooms where the Shogun (who lived there) or the Emperor (who visited) might have been, there were secret panels and hidden rooms, where the good guys could hide, and bust out and kill the bad guys, if need be. 
Out next stop, the Golden Pavilion, got me to thinking (it hurt ^^). What is must be like to be a monk. You vow to a life of poverty, and then BUILD A BUILDING MADE OF GOLD. Not only that, but then they charge people an admission fee to see it. And once there in, there are these pots where people just throw money. You don’t make a wish. You don’t get a prize. You just biff your money in. If I can’t be a shogun and live in a ninja-proof palace, living in anything made of gold would be ok.
Our next stop, the Kyoto Imperial Palace, was the home of the Emperor until the capital moved to Tokyo in 1867. The security here is pretty intense. We had to line up and they counted us on the way in and out. The palace is so big, and has so many separate buildings, that there is no point in a year when one of the buildings is not being renovated. It is actually pretty amazing, it has some huge, beautiful gates, and everything everywhere has 16-petaled-Chrysanthemums all over, the Imperial symbol.
After here, we go to the handicraft center for lunch (ALL YOU CAN EAT holla). It was sort of disappointing, since all-you-can-eat is a favorite phrase of both Bree Teacher, and me but we were too rushed to really work the buffet. Plus it was just sort of lame. So we hightailed it out ahead of our tour and went to shop the handicrafts downstairs from the restaurant. I was thisclose to buying an amazing Samurai sword, only you can’t take them on a plane (clearly), and we weren’t checking anything. Bree teacher bought TWO kimonos. AND won a prize from doing same.
We went to the lobby to meet the afternoon tour, which is some of the morning people, and some new people. The new people including. NOOOOOOOOO. My nemeses, Tweedle-dee and Tweedle-dum (newly christened). WHY GOD WHY, did they follow us 8 hours to Kyoto. Probably to fiddle with my gingerale. As long as our bus seats aren’t near theiSMASH. Crap. The afternoon is not starting well. Our drive to Nara was an hour or so away, and while I was genuinely interested in what Cookie was telling us, I fell asleep for the last bit of the drive, until we arrived at—
Todaiji Temple and Deer Park is perhaps one of the strangest collections of weirdness I’ve ever encountered. Let me break it down:
World’s largest wooden building
World’s largest Buddha
1100 “tame” deer (I say time because some of them, hilariously, attack Japanese school children)
Buddha’s guardians. For some of them, they ran out of money, so there are just some heads and arms lying around.
This guy...
The Buddha, they say, can hold 20 people in the palm of his hand. They also say that if you can pass through Buddha’s nostril that your wish will come true, and have a tree carved with a tunnel the size of Buddha’s nostril. So who would want to try, who else in the world, but my nemesis’ sidekick. So he gets down on the ground and crawls through Buddha’s nostril. Thanks. Way to give a good name to us Westerners. The Japanese all think you’re a freak.[Now that I think about it, though, I did almost steal from a monk. It wasn’t my fault though. Bree Teach told me that the 5yen pieces were 50 yen pieces, so I used them as she told me. How was I to know the difference?]
The Kasuga Shrine, our last stop, is the most famous Shrine in Nara. It has 3000 antique stone and bronze lanterns, and it makes for quite a sight, even though they weren’t lit up. Shinto seems like a pretty awesome religion too. There’s no founder, no text, and it has 8 million Gods. Can’t find one you like? Just make a new one. Where there are 8 million, what’s one more!?On our drive home, Cookie told us all about Nara, Kyoto, Geishas, and anything else that interested her. Man, this lady could TALK. We wanted to see the Geishas, but we were too far away, so we asked her about shopping instead. She told us a few places, and we checked them out as we waited for our bus to take us back to Tokyo. We found a few weird mall-type structures that were pretty cool, but before long, the bus came, and we were back in the cramp, for our (somehow 2 hours longer) return trip.
Our last day was fairly uneventful.
We got off our 9 hour bus ride in Tokyo, and pretty much got right on the 75 minute subway ride to the airport. Here we had lunch (the world’s most expensive sushi, I think), and then got on our 2.5 hour flight. When we got back in Korea, we had a 90 minute bus ride back to Seoul. Needless to say, I was glad to be standing up when I got off that bus. On the whole, though, Japan is definitely a winner.
Tokyo Rose [day 3]
Day 3 we were set to leave Tokyo (already!) and drive to see Mount Fuji. We left the ryokan, for keeps this time, and went back to the hotel where we met the tour the previous day (on the way, we saw a rat in the subway!!). When the tourguides once again found “Brown? Mr. John Brown?” we boarded the bus, and found (to our delight!) Ricky! Our favorite tour guide! He told us lots of interesting stories on our (very long~~) drive to Mount Fuji:
*On the subway in Japan, there are “pushers,” who I guess are employed by the city, whose job it is to push people onto overcrowded trains. There is one station in Tokyo that over 3 million people go through each work day. On Ricky’s first day of university, the subway was so crowded that his tie got stuck in the doors, and he couldn’t get out for a few stops!
*We drove by some tea farms, and Ricky told us about his family who were tea farmers. He told us about the health benefits of green tea, including how it supposedly cures cancer. His uncle (or grandfather) was a tea farmer his whole life, but he died of cancer. The reason? He drank 10 times more sake than green tea.
*He was in America at a restaurant and tried to eat rice with chopsticks, but it was American rice (ie: not sticky), so he couldn’t pick it up with chopsticks and everyone made fun of him.
Anyhoo, we drove allllll the way up Mount Fuji to the 5th Station, which is as high as cars are allowed to drive up. This is also the timberline, so above the 5th station building, there are no trees. It’s so high up (the station is at 8000 feet), that the view is of absolutely nothing. You’re basically in the clouds, so you can see about 2 feet in front of your face, and everything is completely shrouded in fog. We drove back down the mountain (and THIS is where we had an amazing view).
At the bottom of the mountain, we went to a hotelesque place for lunch prepared “in the Western style.” This, to the Japanese, apparently means “with the head attached.” I know that’s how I prepare most of my meals anyway. It was a strange piece of chicken, with an even stranger prawn on top, head, legs, and all. Bree Teach and I sat with an old couple from Toronto, ironically enough.
Afterwards our bus driver (who, Ricky tells us, is the best bus driver in Tokyo – apparently the guy who was the best bus driver in Tokyo the day before died or something. Bus crash?) drove us to Hakone, a town known for its handicrafts and hot springs. We took a cable car up the mountain (Ricky: “For those afraid of heights, there have not been any deaths on the cable car… Yet”), and wow. 
The view. From one side you can see beautiful Hakone Mountains, and Mount Fuji off in the distance. From the other side, you see the Owakudani Boiling Valley, which is, as our tour itinerary tells us, and “ancient crater where sulfurous fume reeks and clouds of stream rise from crevasses.” Delicious.
The smell, as soon as we step off the cable car, is pretty divine.
It smells quite similar to rotten eggs, only much worse than you could possibly imagine. Conveniently enough, they sell hardboiled eggs here that they boiled in the gross sulfur hot springs. They’re black from the gunk in the water. And people LOVE them. We saw them being sold, literally hundreds every minute. They also sell black-egg everything (I got a black egg piggy bank).
Our bus was waiting for us at the top of the mountain (Hmm, this guy is pretty good--), and he drives us back down the gill to Lake Ashi, where we are to board our Pirate Ship. Oh yes. It comes complete with pirates and all. Ricky, nice guy that he is, even got us tickets in First Class! Unfortunately, a few minutes into our cruise, 
I had to pee, and since there were no washrooms in First Class, I ventured out. Even more unfortunately, once you leave First Class, you can’t get back in. Even though I screamed across the boat for Bree Teacher to let me back in, she ignored me (she was busy playing out her Titanic fantasy), so I spent the rest of the cruise alone. With the peasants.
After the cruise, we drove back to Tokyo (and somehow the drive back home was several hours longer than the drive there). After a few hours on THIS bus, and a few more hours wandering the streets of Tokyo looking for a place to eat (after quite an exhaustive search, we found a beef bowl place), we got on ANOTHER bus. Also, we saw this amazing sundae. For about 8 hours, overnight. Let’s keep in mind that this bus is built for Japanese-sized people, whose legs are approximately 3 feet shorter than mine. Uncomfortable would be an understatement.
Even so, we arrive safe and sound, and ready for another day of adventure---
*On the subway in Japan, there are “pushers,” who I guess are employed by the city, whose job it is to push people onto overcrowded trains. There is one station in Tokyo that over 3 million people go through each work day. On Ricky’s first day of university, the subway was so crowded that his tie got stuck in the doors, and he couldn’t get out for a few stops!
*We drove by some tea farms, and Ricky told us about his family who were tea farmers. He told us about the health benefits of green tea, including how it supposedly cures cancer. His uncle (or grandfather) was a tea farmer his whole life, but he died of cancer. The reason? He drank 10 times more sake than green tea.
*He was in America at a restaurant and tried to eat rice with chopsticks, but it was American rice (ie: not sticky), so he couldn’t pick it up with chopsticks and everyone made fun of him.
Anyhoo, we drove allllll the way up Mount Fuji to the 5th Station, which is as high as cars are allowed to drive up. This is also the timberline, so above the 5th station building, there are no trees. It’s so high up (the station is at 8000 feet), that the view is of absolutely nothing. You’re basically in the clouds, so you can see about 2 feet in front of your face, and everything is completely shrouded in fog. We drove back down the mountain (and THIS is where we had an amazing view).
At the bottom of the mountain, we went to a hotelesque place for lunch prepared “in the Western style.” This, to the Japanese, apparently means “with the head attached.” I know that’s how I prepare most of my meals anyway. It was a strange piece of chicken, with an even stranger prawn on top, head, legs, and all. Bree Teach and I sat with an old couple from Toronto, ironically enough.
Afterwards our bus driver (who, Ricky tells us, is the best bus driver in Tokyo – apparently the guy who was the best bus driver in Tokyo the day before died or something. Bus crash?) drove us to Hakone, a town known for its handicrafts and hot springs. We took a cable car up the mountain (Ricky: “For those afraid of heights, there have not been any deaths on the cable car… Yet”), and wow. 
The view. From one side you can see beautiful Hakone Mountains, and Mount Fuji off in the distance. From the other side, you see the Owakudani Boiling Valley, which is, as our tour itinerary tells us, and “ancient crater where sulfurous fume reeks and clouds of stream rise from crevasses.” Delicious. The smell, as soon as we step off the cable car, is pretty divine.
It smells quite similar to rotten eggs, only much worse than you could possibly imagine. Conveniently enough, they sell hardboiled eggs here that they boiled in the gross sulfur hot springs. They’re black from the gunk in the water. And people LOVE them. We saw them being sold, literally hundreds every minute. They also sell black-egg everything (I got a black egg piggy bank).
Our bus was waiting for us at the top of the mountain (Hmm, this guy is pretty good--), and he drives us back down the gill to Lake Ashi, where we are to board our Pirate Ship. Oh yes. It comes complete with pirates and all. Ricky, nice guy that he is, even got us tickets in First Class! Unfortunately, a few minutes into our cruise, 
I had to pee, and since there were no washrooms in First Class, I ventured out. Even more unfortunately, once you leave First Class, you can’t get back in. Even though I screamed across the boat for Bree Teacher to let me back in, she ignored me (she was busy playing out her Titanic fantasy), so I spent the rest of the cruise alone. With the peasants. 
After the cruise, we drove back to Tokyo (and somehow the drive back home was several hours longer than the drive there). After a few hours on THIS bus, and a few more hours wandering the streets of Tokyo looking for a place to eat (after quite an exhaustive search, we found a beef bowl place), we got on ANOTHER bus. Also, we saw this amazing sundae. For about 8 hours, overnight. Let’s keep in mind that this bus is built for Japanese-sized people, whose legs are approximately 3 feet shorter than mine. Uncomfortable would be an understatement.Even so, we arrive safe and sound, and ready for another day of adventure---
Turning Japanese [day 2]
We woke up on Sunday morning after a quite light sleep, since we had neither an alarm clock nor a wake up call to let us know when the time was right. We got ready and headed out, and took the Chiyoda (hehe) line to the hotel where we were meeting the tour group. We were good and early, so we looked around for a place to get breakfast, but there was NOTHING. Weird, in Seoul there are 40 places to eat on each corner. A guy walks over to us saying “gray line, gray line” (the name of our tour company), and then asks me “Brown? Mr. John Brown?” “That’s her… I guess.” For some reason people are always thinking Bree Teacher is a man, but this is the first time someone has called her John. He takes us to a waiting taxi, and this takes us to another hotel where the bus is waiting for us, and we meet our tour guide, and the bus driver: “The best bus driver in Tokyo,” whose name, the guide tells us, is “Mr. Best Driver.”
Our tour guide takes us to our first stop: Tokyo Tower. This tower, she explains, is the exact same style, shape, and size as the Eiffel Tower. Whoever came up with the idea of Tokyo Tower liked the Eiffel Tower so much (and they were so lazy) that they just copied it exactly. However, in some strange attempt to prove that their tower was better, they put an antenna on top of Tokyo Tower, so it’s just thismuch taller. Plus, they painted it neon orange. It was a pretty cool view, and their mascots are two brothers, and they’re some sort of squid-tower hybrid, so they’re fairly enjoyable.
Next, we went to the Meiji Shrine to check out “the finest example of Japanese shrine architecture,
nestled in a peaceful, picturesque area.” We passed through a gate that was made from trees that are 1500 years old. This is supposed to purify the body, as is the water that our tour guide MADE us clean ourselves with: you pour it over your hands, and rinse your mouth with it – Bree Teacher drank it (although we both totally drank the holy water at a temple in Busan – oops).
The best thing we saw at the Shrine, for sure, was the traditional Japanese wedding that was happening.
Everyone in the whole party was decked out in fancy robes and kimonos. The bride, though, had a bright white, huge kimono, and on her head she wore a big white hood. The tour guide explained it to us: she said that as soon as a woman gets married, she starts to get jealous of her husband, so she wears a hood to cover her “horns of jealousy” that grow out of her head.
Our next several sights were just “drive-bys”: we saw the national Diet building, which is basically a Parliament, but with a fancy name (it was quite a-bustle, since we saw it on the day of the national election); we saw the Akasaka Guest House, which foreign heads of state used to stay when they visited Tokyo (also of note, its exterior is “based on” – ripped off from – Buckingham Palace… I’m sensing a theme here); we saw the Russian Embassy in Tokyo, which had the most intense armed guards on all side of it – Japan and Russia are having a land dispute over some islands north of Japan, and they had been having a lot of protestors and other riffraff in the area; we saw the Ginza shopping district, which is apparently world famous.
Our tour guide led us around here, as she did at every stop, by having us follow a flag she hoisted
up that was covered in cartoon cats. As if a group of “American” tourists did make enough of a spectacle in Japan, she drew more attention to us. In Ginza we stopped for lunch at a traditional Japanese-style restaurant. We had lots of little samples of different Japanese dishes, to give us a taste for the food. It was pretty delish all in all. After lunch we headed back to the bus, and met our new tour guide (for some reason there was a different one for the afternoon). His name is Ricky, and he was hilarious, he told us lots of funny stories, and he had lots of really interesting information about each of the places we visited.
But let me introduce you to my nemesis... I had bought a bottle of gingerale at the temple, and I had it in the cupholder in front of me on the bus. The guy sitting in the seat in from of me had his hands over the back of the seat, and putting them all up in my grill. Then he starts fiddling with my bottle! I have to drink from there, buddy, I don’t know where you hands have been! The whole trip, he’s just flinging his hands around over the back of his seat. And to make matters worse, at our next stop, the Tasake Pearl Gallery (where we learned how to cultivate pearls), HE WON A FREAKING PEARL! Of all the people that could have won. Also, his friend pretended that he won a pearl too. He was going to steal a pearl from an old Japanese man, but the guy caught him “Sir, that’s a nine, not a six…”
Next we drove to the Sumida River and we went on a riverboat cruise.
Bree Teach and I were, perhaps, a little trepidatious, after our last cruising disaster, but this one was super fun, and at no point did we approach a drowning state. Just like in Seoul, every bridge that crosses the river is different from every other one. At the ending port of the cruise, we saw a man playing a harmonica and… pans. Simultaneously.
Then Riicky led us through a Shopping Street called Nakamise, which led to a Temple at the far end. We didn’t have much time to browse, because we were trying to hard to follow his teddy -bear -on -a -stick that kept us together, and because Ricky can really move. He was practically running through there. The temple was cool, and interesting and all, but we’ve done temples so many times, so you better believe Bree Teach and I cruised through there and ran back to the shopping street before we left for our next stop—
The Temple was our last real stop on the tour, but we had some more “drive-bys” on our way back to people’s hotels. We saw three more shopping districts: the first is called Kappabashi, and it’s probably the strangest shopping district I’ve ever heard of. In Japan, and in Korea, restaurants have displays of their food outside their restaurant to show people what their food looks like. These foods, though, are made of plastic. Kappabashi is where they make and sell these. Ricky said they’re ridiculously expensive. The next shopping district was Ueno, and it had a black market where you could buy shoes and bags and things. The third is called Akihabara, and it has hundreds and hundreds of electronics stores.
…So we got of the bus here, instead of being driven back to our hotel. We shopped around Akahabara for a while (and later Ueno). We also went for dinner in what is, quite possibly, the best kind of restaurant I’ve ever seen. Anywhere. It’s a sushi restaurant, but you don’t have to order anything, the sushi just goes around and around on a conveyer belt, and the chefs just keep putting more on, and then at the end count how many plates there are, and each plate has a different price.
I could have died from deliciousness… Except the most embarrassing moment of my life happened here… I like to pretend I’m a pro at sushi, so I got a little dish and poured some soy sauce in. In between the soy sauce and the ginger there’s a little dish of green powder. Wasabi, I assume, because it’s a sushi restaurant, what else would it be? I’m a big fan of wasabi, so I take a scoop and mix it in with my soy sauce. I dip in my sushi… It’s not very spicy, so I put in some more “wasabi.” Eventually, just before we’re about to leave, the waitress comes over to Bree Teach, points to the green powder, and says “Tea!,” and mixes her a cup of green tea. The whole time, I had been mixing green tea powder with soy sauce. I want to die.
So, we promptly left the restaurant, and went back to the shopping districts. We got the strangest dessert on the street. It’s something called Moffle,
and I still haven’t figured out quite what it is. It tastes sort of like chipped ice. Sort of approaching an ice cream-like taste. But it has the look and texture approximately like insulation. After dessert, we decided to try to walk back to our Ryokan. Bad idea, since we had no idea where it was. Luckily, Tokyo has maps everywhere, So, after an interesting trek through some water plants, and a park with about 1000 wild cats, we made it back safe and sound---
Our tour guide takes us to our first stop: Tokyo Tower. This tower, she explains, is the exact same style, shape, and size as the Eiffel Tower. Whoever came up with the idea of Tokyo Tower liked the Eiffel Tower so much (and they were so lazy) that they just copied it exactly. However, in some strange attempt to prove that their tower was better, they put an antenna on top of Tokyo Tower, so it’s just thismuch taller. Plus, they painted it neon orange. It was a pretty cool view, and their mascots are two brothers, and they’re some sort of squid-tower hybrid, so they’re fairly enjoyable.Next, we went to the Meiji Shrine to check out “the finest example of Japanese shrine architecture,
nestled in a peaceful, picturesque area.” We passed through a gate that was made from trees that are 1500 years old. This is supposed to purify the body, as is the water that our tour guide MADE us clean ourselves with: you pour it over your hands, and rinse your mouth with it – Bree Teacher drank it (although we both totally drank the holy water at a temple in Busan – oops).The best thing we saw at the Shrine, for sure, was the traditional Japanese wedding that was happening.
Everyone in the whole party was decked out in fancy robes and kimonos. The bride, though, had a bright white, huge kimono, and on her head she wore a big white hood. The tour guide explained it to us: she said that as soon as a woman gets married, she starts to get jealous of her husband, so she wears a hood to cover her “horns of jealousy” that grow out of her head.Our next several sights were just “drive-bys”: we saw the national Diet building, which is basically a Parliament, but with a fancy name (it was quite a-bustle, since we saw it on the day of the national election); we saw the Akasaka Guest House, which foreign heads of state used to stay when they visited Tokyo (also of note, its exterior is “based on” – ripped off from – Buckingham Palace… I’m sensing a theme here); we saw the Russian Embassy in Tokyo, which had the most intense armed guards on all side of it – Japan and Russia are having a land dispute over some islands north of Japan, and they had been having a lot of protestors and other riffraff in the area; we saw the Ginza shopping district, which is apparently world famous.
Our tour guide led us around here, as she did at every stop, by having us follow a flag she hoisted
up that was covered in cartoon cats. As if a group of “American” tourists did make enough of a spectacle in Japan, she drew more attention to us. In Ginza we stopped for lunch at a traditional Japanese-style restaurant. We had lots of little samples of different Japanese dishes, to give us a taste for the food. It was pretty delish all in all. After lunch we headed back to the bus, and met our new tour guide (for some reason there was a different one for the afternoon). His name is Ricky, and he was hilarious, he told us lots of funny stories, and he had lots of really interesting information about each of the places we visited.But let me introduce you to my nemesis... I had bought a bottle of gingerale at the temple, and I had it in the cupholder in front of me on the bus. The guy sitting in the seat in from of me had his hands over the back of the seat, and putting them all up in my grill. Then he starts fiddling with my bottle! I have to drink from there, buddy, I don’t know where you hands have been! The whole trip, he’s just flinging his hands around over the back of his seat. And to make matters worse, at our next stop, the Tasake Pearl Gallery (where we learned how to cultivate pearls), HE WON A FREAKING PEARL! Of all the people that could have won. Also, his friend pretended that he won a pearl too. He was going to steal a pearl from an old Japanese man, but the guy caught him “Sir, that’s a nine, not a six…”
Next we drove to the Sumida River and we went on a riverboat cruise.
Bree Teach and I were, perhaps, a little trepidatious, after our last cruising disaster, but this one was super fun, and at no point did we approach a drowning state. Just like in Seoul, every bridge that crosses the river is different from every other one. At the ending port of the cruise, we saw a man playing a harmonica and… pans. Simultaneously.
Then Riicky led us through a Shopping Street called Nakamise, which led to a Temple at the far end. We didn’t have much time to browse, because we were trying to hard to follow his teddy -bear -on -a -stick that kept us together, and because Ricky can really move. He was practically running through there. The temple was cool, and interesting and all, but we’ve done temples so many times, so you better believe Bree Teach and I cruised through there and ran back to the shopping street before we left for our next stop—The Temple was our last real stop on the tour, but we had some more “drive-bys” on our way back to people’s hotels. We saw three more shopping districts: the first is called Kappabashi, and it’s probably the strangest shopping district I’ve ever heard of. In Japan, and in Korea, restaurants have displays of their food outside their restaurant to show people what their food looks like. These foods, though, are made of plastic. Kappabashi is where they make and sell these. Ricky said they’re ridiculously expensive. The next shopping district was Ueno, and it had a black market where you could buy shoes and bags and things. The third is called Akihabara, and it has hundreds and hundreds of electronics stores.
…So we got of the bus here, instead of being driven back to our hotel. We shopped around Akahabara for a while (and later Ueno). We also went for dinner in what is, quite possibly, the best kind of restaurant I’ve ever seen. Anywhere. It’s a sushi restaurant, but you don’t have to order anything, the sushi just goes around and around on a conveyer belt, and the chefs just keep putting more on, and then at the end count how many plates there are, and each plate has a different price.
I could have died from deliciousness… Except the most embarrassing moment of my life happened here… I like to pretend I’m a pro at sushi, so I got a little dish and poured some soy sauce in. In between the soy sauce and the ginger there’s a little dish of green powder. Wasabi, I assume, because it’s a sushi restaurant, what else would it be? I’m a big fan of wasabi, so I take a scoop and mix it in with my soy sauce. I dip in my sushi… It’s not very spicy, so I put in some more “wasabi.” Eventually, just before we’re about to leave, the waitress comes over to Bree Teach, points to the green powder, and says “Tea!,” and mixes her a cup of green tea. The whole time, I had been mixing green tea powder with soy sauce. I want to die.
So, we promptly left the restaurant, and went back to the shopping districts. We got the strangest dessert on the street. It’s something called Moffle,
and I still haven’t figured out quite what it is. It tastes sort of like chipped ice. Sort of approaching an ice cream-like taste. But it has the look and texture approximately like insulation. After dessert, we decided to try to walk back to our Ryokan. Bad idea, since we had no idea where it was. Luckily, Tokyo has maps everywhere, So, after an interesting trek through some water plants, and a park with about 1000 wild cats, we made it back safe and sound---
Konichiwa Bitches [day 1]
I awoke bright and early (noonish) Saturday morning – Japan, here I come! I finished, aka started, packing, and set off towards the station to meet Bree Teacher. 
We had lunch at our favorite place, and went to get our bus tickets for the bus to the airport. They call it a limousine, but it is really not nice at all. The bus ride takes about 90 minutes. The airport is that far away, but it drives around the city for a while first, and we got on at the departure point, so we get the whole ride. Strange stuff doesn’t even wait for us to arrive in Japan, it’s waiting for us at the airport. There were all these people with HUGE guns (which may be normal, I don’t know). What definitely weren’t normal were all the people in giant costumes wandering the halls of the airport. They kept us entertained as we waited, though, as did the pumpkin candy, which wasn’t nearly as gross as it sounds.
A few hours later…
We’re there!! Konichiwa! We have no problems getting through customs, mostly because Bree Teacher flirted heavily with the customs fella (he was in booth lucky number 8). We had brought all our bags with us, so we didn’t need to wait for the luggage, we just went right away to get tickets for the train to Tokyo! We got our tickets and got right on the train (everything was going well—weird), and we sat down across from this old man… Whose newspaper had naked people in it. We didn’t notice at first, because it looked like a normal newspaper, but it definitely had pictures of people doing it.
The train arrived at our stop (the last stop, which is how we knew) about 75 minutes later, and we searched for our exit.
After one false attempt trying to go through the gates with the wrong ticket, we finally found the way we were supposed to be heading – hot travel tip: in Japan, North apparently is not in the opposite direction of South, this is why we had so much trouble finding the exit. We started following a map to our hotel, stopping in a few convenience stores along the way, to find some things that Bree Teach forgot/couldn’t bring (although they totally let me through security with toothpaste AND deodorant – suckers). 
In these stores, all of their magazines have naked people on them too, only they’re all out in the open, since most of them are cartoons. I’m sensing a theme here in Japan… We get to our Ryokan (inn) after a not-too-difficult search. The old lady who worked in it was so nice and she spoke English really well. She took us up to our room in the world’s smallest elevator, and showed us how to work everything. We slept on the floor, and it was actually fairly comfortable, even though the bedding was slightly confusing:
After we unpacked in our room, we headed out to find something to eat. We found a place that serve beef bowls (which, we would later discover is what EVERY restaurant serves). It’s basically a bowl of rice and, yeah, beef.
It’s pretty delicious. The only problem was, we didn’t know how to work the restaurant. The door was challenging itself, but when we got in we just went and sat down and tried to order food, because we didn’t know that we were supposed to order and pay at this machine, until we saw EVERY other person who came in doing just that. The waiter guy played along, though, and brought us our food. After our meal, we looked around the area a bit (we weren’t in the heart of the city, so there wasn’t a lot to see), and back to our hotel. Tokyo is much cleaner than Seoul, we decided, but one of the biggest differences was the traffic. Cars stop at red lights! They stay on the road! We didn’t almost die at every crosswalk! … I like it.
We had lunch at our favorite place, and went to get our bus tickets for the bus to the airport. They call it a limousine, but it is really not nice at all. The bus ride takes about 90 minutes. The airport is that far away, but it drives around the city for a while first, and we got on at the departure point, so we get the whole ride. Strange stuff doesn’t even wait for us to arrive in Japan, it’s waiting for us at the airport. There were all these people with HUGE guns (which may be normal, I don’t know). What definitely weren’t normal were all the people in giant costumes wandering the halls of the airport. They kept us entertained as we waited, though, as did the pumpkin candy, which wasn’t nearly as gross as it sounds.A few hours later…
We’re there!! Konichiwa! We have no problems getting through customs, mostly because Bree Teacher flirted heavily with the customs fella (he was in booth lucky number 8). We had brought all our bags with us, so we didn’t need to wait for the luggage, we just went right away to get tickets for the train to Tokyo! We got our tickets and got right on the train (everything was going well—weird), and we sat down across from this old man… Whose newspaper had naked people in it. We didn’t notice at first, because it looked like a normal newspaper, but it definitely had pictures of people doing it.
The train arrived at our stop (the last stop, which is how we knew) about 75 minutes later, and we searched for our exit.
After one false attempt trying to go through the gates with the wrong ticket, we finally found the way we were supposed to be heading – hot travel tip: in Japan, North apparently is not in the opposite direction of South, this is why we had so much trouble finding the exit. We started following a map to our hotel, stopping in a few convenience stores along the way, to find some things that Bree Teach forgot/couldn’t bring (although they totally let me through security with toothpaste AND deodorant – suckers). 
In these stores, all of their magazines have naked people on them too, only they’re all out in the open, since most of them are cartoons. I’m sensing a theme here in Japan… We get to our Ryokan (inn) after a not-too-difficult search. The old lady who worked in it was so nice and she spoke English really well. She took us up to our room in the world’s smallest elevator, and showed us how to work everything. We slept on the floor, and it was actually fairly comfortable, even though the bedding was slightly confusing:After we unpacked in our room, we headed out to find something to eat. We found a place that serve beef bowls (which, we would later discover is what EVERY restaurant serves). It’s basically a bowl of rice and, yeah, beef.
It’s pretty delicious. The only problem was, we didn’t know how to work the restaurant. The door was challenging itself, but when we got in we just went and sat down and tried to order food, because we didn’t know that we were supposed to order and pay at this machine, until we saw EVERY other person who came in doing just that. The waiter guy played along, though, and brought us our food. After our meal, we looked around the area a bit (we weren’t in the heart of the city, so there wasn’t a lot to see), and back to our hotel. Tokyo is much cleaner than Seoul, we decided, but one of the biggest differences was the traffic. Cars stop at red lights! They stay on the road! We didn’t almost die at every crosswalk! … I like it.
Friday, September 21, 2007
Bizarro World
It’s been like Bizarro World here lately…..
-First of all, my school installed no less than EIGHTEEN new security cameras. The reason for them, apparently is that a girl was “molested” by another student during the summer camp. Henna wouldn’t tell us who this student was, but she suggested that it “might” be the brother of a kindy student. So everyone clearly knew right away – it was John. Even the teachers who don’t teach John know who he is. But guess who DOES teach him? Oh yes, he’s my one on one. His Mom wanted him to have a one on one because she enrolled him in Carnival 2, even though he didn’t do Carnival 1. Henna says we have to do what she wants because she’s “crazy” (by which she means rich). John’s brother Eric is pretty infamous at school too. He likes to put his hands in his pants, and then smell them. One day, though, while he had his pants in there, he announces “poo poo!” As if he thought I cared.
-Also worthy of note. All the teachers at my school got gift packs for 추석 (Chuseok). At first we thought it was a nice gesture, but then we saw what was in them. 2 toothbrushes, 2 body washes, 2 shampoos, 2 conditioners (ok so far…), 8 bars of soap, and TEN TUBES OF TOOTHPASTE! (WTF!!??) And their tubes of toothpaste are huge! And citrus flavored! Why would they ever think we’d need that much toothpaste? Some of the other teachers at school got wine and other presents from the kids for 추석…I got nothing.
-The other night I was walking home from HomePlus with Naomi teacher when this (drunk) Korean guy staggers over to us, points at me, and mumbles in Korean. Terrifyingly. I run away, and when I’m at a safe distance, I ask Naomi Teacher what he said. “Give me your shirt, it was made by my people.”How right he was, though, my shirt was from the GAP. I wonder how he knew ----
[Speaking of HomePlus, it’s become my home(plus) away from home. I’ve gone there 3 nights this week. But what’s not to love? They sell nunchucks, whole octopuses, electronic toilet seats, and they have a whole aisle of nothing but hotdogs.]
[Added later...Somehow I forgot this]
At school, for the kindergarten kids, we had a "garage sale," and it was the strangest experience of my life. I was working in the "clothing and shoe store" with Nate teacher. Our merchandise consisted of old clothes and shoes that the kids parents gave to the school or whatever (although we fared better than the "grocery store," which sold carrots, eggplants, cucumbers and onions). Anyway, the kids came into the "store" one class at a time, and bought this horrible junk from us -- for a photocopied American dollar (which, by the way, is counterfeiting, and is totally illegal).
After this clusterfuck, we had a sort of cooking class. We were supposed to make Songpyeon, a traditional thing that Koreans eat for Chuseok, the holiday that was coming up. Henna enlisted me to work with the Brown class (which I've never taught), and show them how to make Songpyeon (which I've clearly never made). Luckily Henna did a demo, but she didn't have anything prepared, and she didn't know the recipe -- she just told us to add "some" boiling water to "some" rice flour, add "some" beans, and ... then do something with some pineneedles (???), and then pretended she had done so by rolling a ball of playdough.
As if that wasn't weird enough, she told us about a legend that said that women who make pretty Songpyeon will find a good husband. She asks the kidds if "Henna teacher will find a nice man," and they all shout out "NOOOOOOO." Ha. These kids are awesome. When the time came to actually make the Songpyeon, it went fairly well, except some of the kids were more interested in eating the dough than making them, even though it's just water and rice flour, which I would imagine is... not the best taste.
...Also, I saw two people sharing an electric wheelchair, and a dog wearing shoes. Only in this country...
-First of all, my school installed no less than EIGHTEEN new security cameras. The reason for them, apparently is that a girl was “molested” by another student during the summer camp. Henna wouldn’t tell us who this student was, but she suggested that it “might” be the brother of a kindy student. So everyone clearly knew right away – it was John. Even the teachers who don’t teach John know who he is. But guess who DOES teach him? Oh yes, he’s my one on one. His Mom wanted him to have a one on one because she enrolled him in Carnival 2, even though he didn’t do Carnival 1. Henna says we have to do what she wants because she’s “crazy” (by which she means rich). John’s brother Eric is pretty infamous at school too. He likes to put his hands in his pants, and then smell them. One day, though, while he had his pants in there, he announces “poo poo!” As if he thought I cared.
-Also worthy of note. All the teachers at my school got gift packs for 추석 (Chuseok). At first we thought it was a nice gesture, but then we saw what was in them. 2 toothbrushes, 2 body washes, 2 shampoos, 2 conditioners (ok so far…), 8 bars of soap, and TEN TUBES OF TOOTHPASTE! (WTF!!??) And their tubes of toothpaste are huge! And citrus flavored! Why would they ever think we’d need that much toothpaste? Some of the other teachers at school got wine and other presents from the kids for 추석…I got nothing.
-The other night I was walking home from HomePlus with Naomi teacher when this (drunk) Korean guy staggers over to us, points at me, and mumbles in Korean. Terrifyingly. I run away, and when I’m at a safe distance, I ask Naomi Teacher what he said. “Give me your shirt, it was made by my people.”How right he was, though, my shirt was from the GAP. I wonder how he knew ----
[Speaking of HomePlus, it’s become my home(plus) away from home. I’ve gone there 3 nights this week. But what’s not to love? They sell nunchucks, whole octopuses, electronic toilet seats, and they have a whole aisle of nothing but hotdogs.]
[Added later...Somehow I forgot this]
At school, for the kindergarten kids, we had a "garage sale," and it was the strangest experience of my life. I was working in the "clothing and shoe store" with Nate teacher. Our merchandise consisted of old clothes and shoes that the kids parents gave to the school or whatever (although we fared better than the "grocery store," which sold carrots, eggplants, cucumbers and onions). Anyway, the kids came into the "store" one class at a time, and bought this horrible junk from us -- for a photocopied American dollar (which, by the way, is counterfeiting, and is totally illegal).
After this clusterfuck, we had a sort of cooking class. We were supposed to make Songpyeon, a traditional thing that Koreans eat for Chuseok, the holiday that was coming up. Henna enlisted me to work with the Brown class (which I've never taught), and show them how to make Songpyeon (which I've clearly never made). Luckily Henna did a demo, but she didn't have anything prepared, and she didn't know the recipe -- she just told us to add "some" boiling water to "some" rice flour, add "some" beans, and ... then do something with some pineneedles (???), and then pretended she had done so by rolling a ball of playdough.
As if that wasn't weird enough, she told us about a legend that said that women who make pretty Songpyeon will find a good husband. She asks the kidds if "Henna teacher will find a nice man," and they all shout out "NOOOOOOO." Ha. These kids are awesome. When the time came to actually make the Songpyeon, it went fairly well, except some of the kids were more interested in eating the dough than making them, even though it's just water and rice flour, which I would imagine is... not the best taste.
...Also, I saw two people sharing an electric wheelchair, and a dog wearing shoes. Only in this country...
이태원동
Sunday, September 16
Naomi Teacher had invited me the night before to see an art gallery that was showing Monet, so clearly I wanted to go! The next morning, though, our plans changed a little bit. We went to Itaewon first, to meet one of Naomi Teacher’s friends for brunch. We were going to go to some Korean-y place, but it was super busy, so we went instead to Outback Steakhouse (which is, for some reason, the very favorite restaurant of Korean children).
Cindy works at a private school teaching English where they can wear whatever they want, and the students are the children of celebrities. But she was also accused of shaking children and drawing red lines across their necks, so maybe it isn’t all roses. After lunch (and after Coffee Bean…) we went into a really cool “mall,” which is just a big room of vendors all selling Korean souvenirs, jewelry, textiles and stuff. I got my name painted, traditional style, on a scroll, by a man who looks just like guy on the Korean money.
Naomi Teacher had invited me the night before to see an art gallery that was showing Monet, so clearly I wanted to go! The next morning, though, our plans changed a little bit. We went to Itaewon first, to meet one of Naomi Teacher’s friends for brunch. We were going to go to some Korean-y place, but it was super busy, so we went instead to Outback Steakhouse (which is, for some reason, the very favorite restaurant of Korean children).
Cindy works at a private school teaching English where they can wear whatever they want, and the students are the children of celebrities. But she was also accused of shaking children and drawing red lines across their necks, so maybe it isn’t all roses. After lunch (and after Coffee Bean…) we went into a really cool “mall,” which is just a big room of vendors all selling Korean souvenirs, jewelry, textiles and stuff. I got my name painted, traditional style, on a scroll, by a man who looks just like guy on the Korean money.
Thursday, September 20, 2007
Poetic Justice
Saturday, I went to the dreaded refresher course at the Main Office in Jongno-3-ga. It's ironic that it's a "refresher" course, and I'm the freshest person at my school, and yet, I'm the only person who had to go from my school (on account of my boss hates me), but oh well. So I left good and early, on the off chance that I got lost or something, but I can get to Jongno pretty well now, since it's just a straight line (no transfers), and it's not particularly far away. I arrived with time to spare, so I went for the breakfast of champions: Vanilla Frappucino from Starbucks.
I arrive at the main office, and head in -- I was promised sandwiches. But there were NO SANDWICHES, so already I'm disappointed. I see Sam, who I met at training, who is very helpful and informative, and Casey who is... not so much. She's nice though. So of course it's Casey who is leading this session, which means group work. Same as at training. I'm put into quite possibly the worst group in the world. Two large sweaty guys, a Korean girl and a Kiwi girl, and me. Then they subdivide the groups for some reason? Instead of just making smaller groups at the start? So I'm with this bald, red guy, and the Korean girl who won't say anything.
Luckily the red fellow talked enough for all of us. Our assignment was to look at one page of "A Valentine for Miss Vanilla," so it's not like it's rocket science, or anything. The guy just droned on and on. But at least he sounded smart, not like the other guy (the one from the supergroup, but not the subgroup). Here are some of his classic moments:
[The page says that Ms. Vanilla is like such and such. A rainy day, or something]
HIM: So, this is like, this here, when you compare two things. What's that called? A euphemism?
ME: Uh... That's a simile
or
HIM: So when you're speeding, you go ZOOOOOM, and when you're hungry you say YUMMMMM, [and etc.], that's like poetic justice.
ME [thinking]: But what it's even MORE like is onomatopoeia.
or
HIM: We used to think that the Earth went around the sun, but now... We're in space.
Like... I get that I had four extra years of practice as an English major... But did you NOT PASS JUNIOR HIGH!?
I think that the theme of the class, and really the whole Korea/teaching situation in general, was summed up the best by Casey, in an attempt to explain the goals of ECC. "We want to get them to the fluent level. Or at least to emergent." Like... Do your best, and make sure they learn as much as possible, or, conversely, do a little bit less than your best, and if they don't learn as much, it's pretty ok too.
After the course I headed home to wait for BBro for our traditional Saturday dinner and night on the town. Alas, it seemed she made other plans to go to Olympic Park, so I set about making my own, better plans. I had heard from Anna teacher at work that there was a film festival going on in Seoul. I got the schedule, and there were only two days left, so I figured I had better check it out ASAP! There were a few directors whose names I recognized, but the only title that I had heard of is called Day Night Day Night. So, I headed toward the subway. I had only the vaguest of directions (Exit 5 at Konkuk University), so I figured the venue would be pretty easy to find.
…I was wrong. I got to Konkuk fine, and even found exit 5, but the theatre was nowhere to be seen. I wandered around for a while, and I found Rodeo Drive. I was pretty excited about this, actually, since being on the real Rodeo Drive was pretty much the best moment of my life, and I thought this would be similar. Whereas the real thing was amazing and classy and chic, the Korean version is, in equal parts horrible, tacky and neon.
Let’s compare their street signs, shall we? Real Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills is classy, understated. Korean Rodeo Drive (oh, wait, they called it Rodeo “Street” so that people don’t think it’s a rip-off) is enormous, first of all, and lit up. But only most of it.
Anyhoo, I browsed here for a while, then went back to the station
and tried another direction. All of the people seemed to be moving in the direction of a giant mall I saw looming ahead, so I followed them. Conveniently, I saw a big poster outside for the film festival, so in I went. Next challenge: finding the actual theatre inside this behemoth. I walked around until I stumbled upon it. Then a bunch more embarrassing things happened, as they always do when I try to communicate with people, but they’re not important. Then on the way out, I walked for what seemed like forever to the end of the mall, and it was locked, or something, so I had to walk all the way back… Also, they have a store that sells nothing but Crocs, which is pretty much the worst idea ever…
I arrive at the main office, and head in -- I was promised sandwiches. But there were NO SANDWICHES, so already I'm disappointed. I see Sam, who I met at training, who is very helpful and informative, and Casey who is... not so much. She's nice though. So of course it's Casey who is leading this session, which means group work. Same as at training. I'm put into quite possibly the worst group in the world. Two large sweaty guys, a Korean girl and a Kiwi girl, and me. Then they subdivide the groups for some reason? Instead of just making smaller groups at the start? So I'm with this bald, red guy, and the Korean girl who won't say anything.
Luckily the red fellow talked enough for all of us. Our assignment was to look at one page of "A Valentine for Miss Vanilla," so it's not like it's rocket science, or anything. The guy just droned on and on. But at least he sounded smart, not like the other guy (the one from the supergroup, but not the subgroup). Here are some of his classic moments:
[The page says that Ms. Vanilla is like such and such. A rainy day, or something]
HIM: So, this is like, this here, when you compare two things. What's that called? A euphemism?
ME: Uh... That's a simile
or
HIM: So when you're speeding, you go ZOOOOOM, and when you're hungry you say YUMMMMM, [and etc.], that's like poetic justice.
ME [thinking]: But what it's even MORE like is onomatopoeia.
or
HIM: We used to think that the Earth went around the sun, but now... We're in space.
Like... I get that I had four extra years of practice as an English major... But did you NOT PASS JUNIOR HIGH!?
I think that the theme of the class, and really the whole Korea/teaching situation in general, was summed up the best by Casey, in an attempt to explain the goals of ECC. "We want to get them to the fluent level. Or at least to emergent." Like... Do your best, and make sure they learn as much as possible, or, conversely, do a little bit less than your best, and if they don't learn as much, it's pretty ok too.
After the course I headed home to wait for BBro for our traditional Saturday dinner and night on the town. Alas, it seemed she made other plans to go to Olympic Park, so I set about making my own, better plans. I had heard from Anna teacher at work that there was a film festival going on in Seoul. I got the schedule, and there were only two days left, so I figured I had better check it out ASAP! There were a few directors whose names I recognized, but the only title that I had heard of is called Day Night Day Night. So, I headed toward the subway. I had only the vaguest of directions (Exit 5 at Konkuk University), so I figured the venue would be pretty easy to find.
…I was wrong. I got to Konkuk fine, and even found exit 5, but the theatre was nowhere to be seen. I wandered around for a while, and I found Rodeo Drive. I was pretty excited about this, actually, since being on the real Rodeo Drive was pretty much the best moment of my life, and I thought this would be similar. Whereas the real thing was amazing and classy and chic, the Korean version is, in equal parts horrible, tacky and neon.
Let’s compare their street signs, shall we? Real Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills is classy, understated. Korean Rodeo Drive (oh, wait, they called it Rodeo “Street” so that people don’t think it’s a rip-off) is enormous, first of all, and lit up. But only most of it.
Anyhoo, I browsed here for a while, then went back to the station
and tried another direction. All of the people seemed to be moving in the direction of a giant mall I saw looming ahead, so I followed them. Conveniently, I saw a big poster outside for the film festival, so in I went. Next challenge: finding the actual theatre inside this behemoth. I walked around until I stumbled upon it. Then a bunch more embarrassing things happened, as they always do when I try to communicate with people, but they’re not important. Then on the way out, I walked for what seemed like forever to the end of the mall, and it was locked, or something, so I had to walk all the way back… Also, they have a store that sells nothing but Crocs, which is pretty much the worst idea ever…
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
죠스
When I'm out on the street, or on the Subway, or doing anything at all really, people (especially younger people) tend to look --no... STARE at me. I don't even do anything particularly intersting, just walk to school, walk to the station, occasionally sing to myself, but I seem to attract attention nonetheless.
Last week, walking home from school with Amber Teacher, a particularly rowdy group of teenaged (~14?) girls came a-running over to us. "Hello!Hello!" Usually, I just say hello, and they giggle to each other and run away, but this particular crew wanted to chat. They asked us the usual questions: American? (Amber is, but I, am always am not). Why are we in Seoul? Are we lovers? (I'm used to lying to people and telling them Bree Teacher is, when they see me with her. I wonder if Bree Teacher would consider it cheating if I tell these ones that Amber is my fake lover?). The way they ask though is "Lub? Lub?" It's weird, they're obsessed with the subject--
Then they ask my name...
Since I've settled in, and know a few things about the language, this is a question I'm sometimes reluctant to answer. So I just don't. Amber, though, takes the lead: "His name is Josh," and they immediately burst into hysterical laughter. See, my name is approximately the same word as a kind of Korean ice cream 죠스. This has provided my students, and now random girls on the street, with endless entertainment. A lot of kids from my school called my Joshieba, and I thought it was because they were dumb, and couldn't pronounce my name, until one of them called me "ice cream teacher."
The 죠스 bar, (which is actually pronounced more like jyo-seu than Josh or Joshua -- but to them it's close enough, apparently) is shaped like a shark, and it's blue on the outside, and has red goo on the inside. It's only 500 won, and it's actually pretty good. At least they named me after something good--
Last week, walking home from school with Amber Teacher, a particularly rowdy group of teenaged (~14?) girls came a-running over to us. "Hello!Hello!" Usually, I just say hello, and they giggle to each other and run away, but this particular crew wanted to chat. They asked us the usual questions: American? (Amber is, but I, am always am not). Why are we in Seoul? Are we lovers? (I'm used to lying to people and telling them Bree Teacher is, when they see me with her. I wonder if Bree Teacher would consider it cheating if I tell these ones that Amber is my fake lover?). The way they ask though is "Lub? Lub?" It's weird, they're obsessed with the subject--
Then they ask my name...
Since I've settled in, and know a few things about the language, this is a question I'm sometimes reluctant to answer. So I just don't. Amber, though, takes the lead: "His name is Josh," and they immediately burst into hysterical laughter. See, my name is approximately the same word as a kind of Korean ice cream 죠스. This has provided my students, and now random girls on the street, with endless entertainment. A lot of kids from my school called my Joshieba, and I thought it was because they were dumb, and couldn't pronounce my name, until one of them called me "ice cream teacher."
The 죠스 bar, (which is actually pronounced more like jyo-seu than Josh or Joshua -- but to them it's close enough, apparently) is shaped like a shark, and it's blue on the outside, and has red goo on the inside. It's only 500 won, and it's actually pretty good. At least they named me after something good--
Sunday, September 16, 2007
... Like an egg on 비빔밥 [part 2]
[/cliffhanger]
Yes we did. But this next bit is so special that it needs a post of its own. So we’re walking through the station at Sindang, I believe, and this old man comes up alongside us. I’m playing with my awesome new ball, and he sidles up alongside:
GUY: Can I see?
ME: No.
GUY: What is it? A ball?
ME: …
HIM: [takes my ball]
ME: Um…
GUY: Ooh! [gives it back]
ME: Yeah…
GUY: American?
US: Canadian.
GUY: Vancouver or Toronto?
BREE: Nova Scotia.
GUY: I went to Vancouver. I have a PhD, I was a professor.
US: [feigned excitement]
GUY: Are you married?
ME: Of course. / BREE: God no.
ME: We’re lovers.
BREE: We are not!
GUY.: Naughty boy! You’re a liar!
ME: K…
GUY.: Naughty. How old are you?
ME: I’m 22.
GUY: No. You’re 37. My son is your age. I don’t have a son, but if I was married, and had a son, he’d be your age. I was in the LAPD.
US: Oh?
GUY: Then I became a monk, so now I’m a panhandler, I stand on the street and ask people for money. I’m 57.
ME: I’m 22…
GUY: I take care of myself you know. I don’t smoke. I don’t drink alcoholic. I don’t have intercourse with ladies—
I’m sure there was more, but at this point I was trying SO hard not to laugh at him that I couldn’t really pay attention. WTF is the deal with old men on the subway here?! Seriously! Anyway, after this amazing interlude, we just laughed our way to Cheyongyangni (I still don’t know how to spell it, but I’m fairly sure that’s not right) to have what Bree Teacher calls meat-on-a-leaf, but what a smart person might call 삼겹살. It was amazing, and we ordered it ourselves and everything. We figure we’re pretty much Korean now. ^^
Sunday afternoon, Bree Teacher and I met in Insa-Dong for another movie. I found a really interesting Art House theatre online called Cinematheque that was showing a French film called Va Savoir (Who Knows?) in their series “Autumn Tale”. I got very excited by finding this theatre, they have really different and good selections: their September series is “Fritz Lang in America” and October is “Contes d’amour d’apres Eric Rohmer” (both of which would thrill no one but me). And I was so sure that I saw on the Cinematheque website that all the movies had English subtitles, so we were prepared to finally understand a French movie. But, of course, when we got our tickets, she told us “No English.” Oh well, they had an awesome snack bar, so we stocked up, only to find on the way into the theatre a big sign that said “NO FOOD.” Let me ask, Cinematheque: if you’re a movie theatre, what’s the point in having a snack bar if you CAN’T TAKE IT IN THE THEATRE!?
Whatev. We got even BETTER food somewhere else to make up for it. So take THAT, Cinematheque. PS – I love you, don’t ever change. We went to the world’s smallest restaurant, which had seating for 8, and had 돈까스 and sushi. Then we finished our meal at our favorite establishment… The Coffee Bean, and we went to Kyobo books to shop the night away…
[Personal note to Bree Teacher Brown: I just want you to know that my blog is better than you’re because I’ve been writing for about 45 years, so a little bit longer than you, and I invented English, so I’m pretty good at it, and I have a lot of things to write about because I go to a lot of parties, so I’ve had a lot of hors d’oeuvres and I’ve lived in Korea for like 3 years, too, and they flew me out first class, so my blog is just a little bit better than yours, so…]
Yes we did. But this next bit is so special that it needs a post of its own. So we’re walking through the station at Sindang, I believe, and this old man comes up alongside us. I’m playing with my awesome new ball, and he sidles up alongside:
GUY: Can I see?
ME: No.
GUY: What is it? A ball?
ME: …
HIM: [takes my ball]
ME: Um…
GUY: Ooh! [gives it back]
ME: Yeah…
GUY: American?
US: Canadian.
GUY: Vancouver or Toronto?
BREE: Nova Scotia.
GUY: I went to Vancouver. I have a PhD, I was a professor.
US: [feigned excitement]
GUY: Are you married?
ME: Of course. / BREE: God no.
ME: We’re lovers.
BREE: We are not!
GUY.: Naughty boy! You’re a liar!
ME: K…
GUY.: Naughty. How old are you?
ME: I’m 22.
GUY: No. You’re 37. My son is your age. I don’t have a son, but if I was married, and had a son, he’d be your age. I was in the LAPD.
US: Oh?
GUY: Then I became a monk, so now I’m a panhandler, I stand on the street and ask people for money. I’m 57.
ME: I’m 22…
GUY: I take care of myself you know. I don’t smoke. I don’t drink alcoholic. I don’t have intercourse with ladies—
I’m sure there was more, but at this point I was trying SO hard not to laugh at him that I couldn’t really pay attention. WTF is the deal with old men on the subway here?! Seriously! Anyway, after this amazing interlude, we just laughed our way to Cheyongyangni (I still don’t know how to spell it, but I’m fairly sure that’s not right) to have what Bree Teacher calls meat-on-a-leaf, but what a smart person might call 삼겹살. It was amazing, and we ordered it ourselves and everything. We figure we’re pretty much Korean now. ^^
Sunday afternoon, Bree Teacher and I met in Insa-Dong for another movie. I found a really interesting Art House theatre online called Cinematheque that was showing a French film called Va Savoir (Who Knows?) in their series “Autumn Tale”. I got very excited by finding this theatre, they have really different and good selections: their September series is “Fritz Lang in America” and October is “Contes d’amour d’apres Eric Rohmer” (both of which would thrill no one but me). And I was so sure that I saw on the Cinematheque website that all the movies had English subtitles, so we were prepared to finally understand a French movie. But, of course, when we got our tickets, she told us “No English.” Oh well, they had an awesome snack bar, so we stocked up, only to find on the way into the theatre a big sign that said “NO FOOD.” Let me ask, Cinematheque: if you’re a movie theatre, what’s the point in having a snack bar if you CAN’T TAKE IT IN THE THEATRE!?
Whatev. We got even BETTER food somewhere else to make up for it. So take THAT, Cinematheque. PS – I love you, don’t ever change. We went to the world’s smallest restaurant, which had seating for 8, and had 돈까스 and sushi. Then we finished our meal at our favorite establishment… The Coffee Bean, and we went to Kyobo books to shop the night away…
[Personal note to Bree Teacher Brown: I just want you to know that my blog is better than you’re because I’ve been writing for about 45 years, so a little bit longer than you, and I invented English, so I’m pretty good at it, and I have a lot of things to write about because I go to a lot of parties, so I’ve had a lot of hors d’oeuvres and I’ve lived in Korea for like 3 years, too, and they flew me out first class, so my blog is just a little bit better than yours, so…]
All over Seoul.... [part 1]
We started our weekend activities right away this weekend: on Friday night we planned to go to Seoul Cinema in Jongno-3-ga to see Death Proof. I finished work at 8:05, and I took the bus home to “save time,” although by the time one comes it’s taken about as long as if I had walked home. 
Anyway, so I changed and trundled down to the subway, Jongno-3-ga is only a few stops away, so I didn’t plan on it taking long, which was good, because I was cutting it close. I knew from the theatre’s website which exit I had to take, but from there the directions got a little muddled. It said to walk for 5 minutes in the direction of Jongno. The problem with these instructions is that I was already in Jongno (Jongno-3), and there are Jongno’s in both directions (Jongno-2, and Jongno-4). So I picked a direction and walked it. It said to walk for 5 minutes; I did for about 15, because I wanted to be sure I went far enough. And I sort of jogged, too. So I definitely would have gone too far, only it was the wrong direction. So I went back to the station, looked at the map (which didn’t help at all), and went out another exit. And the theatre was RIGHT there. Not 5 minutes away. So we were still on time, in the end, and the movie was amazing.
On Saturday, Bree Teacher (alias BBro) and I went to Hoehyeon to find the Namdaemun Market, one of approximately 10000 markets in the city, but this one is big, and famous or something. We browsed around for a while (we found nunchucks!), and soon we had lunch. We found a random place in the market and ordered 비빔밥 (bibimbap: rice, vegetables, with an egg on top) and 만두 (mandu: Chinese dumplings). The guy brought it over and then he tried to tell us “Eat with chopsticks!!”
As if we didn’t know how to use them. But then later he saw my awesome ‘stick technique, and he told me “Number one Korean chopstick” or some such. At one point he also spit on Bree Teacher, as the older Korean men are wont to do. He kept talking to us, asking us where we’re from and the like. I can understand Korean accents pretty well, when they speak in English, but for some reason Bree Teacher can’t as well. Conversely, I’m pretty much terrified to talk to a Korean person, even in English. So instead of answering his questions, I’d translate for Bree Teacher and she’d answer.
Then back to shopping! I was looking for a wallet, since the one I’ve had since about junior high wasn’t in the best state. I found one I liked in one of the million little shops in the market, and asked the price:
HIM: [whispering, for some reason] 45.
ME: Hmm. I’ll give you 10.
[…Yeah. I’m awesome at bargaining]
HIM: 35.
ME: 11.
HIM: 35.
ME: 10?
HIM: 35.
Me: Seeya!
So then we went to another place about 10 seconds down the road, and they had the same wallet for 23000 (which I bargained down to 20000). I’m SO good at finding bargains! So, whatever, that other guy. BBro bought a parasol, on account of she wants people to think she’s Korean, and they all carry them. I told her I didn’t think that would trick anyone, but she disagrees.
We somehow left the market while we were looking for something, and we saw one of the huge gates that surrounded the outside of the old/original city of Seoul (we think?) so we went over for a photo op.
When we got over to it, though, there was some cool changing of the guard ceremony going on. All the guards had these big flamboyant outfits on, and they were either holding big dramatic flags, or playing drums. And looking tough. After it was over, they all went back through the gate and disappeared. We went back towards the street. When we got to the crosswalk, there were all the guards! Chilling, waiting to cross the street, all in their big get-ups. We walked across with them, and it felt like we were in some bizarre Korean parade.
We went back into Namdaemun Market and Naomi Teacher came to join us and we went for second lunch. Then we walked a bit, down to Myeong-dong, where they have... THE GAP!! The only one in the city! This is very exciting for me. Downside: the GAP in Korea goes up to a size 8. That’s the biggest size they make. And that’s a large here. Their size chart looked something like this:
XXS – Size 0
XS – Size 1-2
S – Size 3-4
M – Size 5-6
L – Size 7-8
All 3 of us (Me, Bree Teacher, and Naomi) are bigger than a size 8, so we didn’t buy anything. But still, it’s exciting that they have the GAP now. It just opened. Other delights in Myeong-dong: It’s home to the world’s biggest Starbucks! I think we saw it, but that we went to the one just down the road from it. They also have a store called Tommy Atkins. Does their logo look particularly familiar? Hmm…
.JPG)
Just as we were about to go underground into some sort of shopping thing, we saw this lady across the street ROCKING OUT to Korean hymns.
Just standing on the street, singing her little heart out, and praising God (or whoever). They’re really religious in this part of the city. Agressively religious. We also saw a man with a sandwich board screaming into a megaphone about God. And a group of people with microphones singing and talking about God (a Korean Divine Nine, if you will). So we quickly got out of there, and Bree Teacher and I went towards Seoul Tower. We saw two students from my school (who later told me that Bree Teacher has “Yellow hair. Very big”). 
Then we went up about 100,000 stairs to the place that has the cable car (!!) up to the tower. For some reason, they built this tower in the middle of nowhere on a hill, and the only way up to it are by cable car, or a long hike up the side of the mountain. So clearly there was no debating our means of ascension.
So we wait, and wait and wait, and then we finally get to the cable car.
There are 12 sets of foorprints where the people line up, which makes me think that the cable car safely holds 12 people.So we stand on those (we’re about fourth in line), and then they line up about 30 more people behind us. The cable car comes down the hill from the tower, and they let the people out, and then we all pile in. And yeah, it’s a pretty tight fit (at 400% capacity, you might expect it to be). The ride up the mountain was so cool. It had an amazing view of the city, and was just a really fun ride.
When we got to the top of the hill, we still had to go up a lot of stairs to get to the tower proper (couldn’t they have made the cable car go just a little further?).
When we got inside, finally, we got tickets and then we had to wait for our number to come up to take an elevator to the top. While we waited, we admired some “junk art” from afar – we decided not to pay to go in, since we could pretty much see the whole exhibit from outside – and we got the world’s weirdest ice cream. It tastes like normal ice cream, and it’s cold. Only it’s stretchy. It’s incredibly bizarre, it has a texture like gum, or marshmallows, or something.
Our number finally came up, and we took the elevator up to the observation deck. Oh my, what a view. It was night at this point, but we could see ALL of Seoul. It’s quite a large city, we decided. The tower is 777 feet tall (1,574 feet above sea level!) so you can see the whole city. The lights at night are pretty intense.
Especially the light that comes from the glow in the dark neon crosses that they have on top of churches (it would have helped to know that there approximately 40 million of these crosses: back in the day, before I knew this, my reference point for Motel Casting was a neon cross on top of an orange spire). We walked around the observation gallery (the third, I think – you need a reservation to get into the fourth). We went down to the second, which has some shops and things, and I bought a 3D Puzzle of the tower (!!) and we got our picture drawn by a machine. BBro has so much hair that it kept messing up on it, and it would have to go back and erase it.
We took the elevator back down (we rode that bitch all the way to the bottom, to quote my favorite ever convo between Brittany and Richie Cunningham), to browse the goings on that happen around the base of the tower.
We were in a cool Tower-related stationery store, where some music caught our attention. We went outside to see a bunch of Native Americans, all done up with headdresses and all, playing some traditional music and dancing around (nothing says Korea to me more than Native Americans…). We stood and listened for a while, because, for some reason, one of their songs sounded like Shakira’s “Hips Don’t Lie,” so I sang along (“Ohh baby, baby, oh, my hips don’t lie and I’m starting to la la la” is about how far my grasp of the lyrics goes).
After this wonderful bizarrity, we went to a photo studio to have our picture taken “in front of the tower” (ie: Photoshopped into a photo of the tower). We did so, and I bought an awesome ball from the shop. We went outside again, and browsed a cart of toys that were for sale. When we started walking away, a woman RUNS over to me, “Did you pay? Did you pay!” Apparently, they sell exactly the same balls on her cart, and she thought I stole it. I felt bad. But the ball is awesome enough to make up for it. Then we went back down the stairs, waited in line, back down the cable car, and outside. We followed some Koreans, because we figured they knew the way out, but they led us into a creepy alley. It was completely terrifying. But we managed to escaped unscathed.
OR DID WE [cliffhanger]
Anyway, so I changed and trundled down to the subway, Jongno-3-ga is only a few stops away, so I didn’t plan on it taking long, which was good, because I was cutting it close. I knew from the theatre’s website which exit I had to take, but from there the directions got a little muddled. It said to walk for 5 minutes in the direction of Jongno. The problem with these instructions is that I was already in Jongno (Jongno-3), and there are Jongno’s in both directions (Jongno-2, and Jongno-4). So I picked a direction and walked it. It said to walk for 5 minutes; I did for about 15, because I wanted to be sure I went far enough. And I sort of jogged, too. So I definitely would have gone too far, only it was the wrong direction. So I went back to the station, looked at the map (which didn’t help at all), and went out another exit. And the theatre was RIGHT there. Not 5 minutes away. So we were still on time, in the end, and the movie was amazing.On Saturday, Bree Teacher (alias BBro) and I went to Hoehyeon to find the Namdaemun Market, one of approximately 10000 markets in the city, but this one is big, and famous or something. We browsed around for a while (we found nunchucks!), and soon we had lunch. We found a random place in the market and ordered 비빔밥 (bibimbap: rice, vegetables, with an egg on top) and 만두 (mandu: Chinese dumplings). The guy brought it over and then he tried to tell us “Eat with chopsticks!!”
As if we didn’t know how to use them. But then later he saw my awesome ‘stick technique, and he told me “Number one Korean chopstick” or some such. At one point he also spit on Bree Teacher, as the older Korean men are wont to do. He kept talking to us, asking us where we’re from and the like. I can understand Korean accents pretty well, when they speak in English, but for some reason Bree Teacher can’t as well. Conversely, I’m pretty much terrified to talk to a Korean person, even in English. So instead of answering his questions, I’d translate for Bree Teacher and she’d answer.
Then back to shopping! I was looking for a wallet, since the one I’ve had since about junior high wasn’t in the best state. I found one I liked in one of the million little shops in the market, and asked the price:
HIM: [whispering, for some reason] 45.
ME: Hmm. I’ll give you 10.
[…Yeah. I’m awesome at bargaining]
HIM: 35.
ME: 11.
HIM: 35.
ME: 10?
HIM: 35.
Me: Seeya!
So then we went to another place about 10 seconds down the road, and they had the same wallet for 23000 (which I bargained down to 20000). I’m SO good at finding bargains! So, whatever, that other guy. BBro bought a parasol, on account of she wants people to think she’s Korean, and they all carry them. I told her I didn’t think that would trick anyone, but she disagrees.
We somehow left the market while we were looking for something, and we saw one of the huge gates that surrounded the outside of the old/original city of Seoul (we think?) so we went over for a photo op.
When we got over to it, though, there was some cool changing of the guard ceremony going on. All the guards had these big flamboyant outfits on, and they were either holding big dramatic flags, or playing drums. And looking tough. After it was over, they all went back through the gate and disappeared. We went back towards the street. When we got to the crosswalk, there were all the guards! Chilling, waiting to cross the street, all in their big get-ups. We walked across with them, and it felt like we were in some bizarre Korean parade.
We went back into Namdaemun Market and Naomi Teacher came to join us and we went for second lunch. Then we walked a bit, down to Myeong-dong, where they have... THE GAP!! The only one in the city! This is very exciting for me. Downside: the GAP in Korea goes up to a size 8. That’s the biggest size they make. And that’s a large here. Their size chart looked something like this:
XXS – Size 0
XS – Size 1-2
S – Size 3-4
M – Size 5-6
L – Size 7-8
All 3 of us (Me, Bree Teacher, and Naomi) are bigger than a size 8, so we didn’t buy anything. But still, it’s exciting that they have the GAP now. It just opened. Other delights in Myeong-dong: It’s home to the world’s biggest Starbucks! I think we saw it, but that we went to the one just down the road from it. They also have a store called Tommy Atkins. Does their logo look particularly familiar? Hmm…
.JPG)
Just as we were about to go underground into some sort of shopping thing, we saw this lady across the street ROCKING OUT to Korean hymns.
Just standing on the street, singing her little heart out, and praising God (or whoever). They’re really religious in this part of the city. Agressively religious. We also saw a man with a sandwich board screaming into a megaphone about God. And a group of people with microphones singing and talking about God (a Korean Divine Nine, if you will). So we quickly got out of there, and Bree Teacher and I went towards Seoul Tower. We saw two students from my school (who later told me that Bree Teacher has “Yellow hair. Very big”). 
Then we went up about 100,000 stairs to the place that has the cable car (!!) up to the tower. For some reason, they built this tower in the middle of nowhere on a hill, and the only way up to it are by cable car, or a long hike up the side of the mountain. So clearly there was no debating our means of ascension. So we wait, and wait and wait, and then we finally get to the cable car.
There are 12 sets of foorprints where the people line up, which makes me think that the cable car safely holds 12 people.So we stand on those (we’re about fourth in line), and then they line up about 30 more people behind us. The cable car comes down the hill from the tower, and they let the people out, and then we all pile in. And yeah, it’s a pretty tight fit (at 400% capacity, you might expect it to be). The ride up the mountain was so cool. It had an amazing view of the city, and was just a really fun ride.When we got to the top of the hill, we still had to go up a lot of stairs to get to the tower proper (couldn’t they have made the cable car go just a little further?).
When we got inside, finally, we got tickets and then we had to wait for our number to come up to take an elevator to the top. While we waited, we admired some “junk art” from afar – we decided not to pay to go in, since we could pretty much see the whole exhibit from outside – and we got the world’s weirdest ice cream. It tastes like normal ice cream, and it’s cold. Only it’s stretchy. It’s incredibly bizarre, it has a texture like gum, or marshmallows, or something. Our number finally came up, and we took the elevator up to the observation deck. Oh my, what a view. It was night at this point, but we could see ALL of Seoul. It’s quite a large city, we decided. The tower is 777 feet tall (1,574 feet above sea level!) so you can see the whole city. The lights at night are pretty intense.
Especially the light that comes from the glow in the dark neon crosses that they have on top of churches (it would have helped to know that there approximately 40 million of these crosses: back in the day, before I knew this, my reference point for Motel Casting was a neon cross on top of an orange spire). We walked around the observation gallery (the third, I think – you need a reservation to get into the fourth). We went down to the second, which has some shops and things, and I bought a 3D Puzzle of the tower (!!) and we got our picture drawn by a machine. BBro has so much hair that it kept messing up on it, and it would have to go back and erase it.We took the elevator back down (we rode that bitch all the way to the bottom, to quote my favorite ever convo between Brittany and Richie Cunningham), to browse the goings on that happen around the base of the tower.
We were in a cool Tower-related stationery store, where some music caught our attention. We went outside to see a bunch of Native Americans, all done up with headdresses and all, playing some traditional music and dancing around (nothing says Korea to me more than Native Americans…). We stood and listened for a while, because, for some reason, one of their songs sounded like Shakira’s “Hips Don’t Lie,” so I sang along (“Ohh baby, baby, oh, my hips don’t lie and I’m starting to la la la” is about how far my grasp of the lyrics goes).After this wonderful bizarrity, we went to a photo studio to have our picture taken “in front of the tower” (ie: Photoshopped into a photo of the tower). We did so, and I bought an awesome ball from the shop. We went outside again, and browsed a cart of toys that were for sale. When we started walking away, a woman RUNS over to me, “Did you pay? Did you pay!” Apparently, they sell exactly the same balls on her cart, and she thought I stole it. I felt bad. But the ball is awesome enough to make up for it. Then we went back down the stairs, waited in line, back down the cable car, and outside. We followed some Koreans, because we figured they knew the way out, but they led us into a creepy alley. It was completely terrifying. But we managed to escaped unscathed.
OR DID WE [cliffhanger]
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
