It's officially hwangsa season. Every spring in the months of March-May, Korea gets hit with yellow dust storms, or hwangsa storms. The yellow dust originates in the deserts of Mongolia, Northern China, and Kazakhstan and is carried eastward by prevailing winds. With the sand, comes all sorts of pollutants. According to my best friend next to Google, Wikipedia states that, sulphur (an acid rain component), soot, ash, carbon monoxide, and other toxic pollutants including heavy metals (such as mercury, cadmium, chromium, arsenic, lead, zinc, copper) and other carcinogens, often accompany the dust storms, as well as viruses, bacteria, fungi, pesticides, antibiotics, asbestos, herbicides, plastic ingredients, combustion products as well as hormone mimicking phthalates. Now, that sounds healthy.
The Korea Environment Institute claims that the dust kills up to 165 South Koreans a year (mostly the elderly or people with respiratory ailments) and makes as many as 1.8 million ill. I'm a living testament. I made the extremely stupid mistake of running the other night after a polluted day and now I have a terrible cough that's moved into my chest. Last night I woke up with a raging fever that carried over into the day and made me completely miserable. I don't even remember teaching yesterday. It was all a big hazy blur.
I've been so sickly since I've been in Korea. With the pollution combined with my nose picking, slobbering kindies, my immune system doesn't stand a chance. I began thinking about the last few times I've developed a cough or cold and realized that I always got sick after my nights of running. I need to be more cautious about exercising outside, especially during the next few months. I think it might be time to break down and buy a gym membership. Sigh.
Only in Korea would I get a face mask to protect me from the yellow sand as a birthday present
In Korea, Valentines Day is done a little differently. Girls are supposed to buy their significant others gifts, and in return, a month later, the guys buy the girls gifts. Hence, White Day.
What about the singles? Glad you asked. There's a day for us too. It's on April 14th and it's called...wait for it...Black Day! On this day, singles get together and "commiserate their singledom" by eating Jjajangmyeon, white Korean noodles with black bean sauce. I can't wait! How could I possibly resist being around a table of self loathing singles eating emo noodles? Bring it.
Last Saturday night while walking to get a cab, this is what I happened upon. Never a dull moment my friends, never a dull moment.
That's the thing about Korea, from mozzerella sticks served with rice and fish eyeball soup to Korean guys duct taped to a pole at five in the morning, it's the most random country...and I love it.
Once again, I am sick. It's inevitable, really. Especially when Evan tells me, "teacher, my throat is broken," and then continues to slobber on everything. Now my throat is broken too.
Being sick and picking up extra classes has spurred my exhaustion. I have no qualms about passing out anywhere if it means I can catch a few extra Zs. Not that I ever did. Tia and my old roomies will attest to this.
No matter where you are, some things never change, do they?
Me in canine form...except I don't bounce back so quickly
On Thursday Tara and I met up with Emma and Molly in Gyeoung-ju. We had some time to kill before we could go to the temple stay, so we just hung out in the resort area of the city.
It was so funny, when the Korean man took this picture he asked if we wanted the "ship" to be included in the photograph.
Through the eye of the duck.
Manning the ship.
Captain Longlegs taking a shot of whiskey. Honestly, what better way to ring in the new Lunar year than on a duck paddleboat with last night's "nightcap?"
I didn't really learn much about Buddhism during the temple stay, but I had a really good time. I liked it because the meditation and chanting were mixed in with what they called "active zen," which included a 5am walk around the temple site, sunmudo training (it's like a mix between yoga, martial arts, and dance), and 108 bows. The 108 bows were a killer, but I did them all. I'm not talking about a simple bow. Oh, no. One bow involved kneeling, moving into a fetal position, kneeling again, and then popping back up to a standing position. I was the only one of my friends to complete all 108. Just another example of how I'm so freaking competitive with myself.
The food was incredible. It was all vegetarian and you had to eat everything that you put on your plate (not a hard task for me, since I already practice this at school because I'm scared of our cook). I had the best kimchi I've ever tasted in Korea. Usually I'm not even crazy about the stuff, but I went back for seconds.
The best part of the temple stay was when we played traditional Korean games to celebrate the new year. I learned how to play Yut, the game my kindergarteners played during our festivities at Swaton. This game is so much fun. Basically you are given a gameboard that you move around by throwing four sticks that serve as a dice. If one stick is facing up, then you move one space, and so on. If all four sticks are facing down then you move five spaces. If you throw a four or a five you get to throw again. If you get an exact number you can take different short cuts, and if you land on the opponent you send them back to start. There are other rules, but essentially it's the Korean version of Sorry. There's a lot of strategy involved and I can't stress enough how much fun this game is.
We broke into teams and created brackets for a tournament of Yut. We could line up behind any one of the team leaders. I picked the Korean guy with the purple pants. I just had a feeling about someone who would wear such vibrant colors. (Sidenote for Tia: Remember green pants who rescued me in the parking lot in Dallas? Greeeeeeen.) My intuition paid off since our team dominated, took first place in the tournament, and I got a sweet free t-shirt.
It was really awesome when we were all playing games, because there was such a positive energy in the room. I remember taking a step back from the commotion and thinking about how truly happy I was at that exact moment, and I could feel that everyone else in the room felt the same way. I've been thinking a lot lately about how freeing and happy people become when they resort to a childlike state of mind...that is, getting joy out of simplistic things and always having that woder and excitement about them. I felt like the night we played games, everyone in the room, Westerners, Koreans, monks alike, were all connected because we understood this concept. It was such an incredible feeling.
Yut champs.
Tara and I only stayed one night. After leaving the temple we decided to venture out and find the sea, which we ended up doing only after getting accosted by a Korean man with a glass eye who kept grabbing my arm trying to take me back to his "house-ah" and showing me his green toenail. Yes, my friends, TIKI TIKI, this is Korea...and I love it (which you will soon hear me say in my usual annoying commentary).
"See the sea." Nice.
King MunMu's Tomb. It's the only underwater tomb in the world. "King Munmu, who reigned between 661 and 681 AD at the height of Shilla's power and prosperity, wished to be buried offshore in order to protect his country from marauding Japanese pirates."
Yes, that's a pig's head. Just a friendly reminder of why I choose not to eat pork.
I don't know why, but I like this unsuspecting, out of focus picture.
Nothing like some dried squid flapping in the breeze.
On Saturday night Tara and I went to Seoul. I don't really feel like I can make a judgment of the city since I briefly went to a couple bars in Itaewon (foreignerville) and Hongdae (artistic district). I loved the bar we went to in Hongdae. It was a hole in the wall filled with Koreans smashed up against each other dancing to Western music. Of course I got way too into rocking out and had a Korean guy tell me kindly, "Your hair...not so good." Obviously he doesn't know what rock star hair looks like (said in slightly nasely voice). Pssssh.
Although ramen and noodles are abundant in Korea, I now realize that my blog name would be more accurate if it was "the real rice" or "the real kimchi" or even "the real soju," but those names don't roll off the tongue quite as nicely as "the real ramen," now do they?
