Photography Contest

I like taking pictures, as you may have noticed. Some people have even told me that certain photos of mine should be entered in a contest . I hadn't really heard about one until today. So, I've entered several of my photos (i.e. my top five or so twelve from the past year) into a photo contest called Korea 100 Sparkles. Take a look, and if you can find one of mine and you like it, vote for it please!

P.S. If you feel like sharing the link and asking others to vote as well, feel free!
P.P.S. I realized there's a search bar near the top - you can type in my name and it will bring up my 12 entries...
P.P.P.S. You can vote every day...

63 Building

I've been wanting to go to the 63 Building for over a year. It's one of the tallest buildings in Korea, and when it was built in the 80's was the tallest building in Asia. My friend Joey was running an Aquathon (it was supposed to be a triathalon, but they removed the bike portion at the last minute) on Yeouido, which is the same stop on the subway as the 63 Building. So after watching him cross the finish line, I headed up to the building.

Joey's number 106 on the right

The building is not as impressive up close as it is from across the river. In fact, it's almost unremarkable from the side, and if I didn't know where I was, I would have thought it was just another skyscraper.


The entrance fee was 12,000won. I thought it was a bit steep, but it was a relatively clear day for Seoul, and I didn't know when I was going to be on that end of town again, so why not?







They say that the 63rd floor (the 60th above ground), is actually an art gallery, and the highest one in the world. It is an art gallery, if you want to get specific, but it's obvious the real art is the scenery out the windows.

Yeah, it's an art gallery. Mmhmm.

Some of the art was interesting, like the video silk screen.

Some of the kids were well-behaved...

I bet you'd see more if you turned it around...

I only have this because there were other foreigners there. I hate trying to figure out how to ask people to take my picture in Korean.

Chuseok, round 2, Part 2

So because we had a three day weekend, plans were to head out of Seoul. Originally I'd wanted to go down to Busan for a river lantern festival, but most festivals this year have been canceled due to an over-reactive government, and sadly the lantern festival was one of the victims. The other issue was traffic and travelling. I'd also thought about doing a quick Japan trip, but all flights to Japan were overly expensive, and all the flights to Jeju-do (Korea's version of Hawaii) had been booked months in advance. The traffic leaving Seoul the weekend of Chuseok is horrendous (I experienced it first hand last year when I drove to Pyongtaek with my co-teacher - what should have taken about 45 minutes actually took about 5.5 hours.) It's like Thanksgiving traffic on steroids. So - any travel using the road system was out, and all flights were gone. The KTX train was booked as well, which left us with the subway system and...boats! So, that's exactly what we did.

Thanks to the resourcefulness of some of James' friends, we found a lovely little island off the west coast of Incheon (Seoul's main airport). Originally we'd though about Moui-do or Yeongheung-do, but were somehow re-routed to Ijak-do (do - pronounced 'doh' - is Korean for island). Rather than being a problem, this turned out to be perfect.


Once we got to the Incheon area, we had to take a ferry to the island. There were only two ferries a day, one at 9am and one at 2pm. Because I live about a 2 hour subway ride from the ferry, I decided to take the 2pm ferry on Friday. James, Kathryn, Gary, and Juliet all caught the same one. There were about 8 other people that went as well, but they stayed in Incheon on Thursday night, and caught the first ferry out on Friday morning.

Gary, Juliet, Jack (the dog), James, and Kathryn in front of the Rainbow - our ferry to Ijak-do

The ferry ride was interesting in itself. I'd only been on a ferry once before with Steph, but it was more for sightseeing than for transportation. I'm not sure what the ferry is like when the seas get rough, but at one point while sitting on the main level, you would see only the sky, and then only the sea out the window - Kathryn was convinced we were going to pitch over. I actually had an interesting conversation with her about how I've become so nonchalant about so many things. I've heard people say numerous times that I nothing seems to upset me, and I've said to more than one person that I can't remember the last time I was offended. I don't worry that often, and very little seems to phase me, though I certainly get excited about traveling and seeing new places. I'm not sure if it's just the fact that I've been through experiences in my life at a young age that most people don't experience till they're older, or not at all (like divorce or moving to another country), or if it's just that I'm finally growing up.


Anyway, the views were amazing, and I realized that I felt much better when I was on the top deck. I think the combination of the rather brisk breeze and that I could see the entire landscape instead of an alternating sky/water window made for a happier stomach. I convinced the others that the upper deck was more gastronomically friendly, so we spent the last part of the ride on the top deck.


We expected the ride to last for about 2 hours, but it was closer to 2.5, and we were starting to get a bit anxious. The ferry stopped at three ports, and we wanted to make sure we got off in the right place. We made it off the boat just fine, and were told by Jess, who was already at the pension, that a Korean man in a minivan and a bluish-greenish hanbok would pick us up at the port. Well, we disembarked with about half the other people on board, and after about 7 minutes were the only remaining people within sight. Aside from the building near the ferry dock, there was nothing to indicate any other life, or even which direction to take the road in order to find civilization. We waited for about 10 minutes for something - anything to happen. Finally a black minivan drove up with a Korean inside, asking if we were friends of Jess' in broken English. So we loaded up the van and drove about 10 minutes up some really steep roads to a pension near a beach.

I can't read all of it, but the left side says "Stress NO!!"

We unloaded at the top of a hill, where we could barely see a beach down below. After sorting out the accommodations (the five of us were to share a 'big' room - which really only slept 3-4 of us comfortably), we headed down to the beach.




The only people there were friends of ours. There was another group of foreigners staying at our pension, but they were all up in the rooms. Aside from them and the people that ran the pension, we were the only ones in sight. The beach was beautiful, and we spent the rest of the afternoon swimming resting on the sand, playing soccer, and just generally enjoying the restfulness of it all.

One of the people brought his own tent so he wouldn't have to pay for the pension.

We wanted to see the sunset, so we hiked up, and then down the road we came in on, to get past the mountain that was blocking the view of the setting sun.

Sitting on the road with everyone, watching the sun set.

It was beautiful.

We found a lovely spot on the beach to watch the sunset, and camped out there for about 20 minutes and watched it sink down behind the water.

Following in the footsteps of others

There were only 4 other people on the beach besides us.

After getting back to the pension, we ordered dinner from the restaurant - which was more like a kitchen near the beach, and enjoyed the side dishes but practically gagged on the main dish, which had a nice sauce flavor but tasted like it was made from ground up cartilage and low-grade meat. After dinner and several drinks, we decided to join the other foreigners who had built a lovely bonfire on the beach.


The rest of the weekend was spent hanging around the beach; swimming, drinking, eating, relaxing, and just generally enjoying each others' company and the peaceful surroundings.

Eating pasta for lunch on Saturday

The tide coming in

Kathryn and Gary walking along the beach

Making squishy faces from a persimmon

At low tide on Sunday we could see some sort of fishing apparatus on the beach that had been previously covered up by the water, so I went out to get a better look at it.


I'm still not sure exactly what it did, but it was certainly interesting.





And then, sadly, it was time to head back home. So being slightly sunburned, and all covered in sand, we piled into the back of a truck and headed to the ferry dock to go back home.

Not sure how I managed it, but this picture makes me dizzy.

Don't worry, mom, we were perfectly safe in the back of an open truck with no seat belts.

We made it back to Incheon, and took the subway to Itaewon. Almost everyone I was with also had Monday off, but I had to work. So after a lovely dinner at a Thai restaurant (I think it's the first time I've ever said "wow" after tasting something and really meant it), I headed home.

Chuseok, round 2, Part 1

Last year Chuseok was the first Korean holiday I experienced. This year had several similarities, but the differences were more obvious to me.

On Thursday Oct 1st, my kids (all except one) wore hanbok, the traditional Korean clothing. Most of the hanbok looked about the same as it did last year. They were all pretty elaborate, and the accessories and color schemes were about the same.

We had a few activities scheduled for the morning, as it was a half day. The first thing we did was make songpyeon, which is a traditional Korean rice snack. Last year, we used clay and my co-teacher showed the students how to make it. This year, we actually made the real thing, and my kids were able to take them home to give to their parents, and eat store-bought ones for snack.

Alison showing them how to make the songpyeon.

Michelle and her colored glutinous rice. Yummy...

After that, we made traditional treasure boxes, which were supposed to be from hanji - a traditional Korean hand-made paper. However, Miss Alison tried to make the box the day before, and it took her almost three hours to do. So we decided to make the physical boxes for them, and just give them paper and Korean clip-art to decorate them with.

Decorating their boxes started out rather organized,

But it became rather unorganized very quickly.

So - instead of me trying to clean up the massive mess they had created, I made them clean up after themselves, hanbok and all.

And the last activity of the the day was dancing the Gang-gang-su-lae. We did that last year as well, but it was just in our own classrooms, and my co-teacher was in charge of it, since of course I had no idea how to dance it. This year, in musical class that week they had learned how to dance it along with music. Then the entire school got in one big circle (our school is shaped like a donut), and we all (meaning the kids, not me), did the dance to the music all the way around the school.

And then we sent them on their merry way home. We were able to leave at 12:30, and so I headed to a restaurant with some co-workers for lunch. We went to a really nice Indian restaurant that I probably won't be able to go to again, since their lunch menu is the only affordable thing there.

And then I went home to pack for my own three day vacation in Ijak-do, an island off the west coast of Seoul.