Fun under the Sun

Class was cancelled this whole week for midterms, with the exception of KLI (Korean Language Institute), where I have my Korean class 4-6pm Monday to Friday. As much as I like this class, its at such a bad time during the day and gets in the way of my activities planned.

However, I still made the most of these past two days without skipping Korean. On Thursday, I tagged along some friends who had to do a project at a historical attraction for their Korean culture class. We headed to Changdeokgung palace in Insadong and had a lovely morning taking photos and befriending nature. This is my second trip to a palace (there is at least 5 at the top of my head in Seoul), and though most of them are similar, it was really nice to take a stroll and gain an insight on the traditional homes and buildings. It made me wonder what it was like back in the day, and what it was like to be a palace princess wearing hanboks (traditional Korean gowns-I'm not lying when I tell you I'm in love with these dresses).

For a while, I had been craving dim sum of all things. One of my friends said Ding Tai Fung, a reknown Taiwanese franchise of the dim sum world, had a location in Seoul. I have personally never heard of this restaurant before, not even when I spent three weeks in Taiwan two summer ago. However, they're supposedly known for their signature dim sum dishes and one or two local fusion dishes depending on their location. So we headed to Myeongdong to give this place a shot.

It wasn't hard to find at all and you were able to spot it at a distance as it is two storey and was quite fancy among the mediocre looking restaurants on the block. Aesthetics always has a higher price point, and surely, the menu agreed. They didn't serve your typical four dim sums/ bamboo basket type of thing in carts; everything was ordered via menu. They were known for their 'xiao long baos' and for about 10 (rather small), it was $9Cad. We opted for their signature dumplings and their spicy kimchi dumpling (one of the two 'fusion' items). The xiaolongbao order was freshly steamed when brought to us, and as juicy as it was, I was a little disappointed. I had tried another 'xiao long bao' place for only $5 Cad in the area, made with a lighter dough, with the dumplings being bigger in size. The 'siu mah' was oddly, but interestly shaped, and like the xiaolongbao, had a savory and juicy taste to them. Overall its worth trying, but I prefer sticking to less popular Chinese restaurants in Seoul as this place was overrated and overpriced.

Friday

I have been in need of a massage and some relaxation time the whole month, especially after exam week. Upon recommendation, this jimjjibang (naked spa) in the basement floor of Good Morning City building in Dongdaemoon (hot shopping central), was my long awaited treatment. Ann and I started the day early, grabbed a quick snack at Paris Baguette (our favorite Korean bakery, so GOOD, one day I will write a blog just about PB!), and headed to our destination, Sparex. We arrived at the building at 10am, but the main doors of the building, the shopping floor, didn't open until 10:30, which didn't make sense as this jimjibang was opened 24hours. How were we suppose to get to this place if we couldn't get into the building it was in? After minor confusion and almost choosing to wait for the main doors to open, I spotted a hard to notice sign on the side of the building with an arrow pointing to a back door that would lead you to the spa. At first, it seemed a little tricky to find this place, but once you get into the building, it was pretty straight forward as there would be more arrows leading the way.

Admission was only $7 for Adults during the day ($10 for overnight), and was similar to our last experience at Dragonhill spa in Yongsan. Once paid, you received a set of clothes to change into after your spa, towels, and a waterproof watch-like key you wear on your wrist that would unlock your shoe and change room locker. One thing that is usually not provided is body wash, shampoo and conditioner so remember to bring these things to save money.

Once we took our clothes off, we scrubbed and washed ourselves cleaned before heading into the hot and cold tubs. For the hot ones, there was three flavored tubs: seaweed, salt and herbal. I stepped foot into the seaweed one first, which was 42C and it felt like my whole body was being boiled. It stimulated circulation and I felt my heart rate increase. When I couldn't take it no more, I rinsed and moved on to the other tubs. I did it the other way around, but usually your suppose to soak in the lower temperature tubs first and gradually make your way to the hotter ones. It felt so good just to sit there and relax. Best part was that the spas wasn't that busy today and only consisted predominantly of adjummas here and there, so at one point, I had the hot tub all to myself.

The cold tubs were not flavored, but standing underneath where the water was coming out from felt like heaven as it would hit your back hard and give you a free massage! Initially, I had wanted to get a massage here as I heard it was $30 for 90 minutes on any three parts of your body. It turned out it was only for 60min, but still an amazing deal compared to the price of North American massages, and they had a bunch of other amazing services as well. Ann got all her facial hair threaded for only $10 and her skin is as smooth as a baby now. However, after standing under this water powered massage-like experience for as long as I could, I was relieved of all my muscle pain and decided to save the massage for next time.

If your looking for a spa experience, I would definitely recommend this place as the admission fee is lower than that of Dragonhill and less busy (taking into consideration that we did go fairly early). They also have a restaurant, sauna rooms, a fitness room, and a common area where you can gather or rest. Here's a tip for travelers,  if you ever need a cheap roof over your head, jimjjibangs are common for one night travelers as all your necessary amenities are provided at a cost cheaper than a hostel.

It was such a great way to start off our day before heading back to Edae to do some last minute shopping for our weekend getaway.

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Where did all this energy come from?

I feel a tad behind, so here's a highlight of the past few days.

Thursdaynight

Spontaneous shopping adventure to Dongdaemun where 24 hour shopping is at its best. We started at 10pm and called it a night by 1am as some of us had class the next day, or else I believe we could've kept going. Questionable, but it was way better than my first experience here during the day on a holiday where mobs of people were driving me nuts and all the clothes were overwhelming me. To my surprise, there was more people than I thought their be, especially tourists (great place to be if your jet lag), and turns out, overnight shopping is more fun than during the day time. Gave Doota (tax free mall if you purchase over $30) a second shot as the last time I came here, the first floor of prices scared me away. Ladies & Gents, head to floor under the first, 'Young Designer,' its definitely cheaper than the first. However, the prices won't compare to street shopping,but you definitely won't regret about the quality.

Fridaynight

COOKIN' N A N T A! What is Nanta you may ask? Its simply the most popular non-verbal broadway performance ever in Korea. It has been watched by over 7million people and performed in 41 countries. My description of it won't pay Nanta justice, but its a story about four cooks who rush to make a meal. This is not your typical cooking show, the three male and one female leads make music with what ever kitchen utensils they have in their hands, be it knives, pots, pans, water bottles, or cutting boards. It was so AMAZING and I was so entertained throughout the whole show. Despite minimal talking, literally 'jibberish,' the story was told very well and I was blown away by the amount of talent these actors and actress had-dance, act, some singing, gestures, wow. It was so fun to watch, if your ever in Korea, watch this show, you don't want to miss out! More information can be found at www.nanta.co.kr; to our luck, it so happens to be the Hongdae theater location's first anniversary, thus until the end of May, tickets are 30% off, hence we only paid $35 instead of $50!

We had actually got lost finding this theatre as the map directions on their pamphlet sucked. So if you do plan on going, make sure to ask locals (warning: they may direct you towards the wrong way), call the theater for better directions (they do speak English), or go ahead of time to hunt down this place. Despite the frustration at first, it was worth every won we paid and getting lost actually led to new discoveries in Hongdae, such as uniquely themed restaurants, luxurious norabangs, and more cafes.

Saturdaymidday
Started our day at Seoul station to find out if their were discounts for KTX (Korean Train Express, bullet train to other provinces in South Korea) to Busan as we plan on going there later this month. After some miss communication and picking up bits and pieces of Korean while the person working was picking up bits and pieces of English from us, we found out that there are discounts if you buy tickets online (receive an E-ticket and redeem it for an actual ticket the day you travel). There are two types of discounts, KR pass and Happy Rail pass. The latter was out of the question as it was for foreigners who have stayed in Seoul for more than 6 months, the former however was for those who have stayed less than 6 months. The discount was less than for those who have stayed for at least half a year, but it was still better than getting a ticket at regular price.
This weekend is the cherry blossom festival at Yeuido (여의도). I had wanted to be at one since studying Japan in grade two having seen photos of the breathe taking sight. I had thought it be just a bunch of cherry blossom trees lined up in rows, but there was more going on than I had expected-and without a doubt masses of people everywhere. There were also many tents advertising and promoting their organizations or companies, handing out pamphlets, freebies, as well as lots of street food stalls set up. Many families, couples, and groups of friends with their cameras were there to capture the scene. It was quite a scene, just not a blooming one. Lots of the trees were still bare and naked, with only a handful that had bloomed. Thus, we plan on making another trip in the near future to snap some pretty photos before its too late.

Afterwards, our Korean friend brought us to a fairly new mall (opened last year) called D-cube in Sindorim. Its apparently shaped like a three dimensional cube (we were underground), and its interior was aesthetically designed. If you crave some western shopping, this was the place to go as there was H&M, North Face and other popular brands. There was also a mini Pororo themed indoor park here as well.

That is all for now. I need to withdraw from blogging for a short while as midterms are right around the corner. Its quite difficult though when your an exchange student and there is just so much going on around you and so many things to do in Seoul.

Wish me luck, send me a prayer, and hope that I do well!

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Insadong

It was odd to not have Good Friday and Easter Monday off for the first time in my sixteen years of schooling. Wow that does sound like a very long time. As big as religion is in Korea, those are not considered school-free and work-free days. However, to encourage Korean citizens to vote, today is a work-free and school-free day for everyone so they have no excuse not to vote. Well, everyone except exchange students, thus I still had Korean class in the afternoon to go to.

As holidays are hard to come by during the school term, we took this opportunity to go to Insadong (a popular touristy area that is great for souvenirs, local crafts and arts, traditional Korean activities and snacks). Last time I came here I was too tired with all the tourists and busyness of the place that I didn't bother to take a more indepth look. This time around, we started our day earlier so we were able to take our time exploring and doing the things we had set out to do.

First stop we went to Ssamziegil, a famous mall here that ascends gradually as you walk from one floor to another so there was no need to use the stairs, though stairs were available. Here, there were lots of local arts and crafts you can buy as well as Korean snacks, clothing, and indie like goods. We had a blast here taking lots of photos, browsing at too cute but too expensive stuff, and spending time on the rooftop writing our "friendship circle" to add to the mass of them all around the surrounding area. It felt like the love locks from Namsan tower, only less romantic and more single friendly. On our way out, we spotted something we had been wanting to do for a long time now, dressing up in hanboks and taking sticker photos. This was my third time putting on a hanbok and I'm still not sick of it. I bet I will end up buying one to bring home with me =).
After lunch, the fearless ones of the group went to a spa to get our feet done. This was not your typical pedicure, instead its known as 'Dr.Fish,' where these little fishes come and nibble at your dead skin on the bottoms of your feet. It was $9 for 20min and we gave it a shot. First you rinse your feet to make sure it was clean and then you put your feet into an aquarium like tub. I was so scared at first as I didn't know what to expect or how it would feel, but finally I sucked up my fear and dunked both feet in. I started laughing because it felt so ticklish and schools of these fishes just came and started eating away. It sounds gross, but it looked so cool! These fish would open their mouth and chomp-chomp-chomp as if their vacuum cleaners haha. At one point, the receptionist had to tell us to be quiet for making so much noise in a spa. After about five minutes, I got over my initial reaction and started enjoying the work of these fishes. Not only did they nibble the bottoms of my feet, but the top and sides too, some were even trying to get higher... good thing my whole leg wasn't in there. Imagine how it would feel if your whole body was being nibbled. Anyways, it was a fun experience and I would definitely do it again because these fishes are miracle workers! My feet feel so soft and where there was dead skin, there is none now.

Last experience of the day was a spontaneous one. My friend had been spotting people eating these long, yellow coloured, hollow looking, tube-like giant swirly things. Turns out, it was this snack made out of corn (kind of like cereal) and it would come out of machine in a long tube like form. It came out soft at first, but once it was exposed to air, it immediately hardened. It was a fun snack to have despite tasting quite bland.

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Gangwha Island

One of the clubs I'm part of is Global Angel, which does volunteer work in the community. Last week, they volunteered at a soup kitchen, but since I was at the Emmaus retreat, I couldn't make it out. This past Saturday though, we went to a senior's welfare center to do some community work for them. As we were a bigger group this time, we got split up into the kitchen, cleaning, and book keeping team. I was part of the cleaning team and we were in charge of mopping the floors and wiping railings and dust from framed paintings/signs on the walls. There was plenty of us, thus making the work load fairly simple and considerably "light" work, but regardless, it felt good to give back to the community and meet some seniors. I met a senior who graduated in '58 and has an English major who spoke to me in perfect English. Also, while cleaning, I got to go into the calligraphy room where seniors were practicing their calligraphy. Upon finding out that I was Chinese, this grandpa made me right in Chinese, so I wrote 'new year' and then he pointed to two other Chinese characters in a book and told me to write them as well. I apparently amused them, but they told my Korean unni (term for older 'sister'), that I needed to practice writing more haha. I feel my Chinese is deteriorating because I'm using it only once a week for less than 10 minutes on and off with my mother, so I'm not surprise my writing skills are a fail xP.A reason why we were such a large group today was because right after, we were heading straight to MT (Membership Training aka club retreat). MT is really common in the Korean university culture and I'm sure almost every club has one where the club members go away for a night or two and bond through group activities and games-more specifically, drinking games. We took a public bus ride that lasted about 90minutes to Gangwha Island in Incheon. It was more like a coach bus, but with no washrooms and if there was no seats, you would've had to stand the entire time. It was only $2 for the ride, and luckily, all of us got seats.After a long wait, we finally arrived to our traditional Korean house for our night's stay. It was located facing the beach front and a mud flat area (if it was warmer and more 'mud-like' we would've played in it). Despite the strong wind, we took lots of photos as it was around the time of sunset. The view was lovely and I would love to go back on a summer day just to sit and watch the airplanes depart from an airport at a land mass farther off across from where we were. The house consisted of a large open space with the traditional Korean heated floors, a kitchen for us to cook, respective bathrooms and rooms for females and males, and an outdoor area for us to grill food later. It was rather a small place, and not as convenient as we thought it would be in terms of showering as there was only one washroom/ gender for you to wash up, thus no one showered that night. It sounds gross, but since most people pull all nighter at MTs anyways, people usually wait until they get back home to wash up.

For dinner, the male volunteer leaders did the cooking and grilled pork for us to wrap in lettuce along with rice and gochujang, the ever popular red pepper paste in Korea (this dish was known as 삼 'sam'). The lovely adjumma who owns the house also hosted a mini tea ceremony for us to participate in. After dinner, she brought us to a small shack-like building behind the house and dressed us in hanboks. It was so much fun, we all felt like princesses ready to be married off LOL. We also found out that the adjumma is quite an artist herself, as the shack was covered with her own paintings, and one was even published in a book. After more photos and the adjumma convincing three male exchange students to dress up as well, she taught us how to bow in special settings, such as when you get married. I'm not going to lie, it was hard trying to cross my legs as I slowly sat on the floor and tried to bow forward.

That night, we initiated the infamous drinking games. We splitted up into four smaller groups as it was hard to play as one large mob. For the most part, my group was quite tamed as some people started leaving to go to sleep at 1am. Actually, majority of the people at this MT crashed and went to sleep by 3am, with only most of the leaders still playing and drinking. I, on the other hand, stopped after a while as I didn't want to drink that much, but for some reason, I didn't sleep either. Chloe and I just chilled and chit chatted with other people until 5am when we couldn't do it anymore.

Overall, it was a very interesting experience for my first MT and I learned that there is no need to pack so much when hygiene is not an issue. Also, MTs are a deprivation of sleep; our sleep was more like a nap as we woke up at 6:30am and decided that it be best to head back home earlier so that we could wash up and sleep for real. I had wanted to head back earlier as it was Easter Sunday and I had church to attend later. Some of the MT leaders actually left shortly after 5am as they had commitments with work or school today too. Anyhow, I had my getaway this weekend and look forward to my next one in the near future

Happy Easter Everyone!

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Emmaus Retreat


It was Friday, a day I had been anticipating for the whole week. If you read my last post, you will understand a glimpse of the excitement I was looking forward to. This retreat had been constantly advertised to us Emmaus students on campus since the start of the term and many of us had just thought the significance of going out to this retreat was over exaggerated. Who hasn't been to a retreat to have fun and learn something new, why all the 'push' for us to go? Little did we know that this was a misconception of ours as this retreat was beyond our expectations and in all honesty, life changing.

As Korean class wrapped up shortly before 6pm, all of us going to the retreat grabbed our bags and headed as a group to 독바위 (Dok ba wee) station, north of Sinchon where our retreat was. It was supposedly only a 30minute travel by public transport, but all the bus and subway switching as a large group made it seem so much longer.

Finally we arrived at the retreat center where we would be staying for two nights. Having been to a handful of retreats back home, I thought the accommodations would just be similar to past experiences-bunk bags, a gym, cafeteria food, and closed door showers. Well, I had forgotten that this retreat was in Korea, hence everything I had imagined had its own twist to it. Instead of bunk bags, it was mats we slept on (the type you use for stretching in the gym and there was no gym by the way); food was in a separate building, but it was Korean food of course-rice with lots of side dishes, closest thing to 'cafeteria' food had to be these Korean style nuggets. Lastly, there were showers, but communal showers. If this was my first communal shower experience, I wouldn't have showered and probably would've sacrificed my cleanliness by just washing my hair in the sink, but having been through jimjjibangs and the whole naked spa experience, this was nothing (Praise the Lord for leading me up for this). So don't get me wrong, despite this retreat center being totally different from what I had expected, it was still comfortable and accommodating for all of us. If anything, I think this type of environment actually forces people to bond and grow closer with one another.

Anyways, it didn't matter, I survived, and in the words of one wise person, retreats are meant for you to get dirty. As there was more females than males, the larger room the females slept in doubled up as the praise and worship, main talk, and games setting as well. For a first time retreat experience in Seoul, I highly enjoyed it.

Aside from having the opportunity to get away from campus and spend a weekend with the Emmaus crowd, we all left hungry for more in terms of the spiritual whelm of things. It may be hard for you to understand if you don't have a Christian background, but on behalf of everyone who attended this weekend, I can truly say that we were all blessed and found a new dimension to God's zealous love for us. The pastors who spoke at the retreat opened up our hearts, stirred up a battle between the fight of having our past hurts and pains be released, and allowing God's unmeasurable love to heal us. I witness hearts being mended, sins being confessed, and the glory of God all around me. Saturday night was absolutely beautiful and many of us stayed up late just to dwell on everything we were learning and share with one another how God had given us a new purpose in Him. This retreat brought us out of our comfort zone and impacted us in ways we never thought possible.

Sunday came, and as sad as we were to leave, we left equipped with our physical and newly discovered spiritual baggage and headed to New Philly church for their Sunday Swim (aka prayer meeting), lunch, and service. The house was packed for service and we were all on fire during praise and worship. Despite the lack of sleep, eye bags, and tired eyes from crying the past two days, we were all singing, dancing, and moving with a non stop energy which could only be explained by a higher power. The only fool on April Fool's was the devil.

What a great start, and personally, this was only the beginning of giving up my own desires and living a life desiring God's way.

If you would like to read more on my experience, I actually have a faith and life blog aside from this one. I know some of you may just read this blog in order to keep up with my adventures in Seoul, but if you are interested, feel free to drop by Full of Pho to gain an insight on my spiritual walk.

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