Carol's Corner

A blog. By Mel and Carol (Mom). Written mostly by Mom, but endorsed by Mel….. I insisted that she leave in the parts where I’m talking about her!!

It has been a whirlwind from the time I took off from Toronto (about a hundred years ago), through Vancouver, arriving in Incheon (that’s in Korea near Seoul) where a young Korean friend of Mel's (Young-Gu) met me at the airport (with a huge sign, one of several that I had to hunt for mine through) and escorted me to Mel's apartment (about a 2 hour bus ride). And we haven't really stopped since. The extent of my adjusting to the time change was a 2-hour nap on the first Monday. If only it will be this easy on the return trip…..

Mel lives in a very busy, crowded neighbourhood (everywhere in Seoul is all busy, all crowded from what I’ve seen) and I cannot get over the activity from mid morning until late at night. Children, adults on the street at 10:00 pm! The traffic is crazy and I have only come close to being run over by a motorcycle on the sidewalk two or three times!?

We spent the first weekend sightseeing, a palace (I could just picture the palace filled with people in traditional dress), a mountain walk (you can see the mountain from Mel’s street and get there in about a 5 minute walk), a play called Nantu (which was really good) and sampling Korean food. Monday we went to the public baths and then I took a nap while Mel worked (my only concession to the 14 hour time change!). I can now find my way around on the subway (Mel was a great teacher) and since that first Tuesday I’ve been doing some touring on my own while Mel works (now isn’t that just a weird switch of roles!). The subway is amazing and makes Toronto's look really tiny and not very well planned at all. Melissa is right… Toronto should visit and take notes.

I have to tell you all just how amazing Mel is (for those who don’t already know!). She is understanding and reading Korean and speaks many words courtesy of Young-Gu with whom she has exchanged language lessons (her teaching him English and he her Korean). She knows her way around and is trying everything. We only got lost once so far… and we did make it home! Several of the shopkeepers around her place know who she is and welcome her with a smile, which is of course returned!! She has made friends outside her immediate circle at work and has an amazing ability and drive to stay in touch and connected with everyone.

The contrasts here are what strike me the most. I know now what it feels like to be a visible minority. It is very rare to see a Western face on the street or subway and while the lack of English is not really bothering me, I feel very conspicuous on the subway or street alone. People are not friendly in that they don't smile on the street or even nod, but if we stop to read the subway maps we both carry or the maps often found on the street corners, there is always someone who will stop to find out (sometimes with no English) if we need help. The mix of old (and I mean anywhere from 100-1000 years old) and new architecture (tall office buildings) hits me everywhere I turn. It is not unusual to turn a corner and find a palace or gate (a huge structure built around 1600 or so or sometimes in 760 or so!) in between the mostly modern office buildings. The main streets are full of modern buildings and just behind them are these little alleys crowded with small vendors of every kind. The main streets are covered as well with all kinds of food vendors (like our hotdog vendors, but way more variety!) and everywhere you turn is like a flea market with all kinds of goods laid out for sale. Exchanging travelers cheques was no problem at a bank, however getting a VISA money advance (also at a bank) was impossible. Makes no sense?!? Although I did discover late in my visit that I could withdraw money from an ATM with my debit card. Go figure!! The food is really good, mostly spicy and lots of rice and Mel's rule is that it has to be in a different form than it was when it was alive, and with no eyes! Works for me, except for sushi! Some things are just too foreign for us to even try (live octopus, cooked insects), but we had this great grilled fish the first Wednesday in some small, crowded alley somewhere near where we were touring. I have walked miles since getting here! I have been nicely exhausted and content every night. My bed is a foam mattress on the floor, which we need to fold up every morning as it takes up all the available floor space in Mel's apartment. The apartment is small, but cozy and Mel has done a great job of making it home.

The middle weekend we headed to Gyeongju, which is about 5 hours from Seoul by train. We found our way around the train schedule and made it there AND back safely. Gyeongju is called the “museum without walls” and is known for its many historic artifacts and it’s hiking (I think!). We covered miles walking and saw some great historic sites. Stuff dating back to the 700’s. Again the mix of city and history is amazing They have these amazing tombs which actually look like small hills in among the buildings and we saw this fantastic shrine way up a mountain (3.2 km straight up and we walked it!) with a magnificent Buddha statue in a mountain cave dating back to 751 or something. We arrived back in Seoul on Monday, me with a cold.

On Tuesday, I then headed out to a temple near Incheon for an overnight templestay. Unbeknownst to me, they have a program….. but only on the weekend. So I was the only foreigner with a few monks. It was quite interesting, including early morning (4:00am) chanting and some reading on Buddhism and tea with the abbot. It was a nice time separate from the rest of my visit and gave Mel some space as well to attend girls’ night out Tuesday (enough of the old lady for a bit!!). Thursday we shopped, had dinner with about 15 other people (something called dwaegi galbi… really good!). Parents of 2 of the other teachers are here as well, so this was an opportunity for all of us to meet and share stories. Friday we decided to lay low and begin packing for the return trip home… one suitcase is my stuff and the other will now include stuff Mel is sending home (it was full of stuff I was bringing to her on the way here). Saturday we headed to Suwon (about 2 hours away) to visit the folk museum and a fortress there. It was a perfect last thing to do on my trip. We started the day on Mel’s favorite subway line (not so much) with Mel concerned that she wasn’t dressed warm enough and having little idea of where we needed to go once we got to Suwon…. But the day went up from there and ended with a wonderful walk around an amazing fortress wall, three stories above the city of Suwon with a magnificent view and a warm evening. Well actually it ended with a bottle of wine and some apartment redecorating at Mel’s…. but the fortress walk was great. On my last morning we vegged, watched one more episode of Gilmore Girls (remember them?) and last minute packing. We are off to the airport and my return to reality. It has been a wonderful, brilliant time with my daughter. I now have visual proof that Mel is warm and safe and has good friends here and she is living the way she wants to and doing or planning all the things she wants to get done during this amazing opportunity…….
Love to all and see you in Toronto…. Carol

Halloween and Other Adventures

Allow me to begin with a list of firsts that help to sum up what I have been up to the past few weeks:
- I took attendance in one of my older classes entirely in Korean. I was so proud of myself, and if I butchered their names I specifically chose that class to practice because they are too shy to laugh
- I slept through my subway stop. It was bound to happen at some point, and I am just glad to live so near the end of the line that the mistake costs me 10 minutes tops.
- I had tea with a Korean family. Two actually in the same afternoon (cousins) - we met on teh subway and my minor celebrity status in the area makes me a catch of an afternoon guest. The parents helped to translate for the kids, and we have hiking/dinner plans in the near future.
- I ate pig intestine in a soup called Sundaeguk. The funny thing about food is, when you have no idea what you're eating, you give things a much fairer chance. And it wasn't bad at all really, however now that my mind has caught up it might be a different story!

Somewhere in there it was also Halloween, and Saturday evening saw five Plus Academy women dressed to kill as none other than the Spice Girls, out for a good time with all the other foreigners looking for a little taste of home. We even met a second version of the decade-old pop group on the street! At school, Halloween was an exhausting 3-day affair. I carried a massive jack-o-lantern from class to class that I carved (and afterwards toasted my first very own pumpkin seeds in my new toaster oven) along with a CD player for scary sounds; the sheer volume of photocopied sheets of papers for worksheets, scary stories, crosswords and bingo games could easily have killed a rainforest. I brought candy to each class but my students inevitably wanted to exchange their pieces for bigger and better ones, and once they were hopped up on candy I had even less of a chance to control them than I usually do. Nonetheless we had fun together. One of my classes even told scary stories in Korean with the lights off and though I couldn't understand a word it was totally adorable to listen to them all ooh and ahh at the same time.

This weekend has been great as well: on Saturday night I danced the night away to a wicked DJ called UNKLE at the poshest club I've yet to encounter (it had a swimming pool inside and beers were 12,000 won = $12!). It was here where I was introduced to a new (to me) Korean tradition: we watched in awe as waiters dragged girls, against their will, across the room, so that their male customers could be entertained, hopefully enough to increase their wages. I have come to call times like this 'twilight zone moments', usually classified by convoluted feelings of disbelief, shock, confusion, pure wonder, disgust, curiosity and/or a burning desire to check the calendar and confirm I am indeed in the 21st century. In any case, they always leave me feeling as though the world I have come to know and love holds such a very small place in reality.

I finished my weekend with the Leafs game at the Canadian bar in Itaewon and headed home on the last train to grab some dwenjang jigae, delicious spicy tofu and onion soup. I cannot even begin to describe the high of sitting in a restaurant, alone, ordering for myself, and inevitably striking up a hilarious conversation with my neighbours in broken Konglish (when you essentially speak neither of the two languages yet somehow manage to get your message across) about Canada, Korean food, my marital status, or whatever. This time I met a 7 year old student from my own academy who was apparently having dinner with his mother, grandmother, aunt and 3 cousins/sisters at 12:45 on a Sunday night. And to think I used to find these encounters awkward for their lack of predictability.