Bummed

Korean Thanksgiving, called Chusok, is in September and it is one of the holidays that my boss deems important enough to give us time off. Chusok is the Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday next week and our boss had graciously given us that Monday off (but not Friday) to keep us from rebelling. Well, that was barely enough time to do anything so I decided that I wouldn't go abroad and just stay in Korea soaking in some jjimjjilbang somewhere.

But, then, out of the goodness of her heart, our illustrious boss gave us Friday off too. She told us yesterday. When all plane tickets out of the country are at least double what they were a week ago. I really shouldn't be complaining about this, I understand. But I can't help it. I've wanted to go see Angkor Wat forever and now was the perfect time. Its a five hour plane flight away. But by now the tickets are in the region of $800-$1000 - in other words, way too expensive.

Lame.

White Water Rafting

So this weekened I had the exciting experience of white water rafting in Korea! I've done this kind of rafting before, even once in Nepal, but its always an adventure.

We had to meet the bus at 7:30am in Hondae - which is about an hour and a half from where we live. So just do the calculations - an hour and a half to get there (that would be 6:00am) a half an hour to get dressed and ready and another to get on the bus would leave us getting up at 5:00am to go on this trip. There was no way this was conceivably going to happen so we did the smart thing - we found a jjimjjilbang (sauna) in Hondae that was about a ten minute walk from our meeting place to sleep in.

The plan, in general, had both negative and positive elements to it. When we got there, the place was a little crowded but not overly so. But we found it really hard to sleep in a public place where people were always coming and going. Drunk people. Because Hondae, the University district, is home to more than its fair share of bars and clubs. By the time we had to get up at 6:00am, the place was packed. None of us had slept very well because of the noise and the lights. Our jjimjjilbang in Suji has a separate sleeping room and was much nicer than this one. In general, sleeping at the sauna is a good last minute option when you don't have a hotel, but its not a good idea if you have something physical to do the next day.

We were woken by a group of obnoxious Americans stumbling in after a night of drinking. They were looking for mats to sleep on - the mats provided by the jjimjiilbang had long since been used - and had decided that this one Korean woman had two. One of the guys was talking very loudly, trying to tell her that she couldn't have two mats ,when we decided it was time for us to leave. We gave our mats to the drunks so they would stop bothering the woman but we really wanted to just disassociate ourselves with all of them.

As we left one of the girls was asking "But why do they have to give up their mats? Why are they leaving?" I had to restrain myself from telling her that we were leaving because we didn't want to be associated with them.

We were exhausted, but the hot baths in the shower room revived us a little and yogurt smoothies at a local coffee shop helped too. We had a little mix up because we were waiting for the trip people inside the exit of the subway when they were standing outside. But it worked out in the end and we started our three hour bus ride to the Hantan river.

Throughout the whole trip there, there was this obnoxious British guy talking very loudly in the back on topics ranging from the virtues of all the women he met at the bar last night to the amazingness of the three laws of thermodynamics. My seat partner and I were taking bets as to whether or not he was actually British.

When we arrived at the launch point we bought these nifty little water shoes (mine were day-glow yellow) and split up into teams. Of course, the British guy was in ours. Stephanie, Ryan and I got into a group with British guy, his two female friends who were a lot more sedate than him, and a girl named Rachel whose co-workers had abandoned her.

As it turned out, our group was the best. Every time we passed another boat on the water, they were silent, and staring at us. Our boat, which we named the Bounty to try and freak out our guide, we decided was a boat of Viking-Pirates. We would follow another boat, singing the Jaws theme (one of the other girls and I would hold our paddles in the air, touching in the middle, like it was our dorsal fin) and when we got close enough we would initiate a splash battle. The problem was, we were the slowest boat and therefor couldn't catch anyone unless they fell behind. I told my boat-mates that it was okay, because we were subtle Viking-Pirates.

Our guide, whose English nickname was Theo, was a good sport about it all, even with the frequent talk of mutiny. He even got into the whole 'splash attack' thing. When we tried to just say hello to a boat of Koreans (we were trying not to give a bad impression of foreigners) he was all "Hello? We don't say 'hello'! We Attack!".

Sometime later, we were playing games who's purpose was specifically to get us all thrown in the water and I was doing my best to stay on board. I was leaning dangerously over the side and Theo reached around, ready to pull me in the water. It was at this point that the three years I half-heartedly took Jujitsu classes at Eckerd paid off. I grabbed his forearm with my right hand and his shoulder with my left and swung him into the water. I followed soon after due to a combination of gravity and the fact that everyone on the boat was now determined to see me in the river - as it turns out, I couldn't throw them all into the water before they got me. The guide was surprised he had been caught so off guard - and by a girl - that he just sat in the river for a while going 'wow' and 'oh god'. I managed to throw British guy in, too - purely in self-defense, of course.

The rapids were honestly pathetic, the monsoon season, thus far, had been unimpressive. Our boat got caught several times because the water was so shallow. But we stopped on a beach to play games and we used the rafts first as a slip and slide then as a floating wrestling arena. Rachel and I wrestled - and I won! Ryan and British Guy (whose name is Martin) wrestled and though they both went into the water at the same time, I prefer to think Ryan won because Martin's shorts were ripped so indecently he had to wear his shirt as a kilt the rest of the trip.

We had a late lunch at an all you can eat Korean buffet - which was great. And ended the day lying on sun warmed rocks by the river watching some members of our group bungee jump of the bridge. Since I had never had any desire to bungee jump, the last couple of hours of the trip were relaxing as we debated whether or not the person would actually jump. Some people had to be pushed. But no one in our group. Because we are all crazy way-gooks. And Viking-Pirates.

Body Language and Random News Post

I'm usually very good at reading body language (when I'm looking for it). Its actually something that I pride myself on. Ne-hyung even thought that I seceretly understood Korean because I would always know what my Apricot class was saying. This is no great feat, however: the thoughts and ramblings of four year old boys are not exactly complex.

Never the less, this is a very useful skill to have when you live in a country whose language you can't even read.

But I got over confident in my success with dealing with Korean people and thought that I could get a cell phone by myself. This wasn't my best decision.

I managed to find the store that spoke no English. Usually when Korean people don't speak English its because they are insecure about their pronounciation or their limited vocabulary. But most Korean people HAVE some sort of English vocabulary. Not so in this case. Between the three people who were on duty at the time, they had not one word of English between them.

Now I realize this is not something very fair to criticize when I, myself, don't speak another language. But it didn't stop me from being severly frustrated.

The man would say something in Korean and, when I would indicate that I didn't speak Korean, he would repeat it again, but slowly. Because, clearly, if I didn't speak Korean, maybe I spoke slow Korean.

Eventually I managed to get a phone, I have no idea what my plan involves or if they charged me a 300,000 won underwater basket weaving charge. I just know that I now have a phone and have been annoying my friends by texting them all day. And, let me just say, that that is a feat seeing as I had a phone with a full keyboard and practically have forgotten how to text with a normal phone.

In other news:

I made my first Korean dish tonight, Kimbop, which is not exactly complex but I was proud none the less. Its like sushi minus the fish.

Debbie asked if I was liking my school and told me I was doing a good job (yay!).

We have been having a twilight marathon because Leslie hasn't seen any of them. Ryan refuses to watch with us silly girls.

Went to the sauna again, this time brought the co-workers. Watched North Korea loose to Ivory coast in a pine wood sauna.

South Korea lost to Uruguay but only because the Uruguayan players were playing dirty. Seriously, the ref was either blind of in the employ of the Uruguayans.

The Sauna

I have found it. The Holy Grail. The Fountain of Youth. Shangri-la. The Tupperware container. I have found the source of Korean women's perpetual youthfulness and beauty. The Korean Sauna.

I hesitate to describe it because I'm not sure I can do it justice. We got there and put our shoes in one locker and traded the key to get a key for another locker. They gave us these uniforms to wear (blue for boys, pink for girls - think gym class uniforms) and after we changed we were led out to this open area that must be someone's idea of utopia. Men and women in uniforms were sitting around, chatting. Little children in yellow uniforms were playing. There were raised platforms under which there were little elongated indents where you can sleep while wrapped in hot sauna heat. All along the walls are different rooms, starting with what I would like to call 'the Oven' which looked so much like an actual oven that I was a little nervous about getting stuck in there.

Next they had the 'jewel room' which was a sauna with mosaics on the wall. Then the 'salt room' which had big blocks of salt in its natural form - pink - lying around. The floor was made entirely of salt. Then there was the 'charcoal room'. Charcoal being an great way to get toxins out of your body. Intermixed with these was a foot bath room, a dozen other saunas, a restaurant and a cafe. There was even a nore-bang (Korean Karaoke) that was also a sauna.

We went from room to room, soaking in the heat (or in the case of the ice room, soaking in the cold) and the minerals floating through the air. We have officialy found the place we are going to spend our Friday nights. No binge drinking for these twenty-somethings. Nope. Nothing but pure sweat lodge.

And you know how much it cost us? Try and calculate, if you can, how much something like this would cost in the states. Unlimited use of different saunas, a pool, an exercise room, showers, beds, lockers, clothing, towels, and even water in a clean, modern facility open 24 hours a day? Can you count all those zeros? In Korea it cost us 7,000 won. Less than $7.00 USD.

We are in the process of planning a sleep over at the sauna. Apparently its common to come and sleep there overnight. We're going to nore-bang until we can't sing anymore and then get some beers and wait around until we feel like singing some more. Tonight, we stayed there until 1 am before we realized how late it was.

Stephanie and Ryan's boss, Ji-he, took us all and showed us around. Which must have been weird for them. Especially when it was time to get naked. Along with their lack of personal boundaries, Koreans also have a lack of self consciousness when it comes to being naked. Of course, the men and women were separated so it shouldn't have been such a big deal. But it was. Have you ever walked through a room full of strangers in your all together? I haven't since I was old enough that streaking was no longer considered cute. Add to it the fact that we are way-gooks ('foreigners') and you've got yourself a recipe for uncomfortableness.

It was awkward but we chose to see it as a bonding experience. And a growing experience. And a I'm-going-to-start-working-out-more experience.