It’s a rainy Monday and I’m sitting in my local coffee shop,
Coffee Avenue, drinking a delicious and adorably presented latte and trying to
decide on what to write this blog post. The trouble is there are so many great
happenings in my life that I could choose from:
How about the hiking group I found, Climbing in Korea. Not
only do they go on challenging, beautiful hikes, but also they are a group of
friends who are not only wonderful people but accepting to boot! I hiked
Dobongsan with this group and felt like I had found the community I have been
looking for here in Korea. Afterwards a bunch of us went to an international
festival in Itaewon (a neighborhood in Seoul) and spent a great night hanging
out in the street and in bars. Even though I had just met all of them that day,
it felt like I was hanging out with a group of close friends. That was a truly
wonderful Saturday.
Or I could blog about the Monday I spent last week walking
around Insadong street market with my friend Phoebe. This market sells traditional
Korean folk art, Buddhist icons, contemporary art by Korean artists,
traditional Korean food, and just about everything Korean you could want. It’s
a truly wonderful neighborhood and so much fun to explore! It made for a great
photography adventure as well.
Or I could tell you all about the incredible yoga studio
that I joined! It’s called Celebrity Yoga (yeah okay, the name is a little
goofy) and it is run by this beautiful soul Ball. He’s not from Korea, in fact
I’m not sure where he is from, but he is an incredible Yogi. His classes are
challenging but also welcoming. I can feel myself getting stronger every week.
It probably helps that I go every day of the week except Mondays. It is really
fantastic to feel my body getting strong again. And beyond that, experiencing
my body through yoga is really improving my self-esteem and increasing my self
love.
Oh, I KNOW! I’ll tell you about the indie-rock festival that
a Korean guy took me to a couple weekends back. It was called the Ssamzie-Sound
Festival and on its 14th year, it is the oldest music festival in
Korea. It was SO much fun! I jumped around in a mosh pit to a Korean punk band,
threw my hair around headbanging to a Korean metal band, and saw a performance
by a legendary Korean band. Every Korean in the crowd had their arms around the
shoulders of the people next to them singing along to every song.
Oh man, or I could tell you about my trip to the Zoo with my
friend Patrick! Arg, I can’t even write a little cutesy paragraph about that
day. Hopefully I’ll actually blog about it. The zoo here was really awesome.
Shoot guys, I’ve written almost an entire page just telling
you about the things I’m NOT going to blog about in this post.
In my day-to-day life, I’ve made a breakthrough in teaching.
I am finally figuring out HOW to teach. It is increasing my enjoyment of my job
so much more than I can say. I’m learning what questions to ask the kids to
guide them to the right answer without just telling them the right answer. In
response, my classes are more fun and I can tell that the kids are
understanding the material, whereas before I felt like I was just overwhelming
them.
Unfortunately I don’t respect the business practices of the
company that I work for. But that’s Korea’s private Academy system for you.
Now that I’ve written a page long introduction, I’ll get to
the actual events that I planned to blog about today, how’s that sound?
As with all weekends here in Korea, this weekend was full of
exciting new adventures.
Saturday: Korean Burn Afterburn Party
You will remember, or if you don’t allow me to remind you
that early in September I went to an event on the west coast of Korea called
Korea Burn, a regional “Burning Man” inspired event here in Korea. It was a
wonderful weekend full of beautiful souls and included Megan partying way too
hard.
Well this weekend was the Afterburn party held here in
Seoul, in one of the biggest party neighborhoods, Hongdae.
The party started with a Potluck. And fun fact about Megan,
I LOVE to cook! Cooking is one of my favorite activities, and I love taking
traditional recipes and getting crazy with them. So for the potluck I decided
to make curried lentils (so sort of like an Indian Dahl, but curry flavored)
with cabbage, sweet potatoes, and persimmons! It was delicious, if I do say so
myself.
The pot luck was really delicious. There was a great mix of
food Korean and foreign (okay, mostly foreign) and I got to reconnect with
friends from the Korea Burn. It was great to see them again after a month
apart.
The potluck ran from 7-10. I got there about 8. My friend
Patrick came with me. He should probably feature in this blog more often since
he’s basically my best friend in Korea and we hang out several times a week. So
anyway now my readers know Patrick. Moving on…
10-11 was the “Open Stage” portion of the night. I brought
my flowpoi with me to dance so I signed up to do glow poi. However, an
absolutely inspirational spinner by the name of Shin was running the event. We
had met in passing before but this weekend was the first time we really had a
chance to talk. He generously offered to let me use his fire poi. So I got to
SPIN FIRE! It was SO fun and felt amazing to dance with fire again. I had
missed it so much. I managed to leave my fire poi in Massachusetts on the morning
I left for Korea last July, so that is why I have been disconnected from that
art form during my time here.
So I danced with fire. I got very good feedback from people in
the audience. That is always nice to have. My friends Kali and Caroline danced
with a fire hoop, both of them were beautiful! And then Shin spun poi. I can’t
even put into words how absolutely incredible he is with fire poi. Watching him
set my soul on fire and I finally feel inspired to start practicing again. His
dancing reminded me why I started in the first place.
The rest of the night was spent dancing and laughing with
friends. A really spectacular Saturday. Unfortunately I had to leave early
because I had signed up for a trip to Seoraksan National Park the next day and
needed to wake up at 6:30am.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank the Trojan
Marching Band for conditioning me to be able to party hard until the wee hours
of the morning, and then wake up at 6:30 and fight the fuck on through a long
day.
Sunday: Seoraksan National Park
So Seoraksan National Park. I had been hearing about this
place since I got here in July and knew that I wanted to make it out there
before winter hit. The park is, I think, only 2-3 hours from Seoul without
traffic. We left Seoul at 8am and were hiking by 10:30. A real trip to climb
Seorak Mountain (San = Mountain) usually takes 2 days, or at least you need to
start hiking at 5am, so we were doing a short hike by Seoraksan standards.
But we were not alone.
I kid you not, I have never seen so many Koreans hiking at
the same time. It was a beyond ridiculous but made for a very amusing day.
Except near the top, where we were all crammed onto a wooden
platform. On a normal day this platform is probably a great place to take in
the view. On this day, it was a great place to feel like livestock.
Myself and a few other people from the group decided to take
a “quick” (read: 30 minutes) detour to the top peak of this hike. The view from
up there was truly incredible. But all the views all day were incredible.
Hiking down we encountered the most traffic. It
was literally stop and go on these stairs on the way down. The traffic was
caused by places in the trail that were slightly perilous and so only one
person could walk through it at a time. Again, on a normal day this would not
be a problem. But when most of the population of Korea is on the mountain, it
caused some traffic.
But why, you may ask, was the entire population at
Seoraksan on this particular weekend?
This weekend was supposed to be the best for fall foliage in
Seoraksan. And once we’d made it up and over the pass the foliage started to
show itself and let me tell you, it was worth it.
I was born and raised in New England and as such I am no
stranger to Autumn. In fact, it is my favorite season. But I’ve spent the last
5 years living in Los Angeles in perpetual Summer. This weekend for me was
almost like a rebirth experience. Being in among the fall leaves, smelling
crisp autumn air and watching the colorful leaves blow in the wind was cathartic
on so many levels. I spent a good hour walking by myself along the canyon
taking pictures of leaves and feeling so spiritually connected with the Earth.
It was beautiful.
The end of the hike was an absolutely stunning walk along a
stream at the bottom of a canyon. Gorgeous foliage. Gorgeous views. And thankfully
no traffic.
Afterwards we all went to a restaurant to drink beer and eat
dinner. I had hot bibimbap.
Then we piled back onto the bus to sit in traffic for 5
hours back to Seoul. I slept for 2 of them and spent the other 3 hours watching
the Korean countryside go by. It was nighttime so the views weren’t that great
but it was a nice chance to think.
The Korean countryside is really beautiful.
So that is my update on my life here in Korea. Every weekend
is different from the last. I am always excited, always experiencing new
things. All in all, I think I’m overcoming the culture shock. I am less
enamored with everything I see, but overall much happier. I feel like I am
myself again, just myself living in Korea. This is going to be a great year,
and at this point I’m starting to understand why people would stay for a second one…
Love you all!
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