crop circles or a really big party?

William and I went for a run yesterday and saw these formations in a few different fields. I went for a run again this morning with my camera so I could get some pictures. They're so strange and look so cool! It rained all day on Saturday and came down really hard at times, so William and I thought maybe some spots flooded enough to push the rice down flat. However, a man was out walking while I was taking the pictures, so I asked him, "what caused this?" His response was, "really big party." He kind of smiled when he said it so I think he was joking, but I don't know for sure. Maybe they did have a "really big party," because when I got home from school today some rice on our road had been harvested. This was the first rice I've seen since we got here that has been cut. Maybe they have a celebration in small parts of certain fields before the first harvest. William did note, though, that there weren't any entrance or exit flat spots from the road that we noticed. So if it was a party how did they get there? Suspicious. I still think it was the rain.

Oh, and our shipment of "unaccompanied baggage" did not arrive today like it was supposed to. I wonder where it could be?

the muppets

Two must-see videos!

ode to joy

carmen

fun at immigration and other stuff

I spent 2 afternoons this week taking trains and taxis to the Suwon Immigration Office to apply for an Alien Registration Card. My first attempt on Wed. was a bust. I had a health check at the hospital and they forgot to give me a page of my results which are needed to receive the card, so I was sent home. When I went back on Friday it turned out I was also missing some other form but this time it can be faxed so I don't have to go back. I did have to relinquish my passport for the second time in a month though. I hope the mail system is reliable. I really hate that feeling that I'm not going to get it back!

On my excursions, I learned how to get around on the express trains and the subway system. The first attempt was a little stressful because I understood enough of what the ticket agent said to know I had about 5 minutes to get to my train, but I didn't know where I needed to go. All the signs and my ticket were in Hangul (Korean writing), but I found someone who figured out what I needed and was able to show me where to go. I made it to my train on time. The scenery to Suwon, which is between Pyeongtaek and Seoul, was made up largely of rice paddies, some rolling terrain, and the large cookie-cutter apartment high rises that seem to be all over the country. If I'd had a seat I would have taken some pictures out the window, but I was standing for the ~25 min train ride.

On the way home from Suwon on Friday I had a broken conversation with an older man on the subway. He seemed very nice and I think wanted to practice his English. He asked how to say a few things, like "glasses" when he got his glasses out to look at the guide book of Seoul that I had with me. We looked at the "helpful phrases" part of the book that had things in both English and Hangul. He practiced the English and helped me to pronounce the Hangul. At one point he asked my age. I told him and he said he was 62 and joked that I was half. In the few weeks I've been here I've already been asked the age question many times. Many of my students asked it on the first day of class, which at first I thought was a little weird. I never knew or asked how old any of my teachers were. I've since found out that a lot of importance is placed on age in Korean society. It's used in determining one's place in the social hierarchy and the amount of respect a person should be given. It's considered a perfectly normal question, and isn't considered impolite or too forward. Anyway, the train ride was more enjoyable and went by quickly since I had someone to chat with.

Our shipment of stuff is supposed to arrive tomorrow! It will be so nice to have more than a week's worth of clothes again. And I'll finally have my bike so that I can start exploring further and take some more pictures. Sorry, there aren't any new ones this week.

still adjusting

I haven't taken the time yet to work on this page like I hope to. The Google map of Korea is new, but I'm not sure I like it. I wish it showed Pyeongtaek without having to zoom in. By the time you zoom in it's not very helpful in figuring out where we're located. So, the map may not stay up long. For now I'm just playing with different things to see what I like. If you do zoom in, center the map near that waterway that juts inland south of Seoul. Pyeongtaek is near the river that that waterway flows into.

I took some new photos this week, which are now in the Republic of Korea folder if you click on the "Picasa web photos" link. I'll probably start a new folder each month. One morning I stopped to take photos as I was walking to the bus stop because the fog was clearing. Dew was still clinging to everything and the spider webs glistened in the morning light, making for some pretty shots.

We are still waiting for our shipment to arrive. We've bought some kitchen stuff to tide us over until it comes, but it will be nice to have more than one pan again and more than a week's worth of clothes! I'm ready to have my bike back too, so I can explore further. I can only go so far on foot. William has made it to the nearby mountains on his weekend bike rides, but I guess they look more like mountains from a distance than up close. He said they're not as big as he thought they'd be.

I've already walked a lot around town. On Friday I walked all over Anjeong-ri since I had the day off. That's when I took the photos of the community gardens, with the tall apartment complexes and other buildings in the background. Right after taking those couple of photos I continued walking and saw a little old women walking back to the road with a handful of onions she'd just pulled. I'm still not sold on the food, but I like this aspect: if there's a patch of open land, it doesn't seem to matter how small it is or where it's located, it seems likely there will be something edible growing on it. I've seen corn, beans, peppers, squash, pear trees, cucumbers, and some I haven't been able to identify. William says I don't know them because we didn't learn about them in my Wildlife classes (and they're not Indiana flaura and fauna) :)

Both in Anjeong-ri and Pyeongtaek, there are a lot of skyscraper-sized (Eastern European/Soviet style) apartment buildings, like the ones in the photo. I'm glad William didn't choose to live in one of those. I like our location. It feels like we live in the country but we're only a 10 minute walk from Anjeong-ri (for perspective, it used to take me 20 minutes to walk to campus from the apt in Boone).

Oh, and be sure to check out the photos of the apartment keys. They're definitely strange looking. William thinks they look like they might open up the ancient pyramids :)

end of week #1

William and I now live in an apartment on a little one lane road in Anjeong-ri, South Korea, near the city of Pyeongtaek, which is maybe 70km south of Seoul. Different websites show different distances between the two cities.

On my walks to and from the bus stop near our apartment, in addition to the rice and other crops on either side, I've come to realize that we seem to have more BIG spiders as neighbors than people. I mean BIG! One type that I've seen a lot is skinny and is yellow and black. It is actually quite pretty for a spider. Another one that I just saw yesterday for the first time is just way too big for my taste! I got 2 pictures of him that I think will give a good idea of his size. Luckily, we haven't seen any in the apartment yet.

Each day at school lunch is prepared for the teachers so I have the opportunity to try new things. Every meal consists of rice, some kind of soup, two or three kinds of kimchi (explanation below) and then maybe something sweet. For example, we had wine grapes one day for the sweet item. I guess I've never had wine grapes before. Their texture is completely different from green or red grapes and they're sweeter. They don't eat the skins here. I don't know if that's normal or not.

Anyway, some of the items prepared for lunch have been pretty good, some just okay although I don't always know what everything is. There was one soup this week that was just awful, it had a very fishy flavor to it. I don't even know what kind of animal was in it, but they looked like soft hollow vertebrae or something....very gross! I have tried some of the meat options, but the thing I've liked the best so far was a mixture of things that don't seem like they should go together. Here it is:

Chopped green apples, cherry tomatoes, sliced cucumber, sliced beets, and banana chunks all mixed with what I think was a strawberry yogurt. My co-teacher, Mrs. Kim, said she thought maybe it was mixed with some mayonnaise too. It was a thin liquid so I'm not sure if it was thinned out with some milk or maybe the water from the fruits and veggies thinned it out. It was good though. I'll try to replicate it some time to see if I can get close.

Kimchi (pronounced "kimchee") consists of pickled vegetables, like cabbage, radishes, and I don't even know what else, but apparently lots of things can be pickled. It's eaten at every meal and is sort of like appetizers, except it's eaten alongside, instead of before, the main dish. Many of the kimchi served at lunch have a hot red pepper paste on them, making them very spicy. Not spicy in the way Mexican food is spicy because it still has a pickled flavor, but it's a hot pickled flavor! I don't know how to describe it really. But by the time the meal is done my whole face is sweating profusely. Maybe that's why I liked the yogurt fruit thing. It helped tame the heat a little bit.

I'm starting to know a few Korean words, like hello, please, and thank you. But beyond that I'm pretty much lost. If I have my cheat sheet with me I can ask where something is. On Monday, the first day of class, I got off my bus too soon and had to walk the rest of the way to the school. So on the way I asked a few different people where the school was just to make sure I was headed in the right direction. I made it there okay so I guess they understood me :) William and I were talking about how our experiences will be very different even though we're living in the same country. I have more incentive to learn some of the language since I'm immersed in it each day. Even though there are Koreans on base and in William's unit, he's still surrounded mostly by Americans so he has less need to know any Korean.

I have Friday of next week off, as well as the following Mon. and Tues. for a holiday called Chuseok. It's a time when families and friends gather to share food and enjoy their time together, giving thanks to their ancestors for the year's bountiful harvests. I've also read that it's a time for families to visit the graves of their ancestors.