acupuncture

William and I just tried acupuncture a couple of hours ago. We've been wanting to try it for awhile since we're in a country that has practiced it for centuries, but I didn't know where to go. Then, when I went to the hospital for swimmer's ear last week, I saw an acupuncture sign so I asked about it. We didn't have to make an appointment so we went today after my last summer camp class. For the two of us it was an incredibly cheap 30,000 won (~$24). One thing I am going to miss when I leave is the health care, it's been fantastic! Way better than home.

My 10 needles (above).

William had 11 needles in the photo above, though you can only see 10 here. Also, his were arranged differently than mine. Not sure if it's a male/female thing or if there was something else that made the difference. The needles stayed in for 15 minutes under a red heat lamp, during which time it hurt quite a bit to move.

When we walked into the acupuncture area we smelled marijuana, or so we thought. There were a lot of older patients around so we thought maybe it was for their pain relief, or maybe even cancer patients, but we were wrong. Initially, when they asked if we wanted the "hot treatment" we thought we might be smoking the pot, so William declined since he can be drug tested at any time. I figured why not, I'm in a hospital, so I got the hot treatment. The translator called it Moxa, which actually isn't pot at all now that I've looked it up, but it sure smelled the same. It turned out to be the little burning, sticky disks on my back in the picture above, which were left on until they felt hot to my skin. When we realized we wouldn't be smoking anything William chose to get the hot treatment also.

It was recommended that we get acupuncture ever other day if we want. So we may go back again before we leave.

pesticides

The pesticide truck came around again tonight so after running around the apartment closing windows and waiting for the fumes to dissipate some, I went outside and finally got some pictures.

miscellaneous Korean-ness

As we count down our short time left in Korea, here are some unexpected things William and I have seen or experienced during the past year (in no particular order):

• Road construction equipment with no safety barriers. Example: one day at school one of the high school girls walked right underneath a bulldozer arm that was moving a large pine tree. The bulldozer operator just paused until she was through, then kept working. Wish I'd had my camera out for that one!

• I've seen parents driving with their infants sitting in their laps.

• Children as young as 5 or 6 can often be seen riding the buses alone, or with friends or siblings of similar age.

• Young children not in car seats, or without even a seat belt on. Case in point: on my bike ride home today I pulled up behind a small hatchback at a light. A little boy was kneeling in the backseat watching me. He smiled and waved, and was a cutie, but his mother didn't seem to have an issue with him being up and about.

• 4-way yellow lights: not that this is a big issue since most people pay no attention to red lights anyway.

• It's ok to pass through a red light as long as you put on your blinkers or pull over to the far right as you go through.

• It's also ok to pull over into the opposing lane of traffic to go through a red light if you get stuck behind one of the few people who actually chooses to stop at a red light.

• Pesticide machine: during warm-weather months a truck drives around with what looks like a fog machine attached to the back. Every time he comes by we race around shutting all the windows, otherwise we wouldn't be able to see inside our apartment because the smoke and pesticides are so thick! I wish I knew what it actually is, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's DDT.

• Pedestrians typically have no idea whether cars are coming as they start to cross the street. It apparently never crosses their minds to look both ways. I guess they assume the cars will slow down or stop, which is what usually happens. It truly is amazing that we haven't seen more accidents!

• Children play on busy, busy main streets. Just yesterday we saw a young boy pull out from behind a blind corner on his bike right into a busy 4-way intersection. Again, amazing that everyone avoided hitting him.

• We saw a truck driving backwards on a busy main road, and not just for a few seconds to turn around. He drove backwards for at least 300 meters (several blocks at ~35 mph).

• On most mornings there are dozens of students serving punishment as I am arriving at school. They've barely been there, what could they possibly have done to be in trouble already?! Punishment often consist of standing on all 4's with their butts up in the air, or being hit with a stick (yes, the students do get hit quite a lot here).

Mount Seorak

William and I went to Seoraksan National Park over the weekend in the northeastern part of the country. We ran/hiked, and climbed the ladder up into the cave pictured below, but this first picture isn't mine, it's from Wikipedia. We were there on a rainy and foggy day so we couldn't tell that it looked like this at all. None of my pictures have any views like this, but I think I still got some nice ones. While climbing it was obviously steep and we could tell there was a big drop below us (it was more than a little scary), but we didn't know how much of the mountain was actually hidden from view. I wasn't a big fan of the see-through, wet, and slippery, metal steps, but I liked looking out into the fog because it seemed as if we were standing at the edge of the earth. It was also nice that hardly anyone else was there, so we nearly had the place to ourselves. I would not have wanted to be on those steps with 100 other people!On Sunday we rode our bikes into the mountains then back down to the beach. We stood in the Pacific Ocean, but it was too cold to swim, so we've now been in the Pacific on an eastern and a western coast. As always, I collected a couple of shells from the beach.I also climbed up to a lighthouse tower and got some views of the ocean, city, and mountains, while William stayed down below relaxing by the water (and watching our bikes).One more thing checked off our list that we both wanted to do before coming home.

I don't wanna'...

...live in the land of spiders anymore!

I found this guy in the bathroom early this morning, not far from where my feet had been moments earlier! Keep in mind this is only a 16 oz peanut butter jar that he's in. Every time I think about how close he was I shiver.

dragonflies

I don't think I've ever seen so many dragonflies at one time. It rained hard for most of the weekend, and now that it has stopped the dragonflies are everywhere. I just wish the pictures had turned out better.

Shanghai

Lots and lots and lots of people! The shear number of people everywhere, on bikes, in cars, on mopeds, walking, etc., was pretty crazy. And the mopeds were 100% silent so it's amazing that there aren't more accidents!

Day 1:
While William was taking his CISSP exam I took a subway to the French Concession area because the guide book said this was the area that gave Shanghai the name "the Paris of the East." The large sycamore trees lining the roads made it a pretty area, but really it was one large expensive shopping area. But then I found a beautiful park where some people were playing badminton, practicing tai chi, exercising, relaxing, etc. I also came across a group of older people in a pavilion area where a man was playing an accordion while others were singing and dancing.
By noon I'd been walking for several hours and my feet were sore! I took the guide book's suggestion and got a foot massage. Not all Chinese massage parlors have blind masseuses, but being a masseuse is a traditional occupation for the blind in China. It felt fantastic after it stopped hurting (he was pressing hard!)

Tea Ceremony:
Later in the day, during one of the sporadic rain storms, I met 3 Chinese students. The guy on the left had a Chinese name I can't spell or pronounce, then there's me-Sarah 1, then Sarah 2 (when I told her my name she laughed, then told me her English name and gave us numbers), and Andy on the right end. They were very friendly and invited me to a tea ceremony, after which we exchanged email addresses and took a photo.
They did their best in translating so I now know how to properly drink tea if ever invited to another tea ceremony. We tried 6 different teas: green tea, jasmine tea, ginseng oolong tea, a dried fruit tea that I never quite caught the name of, a 6-flower tea, and lychee black tea. They were all good but the dried fruit and lychee black were my favorites. Below is an illicit photo of the 6-flower tea. The tea woman had left the room for a second so I decided to take a few photos. I only got the one before she came back in and informed us that no photos were allowed. It turned out I could have taken the same picture later at a tea shop, so it's not too secret. The tea started out as one big bud until the water was added, then it opened up to what you see below.Food:
Both William and I wanted to try as much food as possible during our short trip. We went to a restaurant called "We Make the Best Noodles" and tried egg noodles with asparagus in a cream sauce, along with some fresh fruit drinks. But mostly we ate from small food stands rather than restaurants. It's too bad the U.S. doesn't have more food stalls, and I don't mean for selling hot dogs. Some of the "o.k." things we tried were: spinach-filled and pork-filled dough bun things, fried dumplings, and a bean-paste pastry (similar to a Korean snack).

The worst thing: rice steamed in a banana leaf. We each tried a small bite then it got tossed, yuck.

The best things: a bowl of lo mein and bubble tea. Ummm, delicious!

There were the usual squid and octopus-type things that I will always be too squeamish to try. (William tried the crawling tentacles in Korea, not while I was around, thankfully, but I cannot!)

On Sunday we did more walking around a shopping area and were followed for a good 20 minutes or more by 3 guys trying to talk us into going to their specific store. It was incredibly ANNOYING!!! So we left and took a very long walk to Old Town.

Old Town:

This was by far the coolest part architecturally, I thought. But it was a tourist trap...not for foreigners necessarily because we didn't see many, but for Chinese from other areas it seemed. There were loads of little trinkets and knick-knacks to buy within the 100+-year-old buildings, mixed in with the occasional Starbucks or McDonalds. There were some cool shops too. I especially liked the ones that sold chopsticks and tea.

We packed a lot of things into a short amount of time. Maybe later I'll think of other things I wish I'd written about, but for now I'm all typed out. I'll let my photos speak for themselves :)

singing road

I will get a Shanghai post up very soon, but until then here's a little something interesting. When I arrived in Korea last August a driver picked me up at the airport and took me to Anjeong-ri. Partway into the drive he turned off the radio and told me to listen. Here's what I heard. Name that tune :)