Fulbright Spring Conference 2014

Just a few photos from Fulbright's Spring Conference held at the beginning of this month. Hard to believe April is almost over, now that I think about it... Anyway, the conference was nice. Good to see my friends again. The programming was long and pretty tedious since a lot of it I'd heard before (last year), but if I'm honest with myself, you can never learn too much or prepare too well. Satisfaction with one's current performance is mostly a lack of desire to keep growing and improving, and that leads to complacency. So I took notes. Said notes are in my office at school, so I'll type them up later. But without further ado, here are some of the aforementioned photos!

Spring Conference peer-led workshops. I led one that was a panel discussions for first-years wondering about what doing a second-year is like.

Spring Conference is when the Fulbright researchers present the contents of their research projects, so we also had discussion small groups with them. The cool researchers held their small groups outside!

I went to my friend Adam's small group. He's been studying street dance and performance art in Korea, so our "discussion" mostly revolved around him teaching us some basic hip hop moves. Ha! All the other small groups may have been more professional, but ours was more fun.

And this was the view from our hotel on Jeju Island. Gorgeous. Perfect weather. I want to go back!

On Friday night, there was a fundraising game night that involved an "ice cream pie" contest. Contestants had to search for a missing gummy bear inside a dish of ice cream... using just their faces.

It got pretty messy pretty quick. Entertaining, though.

Our winners! Or did everyone lose?

Saturday night, we had a special dinner of Jeju's specialty, black pork. We ate a ton! I'm really going to miss Korean barbecue when I leave. (Actually, I think I'm going to go back to being vegetarian in the States...)

Saturday night was a fun event at a local club called Monkey Beach: "Fulbright Prom", organized by some Fulbrighters as a fundraiser and a party just for us. I never went to my high school's prom, actually, so it was kind of funny for me to go. L to R: me, Ashley, Amy, and Anna.

Seogwipo's Monkey Beach is so legit! It was huge, for one, and had game rooms, arcade rooms, karaoke rooms, a stage, and even a waterslide! I had a really great time.

Having a great time at Fulbright Prom! L to R: Cait, Patrick, Katelyn, Jennifer

The club's actual waterslide! It was ridiculous and amazing!

Jake and me. Hm... I've got to stop making it a habit to put my arm around the shoulders of people taller than me.

Our fearless Program Coordinator, Andrew, and Executive Assistant, Liam. Props to them for putting together a great conference!

Dropping by Jeju

Plush horses of Jeju!

Whew, a solid week of travel really knocked me out! Since Monday of last week, I've moved around via bike, bus, plane, ferry, rental car, hippie car, subway, tram, local train, regional train, bullet train, and even a sideways elevator; I've ventured across mountains, across and above seas, and to an uninhabited island, stopping at ten cities along the way. And the first thing I did when I arrived back in Changwon was go to taekgyeon practice.

So now I'm exhausted. Fortunately, I have a solid week to refresh and look back on a great week that really made my vacation seem like a vacation before flying off somewhere else. Part 1: Jeju Island! I went to meet with a professor for consultation about my Castleberry research project but also spent some time with Fulbright friends.

On Monday morning, I got a sorely needed haircut, cleaned up my apartment, and then left for the airport. As usual, it took about a minute to get my boarding pass and get through security; though I was hours early, I passed the time with a book, The Professor and the Madman, by Simon Winchester, which was gifted to me by a good friend. It was late afternoon and getting dark when I arrived on the island, but I found my way to my friend Vika's apartment in Jeju City and we caught up, her telling me awesome stories from her recent trip to Laos.

A 돌하르방 at the entrance to JNU

On Tuesday morning, after a paradoxically calming and invigorating yoga session at Vika's favorite local studio, I took a nice brisk walk to the nearby Jeju National University. You can just see the peak of Mt. Halla from the campus; South Korea's highest mountain was covered in snow. At JNU, I met up with Professor Yang to talk about my research project on Jeju-eo. The meeting was fruitful and encouraging in some ways but slightly discouraging in others. The good news is that Professor Yang is 100% on board with my project and thinks that it is an amazing idea and opportunity. The bad news is that, realistically speaking, it's going to be more difficult than I anticipated. We must figure out a way to conduct our own fieldwork (I had wrongly assumed that there would be an existing corpus of recordings of the language), and the timing is not ideal. Despite this, I had a great talk with the professor, gained a lot of useful information about Jeju-eo, and left the meeting feeling extremely encouraged about my prospects.

In the afternoon, Vika and I took a bus headed for the sleepy city on the south side of the island, Seogwipo. This express bus cut right through the island, climbing dizzily through the mountain roads for twenty minutes until we were surrounded by snow, then barreling down the other side for twenty minutes until we saw the beach again. It was an odd journey. In Seogwipo, we walked along the Olle Trails for some scenic views and visited the Jeongbang Falls (정방폭포), the only waterfall in Asia that falls directly into the ocean! Although it was cloudy out, it was still quite a sight, and even though it was the middle of winter, there were plenty of tourists, especially Chinese.

(An aside: a ticket to see the falls costs two bucks normally, but youth aged 24 or under can get in for one. When I saw this information at the ticketing booth, I realized that, it now being 2014, Vika and I, as well as everyone in the world born in 1990, were now 25 by the Korean system of age-reckoning. But we went for it anyway and showed our ID cards, and score! We got the half-price tickets.)

Jeongbang Falls on a cloudy January day.

Vika and me at 정방폭포

After some more hiking, chatting, and eating delicious Jeju oranges, which are now in season, we met up with some of the Fulbrighters who live and teach in Seogwipo. We hung out in Jessica's apartment and ate tons of cookies while laughing over travel stories and commiserating about graduate school and those onerous applications.

For dinner, we went to a popular barbecue restaurant that Kristen has gone to many times before with her school faculty. It's called 새섬갈비 (Saeseom Galbi/BBQ), and it's amazing. The black pork (흑돼지) is so thick, and the side dishes are good. Prices quite reasonable for the portions. I'd definitely go back, but the best part of the dinner, of course, was sharing it with friends.

At the end of the day, Vika and I took the bus back north to Jeju City; flying through winding, dark roads in the rain (no lights except those from passing cars on this terrifying route) was pretty nuts, but our bus driver seemed to know what he was doing. And on Wednesday morning, I left a cold and rainy Jeju to board my flight back to the mainland. Goodbye, Jeju! I'll be back again soon.

Pure yum. I used to be a vegetarian, but in Korea I'll enjoy a grilled pig any day.

Dinner with friends! Left to right: Jessica, Kristen, and Vika, all of whom are going to go on to achieve amazing things. And then there's me. Taken by Taxi.

흑돼지 - Black Pig Barbecue

흑돼지: black pig. You can see the hairs still on the meat, as well as some of the ink from the authenticity stamp.

Jeju Island is famous for its black pigs. Their actual flesh is colored like normal pigs', but their hair is as dark as mine. In the past, they were raised on human waste, which I find rather disgusting. But today, black pig farms raise them more conventionally. To prove that a plate of pork is legitimate Jeju 흑돼지 (heuk-dweji), they stamp its hide with ink. As a consequence, at a traditional Jeju barbecue restaurant, you are not only given a plate of raw meat to cook on your own, but this raw meat has little black bristles and purple blotches on it. Even without prior knowledge of these pigs' traditional diet, it didn't seem so appetizing.

Fortunately, in Korea, meat is meat (고기가 고기예요), and as soon as the pork was grilled to perfection -- taking a bit longer than expected since the cuts were very thick and fatty -- I ate my fair share and enjoyed a fully satisfying meal. (I haven't been a vegetarian for such a long time now...) This special experience of a traditional island dish took place on the second day of the Fulbright Spring Conference. (I'm writing out of chronological order because... 그냥.)

Fulbright friends at a barbecue restaurant with a beautiful view: Ben, Luke, Ashley, Monica, Courtney, Hana, Katelyn, and Jason.

Life of Pisces

From tomorrow, I won't see my host family for about a month, so we had a nice dinner out tonight: Korean barbecue! During the meal, we talked a lot about movies (영화/younghwa). I found out that my host parents don't care for musicals but that the family enjoyed Life of Pi. (I did, too!) Then, in an effort to engage my host bro in conversation and take his attention away from his smartphone games, I asked my host brother more about the movie. "Do you think you could live in a boat with a tiger (호랑이/holangi) for two hundred days?" I asked. "If you were Pi, what would you do?"

He replied that it would be very fun. "Fun?!" I exclaimed. "How would it be fun?"

"Fishing," he said.

(By the way, my host brother loves fishing. And sushi.)

Foreground: 육회 (yukhwe), Korean-style raw beef. This was a first. Background: delicious seasoned beef on a charcoal bbq! And also a nub of the 육회 that host bro threw on the grill to try to cook it.

P.S. Another episode of Koreal life today: I had to go to the bank to reset my mobile banking password. I was lucky the clerk who assisted me was patient and very nice. After some time, I realized that she didn't know what I was asking for. I mean, I mumbled my initial request and signed some random forms, and then she instructed me to enter my password. "... But... I've forgotten it. That's why I'm here," I thought, confused. It all got solved in the end, though. Also, she back-handedly complimented my Korean. "Really good for someone who's not taking classes." I WILL TAKE CLASSES. JUST YOU WAIT, KIND, HELPFUL BANK LADY.

Korean(-American) Food

Tonight, my parents, brother, sister-in-law, and I went to a Korean restaurant in Hayward called Korea House, or 한국의집. I was rather pleased when I picked up the menu and could read and understand most of what was written on it in Korean. I daresay I would have been able to order for my family even without the English translations. But this was in California, and the restaurant owners were more than used to non-Korean Asian families patronizing their humble 집, so we used English.

I ordered 낙지국수볶음, which should have been a dish of sauteed mini octopus with soup noodles. However, the 아줌마 definitely gave me a sauteed dish with squid in it first. I went ahead and started eating it, and then she rushed back to the table and took it away, replacing it with the octopus. I swear she then gave the plate I had just eaten out of to the table next to ours. Poor frazzled 아줌마!

Otherwise, it was a great meal, exactly what I've come to expect from a Korean restaurant in the States. In Korea, restaurants usually specialize in only a few kinds of dishes, but here, you need to be able to provide "something for everyone". That's why this place was part-barbecue (galbi), part-tofu soup (sundubu), part-sauteed stuff (bokkeum), part-soups (jjigae/tang), part-pancakes (jeon), and on top of that, they gave us the full spread of banchan, or side dishes. There was tons of food, in both the American style (huge portions) and the Korean style (lots and lots of dishes).

It's odd to get a taste of Korea while out of Korea for this short while. Yet, hard to believe that in just a week, I'll be back!

Blogging from the Airport

Season's Greetings at Incheon.

My smart phone knew that I would be traveling. As soon as I arrived at the Incheon International Airport, I began receiving a series of text messages from my data provider that provided information about roaming data and the like. I mean, I wasn't really sure what the messages were saying, since they were entirely in Korean, but I did recognize a loanword present in every message: 로밍, which is obviously "roaming".

I wasn't really sure about what kinds of charges my phone would rack up during the two weeks I'm going to spend in California, so I went the safe route and temporarily suspended my data plan. While home, I'll only be able to use my phone with WiFi.

Anyway, that's just a roundabout way of saying that I am currently writing this from the Incheon International Airport, one of the best and biggest airports in the world. It really is a gorgeous airport -- very classy, clean, and quiet. It has also been completely Christmas-ified. It is hard to believe that Christmas is only two days away, but this becomes almost believable when you're surrounded by holiday decorations and listening to holiday songs, waiting to board your plane in less than two hours.

So, what did I do this weekend? On Friday evening, I said my goodbyes to my host family and gave them presents. On Saturday morning, I got up before anyone else, quickly packed, and went to the bus station to catch a ride to Seoul. One thing that struck me was that, while it had rained in Changwon on Friday afternoon, only half an hour north, the ground was blanketed in snow. I thought to myself, "Uh oh, I'm not going to be prepared for Seoul". Five hours later, I was in Hongdae and I was freezing. Fortunately, it wasn't unbearable, just a bit unexpected.

The main things I did were get a haircut (and the hairdresser thought I was Korean-American... big surprise there) and then spend the evening with friends from home who were visiting Seoul for vacation. It was lots of fun wandering around Hongdae with Wilson and Jon. I was looking for Christmas presents, they were looking for good street food, and we all found what we wanted.

Jon was eyeing that 호떡 (hotteok) with eager anticipation.

Because we were in Hongdae, I wanted to find that awesome bulgogi restaurant that I had gone to before: 연탄 불고기. It took me a long time to find it again, and I almost gave up, but when we finally got there, it completely lived up to my expectations. Delicious pork and spicy pork barbecue, plus drinks, for only 11,000₩ each. It was more expensive than the last time I ate there, in part because my friends and I ordered tons of food, and also because, for some reason, the restaurant slapped a foreigner tax on us. (VAT세금? Seriously, what is that?) 헐, it kind of sucked. Whatever, though. It was still a great meal, and, as Wilson said, incredibly good value, especially compared to everything they had eaten in Japan, where they had spent a few days before coming to Korea.

Jon and Wilson at the barbecue place. My lens was foggy because it was so cold outside but so toasty inside.

(For future reference... this barbecue restaurant is located in a narrow road and doesn't show up on map applications. From the Hongik University Station, exit 9, turn left to enter Hongdae, then turn right onto the tree-lined pedestrian street until you hit a crossroad. There should be a Starbucks and a Taco Bell on opposite sides of this street; keep them on your right as you cross the street. There are now two parallel streets that head south. The larger one is on the left; take the smaller one on the right, and walk down it for about five minutes. 연탄 불고기 will be on your right, a two-story red building with big windows.)

Anyway, for the rest of the evening, I chilled with Wilson and Jon, shopping and wandering around Hongdae. It was great to catch up with them, and I must admit that it surprised me how paradoxically normal it felt to be hanging out with friends on the other side the world, simply as if we were back in the Bay Area. I like how small the world can seem sometimes.

Wilson, Jon, and me in Hongdae.

So that was Saturday. Today, Sunday, was spent chilling at my hostel (Hongdae Guesthouse 3.0, "Y3llow Submarine") and taking the train to the airport, where I am now, with only one hour left before boarding! So, signing off now, and when you hear from me again, I'll be back in California! Safe travels and Merry Christmas, everyone!

And then we ate a lot of food. (Gwangju pt. 3)

It was one of those three-restaurant kinds of evenings, know what I mean? No? Okay, I don't really know myself. But Fulbright 친구 and I did end up getting pre-dinner, dinner, and dessert at three different places around Gwangju on Saturday evening, and I had a fantastic time of it.

The first place was a "foreigner bar" and restaurant called The First Alleyway which I will talk about in further detail tomorrow, since I didn't actually stay for long on Saturday but ended up eating there for Sunday brunch. The only thing of note was that the sheer number of non-Koreans at the restaurant in the evening took me completely by surprise. I'm not even kidding; when I walked in the door and saw, essentially, a room full of white people, I was simply shocked. I felt like I'd somehow stepped through the door and back into America. It was bizarre and slightly disconcerting.

It's not like I've been completely surrounded by Koreans; even in Korea, I see a non-Asian foreigner every few days. Heck, I even came to Gwangju for the express purpose of seeing my foreigner friends. But the atmosphere in this foreigner-owned-and-promoted establishment was really... like nothing else I've experienced so far here. All of my Fulbright friends expressed the same sentiment, to varying degrees. It was kind of funny!

After a light snack at the bar, we did some shopping and wandering around the streets of Gwangju's labyrinthine downtown. Then, when we were hungry again, we went to 민속촌갈비 (Minsokchon Galbi), a fantastic barbecue place. There was only floor seating, but the floors were heated! How awesome. The restaurant's interior was very warm and rustic. It gave me good vibes. And the food was just as excellent as I could have imagined. A barbecue meal (with tons of 반찬, including salad, and taking into account some people who ordered different dishes) came out to about 9,000₩ per person for seven people, if I remember correctly.

Look at how excited Adam is about his galbi! And he had an entire table to himself... before Jessica and Taxi joined us.

Our group in front of the restaurant (minus Julia, who snapped the photo). Left to right: Adam, Taxi, Jessica, Jason, Katelyn, and me.

After dinner, we decided on dessert at a stealthily hidden-away wine and cheese (cheese!) bar that some of the Gwangju locals (Taxi, Jessica, and Julia) had gone to just the day before. It turns out that they've frequented this particular bar quite often in the past semester, and have earned the rights to some on-the-house desserts...! Not that we knew this for sure upon setting out. In the cold, we got lost in the maze of streets and tossed little snowballs at each other, and then we found it, tucked away on a quieter street: Big Apple.

Big Apple, in downtown Gwangju. A coffee and wine bar THAT SERVES CHEESE TOO DON'T FORGET.

Cheese platter: Pesto Parmesan! Brie(?)! Raisins! (Raisins?)

We ordered the "wine and cheese platter" set that made us feel like classy, urban adults instead of young expats fresh out of college, told stories, cracked jokes, and took photos. I loved it.

I've said this a hundred times before but I'll say it again now: the company of other Fulbright teachers is really special, because it's not just the connection of being American or being English teachers in Korea, it's the connection of friendship and of having been through a long and adventurous experience together (i.e. that six-week Orientation) and thus of understanding each other on a deeper level.

And seriously? There was wine and cheese. This always helps.

Although I sometimes feel isolated from most of the other hundred twenty-something Fulbright ETAs (because I am), this makes it all the more worthwhile when I do get a chance to see them and catch up on life. Although this involves making the trip to another city on the opposite side of the country, on the bright side, it also means I can turn "I want to see you!" into an excuse for a full-blown weekend excursion. Sadly, Gwangju was the last one of the year for me. This coming weekend, I'll spend time with my host family, and the weekend after that, well, I'll be flying home for the holidays! Cheonan, Chungju, Jeju, Mokpo, Naju, and Hwacheon, you're still on my list. 2013 is going to be jam-packed with adventure.

Classy Fulbrighters at Big Apple in Gwangju.

Aw, they wrote "welcom ㅂig [apple]" with chocolate. Cute!

Oh, and one last thing:

There.

Was.

Cheesecake.

New York cheesecake (very dense), organic cheesecake (miraculously creamy), and an on-the-house tiramisu (what a pleasant surprise!), five slices shared by eight.

Total bill came out to 12,000₩ per person. Expensive? Yes, but still worth every won. Highly recommend this place.

A Swattie Reunion in Busan

The Swatties strike again! I had the pleasure of meeting up with Kevin ('11) and Natalia ('12) this weekend in Busan. Kevin is teaching English at a rural elementary school on a TALK (Teach And Learn in Korea) scholarship, and Natalia is studying Mandarin Chinese in Beijing. Because Natalia has a week-long break following the end of her first semester, she flew over the East China Sea to Korea to visit some of the dozens of Swatties who are here. (To fly from Beijing to Busan takes about two hours.)

Galmaegisal (skirtmeat) barbecue at Seolae.

On the first evening, we met up at Gwangan (neighborhood of the famous Gwangalli Bridge) and got dinner at a great barbecue chain restaurant called 서래 (Seolae). The place was busy and the space inside was pretty cramped for our group of five, but we got some delicious barbecue. The specialty of this restaurant chain is 갈매기살 (galmaegisal), which is called "skirtmeat" in English. This is the meat around the diaphragm and liver, and it's the kind often used in fajitas. Our meat that night had been marinated in something special that made it very tender and very spicy. 억수로 맛있다! Seoul Food has a more comprehensive review here. The price came out to about 10,000₩ (<$10) per person, including drinks (소주 and 맥주, which gave me some embarrassing Asian glow). Great restaurant, right by the beach!

That was our next destination, chilling on Gwangalli Beach just to see the lights on the bridge and cool off after a spicy meal. It was nice to catch up with Natalia and Kevin, chatting about Swat news, of course, among other things.

Swatties at Gwangalli Beach! Me, Natalia, and Kevin. (taken by Jamie)

Natalia and Monica at noraebang.

Later, when Kevin and some others in our group left, Monica, a Fulbrighter in Busan, joined us and we went to a 노래방 (noraebang) for everyone's favorite: karaoke! This 노래방 was right on the beach; I forget its name, but it was just 15,000₩ for an hour, no drink purchase necessary. In fact, we got some free apple juice just for the heck of it. (서비스, or service, is a Konglish word that means "complimentary stuff".) I totally sang Starships. And Mrs. Robinson (Swatsick...). And Beyonce. And I even tried a G-Dragon song and butchered it. It was a blast!

It was around midnight when we finished, and I had already missed the last regular bus back to Busan by several hours. Fortunately, Natalia's couchsurfing host was incredibly gracious and said that I could crash the night at her place, as well, on a spare air mattress she had. I was extremely thankful for this. We talked all night about Korea, weddings, and Glee. I slept well, and we left at noon the next morning.

People have been talking up couchsurfing like nothing else recently (especially my globe-trotting friend Miyuki, and my first experience with it was so generous that I've decided to sign up for it and see where else I can travel. I would gladly host anyone coming through Changwon if only I lived in my own apartment, but unfortunately, that's not really the case right now.

Street food: 호떡 (hotteok), which is so incredibly nommable. Deep-friend pancakes filled with melted cinnamon sugar, pine nuts, and peanuts. This particular vendor had a long line of people waiting, which doesn't mean slow service but instead top-notch quality.

Sunday was a laid-back, drizzly day. Natalia and I took the subway to Seomyeon, the downtown area. At the subway station, we had a "stupid foreigners" moment and I accidentally made Natalia buy a multiple-trip card instead of a one-trip ticket. To our surprise and amazement, we were very quickly and efficiently helped out by some of the workers at the information office, who 1) gave Natalia a refund on the card that she shouldn't have bought and 2) walked us through how to use the correct ticketing machines (which we had not noticed before going to the wrong machines). Three cheers for patient, polite, and helpful Korean public service workers!

Woojung's Bibimbap in Seomyeon.

At Seomyeon, we met up with Kevin again and had lunch at Woojung's Bibimbap, and then chilled the afternoon away at an adorable cafe called Tokyoloose. Perks of the bibimbap restaurant included the cheapest 돌솥 비빔밥 (dolsot bibimbap, or stone bowl mixed rice) that I've had in Korea, at 4,000₩, as well as good service, its plain interior and staff of irritable ajummas notwithstanding.

Tokyoloose, on the other hand, is the very paragon of Korea-cute. Stuffed animals, lacy place mats, decor that looked like we landed in France in the '40s... As Kevin described it, "Like Japan's interpretation of an antique French country house." Really, all you need are some photos in order to understand what I mean. Oh, and the drinks and desserts were just great, with almost everything on the menu in the 4-6,000₩ range.

Cafe Tokyoloose, located on the second floor of a building somewhat far from the main bustling streets of Seomyeon.

The surprisingly large and spacious interior, well-lit and overwhelmingly cute. Light jazz playing on the radio.

Natalia and Kevin at Tokyoloose. Note the lacy place mats, the antique clock, large windows, and the enormous stuffed giraffe.

So there was a "Dress Shop" inside the cafe with clothes that you could try on... but they weren't for sale... And  there was a mirror, so I guess the whole point was just to try on cute clothes and silly hats while you waited for your green tea latte?

Oh, yes, and there was also food. A lemon tart presented to us with instructions on how to properly eat it (squeeze the lemon slice over it first, and then alternate small bites of pie and ice cream).

Banana chocolate roll, with truffles and almonds!

I'm planning to write reviews of both of these places on Fulbright Infusion's city guide soon, as they were both fantastic and deserve a bit more attention. As you can probably tell from all the photos I took at Tokyoloose, I really loved it and would definitely go back again. Besides the cafe itself, though, it was a wonderful afternoon spent with friends. As I've said before and will say again, I really enjoy getting together with Swatties in a place that is not Swarthmore. The farther away from Swarthmore, actually, the more fun it seems to be.

Reunion: Fall Conference 2012 (pt. 2)

You could also call this the Group Photo Post. Last weekend's conference was a fantastic time of reuniting with all of our friends after seven weeks of being apart. Of course, I've traveled to other cities and I've seen tons of other Fulbrighters; I may be the only one in my city, but I'm not as isolated as that. Nevertheless, for everyone to get back together was really something. When we were all gathered in the main conference room, I was taken aback at our numbers. In one large room were represented dozens of cities and over one hundred and twenty different schools, families, and experiences. This amounted to thousands of stories to share.

Contacting the night away! Left to right: Ashley, Sarah, Thomas, Kelly, Sara, and Erin.

On the first evening, a bunch of folks decided to walk around the Bomun Lake (보문호수), the large reservoir central to the tourist resort area where our conference was held. We got drinks and chocolate and, braving the nighttime autumn chill, sat on a pier by the lake and talked and played games. Contact -- my favorite game ever -- was the order of the evening. I love a good two hours of Contact. I mean, not even that, I love a good two hours of speaking quickly and fluently in English with my friends. A nice break from the Korean and intermediate-level English that surrounds me in the classroom every day. And on top of that, a word game that gives your language faculty a run for its money! Kelly perhaps described it best when she said that it felt like her brain was being massaged.

한우, Korean beef grilled over charcoal. The cuts were twice as thick as what I usually see at barbecue restaurants!

On Saturday evening, a group of us got adventurous and went out to get Korean barbecue. Fortunately -- or unfortunately, depending on how you view the situation -- we chanced across a nice-looking restaurant: 강산한우. I wasn't aware of this when we walked in, but 한우 (hanwoo) means Korean beef. Korean beef is really, really expensive. And sure enough, this restaurant turned out to be a wallet breaker. But was it worth it? The small cuts of meat that we got (10,000₩ per 100g) were delicious; juicy steak grilled over pure charcoal, along with tons of garlic, mushrooms (as much as we wanted), and a variety of 반찬. Mhm, there's no denying that it was an excellent meal, surpassing the quality of most of what I eat these days. On the other hand, I've also been stuffed to satisfaction at barbecue joints to the tune of 5,000₩, whereas this tourist trap restaurant, which charged extra for rice and even for setting up our table and grill (who does that?!), landed us with a bill of 20,000₩ per person. I'd pay $18 for that in the States, no sweat, but in Korea? Hmph. I'll say it was worth it, but I don't think I'll be treating myself to 한우 again soon...

The adventurous group that shelled out for some mad-expensive and supremely delicious Korean beef barbecue. Left to right: Kelly, Ashley, Jason, Katelyn, Ben, Tsu, Nina, Elaine, and me. (taken by Neal)

After the meal, everyone was stuffed -- almost uncomfortably so -- which called for a night-time stroll around the lake. I took photos and played with long exposure...

Katelyn, Ashley, Ben, Kelly, and Jason at Bomun Lake in Gyeongju. Jason likes his ice cream.

And that evening ended in a great Bananagrams and Pirate Scrabble marathon, during which I continued to fend off Ashley's attacks on my claim as Bananagrams Boss and Pirate Scrabble Captain and generally had a blast.

What I liked the most about this reunion was that all of us Fulbrighters could basically pick up exactly where we left off at the end of Orientation, which strangely seems like it was simultaneously very long ago and just yesterday. Only now in addition to our crazy antics and long chats about our lives back home, we have stories to tell of our students' crazy antics and long chats about our lives right now. Over all the meals, throughout all those long hours just chilling, between games of Bananagrams, the conversation continued unbroken, and, well, I guess it was telling of just how wonderful it was to be together again.

The wonderful 인터미디엇 (촣아, 촣아, 촣아!) class reunion photo. Left to right: me, Lizzie, Tracy, Jaeyeon, Susie, Amber, Soon, Monica, and Kyla. Missing: Kelly, Megan, and Ashley, who wandered off early :(

Night Lights (Weekend pt. 2)

The number of Fulbrighters hanging out in Seoul quickly swelled as the evening wore on. So did my sinuses.

Busy, crowded streets of Hongdae (홍대) at night. I spy a Korean hipster!

The group from the Han River Park made a pit stop by the Fulbright Building in Mapo-gu to pick up things and hang out with Jake and Leslie for a bit before heading to Hongdae (홍대). Hongdae is hoppin', easily the most interesting neighborhood I've seen in Korea so far. It's young, hip, and really lively at night. We checked into our hostel, the Pencil Guesthouse, and then walked to the busier part of the neighborhood, taking in all the sights. Just along the short walk from the Hongik University metro station to the restaurant, we saw: tons of foreigners, tons of hipsters, tiny shops selling everything imaginable, a silent mp3 dance party, street performances, and at least one guy in drag.

A silent mp3 dance party on the streets in Hongdae. Everyone had wireless headphones and was dancing to music, but no one watching could hear anything! And they all had balloons, too. Yay, balloons!

The whole group in front of the restaurant. From left to
right: Amy and David (friends of friends), Kristen,
Stephanie, Cecile, Julia, Ammy, Jessica, Alanna, Ben,
and Taxi. A group of twelve for an unplanned dinner is
 unwieldy, but we had a blast!

Our group was twelve strong at 연탄 불고기 (Yeontan Bulgogi), which was a barbecue place suggested by Jessica. Two different sets of her Korean friends had taken her to eat there, so we figured it'd work for us. And although the menu was simple (nothing but pork barbecue, banchan, or side dishes, and steamed egg), it was delicious. And there was a lot of food. And it was really, really cheap. Like, 5,000-won-(less than $5)-per-person-for-a-full-meal-cheap. I highly recommend this place.

Yayyy, Korean barbecue! (I was worried about Cecile, who doesn't eat pork, because there was essentially nothing else on the menu... But the rest of us ate like kings!)

Unfortunately, by the end of the meal, my nose was running like a leaky faucet. The wonderful afternoon spent outside in Nature had its consequences in the form of severe allergies. I probably looked like crap, but I just had to power through, because we had one more stop before the day was over: Namsan Tower!

Namsan Tower is a big tower smack dab in the middle of the city. It's also called N Seoul Tower, and it's easily visible from most parts of town, helped in part because it's on the top of a hill (Namsan). Our group took the metro and a taxi to get to the bottom of the hiking trail, which was beautifully lit for the evening. Because the cable car line was fairly long, and because we're adventurous Fulbrighters, we decided to hike the whole way up. It took about twenty minutes, not including several pauses along the way to take in the gorgeous views of the city we were being offered at every turn. Also, we played Contact on the way up and it soothed my troubled, word game-deprived soul.

And then we arrived at the tower and bought tickets (9,000 won) to take the elevator to the observation deck. Yes, the view was fantastic. Breathtaking, even. I've seen many cities from the tops of many towers and tall buildings, but Seoul was a new high. This city is beyond huge. It's staggering just how far the lights go in every direction. At the observation deck, which was actually fairly small, I just kept walking around and around, marveling at how impossibly big Seoul is. I took lots of photos...

A breathtaking (and slightly smudgy) view of Seoul's nightscape from the observation deck of Namsan Tower.

It was nearly midnight, and we were all falling asleep at the top, when we decided to call it a night. After some of us got ice cream and checked out the "love padlocks" on the terrace by the foot of the tower, which I personally found kind of boring, we took two taxis (an expensive black one and a cheaper white one) back to Hongdae, which at 1am was still bustling and clogged with pedestrian traffic. We finally arrived at the hostel at 1am, and I conked out almost immediately.

Thousands of couples have locked their love onto the walls of a terrace at Namsan Tower. Stephanie's contemplating 왜 남자 친구가 아직 그녀에게 자물쇠를 안 사다줬어요!

'Twas a good day. Despite the allergies, which made me feel gross and miserable and probably resulted in me being a bossypants (because when your face is on fire and you've been blowing your nose with alcohol sanitizing wipes because so many Korean restaurants don't have napkins, the last thing you want to do is stand around waiting for twelve people to decide where to go and when...), I had a wonderful time. And I was pleasantly surprised at us Fulbrighters' efficacy when it came to splitting the dinner bill, paying for our hostel, meeting up and splitting up, and so on. Everything just went more smoothly than I'd imagined it to be. You see, when you travel, it's not just the great food and the cool sights that count; transportation (must be comfortable), monetary transactions (must be efficient), and all plans going without a hitch can make -- or break -- a vacation.

In the next post: whitewater rafting and bungee jumping in Cherwon!