Monthly Archives: September 2007

Other photos coming soon.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/14313415@N04/

I’ll put a few of the pictures here to tempt you to go look:

OK, so I know there’s still a lot of interesting stuff I haven’t even posted yet (The first couple of days at Mokpo, for example, the day I spent at Nagan, stuff about the minbak where I stayed, etc), but I have to write about this, because like a true geek, I am stupidly excited now.

There is a room in my dorm which is being used by us now as a storage room. Mostly because there were already a bunch of big boxes in there when we came in, and nothing much of any interest to us (so I thought!). But I went through some of the boxes because I heard that there were measuring cups and spoons, and some things for baking.

No kidding! There was all sorts of stuff from (I am not kidding) aprons and chef’s hats to cake decorating supplies, muffin tins and bundt pans (that juuuust fit in my toaster oven!). There are even little pans that would be perfect for creme brulee (pardon the lack of accents on this computer) or something. There were mixing bowls, whisks and rolling pins, cookie cutters, chocolate molds, and pretty much everything you could think of wanting for baking, save food.

Clearly, the thing to be done now is to go over to GS Mart or something today and buy baking stuffs like flour, various kinds of sugar (white, brown, icing, vanilla), etc, so that I can bake some yummy goodness. This comes at a good time, because if baking worked well in Jen’s smaller toaster oven when I was there, I can certainly coax some goodness out of my bigger one.

We took the ferry to Waydaldo today, which is a small island near Mokpo. The ferry was 7,000 won for the roundtrip, and we went for the day. The ferry ride was beautiful — we passed by a whole bunch of really nice islands. Once we got to the Waydaldo itself, we went around to the other side of the island, where there was a nice beach. On the way there, we passed by two old men and a woman who were having lunch. They invited us to join them for some sweet bean dumplings that are traditional to eat during Chuseok (songpyeon), and brought out the songpyeon and two extra sets of chopsticks for us. We sat and ate a couple, and then headed on to the beach.

We walked along by the water, and we found a whole bunch of really cool shells and rocks, and I spent some time reading as well. It was just a really relaxing day. I think that that was the coolest part; we thought that the island may have lots of people on it because it was Chuseok, but really, it was very quiet and peaceful the whole time. We were the only people on the beach, for example. I think that the island visit was the best idea ever.

I’ve seen a lot of Mokpo already, so I’ve decided to head out tomorrow and stop by some other city/town on my way back. I forgot to mention it, but I was given permission to come back on Thursday at some point since I can’t work anyway without my visa. So I have an extra day holiday that I can spend somewhere. Thinking of visiting a nearby tea plantation or something, but I’ll work out all the details tonight.

We went climbing up Yudal San (Mt. Yudal) in Mokpo today. Beautiful hike! I have a lot of great pictures that I will update later, because Jen’s computer doesn’t want to recognize my SD card.

On the hike, when we got to one of the peaks (the mountain has two, we went to both of them), we met a couple of Koreans and a Chinese guy who were hiking there too, and we had an amusing conversation in a mixture of English, Korean and Chinese. I absolutely loved being able to use my Chinese again, and the guy’s jaw dropped like anything when he found out I spoke it a little. The conversation made me feel that my Chinese is not so bad as I thought.

We just cooked supper and it smells amazing. We’re going to walk through the downtown core of Mokpo later to see it all lit up at night.

This blog post comes to you from Mokpo. I’m here!

Good News:

So yesterday afternoon, Angela comes to me and tells me that she has good news for me. Then she says she has to leave for a bit, and will come back in an hour. Ok. Suspense. I can deal with it. At least she didn’t tell me that she has “news” without saying if it were good or bad. So then she comes back in an hour, and I ask about the good news. “Oh right. So..” — and she gets interrupted by someone coming to speak to her in Korean, and has to run off again! When she comes back, though, it really is good news. They felt bad for having brought me in, and there being visa delays which prevent me from working for this long, and wanted to thank me for coming into the office anyway, when technically I didn’t have to. And they felt bad because those two things together meant I mostly couldn’t do much of anything. So they gave me a thank you bonus for Chuseok. 200,000 won now, and 200,000 won on my first payday which will be at the end of October. How awesome is that? That’s over 400$ as bonus! Most importantly, they care about my happiness and well-being. I have the best workplace ever.

Travel Luck:

Somehow, whenever I travel, I always manage to get a window seat with nobody next to me. Or rather more often than you would think should happen with luck. I think I was the only one on the bus to Mokpo with a spare seat next to me.

Exaggerations:

What traffic during Chuseok? I swear, there was less traffic than usual! On the subject, I don’t find that driving here is nearly as bad as I’ve heard it was. So the drivers are slighly less likely to stop to let you cross the street as they are in Montreal (if that’s possible), but it’s really not so bad.

Packing Stupidity:

What’s the one thing you shouldn’t forget when you travel? I forgot to pack underwear in my bag when I was packing yesterday. So, shopping for undies today! Sigh. It happened because I half packed, and then was going to come back after work and finish packing.. but Angela said she’d give me a lift to near the station, so I packed the rest of my bag maybe a little too quickly. Sigh.

But I am now safe and in Mokpo. ^^

Ugh. There are always delays with the visa.

So obviously I won’t be going before Chuseok, since it starts tomorrow.

I’ll be leaving for Mokpo tonight on a sleeper bus, and coming back maybe Wednesday night or something like that. It seems likely that I’ll go on my visa run on the 28th. If not, probably Oct. 1st and 2nd. I’ll post updates once I have them. In the meantime, I’m looking forward to going to visit Jen in Mokpo! My bag is already mostly packed. ^^

For those who are reading this from somewhere closer than North America, the Seoul Exchange is October 13-14. Here is the information in case there’s anyone interested. The cost is 35000 won (which is like, 35$), and the exact location and whereabouts, I’m gonna have to look up. It’s not in Seoul, but it’ll be close, and there is going to be a bus leaving Seoul on Saturday 1p.m and returns on Sunday 11a.m.

Two trips and an exchange… exciting stuff here!

Today’s phrase of the day is 추석 잘 보내세요. Happy Chuseok!

한국말 공부하요.

One of my coworkers, Angela, has been teaching me some Korean.🙂

So I’m trying to study it, but I still feel really limited when I want to actually have a conversation, and can’t say anything much past the little bit I know. Whenever I’m starting to learn a language that’s very different from English, I feel like I can’t speak at all, and it’s sometimes a little frustrating.

But I am seeing progress, so that’s good. I’m learning mostly right now through learning phrases (Let’s go eat. Would you like some coffee? The weather is very beautiful, etc). This is working for me right now, because it gives me something to say right away, and because I break down all of those sentences to bits and pieces to get more vocabulary, and to understand the grammar. Actually, I feel like my grammar is not bad, I just don’t have any words to express using it.

I’m also beginning to recognize high frequency words and phrases like “a little” (조금) and “really?” (그래요) that are used around the office. I can take the words I do know and make some new sentences with them, and from reading signs and ads on the subway, I’m getting some more new vocabulary.

Hopefully things will continue progressing! I’m looking forward to the point where I can have a decent conversation in Korean.

For those of you who’ve been asking, yes, pictures are coming soon.