Korea Part II - Seoul Sister! Sept. 14, 2008

Hi friends and family!

 

I hope you are all well and having/had a nice weekend!  Just dropping a line from Seoul before I leave - I fly back tomorrow, arriving home timewise before I leave Korea (I am not sure how that works out, but anyway...)

 

It's been a wonderful trip, and I have really enjoyed connecting with my sister and her husband, and experiencing Korea. More highlights:

• Biking in Guangju, the city where Maria and Ethan live. I have an even greater appreciation of Portland's bike friendly streets after riding the crazy sidwalks over here, dodging cars, motorcycles, pedestrians and street vendors! It was fun though and they have a great waterfront trail.
• Guangju's market - that was so fascinating! There is everything you can imagine in it and a lot of things I couldn't have imagined - manta rays for sale and fish on a rope.

• Super fun sister shopping! Especially for goofy socks and all the cool things in stationary stores!
• A Korean HAUNTED HOUSE!!! It was so fun - lots of glow in the dark painted mannequins jumping out at us. Korean zombies and skeletons are the best!
• A Korean folk village we visited yesterday - we got to see a tradit. wedding ceremony, lots of traditional houses, a beautiful Buddhist temple where a monk was praying (we didn't go in, just listened), and martial arts on horseback!!
• Eating at a tradtional Korean restaurant where they cook the meat right on your table and then you wrap it in lettuce leaves to eat it. Yum!! It was cool - we went with Maria's good friend Eva who is super nice.

Anyway, today we're going to the National museum of contemporary art, I can't wait!

 

Take care and see you back in Migu! (America - it means "beautiful country" in Chinese.)

 

Peace, Debbie

Annyong Hasseo from Korea! Sept. 9th 2008

Annyong haseo! (Hello!) from Korea!

 

I hope you are all doing really well back home!

 

Korea is SOOOOOO interesting! Maria and Ethan are great hosts and I am really impressed at all they have done living here. It's not easy to live and work in a different country, especially with such a different language and culture. They have really thrived and made a lot of friends, both westerners and Koreans. I am really proud of them!

 

The highlights so far, aside from hanging out with Maria and Ethan which of course if fun anywhere:

• Crazy rest stop on the bus ride to Gwangju - it was all brightly lit up and had Korean fast food  (and some western) and a convenience store.
• Maria's birthday party Saturday night, which was really fun and what a great group of people!
• Art street - and a cool gallery with paper box art.
• STATIONARY STORES!!!! With every kind of crazy notebook, pen or other school supply you can imagine. Most with crazy "Kanglish" sayings such as "You are my endorphin" and "Everyday happy."
• Getting accupuncture for $7.
• The folk museum about traditional life in this area. My favs. were the US $3 bill in the money examples - I hope they knew it was fake! And the dragon drum. Did you know Korea invented the printing press? That's so awesome!
• Learning and using a few Korean phrases - I forgot how much I like using other languages. I even got home today by myself in a taxi! Ne! (Yes!) and I said everything in Korean. Maria wrote me out a guidebook to help me - very cool!

Well, that's what's happened so far. I'm looking forward to more! I still am getting over the crappy virus I've had for several weeks so that's been the only bump in the road. Still, I got to go to accupuncture so learned something about that and it was pretty funny having Maria and her friend and myself all trying to point, gesture and translate via the phrasebook what was going on. The accupuncturist was a cool guy about my age with blue glasses. His one clear English phrase to me was "NO ice cream!" Dangit! I was enjoying the popsicles a lot, esp. Kiwi. Oh well.

 

Take care and I will see or talk to you soon! Peace to you all and esp. to my URS marketing peeps who had a major deadline yesterday. I hope it went well - I was sending you good thoughts.