Shannon Soesbe left us today. She's heading back home for a few weeks before setting off on her next adventure to go teach English in Turkey. Korea I think just wasn't her cup of tea, but she gave it six months, which is a fair shot. Though I never got to know her half as well as I'd have liked, she will be missed. Her absence will leave this place a shade less colourful than it was, and I wish her all the best.
One final story before we say goodbye, though. Because I've been to the airport and back a couple of times (for Katie's visit and Emma's own departure) Shannon asked me if I'd mind nipping into Suyu with her on Sunday to point out where she needed to catch the airport bus. Of course I was happy to oblige, but since I'd spent most of the day shopping, I suggested that it would be easier if I just went with her (and Daniel) this morning instead, which would mean I got to wave her off, too.
Woken up by my alarm at the unholy hour of 8:45am, with a streaming nose and the beginnings of another sore throat, I kinda wished I'd just shown her yesterday, but dragged myself up nonetheless. After a final lap around the building a teary goodbye or two, we set off to grab a taxi. It's still not entirely clear what happened, but I believe it was the security guards kindly ordering a taxi for us that kicked off the ensuing madness. It quickly became apparent that we were not on the way to Suyu (though maybe not as quickly as it might've been, as Daniel and I were wedged on the back seat under Shannon's suitcases and couldn't really see a thing). When quizzed, the driver said that he was taking us to Gireum Station, rather that Suyu Station as we assumed had been sorted out when security had spoken to him. Despite us protesting many many times - Aniyo! Suyu! - the cabbie was unrelenting. Indeed, he seemed to rather enjoy the power he had over us. He kept muttering in Korean, and all we could really make out was Gireum, about 15 minutes out of our way.
I found it all ridiculously funny, but Shannon was getting seriously riled. 'Suyu, motherf***ing retard!' I believe she was beseeching him at one point (to be fair she had a plane to catch in a couple of hours, and we were in effect being hijacked), but to no avail, the cabbie just laughed and carried on. After a few attempts, Daniel managed to get a Korean member of our school's staff on the phone to talk to our kidnapper and clarify the situation. It seems that between them, the cabbie and security guards had decided that the traffic would be too busy around Suyu so had opted on an ulterior plan. Never mind that nobody had asked or even informed us of this, or the fact the Shannon had been wanting to go to the bank in Suyu first, we're just dumb foreigners after all.
To his credit, he did eventually deposit us at a appropriate bus stop, and after a twenty minute wait in the freezing cold, we said our final goodbyes, and she was gone.
Bye, Shannon.
Right, so I've written squat since Thursday, and nothing of significance since the Monday before that, so I think we're due an update.
I turned 25 years old on Wednesday. It doesn't feel much different. My Korean age will remain the same until January, when I'll be 27, bluhhh. It was a pretty low key day as I was working in the evening and most of my friends were working the next morning. Nevertheless, it was nice; I was showered with some expertly-chosen gifts (mostly art materials, very cool), and had the Happy Birthday Song (or sometimes the Korean version, Sengil Chukahmnida) sung to me about seven or eight times throughout the day. After work I went round for a little celebration at Shannon's with cake and beer and friends.
Thursday was a little stressful. We're having lots of Government-sponsored students this month, which inevitably seems to mean very low English skills. Trying to conduct a class with such low comprehension can be draining at the best of times, but this month I'm teaching theatre class, the lesson plan for which focuses on having the kids act out a short theatre piece. When only one of them can read the title of the play, getting them through their individual lines is total fantasy, which leaves me a little adrift at times.
Friday was more of the same, but at least it was Friday. After graduation, a troop of SEV staff made their way over to Itaewan, to the final of the battle-of-the-bands-esque showdown that our friend Kane Sole was competing in. He was robbed of victory by a dodgy mike that meant the vocals could barely be heard (the sound guy adjusted the acoustics right after Kane's set) but was awarded with an 'honourable mention' at least. We had planned to meet up with Shannon's going away crowd afterwards, but the competition and MC dragged on for so long that all we wanted to do after the result was head home to bed.
Saturday was a typically lazy weekend day - I could've done with doing some shopping and laundry, but the only productive activity I managed was a little Korean study. Me and Christa went out for sushi later in the day, which was both disappointing and expensive. The salmon was frozen solid (and it's not like it's easy to complain here) and the majority of the sashimi that we ordered was too chewy to enjoy. The highlight of the meal was Christa gamely taking up my challenge to eat the whole dollop of wasabi in one go. It had been making my eyes water even in small doses, so I was a little concerned as to what it might do to her, and there was indeed a moment she looked certain the throw up, but thankfully she managed to stifle the reflex before it got that far.
At some point in the near future I want to write a post on some of my favourite Korean dishes; it seems that usually when I talk about food here it's because I'm drawing attention to some weird or wacky thing I've seen or tasted (and often I've only mentioned our cafeteria food, and we all know what school dinners are like!). There are some real tasty foods out around though, so I feel it only fair to redress the balance. For now, all I'll say on the matter is that on Sunday, me and Christa had a great lunch at a local restaurant before heading out for an exhausting day of Christmas shopping in Insadong, of which no more can be revealed at this time.
Just a quick update on my (vain and arbitrary) mission to ensnare any waylaid cordoroy affectionados* searching for the term 'cordoroy appreciation' out there: I have now made it up to page three. This is good news, as according to a study done by Jupiter Research and marketing firm iProspect, people will go through at most three pages of results before giving up and starting again with new keywords. However, 62% of people will click on a link on the first page, which doesn't give me much of a shot.
*have I made this word up? It gets 14,000 ghits (google hits) but isn't in any dictionary that I can find...
No post today, busy busy busy, but I would like to refer to you to thesetwo posts on the dearly departed Shawn and Mel's blog featuring a very thorough listing of some of many the peculiarities of Korea that they have noticed in their first few months. Pretty accurate and too funny. Well, maybe only funny in a context-specific 'in-joke' kinda way, it's hard to tell.
This weekend, me and Christa participated in a Buddhist Temple Stay at Lotus Lantern International Meditation Center near On Soo Ree (a couple of hours West of us). It's a 24-hour program which took us from lunchtime on Saturday to lunchtime Sunday, during which we were taught about various Buddhist practices by the monks there. There were 13 participants this weekend: 2 Canadians, 3 Irish (Northern I think, with accents so thick Christa thought they were talking another language), 1 English (just me, as usual), I think just 1 American, 1 Swiss dude, a couple of Germans and 2 Korean girls. Ok, that's just 12...maybe there were two from Switzerland. The monks were a diverse bunch too: one each from Russia, Vietnam, Bangladesh and Korea (the Abbott). Although 46.5% of the South Korean population (according to Wikipedia) express no religious preference, Buddhism is the most widely practised religion in South Korea, so we figured we should learn something about it while we are here.
Saturday was mainly taken up with a series of talks by the monks and our guide (I forget her name, but she spoke excellent English) introducing us to the concepts of mediation, mantras, meal offerings and so on, that we would be practising on the Sunday. We also did a little 'community work' in the temple garden, picking flowers until our fingers went numb with cold. They use them to make a rather pleasant tasting tea that we would try later.
After dozing through the 'Introduction to Korean Buddhism' DVD they put on for us in the evening, we were sent to bed at around 9:15pm. Early but understandable, as we were to be woken for pre-dawn chanting at 3:45am 'the next day'.
Surprisingly I didn't have any problems getting up so early - all these late mornings must've topped up my sleep-reserves. Learning from the previous day's mistakes, I put on my jeans under the training-suit pants that I had been relying on the day before, and an extra pair of socks. Although it was to be a beautiful clear day later, I don't think it ever got above a couple of degrees, so we were very cold in the temple (though most of the other buildings were heated).
Obviously we couldn't go around taking too many pictures, but the inside of the temple looked not unlike this. Just picture the air foggy with our breath and you're there.
So, 4am chanting and prostrations. We'd been given a Sanskrit mantra to memorise the night before ("Om Amogha vairocana mahamudra manipadma jvala Pravarttaya Hum"; the meaning is apparently irrelevant as it's merely used to focus the mind) but we hadn't really had time to practise so most of us just listened and bowed when signaled to.
For the bows, I guess we really we need a demonstration...hang on...
To show respect to the Buddha, this has to be done each time you enter the temple and isn't such a big deal. But now imagine doing this at 4am, in the freezing cold. Ok? Now, imagine doing that one hundred and eight times non-stop. Not easy. I think by the final few I was just letting myself fall to the floor...
After these and much not-entirely-unpleasant chanting from the monks we moved to a thankfully warmer room to mediate for 20 minutes. We were instructed to just try and count ten breaths in and out without allowing any other thoughts to enter our heads. I don't think I made it beyond 'two' without some stray thought about what breakfast might be, or what I would do in class tomorrow, or how I really really should've gone to the toilet a couple of hours ago when I got up...Failure aside, I did appreciate the possible benefits of the mediations, so will be trying again.
All meals were supposed to be consumed in silence, but Sunday's breakfast involved a (simplified) version of the complex Buddhist meal offering rituals. We had been instructed in the methods the night before by our guide, but being a newbie, it seems she'd made a few errors, so the Russian monk talked us through it. The bowl set comprises four bowls, one each for rice, soup (or in our case, gruel), side dishes and water. The set is initially wrapped up in a long cloth, with the bowls all neatly fitting inside each other like Russian dolls. The bowls must be unwrapped and placed on the table in a strict order. Each of us had a certain responsibility - serving gruel, water, etc. After eating, a pan of hot water is brought round; some is poured into the largest bowl, which you must clean out with a small piece of kimchi. The water is then passed in order through the three others and the process is repeated. Then you eat the kimchi and drink the water, so that not a scrap of food is wasted. After drinking the dishwater, cold water is brought around to rinse, but thankfully, you don't have to drink this (unless it's dirty and the abbot thinks you have wasted too much food). Finally, the set is carefully wrapped up again with a pretty bow. Actually, the final thing is unwrapping it all and washing the bowls properly in the sink, although I thought mine was clean enough actually...
As the sun was rising we were lead on a walk around the local farm land while meditating on the beauty of nature. In any case, it was a really beautiful time to be out and about so was not at all resentful that on a normal weekend (or any day really) I would still be wrapped in bed for several more hours.
We even got a souvenir of the experience (not that we're shallow and can't appreciate the deeper significance blah blah blah, but me and Christa do like a freebie) as next on the agenda was a lesson in Chinese calligraphy using brush and ink:
I think it's really pretty, even though I'm sure it's quite eligible. To see just how bad I am at this, take a closer look at the first three columns - they're supposed to be identical. I don't know what it means (again, doesn't really matter, but copying the characters takes all your attention so helps clear your mind), other than it's a sutra - a Buddhist scripture regarded as a record of the oral teachings of Gautama Buddha.
Mid-day chanting was at 11, but before that we had time for a special tea ceremony and (translation-assisted) Q&A with the abbot. After that, lunch (all meals strictly veggie by the way, and quite decent fare, too) before being swiftly driven (for once I was grateful for the Korean tendency to drive through red lights) back to the bus stop just in time for the hourly bus home.
All in all, a very peaceful and enlightening weekend.
