New Favorite Spot: Bukchon Hanok Village

Just a short jaunt from my favorite area of Seoul, Insadong, is a neighborhood that's vying for the number two spot. Nestled between two palaces and overlooking hip Samcheongdong is the Bukchon Hanok Village -- narrow winding streets flanked with gorgeous hanok houses. I've taken a stroll through this neighborhood several times now and it just never gets old. Not only is this area ridiculously photogenic, but it also offers a variety of cultural activities and history lessons! 

Old and new.

Here's the basic history of the area: During the Joseon Dynasty, when the surrounding palaces, Gyeongbokgung and Changdeokgung, were actually inhabited, the Bukchon area served as the residential quarters for the upper class, such as nobility and high-ranking government officials. Urbanization, naturally, harmed these neighborhoods, as did the years of Japanese occupation and subsequent war. 

In the years after the Korean war, Seoul's rapid modernization lead to the demolition of even more hanok houses. It wasn't until the 2000s that the Seoul Metropolitan Government created new policies to beautify and preserve what was left of the hanok houses. 

The hanok houses themselves are works of art. The slope of the rooftops is just aesthetically pleasing, and all the intricate patterns on the walls, windows, and doors will keep any photo-happy tourist busy for hours. 

In addition to being a touristy, gorgeous neighborhood, it's actually still just that -- a neighborhood. As you walk around, you'll see signs about the neighborhood's curfew as well as a reminder to respect the privacy of the residents. 

If you're hoping to get a glimpse inside the hanok houses, don't worry. They aren't all residential. In fact, many have been turned into mini-museums, showcasing artifacts and "intangible" cultural heritage. 

My first visit to Bukchon, I was completely unaware that these types of activities existed. Arriving shortly before closing time 5pm, we realized we were missing out on a ton of cultural workshops. I then vowed to go back and try to start exploring what the different hanok houses had to offer. 

Just look for signs like this outside some of the hanok houses -- it means there's something cool inside! 

When I was in Bukchon most recently, we wandered into a hanok house that had a sign outside advertising different kinds of alcohol. When we walked in, we were immediately greeted by an older gentleman who worked there and spoke excellent English. He told us about the history of the neighborhood, the house we were in, and led us through the different gallery rooms with display cases full of beautiful folk crafts.

After we looked all around, our host told us about what this particular hanok house offered: soju tasting. We all grimaced, as it was around noon, but he assured us that it was just tiny samples.

Only three of our party decided to do the alcohol tasting, and the price listed above provided enough for us to split it.

From top to bottom: the (very strong) soju, the yakju, and the makgeolli. The makgeolli and yakju were my favorites! 

After sampling the drinks, we made more conversation with our host and were brought free samples of moju, which I had never had before. It's a "folk" liquor that's made from boiling down makgeolli and mixing it with medicinal herbs. It was sweet and warm and delicious -- also with a very low alcohol content. Our host told us that it's thought of as a drink served by Korean moms since it's full of herbs and spices! 

We didn't have time to check out any of the other hanok houses on this particular visit, which I suppose just means I'll have to be making another weekend trip over there sometime soon. No complaints here -- I saw signs on other hanok houses for embroidery and pottery museums, which might even include some kind of workshop! 

For more information about the attractions of Bukchon, check out this excellent website by the Seoul Metropolitan Government. You can read more about the history as well as getting a preview of the museums, cultural workshop experiences, and a map for a walking tour. As you walk around, keep an eye out for information guides -- they'll have red aprons and are always happy to hand you a map and suggest the best route. 

Directions: 

• Anguk Station (on Line 3), Exit 2. 
• Walk straight for about 300m, keeping an eye out for signs/Tourist Information Center. 

I highly recommend spending an afternoon (or four) in the Bukchon Hanok Village. Between the photo opportunities and all the activities, it's definitely a neat, culturally infused way to learn more about Korea's past. 

Have you been to the Bukchon Hanok Village or any other hanok villages in Korea? Leave a comment below to share your experiences or thoughts! 

Monthly Photo Recap: October 2013

This past week has been spent fighting off a nasty head cold, so I'm a little late (again) with getting this recap up. And with posting half a dozen other entries... I think I'm going to start using my weekly planner (yes, I obsessively still use one of those... Carver Middle School and those "Time Management" binders did some serious conditioning on me) for blogging stuff. Between this blog and working for the Aclipse blog, I just don't seem to make the time for all of it.

Anyway, I've been excited about this recap, you guys. A lot of things happened this past month, including my mom being in town and two friends from home also coming for a visit. And! It was Halloween, which is my absolute favorite holiday.

Choosing photos was really hard because it was a seriously photo-heavy month. So, that's basically your heads up that this entry is loaded with pictures. :)

A true stroke of inspired genius: doing a purikura-style photobooth with my mom. We were endlessly entertained by the photo decorating process as well as our final results. Definitely a hilarious memory of her visit here. 

All of these notes were drawn by six of my elementary students, who were horribly affronted when another teacher, Angus, teased them about how he was the best teacher at CDI. He'd received a sweet card from a student stating this, and my (suddenly very loyal) students were furious. Only one of them has ever even been in his class, but she rallied her friends and they went to town. In their minds, in order to trump this one card saying he was the best teacher, they needed to produce x number of papers saying that I was actually the best. It's hard to see in the photo, but these girls were actually signing the notes with fake names and even trying to disguise their handwriting. It became quite the production, especially when they delivered all of these notes to Angus at break time, only for him to look at them one by one and dismiss them for various reasons. "This one doesn't actually mention me, so it doesn't count." "Oh, you have a spelling mistake, doesn't count." "This is written in pencil. So, no." They were howling at him by the end, a crowd had formed of other teachers and students, and I couldn't stop laughing. These girls have brought this incident up almost weekly since, still finding it hilarious.

We spent one weekend afternoon walking around Changdeok Palace in Seoul and even took a tour of the "Secret Garden," which was nice, but the having-to-be-on-a-guided-tour part kinda sucked. It would've been much nicer to just wander aimlessly, like we had on the rest of the palace grounds. But oh well. It was still awfully pretty. (Though I do still think Gyeongbokgung is my favorite of the palaces.)

Crazy hat hair! This picture just makes me laugh, and I think it's also an accurate representation of how Corey felt after doing souvenir shopping with my mom and I all around Insadong. 

It's also just occurred to me that it's a bit "Eraserhead," actually.

Mom's last weekend in Korea was a busy one, including the most crowded subway car I have EVER been on. We were trying to make our way to the Seoul International Fireworks Festival, which ended up being a mess of people and overall not really worth the hassle. At least not this late in the day... We'd gotten sidetracked with the aforementioned souvenir shopping in Insadong and should've headed down to the Han River much, much earlier. Instead, my mom got quite the subway experience. 

On Mom's last night, we headed back for another round of purikura. This particular machine is one that enlarges your eyes and makes you look generally creepy and doll-like. I have a series of photos from this set, but as they're a gift for Emma, who's now in France, I don't want to ruin the surprise of the other creepy ass pictures. After I've (finally) mailed them to her, I promise to post the rest -- they're hilarious and terrifying and they make me so happy.

For all of you that miss In-N-Out, Korea has your back: Crycheese Burger in Bucheon basically IS In-N-Out. The dude who owns the place used to work at In-N-Out in California and brought the recipes back to Korea with him. Seriously, it looks, smells, and tastes like In-N-Out. I'll definitely be going back.

A few days after my mom left Korea, round two of my October visitors arrived: Dinah and Marley! For the weekend they were here, we headed off to Korea's east coast to hang out in Samcheok. As you can see in the picture, we are standing next to a giant penis. Samcheok is actually home to an entire park full of phallic statues and sculptures, known as Haesindang Park, or Penis Park. It was an odd thing, walking through this beautifully landscaped park with its ocean views, rocky beaches, and carefully manicured flowerbeds. Every now and then you'd forget what park you were in, only to turn around and notice that the bench behind you is shaped like a penis and that giggling you hear is coming from the middle-aged Korean women currently posing for a picture while straddling a giant dick-shaped cannon. (I will forever regret not snapping a picture of these women -- they were having the best time posing for pictures with all the penises.) My only photo with any of the phalluses is the one above, where Dinah and I are standing with our Zodiac penis, the Year of the Ox. 

Wandering away from all the penises, we were able to get down to the beach, which was just gorgeous. I definitely need to spend more time exploring Korea's coasts. 

Our second day in Samcheok was spent in one of the huge caves in the nearby mountains. This cave, Hwanseongul, is the biggest limestone cave in Korea, with over 6 kilometers of known passages. We spent quite a while wandering through this place, marveling at the huge caverns and the strange/obsessive use of rope lights. Definitely cool, and definitely something I would recommend should you find yourself in Samcheok.

The subway shopping in Korea is the best shopping. Seriously. Where else would you find a random Heisenberg sweatshirt? And for less than $10?! I had to buy it. No question. Bupyeong, I <3 p="" you.="">

(ALSO, I'm only in season three -- no spoilers!)

"I want pizza for dinner." 

"I kind of want chicken."

"Why don't we get both?"

"I'll bring the fries."

This is how we de-stress in the middle of the week. With a disgusting(ly delicious) food party. Sidenote: There were five of us eating this and we weren't able to finish, just so you're not completely judging us right now... 

While Dinah and Marley were here, we did a DMZ tour, some of which I'd seen before. During the planning and booking process, it dawned on me that we would have to take a photo with this sign. DeMilitarized Zone? More like Dinah Marley Zannah! 

One thing that was different about this DMZ tour was this one actually took us to the Joint Security Area, and with that, North Korea. The blue buildings in the foreground are under South Korean control, straddling the actually demarcation line between the two countires, but the big building farther back is North Korea. If you look closely, you'll see the North Korean soldier that was watching us through his binoculars. 

In this photo, I am technically standing *in* North Korea. That soldier is South Korean, and his job is to guard the door behind him, which opens up into the North. He doesn't move, he doesn't speak, he just stands there, like a creepy breathing robot-statue, and watches. He also apparently knows two kinds of martial arts and could probably kill me with, like, two fingers. Standing this close to him made me very, very nervous. Stay tuned for a full write-up on my visit to the JSA... It was interesting.

A little while back, Corey finally figured out how to get onto the roof of our apartment building. I'm not entirely sure we're allowed to go up there, as we have to walk through a maintenance room full of breaker boxes and other noisy, large things, but we also have to tap our building key cards, and they work... so... maybe it's okay? Anyway, this is the gorgeous view of Incheon from my building's roof, about 27 floors up. Pretty spectacular, eh? 

GPOY. Because I just love fall fashion and I'm really enjoying layering skirts and blouses and sweaters and stuff. Unfortunately, it's getting cold fast, so I better enjoy this while I can. I'm also just obsessed with this skirt because it's covered in dalmatians. 

A student was using colored mechanical pencil lead the other day, and upon seeing my fascination, he awkwardly gave me one stick of each color after class. (Pretty sure he thinks I'm a weirdo for being so excited about pencil lead.) This was the result of my first experiment.

A picturesque view of Seoul, from the 60th floor of the 63 Building. Blog entry coming very soon, as I've written one for the Aclipse blog that will go up later this week. :) 

We have new neighbors! And they brought us a present of sweet potatoes, persimmons, and choco-pies. They seem to be a nice family, with a high school aged son that the mom is already pushing to practice English with Corey. I'm curious to see if anything comes of that, but even if it doesn't, it's nice to know our neighbors! Plus these new neighbors have a dog... So while they're angling for English lessons, I might start angling for puppy playtime. 

This year's Halloween makeup/costume! I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out -- I swiped ideas from several different versions of deer makeup that I'd seen on Pinterest. Halloween, lately, has started to become all about the makeup for me, rather than planning an elaborate/really awesome costume. And I kinda like that my Halloweens have been headed in this direction -- gives me a chance to play with makeup and test my ~art skillz.~ I've already started trying to think of what I want to do for next year...

The gang out in Seoul! We headed to Hongdae for this year's celebration, bouncing between a retro dance party and drinking in the park from cocktails-in-bags. As you can see from this picture, the park was where the real party was at. Much longer post about Halloween, with lots of pictures, coming soon. 

Day one of this term's level-up exam proctoring, this time playing with some new gel pens while my classes tested for hour upon mind-numbing hour. 

On actual Halloween day, my classes were taking level-up tests. My master class, because they're awesome, all brought in candy for each other (and me!) to eat while they took their test. Since they're at the top of the levels at CDI, they can't level up or down -- taking these tests is just extra practice. So we had some fun and quietly celebrated Halloween on our own. Definitely a nice way to end the month. :)

Monthly Photo Recap: September 2013

I'm not really sure where the month of September went... In fact, I'm completely bewildered by the fact that we're already a week into October? September was full of the beginnings of fall, a Chuseok vacation to the beautiful island of Ulleungdo, and the start of my mom's visit to Korea! I was kept pretty busy, as can be seen by all the blog entries and emails that are piling up...

Surprisingly, I didn't take many pictures last month. Well, on Ulleungdo I took a cool 200, but I don't want to post too many of those here... they deserve their own blog! So, this month's photo recap will be a little shorter than the past two. October's, however, is already off to a bangin' start.

Enjoy!

So, I went to a K-pop concert... It was interesting. I came out of it caring no more or no less about K-pop than I did going in, which is fine. It just isn't my "thing," but I still had a really good time. Blog entries about the whole experience are going up soon -- we got in for free for participating in a K-pop flash mob! Pretty cool. Stay tuned for the full story. 

EXO, at the concert, Incheon Korean Music Wave 2013. 

We had -incredible- seats, by the way. :)

Scorsese is such a weirdo. Cats are aliens.

But why?

I got to check out a HUGE exhibit of original Studio Ghibli sketches -- it was pretty amazing. 

And across from the Ghibli exhibit was a wonderful Mucha show -- seriously awe-inspiring. As a massive Mucha fan, it was nearly a religious experience for me. 

Starting off my Chuseok vacation the right way: watching the sunrise on a beach on Korea's east coast.

Ulleungdo! Billions of photo-heavy blog entries coming soon about this magical place. 

I would happily trek along Ulleungdo's coast every. single. day. 

Me and my mom! In Korea! 

Mom brought Reese's to help build our depleted stockpile back up. Sorry, not sharing. 

It isn't quite cold enough for "real" sweaters yet, but they're already on the racks in the subway shopping centers! And for W10,000 each?! (That's less than $10 USD, y'all.) Can't wait to wear these this winter. I think I have a sweater buying problem. (Also, I need to clean my mirror... -_- )

I envy all the napping he gets to do.

Ended the month with the last day of the Gauguin exhibit in Seoul, which was really great. Way too crowded, but that's what we get for going on the last day... Still worth it. 

Tastes Like Home: A Trip to Costco in Korea

This blog entry was originally published on the Aclipse Blog, which is produced by current Chungdahm Learning teachers in Korea. The blog features entries on current events around Korea, advice for incoming teachers, and the best spots sightseeing, shopping, and eating. The original entry can be viewed here. It has been edited slightly for content. For more information about Aclipse and Chungdahm Learning, click here. 

As much as I adore Korean food, sometimes I just need a break from all the rice and kimchi. The availability of western brands and products in the regular supermarkets is definitely respectable, but there are just some things the likes of Lotte Mart, Home Plus, and E-Mart don't carry. Luckily, Costco does exist in Korea, and it's basically a mecca for Westerners who need to stock up on some favorites from home. 

Cue choirs of angels singing.

Costco has quite a few locations around Korea. Even though the store closest to me, living in Incheon, is over an hour away in Seoul, getting there and back is pretty painless if you're willing to put in the time and energy. 

Speaking of the time and energy, you're probably wondering what would draw my friends and I all the way to Seoul just for Costco. One word: sandwiches. Deli meats, quality cheese, pesto, real bagels, kettle-style chips... Unfortunately, these are all things that are difficult to track down in Korea, save for areas like Itaewon or the military bases. Like I said above, my local grocery stores are amazing, but they still just don't have the things I need for a good sandwich. (Korean ham is... odd. More on the bagels later...) And for me, a good sandwich is simply a priority in my life. 

So cheap! 

Two awesome things about Costco: 1. Memberships from home will work! They're international. 2. But, if you don't have one from home and you're getting a membership in Korea, good news! It's cheaper than back home! I know in the States, for example, a membership is around $55, whereas in Korea, you're looking at ₩30,000, or roughly $27 USD. And that's for a whole year. Not bad, eh? 

Getting signed up is easy -- just look for the membership desk that'll be near the entrance. 

We immediately detoured through the food court for some hotdogs, wisely deciding that hungry Costco shopping was dangerous.

Korean Costco itself looks pretty standard -- just like the ones back home, it's a huge warehouse with its shelves piled high, full of family-sized boxes and bottles. The one we went to was two floors, with the food being a level below the appliances and housewares. 

Where the magic happens: the food section.

You'll find the typical range of items: cereal, snacks, candy, various sauces, frozen dinners, tubs of ice cream. This being Asia, you'll also find huge bags of rice, an assortment of frozen dumplings, and giant jugs of soy sauce. They have everything. To entice you a little more, and allay any fears of disappointment over Costco's selection of deli meats and such, I offer the following pictures as proof:

Wonderful, delicious ham, turkey, salami... They also have pastrami and prosciutto, among others that I'm forgetting now.

Just a small section of the cheese area. Fills my heart with joy. They also have a great selection of Tilamook cheese. 

Real bagels! 

Some of you may not be as picky about bagels as I am, but I've been really underwhelmed with the bagels produced by various Korean bakeries and coffee shops -- not enough flavor, not very dense, generally plain... But Einstein Bros? Oh, man, I love that place back home. So, I bought four packages. Of six. No exaggeration. (Most of them went into the freezer though, to save for later.) 

Considering we were there on a Saturday afternoon, it was surprisingly calm.

In addition to this past weekend's Costco haul, we've picked up quite a variety of things over the past almost-two years in Korea. They've got good salsa, huge packages of tortillas, spices, good coffee, sour cream, granola bars -- you name it. Last Thanksgiving, we even got a turkey, which definitely made our expat gathering even better. 

Directions to the Yeongdeungpo-Gu Office area Costco:

• From Yeongdeungpo-Gu Office Station Exit 3, head in the direction of the KB, making a right into the alley. (So, if you're coming out of the exit from the subway, do an immediate u-turn.)
• Walk straight down the alley for five minutes or so until you come to a light -- at this point you should see Costco dead in front of you. 
  
  

Exit 3 of the station -- walk straight from here, towards those pointy shrubs, and make a right into the alley!

The Costco haul! Full disclosure: This was for three people. I may have bought 24 bagels, but I'm not this intense. 

Taking a trip to Costco may require some strategic planning -- it'll likely be a bit of a trek for you to ge there and whatever you buy, you've gotta get it home somehow. But, I highly recommend checking it out whenever you're feeling homesick while teaching in Korea. My advice: bring a backpack, some large tote bags, and don't let yourself get too overwhelmed by all the wonderful things that you want to eat. 

Have you been to Costco in Korea? What foods do you miss from home that you have a hard time finding? Leave a comment below!