Halloween Weekend

We had another fantastic weekend! A lot of it was spent doing Halloween related things with the foreign community in Daegu. They don't celebrate Halloween in South Korea, so the waygooks have to do it for them.

Lish came to visit from Jinju this weekend. She arrived Friday night, and we headed downtown to get some food. I looked it up online, and apparently Daegu is famous for some sort of flat mandu (dumpling). We tried to go to a famous restaurant for that outside of downtown, but it was too late, and the restaurant was closed. So we walked downtown to try to get some food there. Banwoldang was like a ghost town! It was insane. We were walking around and all the shops and restaurants were closed, and there were hardly any people walking around. I know it was late, but it was a Friday night! So weird. We ended up at this food stall that Gianni and I have been meaning to try. It's always really busy. They sell fried things and duk boki mostly.

Hotteok

It's Korean fast food. I got some hotteok, which is the Korean pancakes stuffed with nuts, seeds, and a sugary syrup that Gianni and I tried and failed miserable to make last week. They are selling it around town now because it's a winter food, and the weather is getting colder. We got some mandu, flat mandu, and duk boki before going to get some ice cream at a place nearby. They get confused on ice cream menus here. They keep writing "cheese" flavors, like "cheese and raspberry." They mean cheese cake or something, but they sometimes get it mixed up. This place was strange though. Some of the flavors said cheese cake and others just cheese. We tried the orange and cheese just to be sure, and it tasted like creamsicle ice cream, so at least it wasn't like cheddar flavored or something. That would be nasty! After dinner, we went back home to rest because we had to get up somewhat early the next morning to meet Maria and Matthew and take the cable cars up Palgongsan Mountain.

Yes, we know how cheesy this is.

Palgongsan is a mountain in North Daegu. It has a lot of hiking trails, and there are a few Buddhist temples on it. It takes about 2 hours to get to by public transportation from our house because we're in South Daegu. We took the subway to Dongdaegu Station to meet up with Maria and Matthew at 10am, and then we all took the hour long bus ride together to the mountain. Bus drivers in Korea are INSANE! They drive like maniacs, and you put your life in your hands getting on them. We had to stand up for the entire ride there and back too, so it was doubly dangerous. Still, the trip to Palgongsan was worth it. We got to the base of the mountain and were a little mixed up trying to find the cable cars. We ended up hiking into the woods for just a second before realizing we were doing it wrong. The area at the base of the cable cars has tons of hotels and restaurants. It was a pretty busy place. We actually got there right on time though because, as we were finishing up our trip, we noticed a huge wave of people coming in. We found the cable car place, and the line wasn't long at all to get on a cable car and buy tickets--much nicer than when we did this in Seoul at Namsan mountain. The cable car ride was great! It was actually pretty long and, at times, steep. You got to go up with people just from your group, which was really nice. So Maria and Matthew and Gianni and I switched sides on the way up and down, so we could enjoy the view from all angles. When we got up there, you disembark yourselves. The views of all the mountains was AMAZING, especially with the beautiful fall foliage! There are two paths from the top of the mountain that you can take. One is called "Love trail" and the other one "Healing trail." Love trail is a kind of wooden structure built into the mountain. At the start of the trail is a
wooden tiger statue. You're supposed to buy a lock with a key and put the key in the tiger's mouth to test your love. If the tiger doesn't bite you, it's a good sign. Gianni and I ended up buying a lock without a key, so we couldn't do that one. Along the trail were places you can lock your lock. There were different stations for different kinds of love-- healthy love, beautiful love, eternal love, happy love. Gianni and I went for Happy Love :) . Healing Trail was more of a steep incline with rock stairs built in. We didn't go down too far because no one was really up for a good hike. Still, all the foliage was gorgeous. The weather has been much nicer in Daegu recently--cool and crisp like fall should be. We had lunch at the restaurant on top of the mountain. The hot soup was really nice to have on such a chilly day, and the view during lunch was amazing. After lunch, we headed back down the mountain on the cable cars. Matthew wanted to stop at Donghwa Temple. There are a series of temples on the mountain, but this one is supposed to be the main one. It's pretty close to the bottom, so the walk wasn't too long. There were two gates, and both gates had 4 huge, painted statues inside. I'm guessing they are supposed to be the temple guards or maybe they are Buddhist Gods? Not too sure, but they were really cool. The temple was decked out with lanterns all over, and there was even a lantern tunnel. After we got some good pictures, we headed back down the mountain to catch the bus and head home.

Although I really liked Palgongsan and thought it was extremely beautiful, I thought that the buildup of tourist related building and the huge number of people who were visiting the mountain kind of took away from the natural beauty of the mountain. It reminded me of the Chinese poetry I read in my Asian Humanities class last year, all these people trying to get away and experience the beauty and serenity of nature and yet they were kind of making it impossible to truly get that feeling. I still had a very good time though and definitely want to go back in the winter to see the mountains covered in snow. 

people wanted to take pics with us

Lish and I went downtown for a bit on the way home, but Gianni was too tired. Lish loves shopping, so I showed her all the best places. We also bought a few more things to finish off the zombie portion of our halloween costumes for that evening's zombie walk. I found an easy zombie makeup tutorial, so I needed some glue and a little more face paint. As soon as we got home, we had to rush to get our makeup on in time. Gianni and I were both going to be zombie dinosaurs because we were also going to a onesie party afterwards. Using the information from the tutorial video, I made really awesome and realistic looking rotting flesh out of toilet paper, glue, and facepaint! It was awesome! Who knew it was that simple. I'm going to do it again on Thursday to freak out my students. I did some on my hand, and then I made my hand and forearm look kind of gray. Then, I did the same thing on my face, and I put my hair down, so I looked nuts. It was awesome! Gianni and Lish also did some on their hands. We had to rush though, or we all would have liked to do a bit better. We met up with the other zombie people by Daegu Station to start the walk to Banwoldang. It's not a far walk typically, but there were scaring stops, and we were zombies, so we had to slow walk. It was awesome! A huge group of people walking through the busiest area of downtown. Everyone was staring and wanting to take pictures. There were girls that were so afraid that they actually didn't want to stand next to me to take pictures. Their boyfriends had to coax them. Korean girls are so ridiculously easy to scare! Some people were going into stores and just staring at the people inside to freak them out. Ladies  actually closed and locked up their shops to keep people out. That's how scared they were! My scaring technique was to walk up behind people and wait for them to turn around. It was hilarious! They would turn around and just scream! Once, I went into a coffee shop. One girl scared the people behind the counter. I went up to a mother and daughter sitting down and scared them a bit. Then I leaned against a little wall. The people on the other side of the wall were only looking at what was happening on the street, and when they turned around and saw me, they freaked! It was so good. After the walk, we stopped in on the onesie party at MF Bar. The owner and all the bar staff had on cute costumes, and the owner was carrying an adorable little dog with pigtail. Typically, I don't like dogs like that, but this one was so darn cute. Then we went to Bunny's and had a drink in a bag and just hung out with some of the other zombies before heading home in a cab. Gianni and I had to get up mega early to go to Seoul with our Taekwondo academy the next morning.

It was really fun scaring Koreans downtown. That sounds weird, but rest assured they were also having a good time. I must be on a million different Korean facebook pages I took so many photos with people. I think the best part was watching some of the other zombies go into the shops and freak people out. A lot of people wanted to touch the wound I had on my hand and were asking us how we made it. The zombie walk was definitely some of the most fun I've had in Korea so far. There were so many awesome costumes and the reactions were just priceless. I wish there was a another one this week. 

Gym Hae Dong represent!

Grand Master Kim, Master Hwang's master, came back to South Korea for a visit, so all the gyms in his Taekwondo association came to visit, or sent people to visit, the main Taekwondo branch about an hour outside of Seoul. Grand Master Kim works in Boston now, so his English is very good. Before meeting with everyone, Master Hwang brought us to the traditional Korean area of Seoul called Insadong. We went shopping a bit and ate a noddle/bibimbap lunch. I learned that jeon is the name for the savory Korean pancakes. We had a spinach jeon and a kimchi jeon. It's still funny to me that you can't find stupid Korea souvenirs anywhere in Daegu, but they are everywhere in Seoul. Master Hwang also got us all ice cream horns. They are literally cones shaped like curly horns, filled with ice cream. They were delicious. The cone is just the right thickness that you can break it without it cracking into a million pieces and making a mess all over the place. After Insadong, we drove an hour to get to the Taekwondo gym. We arrived a half hour late, just as we were demonstrating chonggi to the Grand Master. Chonggi is the first and simplest form. After demonstrating, we split into small groups to practice whatever form we were working on. This next one is a bit harder because it involves a spin and then you do one arm with a high block and one arm with a middle block at the same time, and I always get mixed up about which arm goes where. Oh well. I am trying to learn to be more coordinated at least. After practice, we demonstrated the forms to the Grand Master. He said beginners need to work on having sharp, precise movements. Taekwondo is very much about quick motions. He did say that I looked like I had the right idea in that respect! After practice, we went out to a restaurant across the street. Master Hwang had some sort of taekwondo test with the Grand Master, which he passed! Hooray Master Hwang! I felt like I was sleeping the whole day because I was so exhausted. Every time we got in the car, I fell asleep. I did it again on the way home. It is about a 4 hour drive from Seoul to Daegu. We got back home around 11:30pm, and one of the other students was nice enough to drive us home.

Seoul was really fun. I feel like most of the trip was spent in the car, but it was still nice. We got to know some of the crew from Taekwondo a little better and ate lots of great food. Master Hwang is a really fun and nice guy so any trip with him is a good trip. He took us to lunch in Insaedong which was just so fun. Simple bibimbap and noodle soup, but there was so much bonchon and Korean scallion pancakes. Abbi accidentally introduced herself the way a king would and Master Hwang and the rest of the group laughed for a good ten minutes. 

It was another great weekend here in Korea. This week and next week, I'm teaching my students about Halloween, giving them candy and wearing zombie makeup. I'm very excited!!!