Goheung is Space

Happy Sunday, everyone. Katy here. So last week I told you I would go into detail about our travels around Goheung-gun (the county, as opposed to Goheung-eup which is the name of the city) during the Chuseok break. We had two big adventures worth mentioning that were super different.

On Thursday, Chuseok, we went down to the islands off the southeast of Goheung-gun which are called Narodo. There is an inner and outer island, both close enough to Goheung that they are connected by a bridge. This is a good point, actually, to mention that it's never super obvious in Goheung, just when you've reached the ocean. Here, the island is mountainous right up to the coast, leaving very little space for beaches and a very uneven coastline. When you see water, it's usually a bay, rather than wide open ocean. I have actually never seen what I associate with the ocean (that big flat, endless expanse of water) since moving here despite that I see ocean water all the time. Within a kilometer or so there is always another island, or another peninsula of the mainland blocking your view. In total, there are approximately 170 smaller islands off of Goheung, only 19 of which are inhabited. So needless to say, there's always one in sight. The first time I took the bus to Narodo, for example, Jamie had to tell me that I was looking at the bay of the ocean, because to me it just looked like a lake. So what were we doing on this particular island? Narodo is known as the space center of Goheung. The county is particularly proud of it's technological achievements in rocket technology and it's launch site for the many satellites it puts in orbit. In fact, as you enter Goheung-gun, the welcome sign says in big letters (in English) "GOHEUNG IS SPACE!" There are even two little mascots for the county that are on most government buildings and vehicles that are two little astronauts giving you a thumbs up.

The relevant attraction we visited that day was the Space Museum which is on the southern island (whereas the launch site and observatory are actually on the northern island). We had a blast, despite the fact that everything was in Korean and translated into either French or English (never both), seemingly randomly. The museum was definitely geared toward families, with lots of interactive exhibits, but of course that made it all the more fun.

 

And don't forge the Korean space food! That's dehydrated kimche, ramen, green tea and rice (below).



Then, on Saturday, we decided to do a beach trip to one of the spots known to have a sand beach (as opposed to the rocky beaches in most of Goheung) and a great view. The town also boasted the memorial to one of the most important Korean generals, which Jamie and I watched a few brief lessons on in order to understand his importance. General Li Sun Sin was an impressive Naval war general who led the troops which drove back Japan when Korea was invaded in the Joseon Dynasty. His greatest weapon was the ship he invented, called the turtle ship which you can see a drawing of in one of the pictures below.  The memorial is one of the most impressive I have ever seen. It was beautiful, immaculately maintained, and simple.

 

Then we were off to the beach! A real, sand beach with a view between the islands of the open ocean! It was a cloudy day, and not hot, so we didn't intend to swim, but we did sip tea at a hotel with a great view, enjoy the sound of the waves, and took a walk to collect seashells. The tea I had is actually of note. I believe I have mentioned that one of the food's that Goheung is proud to produce is citron. This is unique for Korea as not much fruit is produced here. Citron is de-seeded and the fruit and rind is preserved in honey. Then spoonfuls of this very pulp-y jelly are put into hot water and you drink it, pulp and all. This is unique to southern South Korea, and Goheung in particular. Most people drink it in the winter to ward off colds and sooth sore throats.



I hope everyone has a lovely last few days of September. Happy autumn!
-K

One Muddled Month

Hello, everyone! Katy, here. We're ringing in our first month here in Goheung with out first Korean holiday; Chuseok. Chuseok is described often as the Korean Thanksgiving, though it is a bit of a mash up between an American Thanksgiving, and what we understand a Mexican Day of the Dead to be. It is a day when people celebrate the harvest, say goodbye to the summer, and celebrate their ancestors. It falls on the fifteenth day of the eight lunar month, which this year falls on a Thursday. So, employees and students are given, at a minimum, the Wednesday and Friday surrounding it off of their obligations so as to be with family. We, of course, don't have any Korean family, and are not yet close enough with friends or neighbors to be comfortable accepting invites into what is a very important family time. As such, we knew we would be having a 5 day weekend to ourselves and didn't want to travel twice so close together. So last weekend, a few days before Chuseok, we spent our first full weekend home in Goheung since arriving in Korea.

It was really nice for me to get the opportunity to show off a bit, since I have been spending every day since we moved here getting to know the town and a few people. Jamie hasn't had the chance yet to really explore Goheung since he is gone all day every day. By the time he gets off work, we rarely make it past a ramen shop and the PC bang before the sun sets. So getting to take him to the temple, the park, and the fortress was a treat for me.

As I believe I mentioned in a previous post, Korea is Buddhist and Christian, though Christianity is a more modern development. Due to this there are a number of absolutely beautiful temples and ceremonial sites with a long history throughout any given city or town. The largest temple in Goheung is an impressive collection of traditional style buildings and is still currently active, meaning at least a handful of monks live there that I have seen personally. The painting and figures of Buddhas are especially impressive and ornate. Every night at sunset, the various temples around town ring these enormous bells with a huge wooden pestle hanging from heavy chains so that it can swing horizontally to strike the outside of the bell. The temple I took Jamie to visit, which is the one pictured below, seems to initiate the bell ringing at sunset, and is echoed by at least two others in different parts of town. This call and response ringing seems to go on for a few minutes, though I haven't grasped yet just how many times they are rung. This temple is composed of four main structures (including the one that houses the bell/gong) and what seems to be a dormitory outside which there are large traditional pots which are in constant use fermenting kimchi. There is also this enormous image of a Buddha that is completely golden. For perspective, find Jamie in the picture and notice how small his is in comparison.

 

The large stone wall that I'm frolicking along in the picture below is what is left of a fortress from the Joseon period of Korean history which is just across the street from the above temple. There are several fragments of the wall left, and flags and a park within the walls now mark it's original position.

 

Finally, the pictures below are of one of the other temples (not sure how active) in town that echoes the big temple's gong as the sun sets. It has just three structures, one for the bell, a prayer hall, and another which was closed. Notice what I thought were Nazi symbols on the buildings. Apparently, it's a holy symbol in a number of south Asian religions, and it spread to east Asia through Buddhism. These swastikas rotate the opposite direction from what we know of the Nazi symbol, and predates the Nazi's use of the character by thousands and thousands of years. It is known in these cultures to be a holy symbol, and so denotes the holy buildings pictured below.

 

This view pictured below is as seen from the above, smaller temple which is just on the outskirts of town, part way up one of the bordering mountains. I love to visit this area while Jamie works. It is very quiet and rural, mostly made up of family farms.

So we successfully stayed in and explored our own beautiful valley city (Gohueng-eup) last weekend, in an attempt to recover from all the traveling, and prepare for Chuseok. Jamie had Wednesday through Sunday off for the holiday and we did a lot of research to learn just what the holiday was all about. As I mentioned, it combines a celebration of ancestors, and a celebration of the harvest into a big family gathering. Monday and Tuesday, Jamie came home with all sorts of rice treats that they had made in school, or his students had made for him. We had homemade rice cakes, dok, Sungpyeon (sticky rice empanadas filled with brown sugar and sesame oil) and more. Because most people travel to visit family, we had been warned that leaving the county could be pricey and crowded. So with rice treats in hand, we indulged in our own celebration of our new home by spending the holiday traveling the rest of the island (Goheung-gun) in order to better know our home turf. But more on that next week (when I have the pictures uploaded)!

Have a great week!
-Katy

PC Rooms!

Hey everyone, Jamie here. I thought today I would describe one of the ways we've been spending a lot of our free time: the PC room!

PC rooms are a fixture of Korean cities, one of the kinds of businesses there are so many of that you can't believe they all get enough business to survive. Other businesses in this category include fried chicken restaurants, flower shops, hair salons, and, at least in Goheung, fruit stands and fish stalls. I would list convenience stores in this category, but I doubt anyone would be surprised by how many convenience stores there are. Just try to imagine about that many internet gaming rooms scattered around the city.

Actually, let's take a little detour to talk about what they're called. I've seen "PC 방" translated as either "PC room", which is a literal translation, or "internet gaming room", which is more accurately descriptive. "방" (pronounced bang with an a like you're speaking Spanish, so it's not bang like a gun), is usually translated as room, but when you're talking about a room in a house you usually use "실" (sheel). That makes me think that 방 might refer specifically to a kind of typical business set up here, where businesses rent out one floor or room in a two to four story building and operate out of there. I passed a building in Gwangju, for example, that had ads for karaoke on the first floor and massage on the second. The Korean for karaoke is 노래방 (norebang), "singing room". That's the only other example of a business that ends in 방 that I can think of, though. So that's my guess-in-progress on how that works.

Anyways, when you go into the PC room there can be a few different setups. I've been to one where you tell the person working the desk how much time you want and pay upfront, and they activate a computer for you. I've been to one where you tell a machine how much time you want, pay upfront, it prints out a receipt with a number on it for you, and you punch that number into a computer. In these cases, you're automatically logged off when your time is up. At the PC room we've been frequenting though, you grab a card with a number and a barcode on it when you walk in, and you punch that number into the computer you get on. When you're done you take that card up to the desk, and they scan it and charge you for how much time you spent. As far as I can tell, it's an hourly rate (about $1.50 an hour) that is not prorated, so if you spend an hour and ten minutes you get charged for two hours. There are often also membership programs to encourage loyalty, and given that we're being pretty loyal anyways that would probably be worth looking into if it will get us better rates.

Once you're on the computer, you can use it for whatever you want, but it's clearly set up for gaming. The computers have lots of different games installed, with an emphasis on online gaming and the most popular games getting prominent shortcuts from the desktop. The rest are buried under categories that vary from room to room, so that the game we like to play was under "FPS" at one room and "online" at another. One interesting thing is that if you're playing on your own computer, the game we like to play has to be bought. But, if you play at the PC room, everyone has access to it. This makes me think that the PC rooms have some kind of deal with game developers, kind of like a library, where they pay a certain amount for the right to make the game available to anyone who comes, in order to be able to draw customers. That's just my guess though. The computers are also riddled with adware, which is probably how they charge such low rates while offering such up to date hardware. If I had to guess, they do this because their audience skews young, and they might not be able to afford higher rates.

Speaking of which, while the majority of people I see in the PC room are middle or high school boys, we have also seen men in military uniforms and retired men either playing games or watching sports on the internet. Part of why we landed on the particular PC room we did is because it had the highest ratio of female users out of any I had been to (somewhere between 20-30%?), which made us think it would have a more welcoming atmosphere.

Every PC bang I have been to so far features what I think are 24 inch monitors and cushy seats, but the hardware has seemed to vary based on my experience of the performance of the games. That's another advantage the one we picked has, the performance has been very good overall. One thing I found surprising was that each computer has a speaker instead of headphones. Maybe it's cheaper, or maybe it fosters a more social atmosphere, which I think is part of the appeal of the PC room, but it can be disorienting to hear the sound effects from everyone else's games. Probably a bit like an arcade, thinking about it. They also usually offer drinks and snacks at a slight markup (a bowl of ramen or a can of coke each run about $1.50), which users are, remarkably, welcome to enjoy at the computers. Most PC bangs plaster the windows with posters to eliminate glare inside, as well as advertise outside. If you miss the "PC방" sign you can often tell one by the fantasy themed anime characters all over the windows. The fact that it eliminates glare is really nice, but if you go during the day it can also be disorienting when you think it's become nighttime because of the lack of natural light, but then you stumble back out into the daylight. Another common feature are huge fans pointed down each row of computers to try to help counteract the heat of the machines and users. These are really nice too, unless you get a seat with a bad angle and the wind is blowing across your face, in which case your eyes dry out reeeaaally quickly. We've gotten strategic about picking our seats based on this.

I've run into students at the PC room twice. Once, when I was with Katy, the student was really excited to see me, and wanted to play with us. We got in a game or two before he had to take off, and it was really cool to see a student outside of school in a positive way like that. The other time, a different student recognized me and came over, but after saying hi he just watched me play for about ten minutes and laughed every time I died >: O Little punk. My students know that I frequent the PC room, and for some reason they find it hilarious that Katy and I like to go together.

I hope you've enjoyed hearing about one of my favorite aspects of life in Korea so far! In my next post I'll probably go into some detail about my work life for those who are curious about that.

Week Three

We've just wrapped up our third week living in Goheung and things are really starting to feel settled. Jamie has his alien registration card (ARC) and can now legally hold a phone and bank account, and I've officially applied for a change of residency status (I entered on a tourist visa) and should be getting my ARC in the next few weeks. Getting these documents in place was harder than we expected, though. Jamie's stay, as most of you know was facilitated by the EPIK program, but mine on the other hand was up to us to figure out.

It started last weekend when we decided to take Jamie's new ARC to immigration services in Gwangju to prove his residency status and apply for mine. Gwangju is just over a 2 hour bus ride away, and was glowing by the time we pulled in Friday night with neon lights and marques on every building. We stayed in a nice, small hotel downtown with doors that glowed in the pattern of a piano. We called ahead and had been assured that immigration would be open on Saturday mornings just to be sure. So imagine our surprise then, having already bussed out and stayed the night, when they were closed. The guard informed us that they were always closed on weekends, and no one seemed sure who we could have talked to that told us otherwise. Frustrated, we reframed the trip as a sightseeing venture to Gwangju, and on that adventure we were wildly successful. Gwangju, being such a large city, has a lot to offer.

We started with a fantastic lunch at a popular Korean BBQ restraint where, for ₩20,000 (less than $20) we feasted on the meal pictured below. If you've ever done Korean BBQ, then you know it's a setup where they bring you strips of raw meat and hot coals which they pour into a vat built into the table and covered with a grill. A vacuum stretching from the ceiling down to the table sucks fumes and hot air so that the table doesn't get too hot, and the air is constantly circulating to keep coals hot. You then cook the meat to your taste and wrap it in lettuce. Korean meals also come with "banchan" included in the price of the meal which are a variety of small dishes, often including a plate of kimchi, a soup, and yellow pickled radish. Our meal, which I could only include part of in the picture came with  enough meat for two, bibimbap (a rice and veggie dish), lettuce, kimchi, garlic, two types of salad, a hot soup for the start of the meal, a cold soup for the end of the meal, two sauces, a green bean salad, vinegar sesame cabbage and green onion, and at the end of the meal we were brought a cold tea which we never identified. Needless to say, we couldn't finish it all. Returning stateside and only getting the one measly thing we ordered is going to be rough I'm afraid.

 

After rolling out of the restraint we went to the Asia Cultural Center just across the street. A completely free museum, this place also doubled as cultural archives with thousands of books, all sorted by their subjects. At each section of the archives there were displays for auditory and visual representation of the subject, and tables where you could sit down, pull any book from the archive, and read like a library. It would have been easy to spend a week there just learning about the arts, history, and technology relative to Asia. The pictures below show how beautifully some of the exhibits were crafted for user experience. The top picture shows the music room where hundreds of songs from the last century across Asia are saved on ipods mounted to the walls, and you can just sit and listen via the provided headphones. The second picture shows the "auditory landscape of Asia" room, where ambient noises have been recorded throughout Asia (cities and countryside alike) and are played softly from their own speakers. The user is expected to sit in the middle, close their eyes, and experience the auditory landscape of Asia as a whole. Super cool! The third picture just shows the general setup of a section of archives with the books, tables, and displays all open to the public. Finally, the fourth picture shows a wall of small music boxes which you could wind up at will and listen to. Just for fun.

 

After being thoroughly impressed by the culture center, we wandered just a few blocks away to a shopping district. The street we chose to wander is pedestrian only, and was absolutely packed shoulder to shoulder with Korean youth from 15-30 years old. The buzz and excitement was definitely exciting, and we quickly had to find a coffee shop from which to people-watch, as actually maneuvering was difficult. The shops were mainly clothing and lifestyle stores, and we did manage to buy a few things at a very fun shop called Art Box which was kind of like a cutesy Korean Target. I took the picture below after the street had calmed down a bit and I could stand stationary on the side.

 

Just a couple blocks away was yet another shopping street, this one more arts-and-crafts-y than the last. There were multiple art galleries, and most of the shops featured handmade crafts which the owners worked on while you explored their stall. The pictures below are of some of the art in one of the galleries we wandered into. Three-paneled collections seemed to be a thing.

This has been a longer post than I intended already, so lucky for you, we did absolutely nothing on Sunday after such an adventure Friday night and Saturday. So the last thing I'll mention is that as of this Friday (the 9th) I made a second trip to Gwangju and got into immigration before closing. I applied and was approved for my ARC and spouse-visa! Hooray. Now I am a legal, semi-permanent resident, and can happily report that neither trip to Gwangju was in vain. Have a great week, everybody.
p.s. I have it on good authority that Jamie intends to write about his experience teaching this coming week. Stay tuned!
-Katy

Week Two

Hello, everyone! As Jamie has the job of updating you all on work and teaching, I ( Katy) am the lucky one to tell you all the fun things we got to explore last weekend, and about town this last week.

Most notably, last weekend we took a trip to the next nearest city, Suncheon. Suncheon is significantly bigger than Goheung and made us glad to be in such a small, quiet place most of the time. Suncheon did boast one of the most impressive parks I've ever visited though. It was a collection of gardens, each styled after a different world culture, bridges, ponds, and even short hikes up a small mountain which had an impressive view from the top. We paid an ₩8,000 entrance fee (which would be just under $8 in the States) and spent the next five hours walking the grounds. It was absolutely massive and we managed to not see it all before we were very tired and needed to leave for dinner. The last thing we did was to ride the "sky rail," an individual rail car that had a 3km loop for viewing the garden and adjoining rice fields from above. For dinner we had arranged to meet some of the other foreign English teachers, both newly arrived and those who had been in country for a number of years, for a meet an greet over dinner and then drinks. It was really nice to be able to connect with other foreigners, many of which were American, though there were South African, Scottish, English, and others there as well. I am posting a handful of pictures below of the gardens. Most people here use parasols in the summer to keep off the sun, so, you'll notice, we had to make do with my umbrella, which proved stylish and effective.

As for adventures around Goheung, my days have been spent wandering around getting to know the area. We frequent a PC방 (a Korean computer room used mostly for playing video games) shaped like a castle after Jamie gets off work. During the day I have a favorite street that I walk down daily for groceries, the nail salon, the coffee shop, clothes, the bookstore, or lunch. The street is just a couple blocks from the house and is so narrow that only one car may pass at a time and there are no sidewalks. I haven't made close friends yet, but it feels good that people have begun to recognize me and bow as I walk by. And no, that's not weird. We bow here the way we wave hello in the States. It's simply a gesture to say hi or a sign of respect. Beyond that street, I braved the traditional market finally. It is the largest place to buy food here (a few blocks long and wide). It is all out in the open like a farmers market, except no one has tables so it's all on the ground. Every few meters smells very strongly of fish, but you get used to that. This is, after all, a fishing and farming area. I successfully purchased one carrot, 30 eggs, and a bag of garlic before retreating to our apartment for a nap. It's amazing how exhausting an hour of confusion and staring can be. To see the results of my market spoils, check out the pictures below. I made my first 김밥 (kimbap) with it, which was pretty successful. Kimbap is similar to sushi but without raw fish and including pickled radish. I hear that Japan and Korea argue over who first invented it. In my opinion, however, they are different enough that it's hardly the same food aside from the shape and the rice.

Hope everyone has a great week, and happy September!
-Katy