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
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