A Sporty Easter

Happy Easter Weekend, everybody! It's just ending for us at the UTC +9 time zone, but Easter Sunday should just be starting for those in the west. Our celebrations this year were a bit non-traditional, and also, not necessarily Korean, though half the fun was doing so in Korea.

We started the weekend by heading out to Gwangju with some fellow foreigners. We had bought tickets to a baseball game that evening, but were on our way early because we had other new and exciting plans. Neither Jamie or I had ever been rock climbing (you know, the kind without the bungee cord to pull you up that you do when you are kids) and our friends had only been once or twice, and certainly never in Korea. But we had heard about this particular gym from some mutual friends who were pretty sporty, and (and this is important) don't speak Korean. So we figured it must be a safe bet. The gym was small enough, and shared a space with a skiing practice gym (some sort of strange turf slopes that rolled like a treadmill. Don't ask... we didn't linger there long). But as we suspected, the owners spoke flawless English, and access to the gym along with shoe rentals was only 15,000 won (or less than $15). We started out on the easy walls, and well, didn't get much further than that. It only took about an hour before our grip and forearms were so weak we could barely hold a water bottle. Embarrassing? Yes. Fun? Incredibly so. We will definitely be back (after some pushups maybe). The owners seemed to enjoy watching us fall onto the padded floor after spending a few minutes getting just high enough that we were about twice our own height, and they asked us all sorts of questions about our time here in Korea. I would have taken pictures if I could have held the camera without my hands shaking, or if they hadn't been covered in chalk. Oh well.

After a big lunch and a nap at our respective hotels, we met back up to head out to the game. In the cab we got into the origins of baseball in the east, and did some googling (yay smartphones!). The cabby informed us that baseball in Korean is 야구 (ya-gu) which led us to believe that the Koreans actually aquired the sport from Japan during one of their occupations, since the word in Japanese is 野球 (yak-yu) and it is such a big sport over there (particuarly in high-school, I hear). Anyway, this was an interesting little revalation, and kept us busy on the ride. We had pre-ordered tickets, so one unlucky foreigner got to fight with the automatic ticket machine in Korean to get them printed out. We met up with others, and in total, there were probaby a dozen of us english speakers all together for the game.

Look how close to the field our seats were!

These super-cute foreigners get a little excited.

These fellow foreigners get really excited!

 

 

The game was the Gwangju Tigers versus the Seoul Heroes and we absolutely crushed them. Well, it looked that way until the last inning when our 5 run lead was threatened by a good final-inning effort. But we pulled through. Our seats were exciting, not only because we were right by left field, but also because we were adjacent to a section called the "fever zone" which is positioned right behind the dugout and cheerleaders platform. The cheerleaders and mascots led chants from there, so this particular zone was notorious for having the most fun. The chants were relatively easy to learn, since usually they just consisted of the players name followed by "home run." This of course works because Koreans names are all exactly three syllables, so it always fits the meter. There was, however, one western recruit on our team. We saw him immediately (the only black player on the field) and again, did some googling. Apparently he is from Curacao and recently started playing here after some time in the states. His name was Rodger, and as you might guess, he had our full support, complete with chants, cheering, and whistling when our team took the field. Being foreign in such a homogenous country is interesting...

 

So we celebrated this Easter with rock climbing, baseball, and expats in the big city. Not exactly your classic celebration, but it certainly was special. And now, because my phone is overflowing with beautiful pictures, here's a few more of Goheung in the Spring.

 

 

Happy Easter, everybody!

-K

Flower Season

Hello, all. Katy again! I told you there would be more spring related posts... Korea is in full bloom this week, largely dressed in yellow and pink. As this is a post mostly about flowers, it will be picture heavy and text light. In a couple of my conversations over the past few weeks I have asked Koreans to tell me, as a newcomer, what to do to enjoy the spring here. Everyone, and I mean everyone, has started with "see the flowers." So here, see the flowers!

In the last couple of weeks I have done a little touring of the province to see the spring colors. Once with my church group, and again with J this last weekend. The former trip was to see these beautiful tiny yellow flowers that bloom on a certain tree this time of year. I can't for the life of me remember their name, but the park was essentially an exhibit for them, with walking paths lined with the blooms and even a large statue of the flower. We spent about an hour slowly walking around, and of course, (this is Korea after all) taking selfies!

 

 

The latest trip, then, was with J to Suncheon (you may recognize the name from posts about the bay gardens or the church I attend). With the cherry blossoms in full bloom, we were super excited to experience what Koreans consider to be one of their most significant attractions. A good friend of mine told us where to go, and we spent a couple hours walking up and down the riverside on a path lined on both sides with theses trees. It was incredible! The branches were heavy with flowers, and when the wind blew it looked like it was snowing petals! It helped too that the day we decided to make the trip was the warmest day of the year yet! 25 degrees wahoo!

 

 

It's been a long time since I took a trip just to walk among the flowers, and this particular excursion may have spoiled me for all the rest. Korea has taken the cake with its beauty in this particular season.

Enjoy!

-K

Doing the Cha Cha Cha to Kpop

Hello, everyone! Katy, here. This week I'd like to tell you just a little bit about a new hobby I've picked up that is both familiar, and hilariously Korean at the same time.

I recently looked into a series of classes that the local community center puts on for free. I had heard about them through a friend of mine who took a sewing class, and also through the foreign wives club in town. The foreign wives club, if I haven't mentioned already is where my textbooks come from for learning Korean. Being as proud of a nation as Korea is, it is important to them that women who marry Korean men get a good language and cultural education, and so our textbooks and classes are free. Mostly the women who marry Korean men are from Southeast Asia, and for some reason the population here in Goheung is mostly Philippine. I have no way of knowing if that is representative in the rest of the country or not. I also have no idea if foreign men who marry Korean women have the same resources as foreign wives do. It seems much less common though.

Anyway, so I looked through the classes with the help of a friend to translate the papers, for something that would not require me to be very good at Korean in order to follow along. That narrowed it down quickly to physical activity sort of classes, like dance and yoga. Since my friend was going to do the class with me, once I expressed an interest in dance, she picked the one that looked most interesting to her. Latin dance it is! Interestingly I've spent a couple years now living in Latin America and managed to completely avoid learning how to dance... until now.

So on our first day, we were pleasantly surprised to see that it was a big class, but less excited to realize that we were probably the only students under 40 years old in the room. It turns out that the middle age population of Goheung loves Latin dance! Many of the students, mostly women, were quite good and had clearly taken the class before. It was also interesting that though most middle aged people in town are married, none of these participants (though roughly half and half male and female) attended with their spouses. The class quickly took note of the youngest, and only blond classmate, and it didn't take long before I heard my poor friend explaining over and over again who I was. Interestingly, this is a conversation I could have actually had myself with my Korean level, but no one expected me to be able to speak the language, and, I was happy to escape some of the attention by letting my friend answer the questions even if all eyes were on me.

People are generally welcoming, and I've even been blessed with what I'm calling my Kmom. With regular gifts of kimchi, towels, and notebooks she informed me that her son, who is about my age currently lives in France so she feels like I am her child now. And I, of course, won't argue. I appreciate her help when I don't understand instructions, and she makes pretty good ban chan.

The first hour of class are individual line dances, while the second hour are partner dances. Most are variations on the Cha Cha Cha, and almost all are preformed to Kpop. I dance with my friend as my partner, since the one time I tried to dance with a Korean man, he grew visibly frustrated with his lack of an ability to correct me verbally. Fortunately my friend's husband prefers the idea of her dancing with me to dancing with any of the other men, so we have partnered up and (if I do say so myself) have gotten pretty good!

That's all for now. I hope everyone has a great week. Happy April!
-K