sunday outing

my korean friends erica, soo-jin and i went to a traditional korean village on a lovely sunday afternoon. we were able to see how koreans lived, back in tha day--as in like waaaaaaaaaaaay back in tha pre-electricity day! we shared smiles, laughs, and a ridiculous amount of wonderfully delicious food!
being cheeky!

say kimchi! (literally. i'm saying kimchi, take a look at my face!)

lanterns and tiles:

sky, roof:

pretty girls with pretty smiles, sitting pretty on the veranda:

kimchi pots:

kimchi ribbons:

the majestic quarters:

shabu shabu:

the third course:

food delivery

food delivery service in korea is environmentally friendly, (no styrofoam, or paper plates, instead you eat off real plates and with real cutlery!) which is great! it's also pretty affordable and usually tasty. when you order in, you specify what dishes you want and it's delivered to your home in a box with all the things you need:
silverware
side dishes
rice

when you're finished, you simply pack everything (including trash) into the box and leave it outside your door. it is then later picked up by the delivery man (i've never seen any delivery, food or otherwise, made by a woman.) racing around town on a scooter.

english, ha ha!

more korean-english translation funnies!

dump and wastes on the same sign?!?!

darts or cocks, anyone?

has anyone seen my booby?

kiwi fruit smoothie, aka, delicious blessing:

this cake will make you smile with your people:

yo! i live at the pound:

me want sizzler, tastier good!

gum, flavor: lady.

not all korean signage is wrong! this one's on the money!

tricky mountain

i like how my mind wonders while my feet wander during this, and any trail i've hiked.

a day with my aunt

my aunt surprised me by meeting me at her subway stop on saturday. when we entered the elevator to the ground floor, a woman was already there, holding her emart shopping bag, flowers (fake i later learned) protruding from the opening. they spoke in korean:
my aunt: my, your flowers are pretty!
woman: thank you!
my aunt: how much were they? (koreans are notorious for asking the cost of things.)
woman: blah blah blah (i'm still bad at remembering numbers, i'm very slow when it comes to translating them, but i do know that for fake flowers, they were expensive because my aunt said...)
my aunt: wow! that's a bit pricey.
woman: they were pricey because they are so beautiful.
my aunt: ah, of course.

the woman then remarked on how we resembled each other and asked if i was her daughter. as we walked out onto the street, my aunt explained that i was her niece. since i look like my mother, naturally, i would also look like my aunt, her older sister. (it has been interesting to note the number of people who think i look just like my mother, not only in my facial features, but also in my tone of voice and even how i laugh! imagine that!)

my aunt is very darling. she laughs easily--which i looooooove!--and smiles readily. we spent the afternoon together, eating, chit-chatting and in the early evening, went for a really lovely walk in the wooded path by her house. she showed me her usual work-out routine which consists of briskly walking two loops, with a stretching session in between and (oh yes, get this!) a branch on which to swing! she claims that swinging has helped loosen her tight shoulder muscles. she taught me new vocabulary words (the name of a rather vocal bug is meh-mee and i misremembered is mah-mee, which gave us both a good chuckle as she corrected me and said the bug was not my mother!) and simply enjoyed the trees, the sound of crunching earth and walking with my aunt.

i didn't bring appropriate shoes but since most korean women's feet tend to migrate towards a ubiquitous size (or rather, i should say the shim/chong ladies' feet are very similar in size!) i borrowed a pair of her white sneaks and wore them, per her suggestion, without socks!

happy 추석:chuseok

추석:chuseok, korea's thanksgiving day, is a day to celebrate a plentiful harvest. traditionally, on this day, korean families gather to pay respects to those who've passed away by visiting their ancestral hometowns--hence the heavy traffic--and celebrating the bounty of food by, well, eating it!

in the olden days, traditional korean rice cakes:떡 (dduhk) which are filled with a sweet mixture of sugar and sesame seeds were homemade. nowadays, traditions are made a bit easier as many buy already packaged rice cake goodies, some much better than what they could prepare on their own.

for the chuseok weekend, i visited some of my relatives and relished my time away from work. i must admit though, that my brain actually hurts, albeit, in the best way possible, from concentrating in korean.

my aunt fell asleep after lunch and we snuck a picture!

from left to right:
my cousin, his daughter, his wife, my aunt, my other cousin's husband

my cousin once removed and me:

the palace

경복궁:gyeongbokgung palace

matters of the heart

a couple of my friends have asked me what, if anything, has happened/is happening with matters of my heart. while i know i have the great capacity to love and feel ready to accept love, i have not been in a deep relationship in quite a number of years. i've dated here and there and have learned a lot about how to feel comfortable dating. (and ahem, not dating!) i'm thankful for that knowledge and i'm not upset or displeased that i'm not dating right now.

despite the ever growing number of friends who are newly engaged, about to get married, married, pregnant, or already with child and children, i feel no urgency to be romantically involved. which is funny, considering how koreans can be so strict regarding the appropriate age for one to wed. this coming year, i turn 30 and basically, in korea, since i'm not married, i might as well consider myself a spinster for life. (imagine dramatic scary music here...FOR LIFE!!!) i will not waste my time worrying about such trivial matters. i've got bigger fish to fry. truly. i actually want to fry some fish. my heart is happy when my belly is full!

yummmmmmmmmm!!!!!

yummmmmmmmm, indeed!

an easy to understand name brand. literal translation: tasty eggs

감자탕, pork and potato stew:

김치감자탕, kimchi, pork and potato stew:

smokey saloon's burgers, the most delicious heart attack on a plate:

pho: vietnamese beef noodle soup, yummers in my tummers!

yogurt dessert with fruit and yes, cornflakes!

shovel spoons, DIG in!

because i'm punny

for the upcoming chuseok (thanksgiving) holiday, work gave me a gift ! (how sweet!) and it was wine. (doubly sweet!) the giftwrap was funny. it said "winetime" and because i'm such a word nerd, i was thinking of "whinetime." which is actually fitting seeing as how i've been complaining about how tired i am. punny, funny. (ah! that's a good set of words to help my students improve their pronunciation! my goodness, now i'm a teacher geek too!)

i tire of talking so i write instead

it occurred to me today, that i am tired of talking. not the most advantageous of realizations for a conversation instructor, but, it's true. actually, i'm tired of a lot of things.

i know i have to be kind and allow myself time to adjust to all these recent changes but it's exactly these changes that exhaust me. it's tiring to pack, move and unpack. it's work to observe and figure out the unspoken ways of how things operate at a new work place. it's harder still to consciously aim to give only enough of myself and conserve most of my energy to help the person that deserves it the most right now: me. it's a self serving and necessary act to pay this much attention to myself. i am learning to know and understand myself. as in, REALLY GET TO KNOW myself! and let me tell you friends, it's labor intensive. not physically, but sure as hell mentally and emotionally.

i'm not the type of person who identifies myself based solely on one thing (i.e. job) but i think i'd actually really enjoy having my work mean more to me than it currently does. it's not that my job isn't meaningful, but, i am finding that more and more company jobs are blurring together into being one rather big sick and twisted joke. can someone please cut out the bullshit?!?! can bullshit or the people who give bullshit be treated with compassion? what would the dalai lama say?

his holiness the dalai lama is my hero

from his book, (co-written by howard cutler) the art of happiness, the dalai lama on geniune compassion:

geniune compassion is the kind of compassion that isn't so much based on the fact that this person or that person is dear to me. rather, genuine compassion is based on the rationale that all human beings have an innate desire to be happy and overcome suffering, just like myself. and, just like myself, they have the natural right to fulfill this fundamental aspiration. on the basis of recognition of this equality and commonality, you develop a sense of affinity and closeness with others. with this as a foundation, you can feel compassion regardless of whether you view the other person as a friend or an enemy. it is based on the other's fundamental rights rather than your own mental projection. upon this basis, then, you will generate love and compassion. that's genuine compassion.

and that is the truth.

new job, new apt, new approaches

it's raining. i've just finished eating 떡만두국 (dduk man doo gook--dumpling and rice cake soup) and my slightly burnt tongue reminds me that i've eaten my meal too quickly. i couldn't help it, it was the first meal i've eaten all day. i foolishly didn't take a break after my lunch class so one thing led to another and before i knew it, i was teaching my two evening classes without having had a proper meal. i did however, eat a delicious chocolate chip clif bar and savored a yummy caramel macchiato beverage.

my new job is working as a part time instructor in business conversation courses. the other part is working in research and development. apparently all the time i've spent talking has proven valuable! i can now call myself skilled in teaching and assessing conversation proficiency. sweet. ji sun's my name, talking's my game. my classes went well--my students, ADULTS!, are easy-going and were easily impressed by my "acting" skills. either i've gotten really REALLY expressive here in korea or koreans simply are not used to meeting people who use a lot of gestures when talking. one of my students, jay, told me that he liked my class while he was leaving. hey hey hey! i like that!

my new apt is only a 10 minute walk to/from the office. and while it's smaller than my pyeongchon officetel apt, it's cute and clean and absolutely functional. in fact, i think realizing exactly how much crap i own is a good reminder of how much stuff i don't really need. i have a mental and soon to be tangible list of my goals in korea:

1) learning and maintaining korean
2) health
3) classes (dance, cooking, and fashion)
4) DO NOT BUY ANYTHING (unless it's food) which will help me with #5
5) save money

i learned many valuable lessons from my last employer, one of which was that there are unpleasant cultural differences between the korean and american work environment. it seems that koreans seem to consistently do things at the last moment. they are reactive instead of proactive. this sort of behavior can drive an a rather organized person like myself bonkers. thankfully, i've been able to 1) recognize the patterns of apparent disorganization and 2) learn to go with the flow or at least, try not to expect what i've come to understand as western organization. so even if westerners work at a korean company, it's still a korean company and like the saying goes, when in rome, do as the romans do. when in korea, act like a korean.

my way of acting like a korean is to reconfigure my approach to work. after evaluating the variety of work experiences that i've had (even if they've been mostly western jobs)--and my goodness, it's certainly been a va-ri-e-ty!--i realize that i often give too much of myself and too soon. so, i'm learning to give just enough. it's difficult for me to do...but absolutely necessary to learn. otherwise, i'm privy to shameless bastardization. meaning i will be, very highly taken advantage of. it's been a sobering experience to realize these truths but i'm very glad that i know how to adapt to a changing work environment.

meanwhile, i'm getting around to knowing my new neighborhood. i now live in samseong, which is characterized by businesses--hence my business classes--but it's also close to a lot of other happening areas, gangnam and apgujeong. i'm still unpacking boxes and making my new place, a home. welcome to seoul.