My Korean Birthday!

My co-teacher Jiyeon got a little confused and thought that today was my birthday and not tomorrow.

So she organised a cake and presents for me today. She used the excuse I had to go to the fifth grade teachers room for a "meeting" about classes and when I got there all the fifth grade teachers were there with cake.

But it actually worked out well - if today was actually my birthday I would have suspected she was up to something but as today is the day before my birthday I had no idea!

Mr Moon, our music teacher and technology lover took some video of my grand entrance into the teachers room! Here it is!

Trees vs G-Market

If you have lived in Korea you would have heard of G-market as Koreans seem to love online auction sites.

If you haven't lived in Korea, well G-market is a little bit like E-bay or Trade me at home in New Zealand.

It's actually like Trade me on acid, hundred or possibly thousand's of Korean retailers are on G-market selling everything you could imagine from furniture to clothing to make up to food and more. It seems like hundred's of images flash up at you on any given page saying - buy! buy! buy!

Until recently, I had only really used G-market when our friends Conor and Sue came to stay from the UK and we needed to buy a fold out couch. However, when I bought that my co-teacher Jiyoun helped me through the whole process. You see, even though G-market has an English site a lot of the site is still in Hanguel.

I can't really read Hanguel, but I can work things out with the help of my guide book.

My first attempts at G-market (by myself) involved me sitting over our home computer, guide book in hand trying to work out what things said. I also had Rich on hand for additional help (as he can read Hanguel).

I rember one Sunday night we muddled through G-market, trying to find a jacket for me, we finally found one and had worked out the colour and size and everything else. However, when we clicked on the international credit card option it wouldn't accept my credit card or Rich's! (which is crazy because I've used mine on all kinds of international clothing sites over the years!).

At this stage, I was ready to give up on G-market, it was "just too hard". However, after talking to my friend Dani who loves G-market I decided to give it another go.

There were two reasons, one she told me about google crome which will translate a lot more of the site into English making it much easier to buy things and secondly she told me you can set up a G-market account in your name and transfer money over to that account using a Korean ATM.

I took her advice as I really wanted a summer bolero, a lot of my dresses have short sleeves or no sleeves which isn't a good look for teaching.

Much to my surprise, yesterday when I got home my bolero was there and it fits well and it only cost KRW10,000 (about $12 NZ) and my co-teachers today were very impressed!

I have also ordered some shoes, because it's very hard to get shoes that fit westerners here, I never thought I had big feet (US size 9) but here finding nice shoes is either impossible or extremely expensive!

I have now bought two pairs of shoes for my "big size-ee" feet - let's hope they turn up today (it's usually overnight delivery). I'll let you all know how it works out.

G-market and I are still having a few trust issues, I can admit it. But if the shoes are delivered on time I think that maybe we can work something out.

Fun times in Suwon

On Saturday, Rich an I decided it was time for another day trip. This time we headed over to Suwon.

Suwon is about two and a half hours from Uijeongbu and in retrospect we should have left much earlier! There are two big attractions in Suwon - Hwaseong Fortress and the Korean Folk Villiage.
We really didn't leave early enough to see the Hwaseong Fortress, so we decided just to go to the Folk Villiage.

The Folk Villiage is about 30 minutes from the Suwon Information centre by a free shuttle bus. I just thought I'd share some pictures from inside the bus as every Korean tour bus I have been on looks like this on the inside - like it's about to take you on a "magical mystery tour".

Here's a few photo's from inside the Folk Villiage, I really like these totem pole type things (I'm not sure of their Korean name).There were also a cow and calf at the villiage but I felt a little bit sad for them, they were in a small pen with no grass. I guess cows in New Zealand have a pretty good life - I think these guys would be much happier on my parents farm.

Here's a few general photo's of the Folk Villiage buildings, some of these are "commoners" houses, some were for people much higher in the social order.






In the villiage, there was of course, kimchi pots and chilli drying in the sun everywhere!
There were also a lot of markets in the folk villiage where you could make various items that have been made in the traditional Korean way - these photo's were taken at the carpenters stall. Although, I'm not quite sure who would want the last carving in their house, maybe that's "just for fun"?

There were a few free shows at the villiage, we saw a horse/acrobatic show and also this tightrope walker. He hasn't actually fallen in this picture, it's all part of the trick, I have to say it looked like a painful trick for a man to perform!One of the really cool things about the Folk Village is that you can actually touch and use the stuff at the park, unlike a museum, I really like that. Here's som of the stuff we played with - drums, some kind of game and I think what I am holding is some kind of pillow. But I am not really sure!



Here's a couple of photo's of rich playing a traditional Korean game we have played a few times before, basically you need to get those kind of spear like things into the bucket/circle type things. Sounds easy right - well it's not. Apparently this game was one that the aristocratic Korean women used to play back in the "old days" when they weren't allowed to leave their houses.
Time for more photo's of cute animals - there were a couple of donkey's at the folk villiage but this was the only one that would stay still long enough for me to take a decent photo.Also, here's some pictures of some bunnies. I didn't see this kind of bunny until I came to Korea, I would have loved to have taken these guys home with me - I don't think that would have made the folk village people too happy though. Finally, just before we left we visited the "Ghost House" - I knew it would be lame but if there is a ghost house, ghost train or ghost anything I have to go! I thought it was so lame it was good. But Rich thought it was so lame that it was, well, just lame.

Traditional Korean Wedding

Last weekend one of Rich's friend's got married at a traditional Korean wedding at a palace in Insadong. Apparently this type of traditional wedding is fairly uncommon for younger Korean's, who generally prefer the western style "white wedding", so we were very lucky to be invited along.

As you can see from the photograph's the traditional wedding dress is really beautiful, especially the embriodery. We didn't understand a lot of what was happening during the ceremony but it was still a really great experience.