Hello all - It's been a while since we posted. We have been busy. We were lucky enough to have two friends from the States come and visit within the past two weeks. It's nice to see people from home.
Well let's see what's new for the Wood adventures -
In mid October, Chris went to Europe on business for ten days. I will let him tell you stories about that. Prior to leaving we received our absentee ballots so we could perform our civic duty and voice our opinion in the US election. I will talk about the outside the country perspective in another blog so check back.
While Chris was gone for the ten days, I stayed here in Korea. Differences in being the stay at home spouse in Korea included . My usual habit of using the time to "catch up" with girlfriends I haven't talk to. The fabulous thing is that the international community really takes you in as part of their own and has you over and invites you out so you are not alone.
The one weekend I even got to go to the company picnic known as "Sports Day" for Kamco/Bosch. The funny thing about Korean company picnics is that they are very team oriented to departments. They have matching uniforms for the teams and they give out prizes for everything. Games played on sports day include basketball, tennis, Korean football which is a cross between volleyball and soccer using a tennis net, soccer, tug o' war, a balloon filling contests where you have to stand up the filled plastic tube once everyone has filled up the jumbo plastic bag, and a multi leg race. The multi leg race was funny to watch it starts as a three legged race then you have to add on a person every lap until you get to ten or fifteen. This was fun to watch. All and all entertaining in it's own right especially since there was the Korean Elvis announcer for the event.
After the festivities, I went to the forest museum with our friends and had a nice walk.
During this time was my first Korean driving experience. This was an adventure. My most nerve racking experience was one of the five way intersections that Koreans seem to enjoy so much. This happened to be an intersection with no light to boot. I had someone pulling out from a parking spot and someone coming at me from the other side. I thought for sure I was going to be hit but luckily I wasn't. For the most part my driving experience was much like what Chris has described in previous articles. At the end of the ten days I didn't mind going back to riding the bus. But driving on occasion is nice. Sometimes I miss that experience. Especially when it comes to riding the bus during rush hour and standing on a crazy drivers bus for a period of time. Not always beneficial for someone who hasn't had the best of luck with her knees in the past few years.
On the 28th, we celebrated our friend Emilijia's birthday with her. She was commenting on her age and how she didn't feel old. And Chris and I told her it just creeps up on you. The day you know your old is when you start talking about something from your youth be it a cartoon, a song, owning something that was standard at the time i.e. tapes and the person next to you starts laughing saying oh my god your old. Hey but if you want to feel youth and you are from the tape age come to Korea. They still greatly enjoy their tapes which I find surprising since they are some of the biggest technophiles I have seen. Old cars are not seen and they really love to update their cell phones.
On Friday the 29th, I took the bus to the airport to meet our friends Mark and Heather who came to visit. Mark stayed for four days then went off to Japan to visit his brother. Heather stayed for a week and a half. I just put her on the bus Tuesday. While waiting in the airport for Mark and Heather I met a Canadian who has been teaching here for seven months. I chatted with her for twenty minutes while waitng for Mark and Heather to clear customs. Chris called and was laughing at me saying " Oh good I see you turned on the Canadian Magnet again" We have a running joke about the Canadian catch and release program since we hardly ever see Americans but I can pull a Canadian into a conversation on a regular basis no matter where we are at in Korea it seems.
It's always fun to show new people things and to see new things for yourself. As Mark was on the express visit, we decided that Seoul would be the best place to start. Chris and I managed to pick up a third of the five palaces that are located in Seoul and once again got to go up into the Sky Tower. The view was beautiful with the fall color change.
Seoul is usually when Chris and I break from eating Korean food as it has the largest foreign population in Korea. However, since we had visitors we only had one western like meal- Pizza Hut. Although it was "western" it had the Korean spin of course which is why I think Chris let me win in my begging for western food. See Koreans like to put some strange things on their pizzas. Most notably is sweet potato. So we got the rolled gold pizza with the ring of sweet potato not the full chunks of sweet potato so that Mark and Heather could have Korean style pizza and I didn't have to eat rice. We visited a couple of the traditional markets and Heather got quite the laugh out of the poor English grammar shirts that were on sale. On Sunday, we went to the folk village and watched traditional dancers. No traditional drums this time but there were some really nice fan dances that were performed. We took pictures so check out the link.
We also went to the DMZ with Mark and Heather for the half day tour. This was an interesting experience but a little over rated for the price. The tour included a bus ride to and from Seoul to a border town entrance into the DMZ area where you could go into the third tunnel of infiltration. ( There are five total), a visit to the train station that will connect north and south Korea together, and a visit to the freedom bridge.
Some of the more interesting things learned on the tour included: Apparently it is good luck in Korea to wear women's undergarments into battle; and apparently North and South Korea like to battle each other over towns that are located in the DMZ. South Korea has a town of 500 in the DMZ however, the population cannot exceed five hundred so if anyone is born then someone must move. This town is right next to the border of the north which irritates the north so they have what the south Koreans believe is a fake village on their side. The South Koreans believe it's fake since the lights are on timers and the windows are painted. There is also apparently frequent propaganda wars in this area that have to do with loud speakers and big screen TVs but such is life. Other interesting tid bits is that when the tunnels were first found the North Koreans claimed that it was the south that was digging them. In the third tunnel they also painted the granite black and tried to say that the tunnel was a coal mine. It's funny to hear the stories. Since this is all a military region little to no pictures can be taken so we don't have much to show for our trip. However, Flat Stanley did go and we got him on the freedom bridge that the prisoner exchange occurred at.
Here is the link for Flat Stanley for anyone interested in what flat Stanley is.
http://flatstanley.enoreo.on.ca/
We took to sight seeing a temple and the West Sea on Monday. The funny thing about going to the sea was that I think we actually observed more Koreans at the beach walking than we had all summer at least during the times we were there. There was a group of kids playing this crazy game on the beach in the rain. They were holding one leg up and hopping around. Based on our four person panel judging, the rules appeared to be 1.) all players must keep one leg up at all times and hold it half Indian style sitting; 2.) Player must ram into other players and try to knock them down; and 3.) the last player to still be hopping wins. I tried to take a picture but it just doesn't do the game justice. Needless to say it was good entertainment for our little hot chocolate break before heading back to Daejon.
On Tuesday, we took the driving tour of Daejon and dropped Mark off at the bus stop so he could continue his country hopping adventure ( He was off to see his brother in Japan then on to LA).
The fabulous thing was that the fall colors were just beautiful where ever we went and the mountains were gorgeous.
On Thursday, Heather and I went with my friend Pat from New Jersey to the east sea and Soraksan National Park. We had lunch on Sopcho. What an amazing lunch. We had tried one other place prior tot he place we ended up. Heather got her first real experience of "Fresh" seafood Korean style. Here in costal towns when you want fresh fish you literally walk up to the tank and pick out your fish. Pat was bartering with the woman but we decided it was too expensive for lunch so we went down town. Pat asked a local what was a good restaurant to eat at and he sent us to one across the canal. To get across the canal there is a ferry. The catch to the ferry is that it is manual labor. And by manual labor I mean that you have to pay the fair then help pull. The ferry is connected to each shore by a steel cable. You hook a metal hook around the steel cable then proceed to walk the length of the ferry pulling on the steel cable. We must have done a good job ( Heather and I) because we got a thumbs up from the ferry man. Pat was kind enough to take our picture while we pulled so that we could show everyone our little adventure.
When we got to the other side we ate at a little restaurant that served only fish. Much like other Korean restaurants, our fish was grilled in front of us at our table. We had about eight or ten different kinds of fish with about ten or twelve different bansan (side dishes) for the mere cost of about eight to nine dollars a person. Several of the fish were whole fish and some were just pieces. The funny thing about this experience was the fume hood. Normally, when I have experienced table cooking the fumes are sucked downward through the table. However, this was not the case this time. This time we got the pleasure of having what looked like a long piece of flexible duct work attached to an eighteen inch diameter cone shaped thing that came down over our fish. Pat and I started laughing about it. Heather did not catch on at first I think that's because she didn't' realize that this was unusual even for Korea. It really looked like a bad robot out of a science fiction film. Heather kept saying "Danger will Robinson." Ah the fun of Korea. One of my favorite moments this trip was the witnessing of the clothes line that had both clothes drying and squid on the same line. After all everyone needs that after sea freshness in their clothing. Just can't get that fish smell in the bottle can they? 
It was a wonderful day and a beautiful drive.
On Saturday, we went to Danyang to go through caves that were filled with lots and lots of stalactites and stalagmites. The path in this cave was elevated for the most part but very narrow and I really don't think that this would have been completely open to the public if it were in the US since some places were about four foot tall and some place were only about twelve inches wide. Heather got to experience the impatient Korean. This older women kept pushing her in the back and yelling kapshida ( let's go) when really there was next to no place to move forward to since it was like waiting in a line at a concert. Danyang is a neat little city that is nestled into a valley that has a large river running next to it. This city had been relocated sue to the building of a dam farther down river.
Saturday night we spent at one of our German friends houses celebrating his birthday. Sunday we took Heather to the market after she went to church and found the last of her souvenirs she was looking for. We avoided the dog meat aisle so as not to gross her out. But she still got the whole experience of "what ever body part of the pig or cow you want cooked we got it" buffet tables that were set up in the middle of the aisles.
On Tuesday I put Heather back on a bus to the airport. Now Chris and I are resuming our normal patterns in life. The only bad thing was that I was sick while people were visiting. But alas the doctor's office experience is a blog for another day......
Take Care all - H