In Which Art Kicks My Butt and I Meet a Pair of American Vagrants

So, last night I found out that I'll be directing one of our July/August shows. I am stoked about this. Auditions will be tomorrow, and I am going to have lots of fun making my co-workers do all sorts of wacky stuff (not solely for my own amusement, I assure you).

Tuesday I was off, and having no plans, I decided to do a little exploring in my very own 'hood. Across the street from English Village, nestled in what turns out to be a relatively sizable area between many rolling hills, is the Heyri Art Valley. It is basically a community of artists, into which a person must be invited in order to join.


Once invited (should you accept the invitation), you must build a funky house like the one above. Many of the houses include studio space and galleries, and there are also many restaurants and cafes on the premises. It's an intriguing place, and is literally a stone's throw from EV. I went into the first gallery I saw, where, luckily for me, the proprietress spoke excellent English and told me all about the current show, by an Italian artist called Paolo Di Capua. The show was called "Stabbed Soul" and featured a number of very minimal steel-woven-into-steel, relief-style pieces (all praise the hyphen).


The largest, and most moving piece is pictured above. I wasn't really supposed to photograph it, but as you are aware, I am a hot-blooded rebel. The photo doesn't really do it justice anyhow. Maybe I'm an easy sell, but it caused me physical pain to look at this work. It seemed to me too accurate a representation of how it feels when something awful is tearing you apart inside. Just when you think you can deal with what you've been dealt, you get hit at another angle or in another way. In any event, way to go Mr. Di Capua, you successfully shook my psyche.


After visiting the gallery (called "Moa gallery"), I stopped in at this nifty little cafe, had a latte and read. I am currently reading Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking. It is good, but I may have to restrict my reading of it to the privacy of my home, as it keeps nearly causing me to cry in public.


Here is a little self portrait I took in the wall of one of the gallery-buildings while wandering around.


There were also some interesting works outside, such as the school of floating fish, to which this fellow belongs.

My favorite show was by a Korean artist called Kim Joon. His installation, "Party" comprises a bunch of incredible digital prints. These prints are strange bodies made up of random body parts that seem to be formed with leather or cloth-like textures. Everything is covered in easily-recognizable patterns by famous fashion designers. I decided not to live on the edge and photograph these works, but I wish I could explain them with more clarity and accuracy. I was blown away, and am really tempted to contact the artist and find out how much some of the pieces cost. I'm sure they are out of my price range, but it couldn't hurt to ask... I'd like to learn more about his process as well.

I definitely want to go back to Heyri on a more regular basis. It's a great place to explore. And there is a book store with a small selection of English books.

After Heyri, I came home and talked to Rebecca. We (well, mostly she) pounded out a tentative itinerary for my upcoming visit to Israel. I am intensely looking forward to my trip, and feeling really lucky to have great friends to plan and set up things for me. It will be so good to see my girls and to float around in the dead sea. Rest assured I'll write all about it after the fact.

On Monday I went to Seoul for my language exchange. I ran into my friend Pauline (from South Africa) on the way in. She was headed for a voice lesson. When I return from my trip I am planning to take lesson's from her teacher as well. That way, we'll be able to travel in together, and my Mondays will be packed with productive action. Anyhow, Pauline and I decided to meet up and go see the new Pirates of the Caribbean movie after our respective engagements. When I met up with Pauline, she had found a couple of interesting American lads. One was a male stripper, and the other fights in a cage and operates hot air balloons for a living. I don't remember their names, but I do remember the names of the friends they mentioned who didn't end up coming along: Dirty and Bird. Seriously, where do these people come from? Oh wait, Arizona. They were the kind of people who make you a little embarrassed to be American. They were, however, refreshingly unpretentious, and it was interesting to spend a few hours with the sort of people I wouldn't really seek out on my own. The pirate movie, incidentally, was mostly dumb. Ah well.

Best. Work. Assignment. EVER.

So, yesterday one of my work projects was to be in a parade. Our bosses selected three people from my department and other people from other departments to do this. I honestly had no idea what to expect. I was just told to show up in front of EV city hall at 10:10 am, wearing a white shirt. I expected this assignment to maybe be a bit tedious. It turned out to be anything but.


The parade was part of the opening ceremonies of the Paju Flower Festival, which is still going on now. We all carried the flags of various English-speaking countries (or in some cases, including mine, just a solid colored pink or blue flag) and marched and waved at people. It was pretty amusing, and only lasted for about a half an hour.


When we completed our little march, we were fed a delicious free lunch (vegetarians were well taken care of) which included beer and makoli (this really weird wine stuff) and then given a little time to look around. While looking around, I scored the most kickin' visor ever:

This is seriously one of the best things that Korea has had to offer me thus far. The visor is disposable (cardboard) and is the shape and style worn by grandmothers everywhere. I love it, and I wore it for the whole rest of my workday. What, gentle reader, could possibly be a better way in which to express my Paju pride.

On the way back to our van, we passed a truck where flowers were being given away for free. I got a marigold and a white flower that is shaped like a trumpet.

The Weather Is Here, Wish You Were Beautiful

Oh, the manifold adventures.

Here I am as Jesse, with Jamie, my BFF in You're a Star, the current Concert Hall production here at the village of English. The show concerns two girls who want to enter a talent show and Tony Dancer, your classic cartoon villain, who with the help of his bumbling henchman, Mr. Pongu, (which means fart in Korean) will stop at nothing to make sure they don't win.

Here we are auditioning for the talent show...

and learning the talent show finale with some help from the audience and our lovely instructor, Madame Pirouette.

Jesse decides she can be brave and sing alone after an accident that renders Jamie unable to compete in the talent show.

I had a wonderful week performing You're a Star, and am thoroughly psyched to go on again at the end of the run. I honestly don't think I could have been happier. I was battling a tiny bit of a cold for part of the week, but I took good care of myself and it never really materialized or got in the way of my performance. Haha germs, I defy you!

Sunday evening, I went with some of my wehgook (it means foreigner) friends to watch the Lotus Lantern festival, where we saw the giant horse/mountain-thing above. It is basically a parade of lanterns in honor of Buddha's birthday (which was actually yesterday). It kind of reminded me of Fasching in Basil, Switzerland, only without the political and comical aspects (and it also took place at a much more reasonable hour).

There were plenty of opportunities to see people in Hanbok (Korean traditional clothing), like the ladies above.

The Buddhist temple in Insadong was filled with these colorful lanterns.

I decided to stay overnight in Seoul since I had my language exchange with Hee Young the next day. After the festival I headed out with some friends for dinner and drinks and then retired to a quaint little hostel with my friend Mel.

Mel's birthday was Monday and she decided that she wanted to go to Sokcho and Naksan, two areas which are on Korea's eastern coast. She invited me to come with her and I set off to help her find the proper bus terminal, figuring that I might follow her after my language exchange, depending on my mood. After a bit of a debacle trying to find the terminal (one of those, "go to the other terminal." "No, go to the other terminal." "No, go back to the first terminal you went to!" situations), I bid Mel adieu and headed for Hee Young's.

In the end, I did catch the 5:50 pm bus to Sokcho at the very last second. The ride was pretty pleasant, just a little over three hours from the Express Bus Terminal in eastern Seoul. I made it to Sokcho at about 9:15 and Mel met with a new found Korean-American friend.

We had dinner and then went to a Jimjilbang, which is an awesomely cheap and ubiquitous Korean spa. Basically, you lock your stuff in a locker and get naked (the part that really takes getting used to, especially since Koreans tend to stare at people who look differently from them, whether said people happen to be clothed or not), shower, go sit it one or more of the various saunas, soak yourself in one or more of the various crazy pools and hot tubs, and then scrub the hell out of your skin with a rough towel (and of course rinse off). This process is relaxing and amazing and you can go any time, day or night, in any town or city. There are also rooms where you can watch DVDs or use computers and whatnot.

One can also stay overnight at a Jimjilbang, which we did. The sleeping room was pleasant and quiet, but it was kind of like sleeping in a little crib. Each sleeping space was divided by wooden rails. Basically, you sleep on a thin mat which is on a wooden structure, and you get a pretty solid, yet slightly squishy vinyl-covered block on which to rest your head. Not the most comfortable or the best night's sleep of my life, but for $7.00 (which includes all aspects of the spa), I can't really complain.

The next day we took a cab up to Naksan, which is slightly north of Sokcho, where we went to see the oldest Buddhist temple in Korea and catch some rays on the more secluded beach there.


As you can see, there were also a lot of lanterns in Naksan in preparation for Buddha's birthday shindig.

This is the inside of the roof of a little gazebo which featured a great view of the ocean.

Here is Mel on the beach. It was soooooo nice. The sun was warm, but there was a pretty strong breeze, which kept me really comfortable. In spite of our donning sunblock (though perhaps not so thoroughly...) We both got wicked sunburns. Suffice it to say that I could stop traffic with my legs right now, and not because of their length or shape.

Even though I wish I'd had more clean clothing and fewer books in my backpack, it was refreshing to take a random trip on a total whim.

Updatesville

So, life continues to be dynamic and pretty fun.

Last week, there were a group of college-aged debaters here for some sort of big deal pan-Asian debate. They sort of took over the village (to the chagrin of some). On Sunday night they had their closing ceremonies and a big party, and some of us village residents were lucky enough to share their liquor, on what was a lovely spring night. I met a kid from Singapore, who insisted that I visit Mumbai, because he said it was exactly the same as New York City. I met some really nice ladies from Japan. Also, I got plastered.

Also last week, there was a week-long law program happening at EV. A bunch of Korean Judges from all over the country came to practice English and learn about U.S. law. The program teachers needed a couple of actors for some courtroom-style improv and I was recommended. I got to play a defense attorney in an accident suit for the the "objections workshop," and then got to plead with the jury for my client's life in the "sentencing workshop." It was a little nerve-wracking (I've never been too into courtroom dramas, so improvising with legal jargon was a bit intimidating), but lots of fun, and everyone was happy with our work.

Yesterday, which was a day off, I went on a little walk/hike up the hill across from the village. It was much shorter than I had expected and was kind of anti-climatic. I did find a broken TV on my way. I think I may have found some toxic waste as well. Well... probably not, but there was a rusty metal container with greenish stuff oozing out of it that had a skull and crossbones on it, as well as warning symbols for just about everything including "flammable." Who knows...

Today was my debut in the role of Jesse in our cute little main stage show (for which I am an understudy), You're a Star. We did two shows and I had a really great time. It feels weird to try to mostly copy someone else's performance and to play a character without having worked on it as much as one normally would, were they actually cast in the role, but I feel like I'm getting the rhythm of it. I'm definitely looking forward to doing this for the rest of the week.

This Is Why They Pay Me the Big Bucks

So here's a little glimpse of our Children's Day Show. We had a good time.


Love Shack: "You're what?"
"Fine, thank you, and you?"

Singing Mama Mia with lots of lovely dancing ladies

Singing backup for "Shout," a little bit softer now, if you would.


These people were definitely ready to shout.

The "Mayor" of English Village decrees that all shall dance.

Children's Day was pretty wild. I spent my day out under the hot, bright sun, talking as a puppet, facilitating the limbo, teaching dances to kids (I did the chicken dance like 8 times, and I am now certain that it would be involved in my personal hell) and of course doing the show. It was great. Some of the kids were so adorable that I had to grit my teeth. Afterwards, I felt like showering and falling immediately into bed. Instead, I went and enjoyed some Shabu Shabu with a gaggle of villagers.

Sunday was also a busy day for me. I opened Little Red Riding Hood, which I'll be doing 4 times every Sunday until the end of June (minus the week I go to Israel, I'm going to Israel!). I carry pretty much the whole show until the Big Bad Wolf comes in at the end, so I was nervous about keeping the audience's attention, and making sure that the show was interactive enough. Luckily, it seemed to work well and was more fun than I had anticipated. The best part is when I get kids to come up on stage and be the tree, grass, mountain, pond and flowers that I see on the way to my Grandmother's house. After the show, I went to get some water at EV Mart and an older, gentlemanly park visitor there recognized me and insisted on buying me a juice because he thought I was a very hard worker. What a sweet person! It completely made my day.

In other news, I went on a date with a Jehova's Witness from Montreal yesterday. I went in expecting it to be the weirdest experience ever, and it was actually way more normal than expected-- but still weird. There was no evangelizing involved, and he was able to explain to me what the deal is with only a certain number of people getting to go to heaven and the number of Jehova's Witnesses in the world already exceeding that fixed, heaven-bound number. We went to a buffet restaurant called Marche, and then, because we discovered that we both love to sing, we went to a norebong... like a couple of HUGE dorks. Life is just so weird.

They Could Have Killed Me with the Mere Flick of a Wrist...

but instead, they decided to befriend me. This was military week at English Village, which meant that instead of having middle school students in the week-long, camp-style program, there were soldiers. This is part of their active duty, and it's a real chance for them to relax and have fun. They make great audience members and are kind and chill. Above, I'm pictured with some special forces soldiers. As part of their training, they climbed the whole way up and down Mt. Halla (the one Jeff and I climbed) in a little over 3 hours (it takes normal people about 7 hours). Also, they had to walk 400 kilometers.

I had the good fortune to knock back a few beers with soldiers from various branches of the military. I received two marriage proposals, and I have like 8 Korean soldier boyfriends now.

I must say, out of everyone I hung out with, the Navy boys have the most team spirit and are the hardest partiers.

All of the guys were very supportive and enthusiastic about my burgeoning Korean skills. Here's and example of some of our conversations:
Soldier 1: You speak Korean?
Me: A little (said in Korean)
Soldier 1: Oohh! Speak Korean, please.
Me: How much do three apples cost?
Soldier 2: Oooh, very good.
Me: pants socks shoes hat!
Soldier 1: Oh, your pronunciation very clear.
Me: Face hair, hand finger um... legs arms eyes nose mouth!
Soldier 1: [makes some remarks in Korean to his fellows]
Me: Where is the bathroom? I would like to go to Seoul.

They all complemented my pronunciation, which made me feel good. I am going to tell Hee Young about this, but she will probably tell me that they were only flirting with me and actually I still suck (she likes to beat up on me a little in this area of my language acquisition)


Were's Alenado? Here's another huge group of Navy folks (including a couple of female officers). They were really so much fun to have around. I didn't really expect soldiers to be so laid-back and kind. I guess things are a little different when 2 years of service are mandatory.

This week has been otherwise exhausting. Wednesday was the official beginning of our May/June season. The main stage show looks great, and I am sooooo excited to go in as the lead in a little less than two weeks. It's great, seeing something that I had helped write come completely together with a set, lights, costumes, music and all of the trappings. The actors have done a wonderful job of making the simple script come to life and even though they have really made the characters what they are, it's really gratifying to see some of my ideas working well on stage.

All week I've been involved in understudy rehearsals for the aforementioned show, rehearsals for a mini show, Little Red Riding Hood (in which I'll be playing the girl in the riding hood, herself) and of course rehearsals for Children's Day, which is tomorrow. The days have simply been packed. I love the work, but I am really tired. Tomorrow will be crazy. Instead of our normal shows, we'll be running activities such as line-dancing (Hey, Macarena!) and group games. We'll also be doing our crazy 20-minute song and dance extravaganza. I really hope that someone video tapes it, because it is going to be fun and HILARIOUS. We are doing a medley of "Love Shack," "Mama Mia," an original "rap" and "Shout," but the words to the songs have all been changed to make them about English Village and Children's Day. I expect I'll be ready to drop dead at the end of the day, but instead I'll give Alex a German lesson and then we'll chat about life, and hopefully eat lots of chocolate, which I will have earned. I'll do my best to get some pictures of tomorrow's insanity.

Seriously, Who Knew Korea Was this Cool?

So, on with the tales from my recent trip to Jeju "Special, Self-Governing Province" Island. And this time, just to shake things up, I shall depart from my general trend of reverse chronology.

Jeff and I left Seoul very early Thursday morning (April 26th). Everything in the airport went incredibly smoothly (sadly, model rocket engines are not allowed on domestic Korean flights as we had feared, but no one treated us like criminals for trying to bring a couple) and the hour-long flight to the Island was a breeze. Upon arrival, we set about making our way to Seongsan Ilchulbong, or fortress mountain, sunrise peak. We wanted to stay in they area so that we could catch what was fabled to be an amazing sunrise from the top of this cute, little mountain on the Island's eastern shore. We didn't have hotel reservations, because we had gathered that these things could be taken care of once we arrived. Sure enough, when we hit the little village we were greeted by a pair of ajumas (grandma-style ladies) who showed us a couple of rooms. We were able to get things taken care of using my very limited Korean and our Inn-Keeper's total lack of English, apart from the word "bed". Score.

Here is a view of Seongsan Ilchulbong from the hotel, pretty nice, eh? After some settling in and napping (me) and exploring (Jeff), we headed on a walk together. We looked over the souvenir shops (all of them selling all of the same things), and then decided to take a look around the town.


To my great surprise, we ran into a group of Haenyeo, the female divers for whom Jeju is famous. There used to be hundreds and hundreds of them, but these days there are apparently very few (like, 25-40 maybe), so this was quite a treat. It seems we had caught them on their way home. We walked in the direction from whence the lady divers had come and came upon what appeared to be their headquarters, where this picture was taken. We got to see them weighing their seaweed and checking out the other ocean-goodies they had collected.

Feeling inspired by the Haenyeo, we decided to check out the water ourselves. It was very cold, but we had fun wading around. There were volcanic rocks everywhere (duh, volcano).


The next morning, we got up very early to be sure that we could make it up the mountain to catch the sunrise. They actually ring a gong to wake up people, but I didn't know about this, so we beat the gong by a few minutes. We were pretty much the first people to make it to the top. Above is what the village below looked like as day began to break.

This is what the top of the trail looked like. Sadly, the sunrise eluded us, as the weather was too foggy/cloudy. Still, Jeff took some great pictures and we enjoyed getting to see the large volcanic crater at the top. Also, there was a little ajuma who came puffing up the trail with a large pack. She then set to work getting out coffee and juice and such things to sell. We watched her climb over the fence which divided sunrise-viewing-area from wilderness to retrieve yet more goods from her secret hiding place: a large patch of tall grass.

After we headed back down, I took some time to pose with my new friend, Mr. Haribong. Haribong are statues made of volcanic rock, like the one above.

The following day we packed up our things and headed for Jeju Hiking Inn, a hostel in Seogwipo City, which is on the southern edge of Jeju. We chose this location for its proximity to Hallasan, the largest mountain in South Korea, which we planned to climb the following day. We were planning to take a bus, and met a very cute, friendly ajuma at the bus stop, who grabbed the skin on my arm and said a bunch of stuff to me that I didn't understand, and then laughed a lot. She then apparently decided that she would have better luck communicating with us by tracing things in Hangul with her finger on Jeff's arm. In the end, we were able to establish that all three of us were headed for Seogwipo. Jeff and I ended up negotiating a reasonable fare with a taxi driver, and we took the ajuma with us.

After arriving in Seogwipo, checking in and resting a bit, we headed out for a tasty meal of Korean barbecued pork, known as galbi (Jeff) and bi bim bap (crazy veggies with rice and egg in a hot stone pot-- me) and then checked out Cheonjeyeon waterfall, which you see above. Pretty, no? The proprietor of our hostel was very helpful and generous with information and directions.

The next morning we headed out to the foot of the Seongpanak trail on Mt. Halla to begin our big climb. As you can see, the trail was very rough in places. Luckily, we are very tough. I was really feeling the itch to move fast (the trail to the summit closes at 12:30pm, the trail down closes at 2:00pm, and in pursuits such as mountain-climbing, it can be difficult not to go as fast as one can and still stay motivated). Lucky for me, Jeff gave me his blessing to go on ahead. I continued scrambling up the rocks as best I could. My goal was to make it to the summit by 1:30pm (we started the summit part of the trail at 12:25pm)...

and I'll be damned if I didn't reach the top at 1:27pm.

It was beautiful.

Jeff made it to the top a bit after I did, and promptly announced that he would never climb another mountain ever ever again. We had a little time to marvel at the mountaintop's crater lake but unfortunately we had to head back down at 2:00pm. We decided to take the Gwaneumsa trail back down since, at 8.7 KM, it was a bit shorter than Seongpanak's 9.6 KM and plus, it was a trail we hadn't yet seen. It turned out that the trail was much harder than the first (much steeper, and lots of ups and downs), and thus the climb down ended up being harder than the way up.


After a while, I was still feeling strong.

Jeff, on the other hand, needed a breather.

Eventually we made it down the mountain, all the way to where this picture was taken. Much sweating and cursing were involved. I had a great time, despite the rough spots (including a little spill that I took, which thankfully resulted in nothing more serious than a few scratches). Jeff thinks that maybe this was the hardest thing he's ever done. We went back to our hotel and chilled the heck out.


Sunday morning, it was already time to go, so we headed to the airport and hopped on our plane. Here is what the Island looked like from the plane.

And then there we were, descending back into Seoul.

It was a lovely mini-vacation. The Island was warm and laid back, and the people were very nice. In some ways it reminded me a little of Mexico. In conclusion, volcanoes are cool.