Love: A Tribute

I loved you.
I miss you.
I remember all of the fun we had together.

You've been around the world with me.
You meant so much to me.
And now we must learn to be apart.

But I do not need you.
I am learning you are not as important
as I once thought you to be.

But I will always love you.



A Poem for My Phone.
<3 RIP

Let's talk about terrifying ways to wake up.

There is something that goes on here that I still have not yet gotten used to. Men in trucks sometimes drive around my neighborhood and use loud speakers to advertise things that they are selling.

As a foreigner that does not speak Korean, the first time/s that I heard this, I assumed the man was saying "The end is here. It's happening. The North has attacked. Make your way to your embassy Kristen, say goodbye to your loved ones". I pictured some police officers walking around the roads making important announcements.

I didn't figure out that the noises were vendors until about a week after I got here and I didn't know they were coming from trucks until yesterday. All these men are doing is trying to get people to come buy things from them, so in reality they're probably saying "Super cheap prices. Come buy some fruit."

Culture shock.

 

(When watching this example video, close your eyes and just listen and maybe you can understand how weird it is if you have no idea what's going on and can only hear them from your apartment." It's much less scary and strange when you can actually see the oranges in the video.)

I forgot what silence and fresh air was.

I feel like several times in my recent posts I've said "Yesterday was one of the best days I've had since moving" but ummm..... yesterday was kind of one of the best days I've had since moving. Two of my coworkers, Andrea and Katy, invited me to go with them to Nami Island on Saturday and it was so beautiful. Lots of pictures, but first, a background.

Nami Island is a tiny island in Chuncheon, Korea that declared itself an independent country in 2006. They have their own currency and you have to go through immigration as well as purchase an entry visa before getting on the ferry to go there. I love how crazy this sounds and I look forward to declaring my independence one day and setting up an immigration booth outside of my house. I consider my trip to Nami Island to be research for the Republic of Kristen. (I would name my pretend country the Democratic Republic of Kristen but it will not be a democracy. I will be queen.) Here are my findings....

Nami Island was a pain in the butt to get to because it meant a long trip on the metro with lots of transfers but I'm still in foreigner-awe of the scenary that the metro takes you through so it wasn't that bad. We were able to see a lot of the country-side that I hadn't seen yet since being here. Katy pointed out that the mounds that we kept passing on the hills were actually graves that families who live on farms bury their loved ones. This is definitely a part of Korean culture that you couldn't see in the city.

An example of the raised-ground graves in the countryside.
Photo from Google Image search.

There were many, many line transfers. One particular line that we transferred to HAS to be the most populated line I've been on since getting here. Whenever TONS of people would get on, I kept reminding Andrea and Katy to protect our foreigner bubble because nobody wanted to get too close to us since we're different so we would expand a little when people got on so that we could have a little space while everyone else was squished. Score 1 for the foreigners.

The trip took about 2 hours in total but we finally arrived. We all commented about how weird our ears felt after getting outside of the station and decided it was because there was silence. Living in a big city, there is no escape from the noise of cars outside, honking, sirens, businesses using megaphones to advertise, etc and even in our apartments there's the constant humming on the refrigerators plus the super thin walls so we always know what our neighbors are up to. It is not an exaggeration to say that our ears had to adjust to the silence. We got into a cab and were on our way.

After a very short drive, we arrived at the dock. By dock I mean huge parking lot with lots of restaurants and a zip line (???) where the ferries came and went to and from the island. As I mentioned, before getting on the ferry you had to buy an entry visa and go through immigration.

Crowd at Immigration

You are now leaving Korea... kind of.

Entry gate to the dock.

After the easiest customs experience of my life, (PLEASE sense my sarcasm.. I think it's absolutely hilarious that this place considers itself a country) we got onto the ferry that would take us to the island. The boat had a bunch of flags all over it. I love flags!

Andrea repping the motherland.

Unfortunately Katy & I had no such flag with which to rep.

View of the island from the ferry as well as the zip line that you could also take as an alternative transportation option. The two little dots in the sky are people that chose this faster, much colder option.

We arrived on the island and spent the rest of the afternoon walking around, seeing all of it. I love places that you can see in a day and really feel like you've had the full experience. Nami Island is definitely one of those places since its so small.

First picture on the island.

Igloo <3 Love it. This was before Andrea walked over to touch it, examining its authenticity.

Oh Christmas tree
Oh Christmas tree
Oh Koreans
its FEBRUARYYYYY

There were fire pits all over the island which was SO NICE because it was freezing and the ground was covered in ice so your shoes would become iceboxes and make you want to die. I sound like I'm exaggerating but these are my feelings.

We went inside of the Nami bank that was located right at the port where the ferry lets you off to check it out and see if we could get some of the currency. Once we were inside, we were told that we could use the Nami currency or our Korean currency on the island. There were only 2 coins that you could get so if you chose to actually play along and use their currency it seems like it would be a pain. We each paid W1,000 for a 1,000 Nami (Won? Dollar? I don't know...) coin. I figured it would be a good enough souvenir and I wouldn't feel the need to get anything else. Conveniently, the Won and Nami coins have no exchange rate so we didn't lose any money in the exchange. How very independent of them.

I only bought a 1000 coin. The coin on the left is to show the perspective of how big the Nami coin was. (The Korean W100 coin on the left is about the size of a US quarter.)

I think I want to use it to make a necklace instead of just storing it somewhere as a random coin.

In the same building there was a little area where we could stamp our visas. I should not be given such power.

Little stamp in the middle of my visa.

...because it would not fit on the back of my visa after I used all of the other stamps available to me.

After leaving the bank we made our way over to some statues we saw on the way to the large map that would tell us which direction to start walking.

I decided these were fertility statues and made the executive decision to not get any closer so as to not catch their disease/fertility blessing.

Nailed it.

(Before taking the prior picture, I tried to steal one of the statues sticks to really be as authentic a model as possible and then I realized that my statue friend needed both sticks otherwise either stick would fall out since the hole in his hand was too big to hold just one. This is me discreetly trying to put the sticks back undetected.)

I should have traded with Katy. She had no such difficulty.

We're so good at this.

We chose a path and started walking. Everything was so beautiful and the silence + fresh air/the lack of smog was such a nice change.

I really didn't understand Nami Island's "other countries" theme but I was into it.

Yay! But Katy and I did not approve of the landmarks that were used on the US board. The New York skyline should have at least been replaced by the Statue of Liberty. Come on now...

Frozen water in the background.

I found a hut I could fit into and made myself at home.

But then the locals tried to set me on fire.

Another bank.

This little boy was SCREAMING and crying and his dad was like running away from him.. which I found to be hilarious so I took this picture.

We went inside of a little UNICEF building and we think that UNICEF had a temporary exhibit or something going on because the logo was everywhere on the island.

A cool little tree with pictures of children as ornaments.

Letters to UNICEF children from Korean children.

Collection box with currency from different countries in it.

After we were warm again we were ready to make our way back outside to see the rest of the island.

Also, I'm Egyptian.

Loved these wooden carvings!

We saw ugly birds over here and obviously needed to investigate further.

God bless them for waking up every morning with the courage to be so hideous.

This particular duck/goose/monster was a jerk.

...and tried to eat this small child's snack. But me & Katy saved the child by forming a barrier between monster and child.

**************ATTENTION LITTLE COUSINS: THE BELOW PHOTOS ARE INAPPROPRIATE FOR YOUR DELICATE LITTLE INNOCENT EYES except they're also hilarious so its okay, never mind, go ahead and keep reading........

I've come to the conclusion that Nami Island is obsessed with boobies.

I tried to get a picture from every angle to try and understand.

You can't tell because the lighting is not favorable but this little statue is most definitely not Jewish, which I also found to be hilarious.

Okay, that's enough. Time to say goodbye now.

Never mind. Gotta come back. Didn't notice the baby drinking from the over the shoulder boob.

Awwww Nami love.

Super tall Sequoia trees that lined the paths. You could literally smell the trees. My system was in shock.

I, for one, am always wary of killer ice fish, and I appreciate Nami Island for spreading awareness.

There were ice sculptures all over the island. It seems like the type of place that really takes advantage of the seasons. I can't wait to see what it looks like in the Fall.

Once we made the full lap around the island, we were ready to get on the ferry and head back. We waited by a fire pit to warm up before it came.

Then all of a sudden it was like a mad rush to the dock to catch the ferry even though it hadn't even left yet to justify everyone freaking out. But whatever we made our foreigner bubble in the crowd on the dock and waited with everyone else.

Huge crowd.

No boat.

Once we were on the boat we were getting super excited about dinner. I had mentioned to Andrea that I had never had Dak galbi before and that was the whole point of coming to Nami Island since it originated here. The dish is supposed to be AMAZING right by the docks and we were definitely ready to eat by the end of the day.

This little girl was TERRIFIED of sitting next to Andrea on the ferry, another dark thing I found to be hilarious on this day. She totally knew I took this picture of her. Old enough to notice, not old enough to snitch on me to her parents. Haha small child.

Only some of the many Dak Galbi restaurant options in the dock parking lot.

We ended up in this little place with these super roomy benches (that were awkwardly far away from the table)

Andrea reading the menu to see if we could order drinks. I'm so impressed by people that can read the Hangul alphabet and I REALLY need to learn how to do this.

They came and dropped a platter of cabbage and chicken on the hot plate and would come by to stir it occasionally.

This is what it looks like when its all finished. AMAZING MEAL!

Getting home was quite an adventure. Since we were so far outside of the city, a couple of the trains had a 20 minute wait before they would arrive.

The cab driver that dropped us off at the metro was watching a TV on the dashboard. Because that's safe.

A nice sign at the first metro stop that reminded riders half way down "Warning: Stairs ahead"

This metro stop was also built over a tomb, which I find to be extremely creepy and wanted to stay as far away from the display as possible.

Probably the most empty metro car I'll see all year.

We made it to our first transfer where we had another 20 minute wait. Korea is COLD at night once the sun goes down so we made our way into a convenience store in the metro so that we could be warm. Every 5 minutes we would buy something so that the owners wouldn't get too annoyed by us. I wanted to head to the bathroom one last time since I knew we were going to be on the train for a while so we headed to the restrooms and passed a "Waiting room" and were annoyed with ourselves/laughing at how stupid we are for not noticing this room and waiting inside of the store. 

As soon as Katy and Andrea left the bathroom they shouted "Kristen! Train in 2 minutes!" so I shouted back "OK COMING!"

Andrea: "KRISTEN ITS HERE!"

Kristen: *pants down* "AHHHHHH I'M COMING I'M COMING!"

Andrea: "HURRY!"

Kristen: "JUST GO! GO!"

*doesn't flush, doesn't put belt on, runs out of bathroom*

*runs through metro, gets rejected by machine, hops over machine*

*heads downstairs to track*

Andrea & Katy: "KRISTEN!"

Kristen: *looks around, sees no one. Looks across the track, sees Katy and Andrea*

*Train arrives*

Kristen: *Runs up 3 flights of stairs. Runs across walkway. Runs down 3 flights of stairs*

*Belt falls off, hold belt in hand*

*Sees Andrea and Katy holding metro door open*

*Runs inside of metro car, panting, holds up belt, all laugh hysterically*

We made it back to our station and decided to head to a Makeoli (rice wine) bar to have one last stop before heading home.

Mmmmm Strawberry Makeoli

It was such a great day and I was happy they invited me. I can't wait to go back. It's yet another place I look forward to bringing my parents when they come visit. 

Speaking of my parents, this is my new winter jacket that makes me think of my dad when I wear it because it looks crazy similar to one of his. I can't escape things that remind me of home, even from across the world. I just can't get away from you people :-P