Previously La Dolce Vita, which documented my time spent living in Perugia, Italy, Restless Seoul will be my way of sharing my experiences in South Korea. Enjoy!
Monday, January 5, 2015
Vacation and Welcome to the New Year!
Happy New Year!! By the rules of South Korea's weird age policy, I am now technically considered 25 here while I'm still 23 in the USA. Being in the future really messes with timelines.
Anywho, after an intense week of Liar Game and Christmas and whatnot, I settled in for my one week of vacation before I start my Winter Camp. We get paid every month, and if we didn't have English Camp, we would be paid for basically doing nothing for an entire month. Hence, camp. They vary in length and such, but mine is three weeks with my time divided between high and low levels for eighty minutes each. So I only teach til noon, but I have to stay at school unless I want to use up literally all of my vacation days. No thanks.
My vacation consisted of a lot of relaxing. Tina and I were on vacation at the same time, but most of the other people I know weren't. Each school's camp is different, which includes timelines. Some people started right after Christmas and only have two weeks or whatever. So it's hard to coordinate things. Since we are planning a trip to Japan on our February break, we decided to keep it simple and cheap this week.
I last posted the 29th, and I had things in store for the next couple of days.
On Tuesday, we decided that we were going to Itaewon to the Wolfhound Pub. They have fish & chips as a two for one deal (or 1 + 1 as it's called here). Normally, Tina and I have Korean classes on Tuesday, but due to the new year we didn't. (Side note, we have missed 3 sessions due to the holidays - Tuesday is going to suck since I have slacked on practicing my Korean.) This was a good chance, so we decided to meet up with some friends to go get the deal.
Before fish, we needed friends. Furry friends. Four-legged furry friends.
Sarah, Tina, and I met up in Hapjeong to go to a dog cafe! I've been to cat cafes, but never a dog one. It was awesome! It's a bit rowdier than a cat cafe, but still really fun. Koreans are kind of scared of animals a lot, even littler dogs. Watching the dogs run the place was pretty fun. They're so cute! Here is a series of pictures of dogs:
His name is Namu (tree) and he was so cute.
Namu, pictured above, was one of those little dogs who thinks he is a big dog. He sat with us (Tina's lap, the bench leaning on me) for quite a while, and he would growl at the other dogs when we tried to give them treats. Silly puppy!
The dogs just come hang out for however long they choose (read: until someone elsewhere pulls out treats) and are usually pretty chill. Sometimes you just need to pet some dogs, ya know?
Again, the dogs just come chill for a while.
Ignore my derpy face for the cute puppy who came for noms
Two colors!! What a pretty husky
The dogs can just chill on the table. Sarah is swamped and stoked.
I think this one's breed is technically "Direwolf."
Pretty puppy!
I never could get a good angle on Sirius Black.
Puffy tail! This guy got swarmed so bad by all the big dogs that the employees had to come help.
HUUUUUGE puppy wants to sit too!
We had the big boys for a while.
He wants to eat at the table. He thinks he's people!
So then we went to Itaewon for fish and chips, and met up with some friends from my intake. I, shame to the millennials that I am, did not take a picture of my food. So here's one from the Wolfhoud website:
I was that excited about it that I forgot to take a picture. I don't usually go to Itaewon (it's inconvenient, expensive, and stereotypically where foreigners are expected to be, plus there were some shady incidents there recently) but when I do it's for awesome food.
Since literally everyone else had work the next day, even though it was New Year's Eve, Tina and I hung out and I finally got to do something I have been wanting to do since arrival: go to the Trick Eye Museum!
Basically the museum is a bunch of places to take pictures with different settings, and different optical illusions played. For some you have to rotate the photo after you take it, or there's a hidden platform, or the angle is what it's all about. Tina and I had so much fun with the poses!!
The whole point of the thing is taking pictures. And yet, some of the etiquette was so off. It wasn't too crowded, but the Korean mentality of "push first I'm more important than you" was still present and still grating. Other foreigners (Russian and Chinese, among others that I was interested to notice) were similarly annoying, especially when you have to back up to get the right shot and people won't move, or they walk in front of you. Seriously. What do you think I'm doing????
Anyway, here are lots of pictures of awesomeness.
I play Liar Game in real life.
Actual depiction of our relationship. Just kidding.
Rendezvous with flowers.
Levitating.
Tina showing off her skillz.
My Spiderman attempt.
"I'll hang the moon."
"I am not the same having seen the moon shine on the other side of the world."
Man the new Jurassic Park movie is weird.
One of the little swans
Ti voglio bene!
Tina is gonna kill me for these pictures, but here she is nom nom nom
And I kept calling her the Prettiest Panda Princess
Why am I always climbing down?
Kentucky Derbying it up
Tina and I got to realize our dreams of being jockeys.
Subtitle: Grad School
Tina looks like a much smoother escape artist
Kim Soo Hyun was here at some point.
Let the wine of friendship never run dry
Naps.
Stabby rip stab stab
A frothy brew
They were throwing some serious shade.
Tina ballerina
The Koreans were impressed
Pretty!
My Hamlet sweatshirt really makes the image.
Sometimes you nom. Sometimes you are the noms.
Hanging out
Hanging tight.
Look I really am an angel!
The bike had no seat. Balance skills.
Tina kept getting mad because I kept moving. But I love this photo.
The background is the Paris Opera House and I thought Tina was going to cry.
Over the shoulder smolder.
Killing Dracula! Some Korean guy took a picture of me to show his kid how to do it.
Grab all the money!
Running out of time!
Tina is pro at the scared face
This is my favorite photo.
To ruin the illusion on this one, you can see how I'm levitating.
Space. What's the big deal?
No gravity wahhhhhh
Hang in there!
Haha
Where is my love?
Just when we thought we were done and could exit, we had to go through a mirror maze. It was super trippy.
Our ticket to the Trick Eye Museum not only gets us a discount if we ever go in another country, but t also got us into the Ice Museum! It was super cold and definitely for kids, but it was really cool. So cool you could say it was ... Cold.
Penguin pals
Lookin reeeeeally comfortable
Nice touch with the fireplace I guess
Feels like home in NY haha
Angel
We are always angels
Helpin Santa
Fake icicles? Why?
Pretty crafty with the ice
On Dasher, on Dancer!
Crawling through the tunnels.
Clearly this is for children.
Wheeeeee! (This is the slowest slide ever)
that fire is keeping me warm...?
Devil side
Queen in the North!
"Thank you for being here today."
Driving around town.
It was an awesome day and an awesome end to the year. We got some wine and cheese and finished the first season of the Japanese version of Liar Game, then we got ready for the New Year!
It was weird being so far of my family and friends into the New Year. Also, again, Korean age is really weird so I'm adjusting to being 25. Ha!
To kick off 2015, we went to see a movie I have been really excited about seeing: Into the Woods!
Basic plot summary: The childless Baker and his wife want a child. However, they must enlist the witch who cursed the baker's family because his father stole from her. To break the curse, they need something from typical fairytales: Rapunzel (the Rapunzel backstory with the witch is here - the witch cares for Rapunzel and tries to keep her from the world, and she is the baker's sister although this never gets explored), Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, and Jack and the Beanstalk. The first act is all about wishes (the 15 minute opening song tells you all their wishes). Act 2 is basically a really heavy-handed "be careful what you wish for" scenario when everything starts to go wrong.
The all-star cast did not disappoint. The story, however, did, but this is my normal gripe with Into the Woods. The second act is supposed to start with everyone having their wishes fulfilled happily, only to start feeling some discontent now that their wishes came true. But they cut the song from the movie, so it abruptly went from wish fulfilled but no time to enjoy it NOW EVERYTHING GOES TO SHIT.
They also cut some of my favorite songs, like Agony (reprise) and No More.
But even with the normal musical, I find the character motivations lacking, and I think Sondheim does a lot more telling than showing in his shows.
There is not one song in the show that I dislike. But, much like Dracula, the plot just does not match the music.
Still, it was really fun, and I have been singing the songs since then.
Here are some of my favorites:
Agony - easily the best song in the show, to me. It takes the idea that the princes in every fairy tale turn out to be two brothers, just in every different story. They have encountered Cinderella and Rapunzel and try to outdo each other with how much their lives suck. Chris Pine is Cinderella's Prince, and Billy Magnussen and is Rapunzel's Prince. They kill it.
Agony Reprise - Cut from the movie, but when the princes become discontent with their wives (who are also realizing that their happy is not so ever after) and they encounter Sleeping Beauty. Hilarious.
Stay With Me - Meryl Streep is awesome. When Rapunzel's fling with the prince is found out by her mother/the witch, this song comes up. It's so beautiful about the witch trying to protect Rapunzel, and it gives a lot of dimension to the normally terrible witch trope. My favorite line: "Princes wait there in the world, it's true. / Princes, yes, but wolves and humans, too." Then she gets to be the baddie again.
Giants in the Sky - When Jack comes back down from the beanstalk the first time, he has learned a lot. I like the slower parts of this song better than the fast narrative part, but this song is always stuck in my head. This one is the kid who played Gavroche in Les Mis.
No One is Alone - Cinderella and the Baker operate as the moral compass of this part as they, along with Little Red Riding Hood and Jack, prepare to kill the giant that has come for vengeance against the village for killing the first giant. Anna Kendrick is basically my queen and I love her. I love this song. It's one of my top picks from the show.
Moments in the Woods - The Baker's Wife has a fling with Cinderella's prince then sings this song. Then she's all like omg we need to stop being in the woods it makes people crazy. Emily Blunt is awesome.
That's all for now!
I'm off to watch I Hear Your Voice - A drama with my boy Lee Jung Suk (from Pinocchio) as a "noona killer" (noona = older sister if you're a boy, but can seem to be used just like oppa, older brother if you're a girl, in that it can be a term of endearment too) high school student who can hear people's thoughts. I started watching over break, so now it's time to keep watching!
Camp is hard. planning for two 80 minute lessons is exhausting. But I will endure!
No comments:
Post a Comment