The End of a Wonderful Adventure

Today is our last day in Korea. Neither one of us can believe how super fast it has gone. As with leaving any place, it is sad to say good-bye one last time to friends, favorite spots, and our home for the past year. We are eating our favorite meals one last time, taking one last walk in Olympic Park, and loading up on our favorite Korean snacks. We really enjoy Korean and will miss this beautiful country and all the wonderful people.

Here are a few other things we will miss about Korea:
-Seeing mountains on the way to work
-Tiny vans that have a frame much smaller than a car
-Being able to buy anything you need and only having to walk about 1 minute to get it
-Buying our fruit off the street
-Getting so many sides at a meal
-"Service" items (this means all the stuff they always give you that is free)
-Fun things taped onto your grocery items for free
-Loading into the subway like a can of sardines
-Face masks and "darth" ajima visors
-Getting the feeling that everyone is so generous, kind, and willing to help you
-Babies and children awake and playing in the park at 11:00 at night
-Bowing to everyone (that's going to be a hard habit to kick)
-Hearing "Teacher!" in a whinny voice all day long
-Being woken up on Saturday mornings by a blue truck with a loud speaker selling fruit, fish, or appliances
-Doing a lot of shopping in the subway

This is only a short list, and actually while I started in the morning we have had an insanely busy day and I'm not sure if it is finished. Tomorrow morning early, as our flights always seem to be, we will be traveling to Vietnam for a week before returning to the States. We'll have to post a thoughtful reflection of our time after we return. It is so sad to leave this place, but we also look forward to the adventures ahead.

Time Keeps on Slipping

We apologize for our lack of timely posts recently. Time is flying by here. Each week rushes past as our time in Korea grows shorter. We have been extremely busy this past month figuring out what our plans will be for when we return to the States. Through a path of surprising coincidences and events, that could be nothing less than God directing our future, we now have a plan. Matt will be attending Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Northern Chicago. Eileen will be teaching at Child's Voice School, a private school for children who are deaf or hard of hearing and are learning to listen and talk. She will be teaching preschool. Now we are just trying to get all the little details settled to try and make the transition as smooth as possible (right...).

While we are excited to be returning to our families and a familiar culture, it seems that things are falling more and more into place here. Our friendships are becoming strengthened and we are realizing more and more the beauty that is all around us. There's not a good chance we'll ever live in a place again where we can walk home with a lush green park (think Central Park) on one side and huge, beautiful, green mountains rising up in the distance. Matt is finally enjoying kimchi in all its wonderful cabbageness. The cultural things that were once hard to get over have fallen into the pace of everyday life. We also used to feel this huge urge or need to get Western food on the weekends, and now we go out for Korean all the time. This is a wonderful, beautiful place full of the quirks that every place in the world has, and we enjoy it.

Besides plans for the next year, not too much else is new. We spent last Saturday morning at one of the palaces in Seoul, 경복궁(Gyeongbokgung), with our friend Mark taking pictures in our 한복 (hanbok which is traditional Korean clothing).

He did an amazing job and it was much like a wedding photo shoot with over 750 pictures. We also got a lot of pictures with school girls and other Asian tourists who thought we were quite a sight. It was a lot of fun.

Later that day we also got to experience the modern Korean wedding in all of its strangeness to the Western eye. When watching you would say that someone watched too many Western wedding movies when they came up this idea. We were unable to see the traditional Korean ceremony as I think only the family gets to see it. The weddings are held all day at a wedding hall, with a different one every hour. You just have to wait for your wedding to come up on the screen. There are lots of flashy lights and loud music (like pop music). During the ceremony they do things like cut a cake. They don't cut a piece out, nor is cake ever served. It is just sliced into with a sword of a knife, and that 's it. Also, one person is chosen to catch the bouquet which is thrown for a picture only. After the quick ceremony, you head to a meal. All guests from all the weddings eat together. We ate a very nice (though very Korean) buffet. We felt honored to be invited and it was a fun afternoon and cultural experience.

Posing with the bride and some wonderful co-workers and friends. (I look like a giant.)

At the buffet. And yes that is a baby octopus on that fork.

The Adventure Continues

Our lives here in Korea have been so busy it has been hard to update and so much has happened. We have less than 3 months and time is going so fast! An overview of some events that have happened recently:

Korean Hot Springs/Bath House

At the beginning of April, I (Eileen) traveled to a city near Seoul with three other great girls from work to have a Korean bath house experience. We had a great time checking out the town and the pottery that it is known for. The bath house was a fun, but new experience. As with most traditional bath houses, it is nude and separated by sex. It took us a little while to become comfortable but we had a good time trying all the different kinds of baths: herb, fruit, charcoal, herb, mud, hot, cold, etc. It was sooo relaxing and I wish that western culture was more comfortable with that kind of experience. I would definitely do it again.

Mountain Climbing
Laura, a friend from work, and I (Eileen) decided to climb Bukhansan, a mountain range just north of Seoul. She had climbed about 6 others and this was to be my first. It was quite a challenge for my first mountain. We trekked out with just about half of Seoul. (Mountain climbing is one of the favorite pastimes here as the whole country is basically mountains.)
It was beautiful as the weather was perfect, everything was turning green, and all of the cherry blossoms and azaleas were in full bloom. The top was quite scary and the climb strenuous, but the views were worth it. Korea is an absolutely beautiful country and has wonderful mountains. We also made a Korean friend at the top who shared with us his traditional rice wine. It seems pretty customary to bring alcohol up with you to enjoy at the top. We also got to visit a few temples that are along the mountain side where there a number of monks living.

Cherry Blossoms
These flowers are so beautiful and Seoul is full of them. We took a boat cruise down the Han River and landed on an island called Yeoido which is known for its cherry blossoms. While the flowers were beautiful, there was also thousands of other people there too which led to a bit of frustrating walk. However, we did get to visit Yeoido Full Gospel Church which is the biggest church, membership wise, in the world.

Buddha's Birthday
There is a huge celebration downtown for Buddha's birthday. We traveled to the Insadong area to make lotus lanterns, see the decorated temple, and participate in Korean culture. Later that night we watched the famous Lotus Lantern Parade. This is the equivalent of Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade but with lantern floats instead of balloons. It was the biggest parade any of us had been too. Since it takes place at night, the floats looked amazing. We have never seen so many lanterns.

Beijing, China
Just this past week we took a 5 day vacation to Beijing. We had a good time and were able to see all of the big sites. Apart from being scammed by a taxi driver when we first arrived, we met some great people and enjoyed our trip. We stayed in a small hotel that was set back in a traditional neighborhood that was less than a 10 minute walk to Tienanmen Square and the Forbidden City. The location couldn't have been better. The Forbidden City was quite impressive and expansive. We really enjoyed climbing the Great Wall. It is one place that neither of us thought we would ever see. Eileen really enjoyed the summer palace and thinks that we should move in. The food was nothing but amazing. We kept wondering why Korean food couldn't taste like that.
We also made some friends there and met people from all over the world. It is weird when you hear their stories and find them amazing only to realize that you yourself are living in Asia and are traveling throughout the world. Crazy. One friendship that we really enjoyed was with a Chinese man named David. We enjoyed a few nights sitting on his shop's front steps, listening, sharing stories, and enjoying our Chinese experience. He is a calligrapher and professor and made us some beautiful and personal calligraphy that we are sure to hang up in our home. If anyone is ever in Beijing we recommend that you go and meet David, for some good recommendations, an honest opinion, a good conversation, some beautiful calligraphy, or just to make a new friend. He runs a shop on the East side of the Forbidden City called Chinese Embroidery. If you take the small street that runs up the East side of the Forbidden City you will find a small shop on the left side of the road with a pink sign that comes as you get close to, but before, the East gate. His conversations might be one of the things that we remember the most from the trip.

From all of our experiences in China, we learned one thing: WE LOVE KOREA! You don't realize things like that until you can step out of it and view it from another angle. We didn't realize how developed, clean, and friendly Korea is, and how comfortable we feel here. It is nice to hear a language that you at least know a little of and can read. Koreans also put English on a lot more things that we realized, which is super helpful. In China we felt like everyone viewed us as money and we always had to be wary that someone was trying to get our money or sell us something. I'm sure this is related to it being a touristy city, and I'm sure that not all of China is like that, but you don't really get that in Seoul. We are never worried about being ripped off here. There are so many little things that we appreciate a lot more now that we are back. China has a lot of well known sights, but it was surprising to us that almost everything was rebuilt. Hardly anything ancient was still standing. Also, there were hardly any cultural artifacts as most had been destroyed. Korea has many ancient palaces and temples that have been well taken care of and many pieces of their history still intact. We wish more people around the world took an interest in Korean culture. This place really feels like home much more than we had realized (though we still love and miss America). There was such a comfort coming back to Seoul. 우리는 한국을 사랑한다!

Is it spring yet??

There is not too much new in the life of the Brankatelli's. This is mostly a post to for the sake of a post to say that we are alive and well. The weeks are just flying by! We have been here for almost 8 months and have less than 4 left. School is keeping us busy but we are enjoying that we have fallen into the pace of life here. We are desperately waiting for it to get warm. We are tired of wearing winter coats and spring keeps feeling like it is just around the corner. The trees all have buds and the dogwoods and cherry blossoms are all abloom.

We had an interesting experience a couple of nights ago when we went to a cafe and were able to experience Dr. Fish. This is where you put your feet and legs into a tank of water with tons of these little fish that come and eat off all the dead skin and bad stuff off your legs. Eileen laughed hysterically for the first couple of minutes. (It might be one of the most ticklish experiences ever). Matt did not enjoy the fish and found them too ticklish although he enjoyed having his hands and heels bitten. It is a pretty funny feeling with all their little mouths biting at your feet and legs. We were able to go with some of the of the Korean and foreign staff, and had a great time overall.

A New School Year

Sorry it has been so long since we have posted. February and the beginning of March have been quite busy. We have been finishing up one school year and beginning a new one at the start of March. It was a little sad to see some of our classes go, but exciting to get new students. It was strange how Matt's students were in kindergarten on Friday, going to school from 9:30 - 1:30. And on Monday they began going to their Korean Elementary schools and then coming to our program in the afternoons. They are so tired! It is a much longer day. Here is a picture of Matt and his graduating preschoolers. Below that is a picture of the parents at graduation. The cultural expectations for an audience here are very, very different than at home.
Eileen's preschoolers are all still around in kindergarten and Matt teachers some of them. Eileen has whole new classes of students who don't speak English...well a few speak English.
Eileen's perspective:
Since we are an immersion program, there is no Korean spoke in the classrooms. However, this is super hard to convey to a small child who doesn't speak English. In my homeroom, the students are starting to recognize that they need to speak English, however, when they really want to talk to their friends or tell someone something they go straight to Korean. My co-kindergarten class is a whole other story. I think it is the class that speaks Korean the most. I have a handful of students who speak Korean all the time and still haven't figured out that I don't speak it. I feel bad when I can tell they are trying to tell me something and I just have no clue or have to guess how to handle it from the context. It is also a very rowdy class, though I'm not sure if that corresponds with their lower English abilities. However, even within the first two weeks they are already gaining some language.
Another interesting story from this week: I have a student who is colorblind. As we have been focusing on colors this week (poor kid) I noticed that he had colored the green picture brown and that all his pictures look like trippy psychedelic worlds as may of the colors are off. My Korean teacher and I tested him and found that yes he is indeed colorblind. It is interesting trying to tell him he is using the wrong color and this color is in fact green, especially when he has very few English words. Since his biggest trouble comes with brown and green, it is a little funny to see pictures full of trees, flowers, and grass that all look dead.

We are enjoying a shorter schedule at work and are excited to see the sun on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Now we are just waiting for it to warm up!

One last cultural experience that has occurred in the past month or so, is our purchasing of hanbok. Hanbok is traditional Korean clothing. Eileen has gotten the skirt and top tailor made (as she is bigger than the "maximum" size) as a birthday present, along with shoes and an ayam, or traditional head covering. We plan on taking our clothes out this spring and taking pictures at the some of the Seoul palaces.

Hooray for Korean Health Care!

While things like groceries and gas may cost a small fortune here, health care does not! We have heard stories about how much one can end up paying for health care in America and have been through many annoying insurance issues that go along with trying to get anything covered. This past week I, Eileen, walked into an orthopedic surgeon here in Seoul for a wrist that was hurt snowboarding and just won't heal. First of all this guy is in a nice area and treats all of the famous baseball players in Korea. (Baseball is HUGE here.) He has signed jersey's and pictures, coffee tables full of signed baseballs, and pictures with famous Koreans. I was able to get in to see him, get X-rays of my wrist, and get a half hour of physical therapy for...(drum roll please...) 7, 700 won. When I convert that it is about $5.57. The next day I went back for physical therapy and it cost about $1.60. Amazing! He, and some of his staff, even spoke English. Just wanted to share one of the little perks we have found about living in Korea.

Here are some videos that go with our last post. The first one is a video which perhaps might only be funny to us. We found this weird underground entertainment/mall place and there were these creepy animals you could ride. Matt paid for a ride. Notice how people either stare or pretend not to notice the white man on the large cat that is in their way.


These next two videos are of traditional Korean dancing called pungmul. Most of the dancers are playing a drum or some other percussion instrument. There is also one performer in the back playing some sort of horn. They are wearing hats called . This was a dance that originated in the rural countryside.





This is a video of a tightrope walker who was performing with the dancers in the video above. He went back and forth many times and had no net or spotter. Many times he would dance and jump as he went across.

새해 복 많이 받으세요!

Sae hae bok manee badusaeyo! Happy Lunar New Year! We have spent the past weekend exploring the Korean holdiay of Lunar New Year. Last Thursday and Friday our parents came to school and watched us teach. Our kids also came dressed in hanbok, traditional Korean clothes. They had to bow to us, the directors, and later also to their parents. We gave them both money and a blessing. It would have been interesting to understand what each of the parents said to the kids. We also played games like Korean hopscotch, arm wrestling, and yut nori. Yut nori is a popular game, which we plan on buying, where you throw four sticks and get points to move around the board. There are ways to overtake other players and to take short cuts to win. This is a picture of Matt throwing the sticks while playing yut nori outside this past weekend.

On Saturday we traveled to the more traditional district of Seoul called Insadong. There we explored a park, window shopped some, and tried to stay warm. The windchill was below 10 degrees Fahrenheit I think. We did end up finding some hanbok that fit Matt! We had wanted to buy some but, being hand-made from silk, they are pretty expensive. This one was the only one like it, the right size, and super on sale! Now we are in search of hanbok for Eileen.

On Sunday we hoped that everyone would be with their families so we traveled to one of the ski parks near Seoul. While it was a little busy, we are guessing that it is nowhere near what it is normally like during a weekend. Eileen tried snowboarding for the first time and did pretty well. She then switched to skis later on and we had a lot of fun trying out different slopes. It was not a very big place, although some of the runs were a little longer, which was nice. The ski boots were the most simple boots we had ever seen and thought that was funny because the skis were nice shaped skis. There were a few interesting differences between our ski resorts. There were no maps for us to follow. Each chair just had labeled what kind of run was most likely on the other side. Luckily, that was also listed in English. There were mirrors at both the bottom and top of the hill so you can make sure that you still look good all the time. Once you were about to get on the ski lift, there was a little moving walkway thing that moved you until the chair came under you. We also found that they shut down the ski slopes from 5 to 6:30. To ski after 6:30 it cost a lot more money. However, we also found out that after we stopped skiing at 5 we couldn't go home until 10:30. We hung out in the "lodge" (there was no fireplace or hominess about it) and then ended up finding this large, kinda freaky, underground mall run by the ski resort.

Finally, we spent the actual day of Lunar New Year, Monday, at the Namsangol Traditional Korean Village in Seoul. Here we got to play lots of traditional games like yut nori (a board game), nurtwigi (seesaw), throwing arrows, bean bag toss, stick and hoop game, kite flying, and jaegi chagi (hacky sack). We watched a cool performance of traditional dancing and musicians. We also watched a tightrope walker. We saw traditional food being made and other traditions that go along with the holiday. We had a very fun and very cold day trying lots of Lunar New Year experiences. See our pictures to check out what else we saw. Also, below, I am going to post videos that go along with this post so that you can see all that we saw. Enjoy!

Snow in Seoul!

This week we finally got a little taste of what we think of as winter. It has just been pretty cold and dry but on Friday we got fluffy white snow. While it seemed to snow for a long time, the result was what maybe could be considered an inch of snow. Either way the kids, and us, were super excited. It was very pretty. By Saturday it had been melted, been packed down, and refrozen to a make a nice layer of ice that was pretty fun to navigate. You realize that when your main mode of transportation is walking, the weather affects you a lot more.
Other than that, life is pretty much back to its normal routine. We are happy to say that our Korean dinning experiences are increasing and we are finding more and more Korean food that we can enjoy. I guess it just takes a while to get over the intimidation factor of food that looks different, a menu in a language you don't speak, and a set-up that is a bit unfamiliar. We have favorite spots and even discovered that our favorite mushroom place actually also has the best pork galbi (a marinated piece of pork that is grilled at your table) that we have eaten. As far as our teeth go, while we don't understand all of what happened to us in our initial dentist visits or in our follow up appointments, our mouths feel great and our teeth look good. Korea is treating us well.

Korean Dentistry: Hi-tech in appearance, Medieval in practice

We have recently had the pleasure of visiting the dentist here two different times. We were excited when hearing from others that the price was super cheap here compared to what it can be in the States. We found a dentist office where the dentist spoke some English, although no one else did, and went to have our teeth "cleaned". When we first went in the took some high tech 360 (or would that be 180?) pictures of our teeth. When we were lead back to the dentist's chair, we were able to view our X-rays on a flat monitor that was mounted in front of us. He explored our mouths using a small camera, and pictures of problem teeth could be seen on the screen. It is kind of weird actually seeing a big blow-up of your own cavity. While they wanted to wait to fillings and such done for another time we still wanted to get them cleaned. We should have been tipped off that cleaning here is called "scaling".
We were a little worried that none of the dental hygienists, nor the dentist, wore gloves. Also, none of the tools had little plastic covers like they do here. I know they are very communal about food sharing and I am still wondering if the same thing applies to dental tools. Before the "scaled" our teeth, they covered our faces with a big green cloth. There is only a whole for your nose and mouth. While maybe this was supposed to be nice that we couldn't watch, it made me a little nervous not being able to see what was going on. I am guessing it is there because Korean's are very protective of their faces. If a kid gets a scratch on his face he'll be wearing a bandage for the next two months so as to not leave any scars. As we were blind to what was going on, they started in on one of the most painful dental procedures we have ever had. Instead of cleaning with a tooth brush, they grind away the plaque with a drill like thing (I could only hear and feel it, not see it). It also appeared to be too bad if your gums happened to get in the way of the grinding machine. We will not be doing that again and our teeth can wait for America to be clean.
This past weekend we were aided by our super awesome Korean friend Eula as we traveled to her dentist to see if we couldn't have some better work done. While it was much smoother it wouldn't have been so if Eula hadn't translated everything. Eileen got a cavity filled and to keep the tooth separate they used something called a dental dam (we only know this now because we searched it online.) Here is a picture of what one looks like:
While I am sure it helps to keep the tooth dry, it is a little uncomfortable to have this metal and rubber apparatus across your face for 30 minutes or so. They also had to stick us both multiple times with Novocaine. I have never had to be stuck so many times before! All of our procedures were again done with no rubber gloves, although we did witness the dentist scrubbing in. As it is the day after, we are feeling much better...that is until we have to return again next Saturday. South Korean dentistry: cheap and a cultural experience that we will not miss.

Holiday in Cambodia

Well, not really Cambodia, but the same general part of the world so to speak. (If you don't get it look up the Dead Kennedys.) We just got back from a 9 day vacation around southeast Asia. It was a wonderful break and was really relaxing. We never had to wear long pants or long sleeves and got plenty of wonderful sun. (A little too much sun on a day near the end). We began our trip in Singapore. We left on Christmas Eve. We had to get up around 5 in the morning to make the trek to the bus stop to get to the airport which is over an hour away. We traveled on Singapore Airlines which was by far the nicest airplane I have ever traveled in. It was so nice, and it was even decorated for Christmas. Once in Singapore we traveled through the city by light rail to our hotel which was near Little India. The thing that suprised us the most about Singapore was how different it felt from Seoul. I always thought that being a city state on an island, it would be super built up. There was so much green and the buildings were so many warm colors. In some ways it reminded us of Florida (though a very southeast Asian Florida). It felt so much less congested and relaxed. We had a great time exploring the area we were in until downpours put a little damper on our evening excursion plans. We wish we could have spent more time there.
Very early the next morning we got up and traveled to the train station. We then took a train through the Malaysian countryside up to Singapore. We kept making jokes that we were back in central America. It looked so similar. The housing in the poorer rural areas was similar to things we had seen there. There were palm trees everywhere! Forests of palm trees! We also came upon forests of what I suspected, and later confirmed, were rubber trees. It was nice to get to see parts of Malaysia that we would not have gotten to see in the city. We ended our ride in Kuala Lumpur and traveled through the city (after much confusion becuase they don't give you a visa stamp when coming in my train) to our hotel near the Petronas towers.
We spent about a day in Kuala Lumpur and enjoyed the breaks in the weather when it was not raining. At this point it was Christmas day but it did not feel like it at all. It was hot and humid and we even went swimming under the stars on Christmas night. The Petronas towers were one of the most beautiful pieces of architecture I have ever seen. I loved them! From there we traveled again to a little tiny airport. It was the kind of airport where the baggage claim sign was a piece of paper taped to a door that lead out to the tarmac. We flew on Firefly Airlines, a domestic carrier that flies only turbo prop planes. I was a little nervous about flying in something small with propellers and it didn't help that they sat me in the seat where the propeller was only a few feet away from my window. However, it was one of the smoothest flights I have ever had and for around $30 a ticket, I can't complain. They even gave us food and refreshments!
We spent the next few days on the island of Penang in Malaysia. It is right near the Thai/Malaysia border on the western side. Our hotel was wonderful and the wall of windows in our hotel room gave us a panoramic view of the ocean and the distant mainland with mountains. We spent a lot of time exploring the city and its ethnic diversity. We especially enjoyed the Indian culture and had some of the best and most authentic Indian food of our lives. (Most people were eating with their hands from their banana leaf plate. As foreigners, they offered us utensils.)We explored many shrines and temples and relaxed and drank coconut juice from coconuts while watching the waves. We had delicious food and fun experiences finding our selves the only white foreigners in many areas (not like that doesn't happen all the time here in Korea). We really enjoyed the ethnic diversity of Malaysia which is something we really miss here.
We then traveled by Firefly/turboprop plane, to the island of Phuket in Thailand. This was a beautiful tropical island where, after much traveling, or only activities were to consist of sitting on the beach and enjoying a good book. We had a very relaxing time. I really enjoyed swimming with all kinds of tropical fish right off the beach. It was a great experience. We were suprised to find ourselves the only people speaking English even though everyone looked western. It appears that Penang is a hot spot for Scandanavians and Europeans. There were lots of big people with blond hair. Our resort was great and was on a hill between two beaches. We were surrounded by mountains and had a great view of the ocean on two sides. We also ate a lot of delicious Thai food. Since one of Matt's favorite dishes is curry, we ate our fair share, and it was so cheap! Our last day there was New Year's Eve. Since our flight didn't leave until 2 am on New Year's Day, we spent our last night at a New Year's Eve Gala hosted by our hotel. We ate lobster and other delicious food while watching hours of Thai dancing, boxing, and other souteast Asian entertainment.
Overall it was a great trip and we wish we could have spent even more time in each place that we visited. If you want to see all of our pictures, check out the link on the right hand side of our blog.