Amanda Takes Off...

This morning I woke up before sunrise to meet some studiomates and some folks from the Brother Studio. While we were waiting at the soccer field behind the elementary school, I noticed four storefronts in a row that dealt with 문구 (stationery). We all took a bus together to 구름산 (Cloud Mountain) to hike in the 가랑비 (drizzling, fine rain).

Since it was raining and wet, parts of the trail were 위험한 (dangerous). (And it was hard to get decent pictures—if I used the flash, the raindrops showed up but the pictures were washed out. So forgive the blur of these photos.)

I thought Master had told me that we would go slowly, but at times he or his brother would yell at us to start running. At that point, one of the Masters would demand that some guy take my 가방 (bag) for me. "가방 추세요" they'd say (take the bag).

We reached a midpoint and Master said, "Amanda! Camera!" I intended to walk down to the point and get the neighboring city, even though it was awful visibility but Cocky Guy yelled at some of the other guys to pose. And so we have, from left to right, Blue, Cocky Guy, and two kids I don't know from the other studio. Then Cocky Guy demanded they pose with me. Well at least I look like I'm having fun, eh?

Over this steep incline, I nearly tripped over a 개구리 (frog) the size of my fist. I sort of pointed at it and grunted and Cocky Guy said, "Oh! Geyguri!"

We reached the peak to find a sign saying that this was 고봉 (a high mountain), the highest peak in Gwangmyeong at 237 m. Master tried to convert it to miles for me and I just shook my head and said, "meters, OK!" I then told him about bungee jumping in Costa Rica from 80 m. His eyes were very wide at that story. :) There was a temple-like structure there and we all stopped to eat some Korean food that the boys had brought up with us.

We headed back down the mountain a slightly different way than we headed up.

I loved how green the whole place was. I thought about bringing my hiking boots from home with me to Korea but some friend or other convinced me that it would be a waste of space. I wish I hadn't've listened. Korea is something like 70% mountains.

After the hike, Masters called "집합!" (meeting gathering, said to get the studios together and paying attention) and we said "통일!" (oneness, unity) and bowed to the masters. Then almost everyone left and Master, his brother, and one woman from his studio (who is the mother to two kids from my studio) and I went to have some food together.

While we were walking around, trying to find food (it was quite early, before 9:30 am when we finished the hike), Master was teasing me in Korean, saying, "She doesn't like kimchi, she doesn't like fish, she doesn't like beef, she likes chicken, she likes pork, she doesn't like kimchi..." (Actually, I still don't like eating chicken or pork but it's essentially impossible to eat out here without eating some sort of meat and I can't stomach the thought of eating beef for the first time in 11 years and I have always hated almost every kind of fish.)

Master asked me to choose a place and I refused to and he asked if 낙지 was OK. I answered yes, not realizing that he was talking about...octopus. Master ordered some 맥주 and so it wasn't even 10 am and I was eating octopus and drinking beer on a Saturday morning after having awakened before sunrise to climb a mountain. I also had white kimchi, which isn't as spicy as regular kimchi, and I enjoyed it. They chose to sit at a western style table rather than one of the traditional Korean tables. I wouldn't've minded a Korean table but recognize that they were probably trying to make me feel comfortable. (Or perhaps nobody wanted to take their muddy, wet sneakers off to reveal muddy, wet socks.)

It is traditional for women here to cover their mouths when they laugh and to turn their head and cover their mouths when they drink alcohol. I do neither. (I might consider it under other circumstances, but Master's brother bought the beer and meal and Master poured my beer and in this case, I didn't worry about it.)

When Master said that the woman was the mother to two boys at our studio, I said in English, "I don't know the names. They all know me." I rattled off the names I knew and when I got to Tall New Guy, Master started recounting how he keeps yelling out my full name and how I pulled out my dictionary and called him "obnoxious" and how his feelings were hurt that I didn't know his name. It was a little strange to have the tale recounted in Korean, but funny to see Master imitating us both.

I had a 5 by 7 photo printed of the boys from soccer last monthand Master is going to help me label the boys on Monday so I can learn their names. It's not that I don't want to know their names, but it's very, very hard for me to remember Korean words unless I've seen them in writing.

(As a side note, Michael once told me that in order to learn Korean, I would have to memorize how the words looked. I told him that was impossible, but now I understand what he means. It is really no different than knowing "sight words" in English. Many times the only reason I can say the vowel correctly is because I can get the shape of the characters in my mind's eye.)

I found out Master's brother is older by two years and for his mandatory military he was a bodyguard to one of the military higherups. I told them my brother is a USMC 소방대원 (firefighter). I have discovered that one of the easiest ways to talk to men here is to ask about their military service. So far everyone I've talked to about it has enjoyed talking about their service.

I was home by 11 and had a long phone conversation with most of Mom's side of the family. Then I headed out to Kyobo to look for some books on tae kwon do and Korean vocabulary. I picked up some index cards at the stationery shop that I go to and the man was excited that I used the number markers.

On the subway I was practicing my vocab flashcards and sitting with a young (cute) guy on my left and two ajummas on my right. One of the ajummas started laughing when she saw "I ache" and she started poking her friend when she saw "I am tired." I smiled at them, flipped back to "I ache" and said, "tae kwon do!" They looked surprised and then I pointed to "I am tired" and said in Korean, "Gureum mountain, tae kwon do," and imitated hiking. They said, "Oh! Oh!" and just about fell out of their seats when they saw the cards for "boyfriend" and "girlfriend."

They eventually left and I tried looking up "tongil" (oneness) in my dictionary. I wasn't sure what the first consonant was and I still don't have Korean alphabetization down, so looking things up in a dictionary takes forever for me. The guy next to me asked if he could help me find a word and I said I was looking for tongil from tae kwon do. He said, "'Tae kwon do' is nothing like 'tongil.'" I said, "No, I study tae kwon do. And at the end of class we say 'tongil!'" He smiled and said, "I have a black belt in tae kwon do. In the military I did tae kwon do, you need..." and showed me the word.

He asked me why I was studying Korean. I said, "Well, I live here, so I'd like to learn the language." He smiled and said, "But most foreigners do not learn how to say 'tongil.'" I agreed and we chatted for a bit. He studied Chinese in China for a while and said that he found English to be very hard and said he expected that I would find Korean hard because the languages are so different. I wish I'd had a namecard to give him, because he was friendly and spoke very good English! (And yes, I complimented him on his English.)

At Kyobo I didn't find what I wanted, but I found a book about yoga for martial artists and bought an electronic dictionary. The electronics seller was very helpful, showed me four different dictionaries, each of which had 230,000 words. I asked what the difference was between the different dictionaries and he said, "brand, and this one has English pronunciation," and he demonstrated. (Actually, the pronunciation was very good, it didn't sound electronic or tinny.) I said, "I don't need English pronunciation" with a big grin and he grinned back. He ended up selling me one of the least expensive dictionaries, warned me that the manual was entirely in Korean, and showed me what each of the different buttons (all in Korean) do. It looks like a pretty powerful little thing with English/Korean, Korean/English, Korean/Korean and English/English dictionaries as well as some other features. I'll have to play with it a bit...

It was late enough that I ended up missing my Korean class, so I came home and took a nice long nap.

All in all, a good day.