Life This Week in South Korea Dec 25-Dec 31, 2023
Monday, 12.25
Merry Christmas! It was a white Christmas here, very pretty…but not enough to impact travel. My building friend and I went to the big mall for vegetarian lunch. Schools, offices, and government buildings were closed, but stores and restaurants were open. The mall was PACKED on Christmas Day! We had a nice lunch then came home so we could work on our presentations that are due Wednesday.
Tuesday, 12.26
Three-day weekend is over and it’s back to school. Just a regular day. The weather is a little milder thann last week (40 during the day instead of 10!). Nothing too exciting here.
Wednesday, 12.27
Had my presentation today, it went okay. I always leave out a few words or markers when I’m in front of the class, but for the most part I think it went kinda okay. We got last week’s test back – I got an 85. Some stupid mistakes, ugh.
Halfway through the class I started feeling fevery…but I hung in til the end then came home and tylenol&cold medicined-up. Had some soup and went to bed.
Thursday, 12.28
Yay! Thursday! Hyungun Day! We went to get 족볼 (jokbal), aka “Pig’s Trotters.” I’d always thought that was like pigs’ feet, like their hooves…and I couldn’t understand how you could eat it! But it’s more like the meat from hocks/hind legs and it’s extremely tender with a nice fatty “crust.” Yeah, I’m about as far from vegan as I can get these days 🙁 Also a really nice soup 만두떡국, sortof like wonton soup, clear mild broth with pork dumplings and rice cakes and scallions. That’s something I’d love to get delivered if I can ever figure THAT out. And, of course, more somek, that lovely soju + Korean beer combination he introduced me to last week.
After that (there’s always an after that! Like you have main meal at one place, then you go someplace else to either have coffee and maybe dessert, or drink more), we went to a 포장마차 (pojangmacha), a plastic tented outdoor bar/casual restaurant – drinking food. If you’ve ever watched k-dramas you’ve seen these.
Here we had grilled shrimp (BIG shrimp) and more somek…and just talked and laughed. He’s really fun and pleasant to hang out with. I didn’t get home til 1:am. I can’t think of the last time THAT happened!
Oh, I didn’t go to class today. I still felt poorly enough in the morning that I made the executive decision to skip…and yes, I still went out to play later. I’d have to be on my deathbed to skip Hyungun Night, ha ha. Plus, the drinking helped. #healthtipsfromDrBettye
Friday, 12.29
Guess what I got?? A kidney stone. Ugh. 4 ayem….took drugs, they took awhile to catch up to the pain, so it was probably 6am before I was able to fall back to sleep…then I had to get up by 10 for a tutoring session at 11. I’d already decided to not go to class again. Stuffy nose and painkiller grogginess would make sitting in class for 4 hours really miserable. So we went over in our session what I’d missed in class these past two days. I worked on homework and vocabulary and finally got last week’s blog post finished and posted!
Went to the nearby mall with my building friend for dinner and grocery shopping.
Saturday, 12.30
SNOW! 눈! (NOON!) As soon as I realized it was snowing, I jumped up and threw on clothes and ran out with my camera to stroll around the neighborhood to look for pictures. I had just gotten my December package from Katie so I finally had gloves and my long silk underwear and these things helped immensely. I’m still wearing canvas sneakers with no socks, but…some girls can just not be tamed ha ha.
I walked around for a bit. It was that nice quiet snowtime…I ended up over by Paris Baguette (a Panera-esque chain) and sat for a bit with coffee and a pastry. Just sitting by the big window with yummy goodies, watching the big fluffy flakes fall and the people walking by…was one of THOSE moments. Those moments when you just go AHHH. This is nice. It was all worth it. I’m glad I’m here.
Snow always seems to do that to me.
Afterwards I came home, edited pictures, worked on my daily Korean sentences, and just sort of piddled the day away.
By evening, however, the planets unaligned themselves and I was once again struggling with ordering online, ordering food delivery, registering for things….why is everything such a struggle?? I swear I want to hire someone (Korean) for an hour and meet with them with my phone and laptop and just say here, YOU DO. Make it all work. PLEASE. I love it here but it is EXHAUSTING always struggling trying to read everything, do everything…EXHAUSTING.
Sunday, 12.31
What did you do this weekend, Bettye?? I BLEW MY NOSE. I’ve been through an entire roll of toilet paper devoted entirely to nose blowing…and it ain’t over yet. It’s 1pm right now and I think today is a stay at home day…my mother said I need to clean my room and study before I go out to play…and I’m not feeling entirely motivated to do either. Tonight is New Year’s Eve…and I KINDA want to do something but I also kinda DON’T. I know which will probably win.
I have New Year’s Day plans with building friend, Jacqueline. She found a traditional Korean restaurant with a vegan menu and they serve some rice cake dishes…and for Koreans, rice cakes on New Years is like black eyed peas in the US. *I* never ate black eyed peas on NYD but I know it’s A Thing. And they have the soup that I liked at the jokbal place the other night, the 떡만두국 – teokmanduguk, so I’ll have that to fulfill my Korean NYD tradition obligations 🙂
I’ve been thinking a bit about New Year’s resolutions…and the two that are rolling around in here are DATING – I don’t know how…seems like it will be much harder for me here than back home, but…I think I will make a concerted effort to put myself OUT THERE. Ugh. And whipping Bettye’s Big Adventure into shape across all platforms and see if I can build it into something.
How about you guys? Any New Year’s resolutions for 2024??
Robin
Bettye,
Your “click here to read more” link in your email does not work. I had to click to the comment to get to the blog post. Not sure if you want to fix and re-send or not.
Robin
bettyewp
I’m flattered that you think I would know how to fix that, ha ha 🙂
I’ll take a look at it, thanks for letting me know!
Marian
Happy New Year! It seems to me that your entire venture to South Korea is a series of hundreds of resolutions that you are succeeding at daily.
Declutter house. Sell old things to get money. Get new job skills. Make new friends. Learn a new language. Get more exercise. LIVE YOUR DREAM.
Geez….what’s left?
Enjoy it all.
Seriously – you don’t need any more for 2024! You’ve got a surplus. You’re off the hook!
bettyewp
“Geez….what’s left?
Enjoy it all.”
Oh gosh, I sure HOPE there’s something left!
Debbie from Illinois
Happy New Year Bettye! I bet the care packages sent from Katie are such a treat. 🥰
bettyewp
I send her a list each month of what I need her to send me – either things I left at her house, or things I’ve ordered online and had delivered to her (because I still can’t order online from here, guh). Everytime I think she’ll add a little surprise but no 🙁
Ghost
In Korea, would it have been socially outlandish to have skipped the Soju? Just curious as I’m alcohol free and trying to find out about other culture’s reactions to that. Absolutely stunning snowy photos, the buildings are so captivating, gentle but dense.
bettyewp
You don’t have to drink! Korea does have a pretty intense drinking culture, but as an individual/foreigner, I don’t think you would need to feel any pressure about drinking if you didn’t want. Historically it seems that “work drinking” was pretty…mandated? Like if the boss invited team members out drinking, you sort of had to go, and it would have been considered rude to not drink if the boss was drinking…but I believe that has eased up somewhat. And if you;re just out with friends or alone, you certainly don’t have to drink.
I appreciate the kind words about the snow pictures 🙂
Sally in St Paul
It’s low key freaking me out that your weather has been both colder and snowier than Minnesota so far this winter – WHAT?? Between the phone problems and your illness and being in a country where you’re still learning the language…you’ve been playing life on the Difficult level! At least now you have some gloves for going out and about in more comfort. I don’t consider myself a person who enjoys urban photography but it’s always fascinating to see how Seoul looks both different and the same in various ways as a city in the US.
bettyewp
Ha ha. I wonder if the rest of the world has temperature/climate zones like the US does…I’m thinking of those numbers that help gardeners…I’m not explaining this well…my brain is tired, sorry. ANYWAY. We’re getting frequent snow, but there’s not a lot of accumulation. There may be more out in more rural areas, where it has room to stick.
Yeah, I keep wondering if Korea is giving me a sign WE DON’T WANT YOU HERE, what with the constant barrage of challenges….but SORRY, KOREA, YOU’RE NOT GETTING RID OF ME THAT EASILY, plus, to quote one of my favorite lines from An Officer and a Gentleman, “I GOT NOWHERE ELSE TO GO! I got nowhere else to go (sob).”
I have always enjoyed city landcsapes…and have wanted to live IN a city, for so long…and really, Gwangjin-gu, where I am, is on the outskirts of Seoul “city,” it’s a little more Queens is to Manhaattan, if that means anything to anyone. But it still has a lot of “city” qualities, which I like.
Hopefully Korea gives up its fight against me soon cuz it is very exhausting.