Mon, Jan 1

2024! Happy New Year!

I’m still sniffly and snuffly from last week’s cold, but I Theraflu/NasalSpray/Mucinexed myself up and went to lunch with my friend. Our first choice restaurant was closed (sadface) but there was another vegan restaurant within walking distance so we went there instead. I had 잠퐁 jampong which is a spicy red soup with lots of vegetables.  Usually it has seafood  (shrimp, clams, octopus, etc) in it, but this was just veggies. 

After lunch we passed a 호떡 hotteok cart, so we stood on a long line to each get one. Hotteok is a thick doughy pancake-like thing stuffed with honey, cinnamon, seeds and they are DEEELICIOUS. They also come with more savory fillings but my heart belongs to the sweet ones. When you first get them they’re HOT…and the filling will burn your tongue if you’re not careful, but man is it worth it. 

Taxi’d home, exhausted.

Tue., Jan 2

Back to school. I’m still clogged up – nose, head, brain…so the walk to class and especially up the hill, not fun. Even less than usual. I couldn’t even quite get my head in the game in class. I missed two days last week due to cold and kidney stone, then the 3-day weekend…I felt like I’d forgotten everything.

We’re nearing the end of the first textbook…which means the midterm is almost upon us…and after the midterm is when I totally lost it last term. I can feel things headed a little in that direction again…not that I don’t know the material, but the class just moves so fast. I’m not dumb, but I’m slow. So I get flustered in class and then my brain shuts down and I miss stuff and ugh.

Wed., Jan 3

I ate a ridiculous amount of fried chicken tonight.

That is all.

Thur, Jan 4

It’s Visa Extension Application time! I’m extending for another 6 months (you can only extend the language student visa 6 months at a time) and the paperwork is always intimidating! At least this time I don’t think I made any mistakes like I did last June when I was applying the first time and put the wrong timeframe on the application and then panicked when I couldn’t get ahold of anyone directly at the Korean Embassy to ask them to fix it. I was like AFTER ALL I’VE GONE THRU, IF MY APPLICATION GETS DENIED OVER A STUPID MISTAKE ON MY OWN PART, I’M GOING TO BE DEVASTATED!!! Fortunately the Korea Angel was still on my shoulder and it got straightened out (obviously, cuz here I am ha ha).

Because I am an exemplary student (HA), I rescheduled my Thursday Fun to the weekend so I could study tonight for tomorrow’s test…only to discover at the last minute that the test was rescheduled to Monday. Guh.

Fri., Jan 5

What a day! What a week! This whole week has been a little complicated, and today was just pure chaos! From the minute I woke up til now it has just been DO THIS DO THIS DO THIS, getting the visa extension in, tutoring, laundry not working right, missing signatures on forms, things I studied/practiced for that didn’t come to fruition, a substitute teacher who did things very differently and FAST, it was just a LOT. Thank GOODNESS it’s FRIDAY and now my building friend and I are going out to dinner…and tomorrow night I have plans with my friend Hyungun so that’s a good thing to have to look forward to. There’s been way too much “going to class, going home, going to class, going home” this week and not nearly enough going OUT THERE.

Sat., Jan 6

Yay! I went OUT THERE! And it was good! Hyungun and I went to an area I’ve been wanting to visit even since before I came here – Ikseondong, a traditional hanok village. “Hanok is a wooden architectural structure built on the basis of the traditional Korean-style framework consisting of columns and purlins and a roof reflecting the Korean traditional architectural style.” Or, since a picture is worth a thousand words…

한옥의 정의 이미지

So it’s a village in this architectural style, with narrow alleyways (my favorite!), little coffee shops and tea houses, bakeries, cafes, shops, etc…very charming. First we went to a lovely tea house that had the NICEST lighting (you’re just going to have to take my word for it). I could have stayed there all night. I had my new favorite iced grapefruit tea, never disappoints. Then we went to a beer house with a tropical forest right in the middle, each had one beer. And when we were walking out of there Hyungun stopped and pointed and I was like, wha…OH! SNOW! Big beautiful fluffy flakes of snow…falling on the lovely scene of the hanok architecture, shops decorated with twinkle lights, little garden areas,,, it was magical. We just walked around in it for awhile, me grinning like an idiot because snow makes me just ridiculously happy…and this was SUCH  a pretty setting for it. This village would be a great date spot if I ever, you know, had a date. 

Anyway, eventually we got hungry and left the charming alleyways for the traditional Korean restaurant alleyways…specifically Bossam Alley, which was even narrower and more crowded, with the ahjummas (the ladies) cooking in giant pots right out in the alleyway, mounds of mounds of cabbages stacked up neatly on the ground…like something out of an old Korean movie. He had a place picked out and inside it was crowded and noisy and steamy. I was SO the only non-Korean person there, which is fine as long as I’m with him because he knows what to do.

Bossam is essentially boiled (or steamed) pork shoulder or belly. The specialty at this particualr restaurant was bossam and oysters…so the big plate (a “set for two”) came out with the sliced bossam, cabbage kimchi, radish kimchi, and the raw oysters. There’s different side dishes (banchan) like gochujang (red pepper paste, heavily used in Korean cooking), samjang (a dipping sauce made of fermented soy beans, red chili paste, sesame oil, onion, garlic, green onions, and brown sugar), teeny anchovies, fish cakes (that look like wide, flat noodles), and big lettuce leaves for making wraps with all of the above, called ssam. *I* am not good at making the wraps. I put all the stuff in there, roll the lettuce leaf around it, point it in the direction of my open mouth…and the whole thing falls apart.

Sigh.

Anyway, it was a good night. LOTS of walking – 4.5 miles. That’s a lot for me. And by the time I got off the subway at my stop and headed home I just got slower and slower…I thought I would never make it.

A really nice thing here is I never feel unsafe walking alone, even late at night…even a tad bit tipsy. Since it’s a college area there’s ALWAYS other people out and about…and the CCTV cameras EVERYWHERE help keep crime down…

Sun., Jan 7

My body was saying PLEASE PLEASE JUST STAY HOME but I had to run an errand and then a friend asked if we could do a little shopping, and then we got lunch…and my poor body was just POOPED. I always try to plan ONE DAY A WEEK of no (significant) walking. I really feel it on Monday when I head back to school if I haven’t given my legs, feet, hips a chance to really rest.

And my body REALLY rebelled this time…but you’re going to have to wait til next week to hear about that! Ha ha STAY TUNED FOR NEXT WEEK’S EPISODE.