Expect Me When You See Me

Our first day exploring Hampi we hired a taxi for the day for about $20. He drove us everywhere and waited while we saw the sites. This was a really good way to do it since he knew exactly where things were and took us to them in the proper order to get the most out of the day. The travel guy at the hotel was like, “Oh, you’ll get tired of Hampi by 4pm”. R. and I laughed at that a lot. It’s pretty hilarious to tell an anthropologist and an archaeologist that they’ll get tired of visiting a famous historical site teaming with people.

We started at Vithala Temple which is one of the temples with the most complete sculptures, a massive stone chariot, and musical pillars which we couldn’t figure out without a guide, but our taxi driver demonstrated them at a different temple (showing they’re not as unique as the brochure claims *L*). This was my first experience of an Indian tourist site and it was a bit disconcerting to have so many Indians want to take their picture with me, stare at us, and follow us around. We mostly ignored them but when it was a kid who wanted a pic I occasionally let them. It reminded me of the trip I once took to Nagasaki with a bunch of foreigner obsessed Japanese people who now all have me in their photos and probably still say I’m their friend. The temple really did have some beautiful sculptures and it was fascinating to see some of the color remaining on certain pillars. We then wandered down the road along a path that seemed to keep going all along the massive fortifications set up by the Vijayanagar Empire, but we decided to turn back and let our taxi take us to the next stop.

( Because this is going to be long )

The next day I slept as late as possible but the room was noisy because Indians use their horns on their cars all the time, and my earplugs just muffle sound not block it completely, plus it was really bright so I only slept until 11am. We took our time waking up and showering before heading out for lunch at The United Coffee House which is about a 15min walk from the Fulbright house. The Coffee house is pretty posh but clean and the food was good. R. got a tomato lamb couscous dish while I had badshatti kofta which was a tomato curry with paneer cheese balls in it. The cheese dumplings were nice but the curry had less tomato and more cumin than I prefer so I ended up dipping our garlic naan into R.’s lamb dish. I really liked the achar they had on the side which is pickled veggies in oil and spices. Apparently most foreigners don’t like it but to me it tasted like spicy olives. From there, we were on a mission to find the local pharmacy and replenish some supplies like ibuprofen which is only sold in small quantities in Korea. That took forever for some reason but we got what we came for then ended up wandering into the levi store and buying jeans. Mostly because not only were they cheap, but they tailored them to your height for free when you bought them. We headed back to the Fulbright house to rest for an hour then took a rickshaw to pick up the jeans before heading out to get dinner.

We ate dinner at Amichi Café in Khan Market, though first we stopped in at the bookstore there since I’d already read through my English language books which I brought. Then we headed to the café which had some amazing pumpkin ravioli in an anise sauce which I thought I wouldn’t like because I don’t usually like licorice but it was really nice and didn’t really taste like licorice at all. We also had some pasta carbonara which was good though it was too much to finish. We then got milkshakes to go which was a mistake on my part since I haven’t been having much dairy in Korea due to hating their milk so my stomach was a bit upset that evening. I took some pepto bismol and it settled down but it’s wedding season so it was particularly noisy out that evening, plus all the cars so even with an eye mask and earplugs I barely slept.

I had a dream the other day that I was living in this weird, semi-autonomous village, and my job meant that I sort of guided people around and got them food/stuff that couldn't be found within the compound, etc. And somehow I ran into Kit Harrington because I had to help him out while he was visiting to do some promo work for GOT. And we got to be friends and I flirted a bit with him in between developing some sort of contraband ring for smuggling cool stuff into the compound (which was a nice enough seeming place even if it looked like how Disney envisioned the future... I don't remember why I was running circles around the authorities. I guess I was bored?).

We celebrated Thanksgiving on Weds here so I took Weds off and went to see Mockingjay which I enjoyed, but partially because even though it followed the book, it was a lot less boring than the book. I then went on a sock hunt since two friends of mine requested fuzzy animal socks. Cute, trendy socks are one of the more fun trends here in Korea, especially since they only cost a dollar or two and have some of the most interesting patterns. I sometimes can't wear the too small ones but other than that, the skies the limit when it comes to patterns. I found a pair that had little 8 bit stormtroopers, lightsabers and artoos all over them. And one covered in weird food. I also picked up some fuzzy iron man socks for myself and found my friends panda socks. All in all a good haul. I'm going to own so many more socks after living here *L*

Our Thanksgiving dinner was catered from the local US military base and I was in heaven to eat some turkey (ham/pork are pretty much the only meats you get consistently in Korea... chicken is available but it's almost always fried). Their stuffing was pretty good too, though the mashed potatoes sucked. And it was so nice to have pumpkin pie. It was with the other Fulbright researchers so it was also nice to catch up with some people. Since it was held in our building, I took a plate of leftovers home and had it on actual Thanksgiving evening after spending the day working at a museum on the other side of Seoul. I think the director wishes I could work there all the time *L*

I have a scholarship app due before I leave for India which I'm trying to get done. I'm glad I stopped in at my local bank on weds though because it turns out that my atm card won't work in India, but luckily they switched me over to one that would work (and which hilariously has the words 'good luck' written on it). The phone company gave me the run around when I tried to ask them about using my phone in India so I've decided to give up and not worry about being without a working phone for a week. My friend who I'm traveling with will have a phone at least.

I also finished my work at the SNU library yesterday. While I still have to organize my data, it's nice to not have to travel there every other day. That trip is really a pain (3 subway transfers, a bus ride and a 10 min walk). In order to celebrate, I went with a friend to a local jjimjilbang which is literally like two blocks away. I was surprised how nice it was considering it only had two floors and was a local. But it had three different common area saunas, two in the naked areas, and three hot pools which weren't quite the right temperature but weren't bad. My friend and I first went in the common area saunas. Or rather, I went in the rock salt sauna while she tried the others since I can't do charcoal and wood saunas due to my asthma. Then we went in the bath areas, tried out the 'lie down on a slab of heated rock while surrounded by semi-precious stone' sauna, and alternated between different pools. We also were interrogated by this cute little girl who decided to try out all her English on us. Then we headed out into the common area again and bought fruit smoothies. The kiwi one was delicious. We tried out the massage chairs which were great on my back even if they were made for people much taller. However, the squeezing of the legs was actually rather painful and I pulled my legs out (my calves are actually really sore today from it). Then we moved over and laid on infrared heated glass while chatting and vaguely watching tv. Around 9:30, we finally pulled ourselves away from the heat and headed back into the bath area for another long soak before a full body and hair wash (we'd just washed our bodies before and kept our hair out of the water). Then we made our way home, insanely relaxed and sleepy. I went to sleep an hour early and slept for nearly 10 hrs. I was carrying a lot of tension I just didn't realize until it was gone. This might have been more relaxing than my monthly sports massage. I can't decide *lol* Since it's so close, I know where I'll be going when I'm craving some heat.

The Friday before last, I went home for dinner than headed over to the Seoul Lantern Festival since I figured I should see it before it disappeared for the year (it runs for 3 weeks but the weekend before last was the last few days). They set up the lanterns so they float above the river which I love to walk near whenever I'm in the area so it was nice to visit but wow was it really crowded when I got there. My pics are here. I was rather amused that the China-made lanterns were archaeology related, but I think the fish ones impressed me the most.

I had expected to work on my scholarship app on Tuesday, but I had an asthma attack at 3am. I resisted using my inhaler as long as possible, but I couldn't stop coughing so I gave up and used it. This, of course, led to my heart pounding madly for awhile while I played games on my phone, and my not getting to sleep until 5:30am. I turned off my alarm for the next day since there was no way I was waking up at 9am to get to the SNU library and slept in until 11. I awoke to a text asking me if my evening was free from one of the fulbrighter's who works in the fulbright office. He had food poisoning so he wanted to know if I could cover his class teaching North Korean defectors English. I said yes, even though it caused flashbacks to teaching English in Japan. I at least wasn't nervous because I've done classes like this hundreds of times. Getting there took over 1 1/2hrs though at least there was kimbap and tea and someone sharing a fried chicken when we got there. Then it was teaching three high school girls for two hours. The games I know which can be played on the fly are still really popular amusingly enough. And they served us sweet buns in the middle which was apparently a new thing. Then another long trip home before showering and calling my friend in India to plan our trip a bit more. Not how I expected to spend my day but it was interesting enough as a one off thing.

Two unexplainable bruises on my left wrist and a possibly sprained angle. I have definitely been out drinking tonight.

I spoiled myself for the final arcs of Bleach last night and I was so disappointed that I woke up two hours earlier than normal today and couldn't get back to sleep because I was so pissed off at how stupid Bleach has gotten. The interesting thing is you can tell that so many other people are annoyed by it too because very little fanfic even acknowledges that anything happened after the fight with Aizen.

My nasty cold from last week has turned into a sinus infection. I went back to looking at site reports in the SNU library on Monday and Tuesday but I was so exhausted and not getting better that I took Weds off. I thought that might help but today I've been sniffling and coughing more than yesterday. *headdesk* I'm just going to take the next few days off and hope for the best. I have reached the final row of site reports I need to look at at least so I'm pretty much on schedule despite the delays. I would just like to not be sick anymore.

Going up to SNU everyday to read site reports in their museum library has had the inevitable consequence - I caught a cold from the students. I thus went out only once today and had the longest conversation in my life in Korean with a pharmacist about my symptoms (everything is behind the counter here so you have to talk to the pharmacist), then I went around the corner to another pharmacist and did it again because I was curious to see if I'd get the same medicine. I didn't but they do seem to roughly have the same purpose. Also, I found the equivalent of Theraflu *score!*. Then I went to emart looking for fresh ginger because grated ginger and honey is my go to drink while sick (and my throat hurts so much it's hard to swallow). I found it, but also found a huge 2000g jar of ginger tea which I was curious enough to buy and take home. It's kinda awesome because you just put the kettle on, spoon a few spoonfuls of this stuff into a mug, then pour the hot water in, and voila, you have the same thing I grate fresh ginger for (though it's probably honey mixed with sugar since honey is so expensive here). It even has tons of actual pieces of ginger in it. My throat feels so good right now compared to before the tea.

Dreamt I was an ancient werewolf who had originally been a pale furred wolf at the dawn of time. I was consulted in the modern day on the possibility of creating more/better werewolves but kept to myself that I thought they were going about it all wrong since I had been there when werewolves were created (complete with awesome flashback to how it had happened).

I need to read Greek myths right before bed more often.

Today I went looking for a folklore museum which was supposed to be near Namsan park in the center of Seoul (at the center of which is a mountain and on top of the mountain is Seoul tower fyi). So I got off the subway at Seoul Station and decided to walk to the park since it was only another subway stop away and it would take just as much walking to get to transfer to the line going that way anyway. I set off, past Namdaemun market and then when I thought I went too far, I turned right and started heading up hill, wandering amongst neighborhoods and hotels. My path led me to a tiny concrete trail next to a fence with the highway below me. I headed up. And up. Then I found a map which was useless since it didn't show the museum and the map on my phone didn't look like the map on the board. Google maps on my phone said I was in the right place but nothing was there. So I climbed a truly enormous set of stairs, discovering halfway up that this was the same staircase where they filmed the finale of My Name is Kim Sam Soon (which is good since I spent a lot of that scene wondering why the hell that staircase was so long in the middle of a city). Once at the top, I found another map, and it had been recently altered. In front of me was a fenced off area. Peering through the cracks showed what looked like a covered up excavation to me. I found a sign saying it was the site of the excavation of the city walls. Possibly the museum had been there or it was somewhere else and had been renamed or it just closed down. I decided to give up and headed up a bit more, then down some stairs to arrive at the trail which wound around the mountain. It was bordered by a pretty stream and the occasional waterfall so I didn't mind walking a few km.

I ended up coming down the mountain at Namsangol Hanok Village which is a collection of restored Korean houses complete with furnishings and whatnot. I was most fascinated by the ondol (or under the floor heating system), a modern version of which graces my apartment and many other Korean people's today. I arrived near the end of a rice cake and alcohol festival which was a bit like a country fair since they were handing out awards to women in hanbok (traditional Korean dress) for best rice cake and whatnot. The tasting had ended unfortunately, so I just looked at the pretty cakes, the bizarre coloured drinks, and two men demonstrating straw weaving.

My feet were really tired at that point but it didn't seem worth hoping on the subway just to go one stop again so I walked back to the Myeong-dong area and followed vague directions to get to a Cat Cafe. I'm allergic to cats, so I'd taken some allergy medicine in prep and it seems to have worked since I was able to stay for about 1 1/2hrs petting and playing with kitties. You basically pay a flat fee when you come in and get a free drink with it which isn't all that bad a system and you can stay as long as you want. They provide some cat toys, and you can pay a little extra to get a treat to feed the cats which I didn't bother doing. All the cats seemed a bit tuckered out to be honest. Some played and seemed to be having fun, but there were so many people, I think they get more attention than they needed or possibly wanted on the weekends. I think I'll go to one on a weekday and I bet the cats will be less overwhelmed. They had two of those cats without fur and they were really cute. I'd never seen one in real life before and it was nice that they were taking good care of one who was missing a leg.

After that, I wandered around looking for a restaurant to catch my fancy. I spotted one saying it was famous for pan fried rice (bokeumbap) and figured since they made me wait to get a seat, it was pretty popular and would be tasty. I ordered the chicken fried rice which they cooked in front of me in a big cast iron pan. When it was done, I was surprised to see it looked much lighter than the picture of it in their displays. "Shouldn't it be redder?" I asked, and pointed at the picture in their menu which was labeled as what I had ordered. And he was like, "You want it spicy?" "Yep." So he called someone over to add red pepper paste to it at which point it looked more like, you know, what everyone else was eating. I can't figure out if I was supposed to order it spicy (which would be weird for Korea cause everything is just automatically spicy), or if they left it out on purpose because I'm a foreigner and there's no way I could handle their (really not as hot as they all think it is) food. It was very tasty at least.

I then wandered around for a bit to digest. I ended up buying a chocolate/strawberry ice cream cone which was a good way to digest the rest of the meal even if soft serve ice cream here sucks (I think it's because they use the wrong kinds of milk to make it because their milk is kinda weird here too). I then got lured into Nature Republic. They give you free stuff to get you into beauty stores which if you take, you're obligated to go in, though not to buy. I got handed a snail mask (ie, a face mask made from snail goo which is supposed to be good for your skin) and I happily took it because I spotted the most amazing thing - hand sanitizer. Nature Republic pretty much stole Bath and Body Works idea of having cute, nice smelling pocket sized hand sanitizers and while $2 a bottle is a lot for something so tiny, it's a pretty good deal considering how expensive and rare hand sanitizer is here. So I picked up a few bottles, then got lured into buying some almond body wash since it was buy one get one free. And then the salesperson threw even more freebies into my bag so I ended up with 3 snail masks, 8 tiny bottles of whitening cream (which I have no idea what to do with cause I really don't care to whiten my skin), oils, and steamers (whatever those are. not really sure how to use them). Did the salesperson just like me or do they do that every time is my question?

Yesterday, I took a friend to Dragon Hill jjimjilbang. She'd lived in Japan before so she was used to Japanese onsen, but I figured I'd introduce her to the Korean version. She lives pretty close to the place too. Lucky. Anyway, she was shocked how many pools there were in Dragon Hill and it really is a good deal considering it was $11, and I paid $10 for the Happy Day Spa in Hongdae which only has four pools. (Dragon Hill had 9 that were filled and two more which weren't atm.) We paid to get a scrubbing done which is when an ajumma (middle-aged woman) scrubs your skin so hard (you are naked, shes in her underwear and bra) that it removes the top layer of the skin. It's pretty weird especially since they do scrub you everywhere, but it does make your skin really soft afterwards. The ajumma tried to hard sell us on getting a more expensive oil massage for $60 but since I know where to get a 1hr shiatsu massage (called a sports massage here) for $33 it wasn't much of a deal. When I kept telling her it was too expensive, she swatted me on the shoulder and said it was truly cheap. But I think then she figured out we were students because she asked if I was and I told her grad students and that got her to stop. They also shampoo your hair at the end for some reason which I guess it just part of the service.

We ate dinner in the restaurant there. It was a very good bibimbap, though they really skimp on the meat, and the seaweed soup wasn't the best. We also had a 'chewy egg' which seems to be boiled in soy sauce and sugar. It comes out of the shell kinda gooey and translucent, if brown. Tasty if a bit odd because it's sweet. After surveying the saunas, we went back to have one last bath and wash our hair properly (since there's no point in doing it before you go in the baths imo). I pulled a muscle in my leg while I was getting in one of the baths at the end. The pain faded away after being in the pool for awhile so I didn't think of it, and if I was limping when I got home I thought it was just from climbing too many stairs, but today I woke up and there's sharp pain in one of my muscles if I flex the foot. Guess I'm not going anywhere today.

Well, my scanner arrived yesterday evening. Unfortunately, despite it looking like it had a brick for converting power, the AC adapter gave out a puff of smoke after being plugged in for half an hour and I was left spending all of Saturday trying to find a replacement AC adapter. Two which might work are on their way to me but it is yet another delay to my research. Joy.

I finally got a phone. Someone gave me their Samsung Galaxy S3 which has a well-cracked screen. But when the phone is on, it's not really that noticeable and I put a screen protector on it to hold it together so oh well. For a free phone, it's fantastic. It's really nice to finally have access to all the wifi hot spots around Seoul. It's amazing how connected you are, even on the subway. Or maybe that's especially on the subway? And I'm also paying a lot less per month than people who have contracts so yay.

Unfortunately, my timing was once again bad since I got the phone late Weds. Called the professor I'm supposed to be working with on Thursday and left a message. But Chuseok, Korean thanksgiving (only you go home and eat special rice cakes for a few days) starts on Sunday but everyone started it early, you know, on Friday, which meant I had very little hope of being contacted by the professor. I will call again on Thursday when the holiday is over if I don't hear from her.

On Thursday after the phone call, I headed out to a jjimjilbang since it's my goal to visit every 3 story or above jjimjilbang in Seoul while here. I hit up Itaewon Spa Land because it's easy to get to from where I live and I knew exactly where it was (the hardest thing about visiting jjimjilbangs, I've found, is finding out where they are). There are tons of English language reviews about this place online and they all claimed that despite being right near the red light district this place wasn't sketchy. And for the most part, this is true, but I have no idea how all those reviews missed the fact that the fountains gushing water into the corner of the hot tubs are shaped like penises. Which is sort of the definition of sketchy, yes? (Scroll down to the view of the bath here to see them. And yet the reviewer doesn't say a word about them.)

I go to jjimjilbangs for the hot tubs and wet saunas so I was disappointed that one pool wasn't even filled, three were lukewarm, one was freezing cold (even colder than the usual cold pool) and one was really hot. The wet sauna just wasn't hot enough or sealed enough unfortunately (this seems to be a trend in Korean wet saunas though). I did enjoy soaking in the really hot pool and it did relieve my muscle aches. I then threw on the uniform and headed up stairs to explore the five floors. I really liked laying in their rock walk sauna, so much so that I almost fell asleep. Otherwise, I wasn't really impressed and there was construction going on which was annoying. It did look like the fifth floor with it's individual cubby holes would be a nice place to sleep if you were stuck in Itaewon after the trains stop. But overall, I wouldn't recommend the place if you go for the baths like I do.