Korean Adventure photo album

Korean Adventure

On the way to Gangjin

August 6, 2010

Prince Motel

Gangjin, Korea

Dear Hanna,

Its 9PM and is still very hot and uncomfortably humid plus its been raining on and off all day. My stomach has not been about me today at all, matter of fact, by mid-day the amount of cabbage, onion, garlic and salt I have ingested has left me wanting to hurl big time. It was a very long bus ride down here, with the driver almost falling asleep at the wheel several times. We stopped at a few rest areas along the way beside the Pepsi and jelly beans, I ate some corn-cakes filled with a custard and drank a CHARCOAL brewed coffee. Yes, it tasted like really good ice coffee filtered through charcoal, not terrible, just terribly weird tasting. The corn cakes reminded me of the egg cakes you get in Mott Street in NYC.

Lunch consisted of rice, some type of hot pot (really bland) and a bunch of different fishes. My favorite, and surprisingly my stomach’s favorite too, was those little ones your mom always serves, you know the sweet, salty, crunchy sesame dried and fried anchovies with the shredded nori?

After lunch we headed to Mokpo, which is a seaside port town, We went to see the celadon exhibit at the maritime museum. The pots in the exhibit were ones unearthed from a ship wreck in Waldo. These were incredible works that have been restored to their original condition. Kim, my roommate from the first night, made a comment that I will take back to my students. “These are well made pots”. They say under the sea for 800 years, were recovered with barnacles all over them and restored to gallery quality. I found the working port interesting. There was a huge tidal plane. The building itself had a few fish ponds set up behind it, where the fisherman would take advantage of these tides and harvest fish when the tide was out. We arrived there just as the fisherman were calling it a day.

We then traveled about an hour to Gangjin where we met up with the exhibition people, checked into our motel, delivered our work, and headed out for dinner. I had this cold noodle dish called naeng- myeon and some shoju, which tasted like vodka with a touch of maple syrup added. My legs are not used to all this sitting on the floor. I am so tired that I could not muster up an appetite. We shopped for some fresh fruit after dinner. After returning to the motel I showered to get rid of the heat and grime from the day. I am hoping that I can sleep tonight so that I feel better tomorrow.

Tomorrow will be an interesting day. Our exhibit will be installed while we are off sight seeing. I think we are having abalone stew for breakfast and then headed to one of the last true open air markets in Korea.

Until then! Love you! xoxo

Kimchi for breakfast!

Dear Hanna, August 6, 2010

Herb Hub Hotel

Incheon, Korea

We will be on our way towards Gangjin shortly. I just wanted to describe my night. I didn’t sleep! I think my body was on the wrong side of the clock. Funny, the only thing that feels it is my stomach. We had 3 kinds of Kimchi, rice and dumpling this morning, oh yeah and fried bologna. It was a great breakfast.

Its raining here, and is supposed to all day. I cannot believe how much humidity is still hanging in the air despite the rain, and its about 90 degrees at 8:30 AM.

More later sweetie,

XOXO

Korea here we are!

My time in Korea will be a shared letter format to Hanna, who is a dear friend battling colon cancer. Without her urging I would not be here!

Dear Hanna, August 4, 2010

JFK Airport

Queens, NY

THE JOURNEY BEGINS…

I am sitting here waiting to embark on this grand adventure. My morning was a nice relaxed one. I finished the book my friend John lent me (Honolulu) and then Justin drove me to the airport. We arrived very early so we sat and talked for a very long time before I decided that I needed to bid him goodbye and to make my way through airport security. There are two things that make me nervous traveling, airport TSA and Customs. Today, heading through the checkpoint I had reason to be upset. I was harassed again for my ceramics. What is it about NY, do they not see the validity in the arts? Or was it the fact that my laptop had a rather rebellious sticker fixed upon it, “fire pots not guns”? In any case, my ceramic work, which was so well packed, was inspected, the packaging torn apart, the work swabbed, the swabbing material then run through some analyzing device despite being able to clearly see that they were pots, and then the bag was shoved back at me for me to put back together. In the meantime, the TSA official could not get his head around me traveling to ASIA alone. His partner told him to knock it off, which I thought would be a saving grace, but then snidely declared that he was ruining the chances for his mother to get a nice Christmas present. I want to believe in humanity, and I think I do, but I also think I know why so many hate “Americans”, I was truly embarrassed to be one today while going through security. The sting of their reactions to a female artist made me think that they must treat others that way as well. Right now I am so glad to be leaving this place.

Dear Hanna, Still August 4, 2010

Somewhere over the Great White North (Canada)

So I have been in the air now for about 5 hours, I think. I watched the plane take off on the BIG screen in the cabin. I never knew what the pilot saw on take off. Did you know that the runway looks like a road (yellow line down the middle) with BIG white arrows in the direction of travel? I wished I had my camera out so I could take a picture of it. I actually found myself thinking about my work, and the inscribed lines I use, the colors, the symbols.

So far, I have watched 2 movies, Date Night, which was funny in a cute type of way. It was a chick flick of sorts, but I think married guys should watch it. I hope never to be described as a great roommate. I also watched Invictus, which I would recommend completely to everyone. I found that this flick was inspirational. It also had me thinking about Andrew, you know Chris’s friend that used to skate. He played rugby in South Africa last year. OK, I am boring you with my endless rambling already, sorry. I guess sharing a 14 hour flight in this manner is bound to do that.

I have also spent my time reading a bit. I have saved the current issue of The Studio Potter (V 38, N 2) for just this occasion. I received it several weeks ago, and decided not to open it until I was in the air. What a surprise it was to see not one article written by a friend, but two. I enjoyed both John and Chris’s articles very much. I thought I was technologically SAVVY until John had me questioning my own skill set. It killed me that I couldn’t get online in that instant. Then there was this one article, “Embracing Change” (Richter) that left me riveted to my seat. I found myself searching for something to take notes with and on. The seatbelt sign was illuminated and my computer and sketchbook were stowed above so all I could muster was the lip-biting and rereading and reflecting, and rereading, and more lip-biting. She talks about energizing the canvas, treating each aspect of the work as its own culture and then getting those cultures to speak to each other. Who knows, maybe that is what this trip is going to do for me. I cannot wait to share with my students in a few weeks.

You and your mom were correct in stating that I would be treated well by the airline. The food/drink has flowed since boarding. I have to confess that I goofed at dinner. I thought the rice dish was the beef dish, and so, SADLY, I ended up with an completely WESTERNIZED meal. Everyone else’s smelled SO good and I was stuck with beef stew over ziti and succotash. They have been very accommodating to the language barrier, automatically assuming correctly that I do not speak Korean. They were thrilled to hear that I was traveling to Korea and not on from there. I have a good feeling about this already.

The man sitting next to me has been friendly, making sure that I have what I need. He is a school teacher. He teaches HS technology and was in the States on a 3 week vacation. I offered him my fruit (you guessed it, MELON). It was so nice to get a welcome smile. It makes me feel as if the language is only going to be a very small barrier. The immersion began the minute I stepped onto that concourse in JFK.

Hah, I scored something wonderfully tasty, somewhere just before flying clear into tomorrow. It was this sweet bun filled with some kind of meat filling. It was incredible! The plane’s entertainment system has this camera on it that lets me have a landscape view even though I am not sitting at a window. Anna told me to make sure I looked out over Alaska because it was cool. I am currently looking down at ice flows, and I must say it really is cool. By the way, it is tomorrow (August 5) and I am just about ½ there. I know this is nothing for a world traveler such as yourself, but for me, its my first time crossing the line and I feel like I should be doing this happy dance with confetti falling from the ceiling and horns blowing…Justin told me that this crossing would be difficult, hah, maybe he was just as bored as I am right now, but did not have anything to write home about. What I think is cool is that I have followed the sun, its still bright as can be outside and its 10:30 where you are. Now I am just waiting to cross over the Russian land mass. The pack ice is cool and all, but…I have been looking at it for a long while.

I hope this finds you feeling good, and that you have had a good week of rest before the next round of Chemo.

More adventures later! Love you sweetie, xoxo

Hanna, August 5, 2010

Incheon, ROK

The man from the seat next to mine escorted me to the customs counter and told me what to expect throughout the country. He was from Deagu, which is one of the cities I think we will be staying in at some point. Customs was a piece of cake. I am at my hotel. Which is strangely European, though you are required to drop your key off at the front desk whenever you go out. I am not sure if I like that or hate that? We leave tomorrow on our journey to the other coast (Gangjin). Where we will be exhibiting our work.

Tonight’s dinner was fabulous, kimchi hot pot, seafood pancakes, vegetable pancakes and of course all the side fare you could ask for. We even drank a bunch of beers. Most of our group are from OZ so … ask Justin what he knows about that.

No major things to report, only that my phone doesn’t work. Hopefully my bankcard will? Well, off to bed!!! I am so beat!

Love you, XOXO

Ruby Tuesday reverberated

Today is a crazy day, I am packing for Korea, taking care of tying up loose ends, trying to get Chris to gather his stuff for a race this weekend and trying to find a voltage converter. EEEKKKK! No, that is not the sound I wish to make, its more like the one that sounds like a guillotine coming down on that unrestrained chicken...(OK did you know that there is actually a video of that on youtube? It actually makes me want to be a vegetarian)

I wanted to share my RUBY TUESDAY PICS (though lets just say its LOBSTER DAY). Here is what I collected:

JIENTJE thank you for reminding me that I needed to post those BEFORE I LEFT.

Where's South Korea At?

You got to be kidding me? The Republic of Korea? You googled it and you can't find it, really? This is the conversation I just had the liberty of having with a Bank of America employee while trying to alert them to my travels in a few days. Then should could not understand WHY I wanted to SPEAK to someone else.

More geography lessons needed, a friend is concerned that I may have improperly packed for this trip and reminded me that it is winter in Korea. Last time I checked (last night) it was 90 degrees and humid in Ulsan with no significant change predicted for the next 10 days. Its OK, I did appreciate the thought.

This morning I commented on Walk a Mile. Beth had posted about life choices, being a teacher vs a stay at home mom. This got me thinking about the negative response I often witness from parents who are dismayed at the fact that their kids want to be teachers. I am amazed at how education is downplayed as a viable career. What is wrong with being a teacher? When you go buy a house your first concern after price is the school district. When you send you kids to school you want them to be in a competitive and progressive learning environment.

Its a job where we are sleep deprived and work 24/7 for 10 months out of the year before slowing to a relatively normal pace in the summer. Maybe the dismay is because teachers generally get paid too little for the level of education needed and the time spent on task?

Clearly, this morning demonstrated that I the person I needed to speak to was not the savvy INTERNATIONAL BANKER she trained to be and I have no doubt she was AMERICAN because most other nations blow us away in education. Geography is SIMPLE! Everyone should know the 7 continents, where the stable countries are (by stable I mean the ones who have not changed names in the past 50 years), if they are American then the 50 states of the country they live in as well as the capitals of those states. By the way, in case you didn't know it, Toronto is not a small country in the South Pacific and Oklahoma is not in Canada...Doesn't anyone LOOK at a WORLD MAP anymore? We seem to be this global society that has no idea what that means!

Just to appease my followers this is the link to Nat Geo! I encourage you to look, to learn , to wonder, to fantasize about visiting... Go for it, maps are beautiful pieces of artwork within themselves.

Philadelphia

Dear Belle,

It figures that the day after you headed

south, the wildflowers would bloom and of course they are full of random sunflowers and black-eyed susans. It also appears that there is some cornflowers and some very pretty little yellow things. I will take some pictures and post them before I leave on Wednesday.

So you are living in the Theatre District this year. Last year all the only culture your neighborhood had was 40's and stabbings. We used to worry about you in every aspect of your daily life in that old neighborhood. Honey, I hope you are not second guessing your decision to move to Center City?

The Jamaican place was OK. What movie was that again? (My Sister's Keeper) The food was fantastic, but we were there until 7:30 because we had to wait almost 45 minutes for our check. I am so glad they had a band to listen to and a few little kids to entertain us. There was this random $6.00 charge on the bill. It was for entertainment, ha. I can't wait to try the burrito place. (You may see Dad and I more often, hahaha)

The ride home on the turnpike was as congested as the ride down. We took the Parkway. I wonder where everyone was going?

I will e-mail you from South Korea. I am hoping that you have fun on the farm during that time.

Love you,

MOM