A few tidbits

So nothing spectacular has been going on, but I really wanted to do an update so I just compiled a few things that I've been doing during the last week or so.

First things first. FOOD. Hahahah. Haven't had a food post in a while, right? The first one is 피자 닭갈비, aka Pizza Chicken Meat or AWESOME. Hahah. So I love 닭갈비 (basically spicy boneless dark meat pieces of chicken with veggies), but we wanted a little twist, so we went to a place that has pizza-style. So this one also had mozzarella cheese, olives, bell peppers and onions sprinkled on top. So good. 

We cleaned it up. Hahahah. 

Then tonight, my familia had dinner @ Cafe Minto to celebrate the end of the semester . Seven girls ate two bowls of pasta, three bowls of 떡복기, which is like spicy rice cakes. So delicious. 

Been going to church, too, and seeing too many people dress alike. 

We also take sticker pictures and make Chung wear ridiculous headbands.

Emmaus Girlies :):):)

And.. we also study :D. Melissa, Ashley and my favorite place to study is @ Princeton Square. The environment is so conducive to studying. Work work work!

AND CHECK IT OUT! They have a USC Banner! Fight on!

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A President's Funeral

So the day I went to the restaurant (see previous post) was FRIDAY, the 29th. It was also the day of the funeral for former South Korean president Roh Moo-hyun. Read about his death here. But if you want the gist of it. 

Roh was under investigation for bribery charges during his presidency, which was from 2002-2007. He was questioned by prosecutors and committed suicide a few days later by jumping off a cliff while hiking near his retirement home. It was shocking for the whole nation. 

And it also showed me how insane this nation is. All day, every day, they showed pictures of former President Roh and people mourning his death. People crying, more people crying, even more people crying. And it wouldn't be so weird if it wasn't for how they had treated this guy before. He had such a low approval rating when he was president, and after. People hated him. They protested his rule like crazy. He was even impeached. Then when he died, the pendulum swung the other way. People who thought he was a traitor by possibly accepting bribes, now thought he was a hero and did the honorable thing. READ THIS ANALYSIS BY THE NEW YORK TIMES HERE. 

So later that night, after most of the official festivities were done, my dad decided to take my family to the place where they were held to see if anything else was still going on. And it definitely was. 

There were tons and tons of people EVERYWHERE. Holding candles, crying, murmuring quietly, etc. 

A Korean custom in Korea, to bow to the picture of the deceased.

There were so many people lining up to bow to this one. I guess it was the "official" one? Or the one everyone wanted to bow at. It was INSANE. 

We went around 9:45, 10 p.m., and there were so many people. They blocked off the street in this major intersection in the city so people could sit around. There were people sitting in circles, talking and/or listening to people speaking into a giant speaker system. The speechgivers were talking about the ex-president and how he was awesome and how horrible the current administration is. There were a lot of very left-wing people out there. 

More people sitting. 

Left-wing propaganda, telling people to impeach/hate the current president. 

People sitting around. 

And like any good Korean political gathering, there were plenty of riot police around. There was actually a march and shots were fired into the air. I'm pretty sure they weren't bullets, but man it's pretty scary to have a bunch of Korean people run like a mob towards you. Wish I got that on video...

Eventually the police turned on these giant lights to blind people and/or to tell people to calm down. 

The face of former President Roh. His party's color was yellow. May he rest in peace. 

NEW PHILADELPHIA RETREAT

Sorry that I haven't updated in a while. It's been quite busy. This last weekend I went to a retreat with my church to Holy Mountain Jesus Town. Yes, that's the actual name. 

You can see the name of the retreat center above. It was very different from my past retreats. Namely there were no cabins or any need to go outdoors, for that matter. Everything — the rooms, cafeteria, worship room — were all self-contained in this one giant building. 

This was my room! And my bed in my room. We slept on little futons on the floor, which was heated. So comfy. 

My small group!

Pretty flowers on the last day!

Most of the Emmaus crew that came :)

More updates coming soon!

Better late than never

My bad for not updating yesterday, but I came home super tired. Yesterday was orientation, so basically I sat through hours and hours of people telling me boring things that I could have read in a handbook. Mostly pointless if you ask me. 

But in the afternoon, I got to meet this lady here. 

Yes, that's Pia looking ridiculously nerdy and fobby. I barely recognized her at the subway stop. 

I'm happy to see her! We ended up doing the very traditional Korean activity of watching a movie since it's raining outside and thus we didn't want to get wet. We watched The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, which was not as bad as I thought it was going to be in. In fact, it was good. 

But you're not here to read about my movie reviews. So here's some facts about Korean movie theatres. 

1. Movie tickets are cheaper than in Korea, about 7,000W. 
   
2. Concessions are also way cheaper. A hot dog, a waffle (oh yeah, they have waffles.), and a large drink was only 8,500W. Er, that is cheap right? I never buy concessions at movies. 
   
3. In addition. seating is assigned. I know at Arclight and possibly other theatres they have assigned seating, but most don't. And in Korea, everything is assigned, which I like.

After a movie, we ate food. We had 보쌈, which is basically you get a bunch of pork and you eat it wrapped with fresh lettuce, boiled lettuce, kimchi, spicy seafood, and with any number of sauces. It's really good. 

This is the building where we watched a movie. It's basically another giant department store, but with more emphasis on electronics. It's a funny name because when I think of techno, I usually think of the music, not technology.

To finish off the night, we had Starbucks coffee. Koreans are really green, btw. Here if you drink in the shop, they give you MUGS. Isn't that the most genius idea ever? How many cups do we waste by drinking in the store and then tossing them away. 

So that's the end for now. Gonna go out and have dinner later so expect another update tomorrow!