The Photo That Threatened to Cost Lives and Other Green Tea Adventures

4 July 2013

I would like to begin this entry with a hearty Happy Birthday shout-out not only to my beloved nation, but to my beloved Daddy as well.  71 years ago today, my loving father was brought into this world and has been causing trouble ever since.  Just kidding.  He’s pretty tame for the most part.  After all, it’s not like he can wreak too much havoc as he would then be forced to cross his own name off the Nice List, and that simply wouldn’t do.

Me, Santa (aka Daddy), and Mrs. Claus (aka Mom)

Well, my dear reader(s), a lot has happened since we last spoke.  Winter finally abandoned us here on the peninsula, Spring stopped by all too quickly for a brief “howdy-do,” and now Summer is upon us in all its hot and sticky glory.  Before we began to be blessed with, as my friend in NYC says, the “air you can wear,” however, the Hubby and I, along with another lovely couple that we hang out with here in Korealand, took advantage of a three day weekend we had in May, brought to us by Buddha’s birthday.  We loaded up the Golden Egg (our rockin’ 1999 Daewoo Matiz) on a Thursday evening after work, stopped to pick up our friends in neighboring county, and headed down south to Boseong for the Green Tea Festival and then on to Namhae, one of the many small islands dotting the southern coast of Korea.

Golden Egg in action 

The Hubby is a whiz when it comes to planning out road trips, and I have never more appreciated this skill as much as I have here.  He has shown his navigational prowess many a time, deciphering maps and their apps in both English and Korean to get us well on our way.

We arrived in a town close to our destination pretty late Thursday evening in the hopes of arriving to the festival early and then moving on to the island, so when we got to our hotel that first night, I was pretty beat.  We got up early on Friday morning and drove the remaining 30 minutes or so to Boseong and found that we were part of the early crowd.  Anyone who knows me will understand how terribly out of character that is for me.  I have always been perpetually late in spite of eleven years’ worth of the Hubby’s efforts to urge me to climb onto the early bird bandwagon.  Even so, I will admit it…..it was nice to catch that worm for a change.

If you have ever lived in or visited Korea for any length of time, you will know that there is a festival for everything.  Each town, county, village, and city is known for something.  Yesan is known for apples, Cheonan for walnut cookies, Seoul for…well…for being Seoul, etc. etc.  Thus, each festival has a theme, usually for that particular region/town’s main export.   Also, if you know anything about these festivals, you will know that they are all pretty hit or miss and most often incredibly similar.  We’ve been to quite a few festivals here: the Ginseng Festival, the Garlic Festival, the Walnut Cookie Festival, even the Admiral Yi Sun Shin and Hi Seoul Festivals.  I have to say, though, this festival was probably the most memorable.

As we left the Golden Egg resting in the parking lot, we headed toward the festival grounds and into the mass of tents full of vendors selling their green tea and green tea-inspired wares.  Honestly, my main desire was to see these “gorgeous green tea fields” everyone kept talking about and then pile back in the Egg and move on to Namhae.  While we looked for these famous fields, however, we browsed through the sea of canvas covered booths, taking advantage of free tea service on the way.

Free tea service from lady wearing traditional Korean hanbok

First of many photo ops 

You might notice that we are all looking in different directions in the above photo.  This is due to the fact that we had probably no fewer than six cameras taking our picture.  It was impossible to organize a proper everyone-is-looking-at-the-same-camera photo here.  Were you to wander around these many festivals in Korea,  you would definitely see vast numbers of photographers in attendance with expensive-looking cameras hanging around their necks with huge, even more expensive-looking lenses attached to said cameras.  When I first saw them all at my first Korean festival, I thought, “Boy.  They sure did hire a lot of photographers to document this festival.  That must be one impressive brochure.” As time has gone by, however, I have discovered that many of these photo-snapping fanatics are simply regular, everyday folks who just enjoy taking pictures.  It seems to be a national hobby.

Anyway, after we had our tea and finished our photo shoot, we meandered further down the line of tents and came upon a dduk making demonstration.  Dduk is a chewy rice cake thing that is a kind of staple of the Korean diet.  You’ll find anything from dried fruit  to nuts to sweet potato to red bean paste in or on top of dduk, but often it’s just served up plain.  I really wasn’t a huge fan of it when I first arrived, but it is indeed an acquired taste, and now I really like it.  It is traditionally made by placing cooked rice on a large wooden slab and then beating the mess out of it with a giant wooden mallet until it reforms into a large sticky mass.  People were lining up to take a literal whack at it.

The Hubby even took a turn

So very very sticky 

He's quite the popular one, huh?  Told you there were lots of cameras.  Photo shoot #2.

After pounding his rice dough into submission, the Hubby was whisked away by a group of giggling adjummas (older women) (and yes, they really were giggling; I mean, he is pretty cute, no?) to complete his training as a crackerjack dduk-maker.  Meanwhile, the rest of our small party wandered to the next group of tents.  While we were admiring/drooling over a green tea-infused chocolate fountain…

Incidentally, that is dduk there on the platter on top of this fountain of deliciousness

One of the many photographers in the tent stopped us and, in broken but efficient English, asked if we would participate in a tea making demonstration while he snapped some pictures.  Bemused and not really sure what to expect from his jumbled explanation of what he wanted us to do, but willing to go with the flow, we sat down at a small table where we proceeded to learn how to make little green tea cakes.  These cakes, however, were not for eating.  We pressed some sort of paste made out of tea into these little molds.

Then we had to poke a hole in the center of each one, through which we threaded all four disks onto a piece of twine.  Our instructor managed to communicate to us that we were to wait a few days for the cakes to dry and then drop them into boiling water to make a pot of tea.

Poking holes in the middle, which apparently is called "pingle, pingle."  I don't know if that's an actual word, or if it's just a sound you make or what, but our lady kept saying it as I drilled my little holes.

We became fast friends, my pingle-pingle lady and I.

While all this was going on, our photographer friend was taking pictures of the experience.  However, it was not only he that wanted to take advantage of the photo op.  While we were busy at our table, we kept hearing raised voices.  When we looked up, we could see our photographer friend yelling at another man for also taking pictures of us.  While he was yelling at the first would-be photo stealer, another one stealthily snuck around the conflict to get his own perfect shot.  This kept happening so much that finally, our original photographer friend stopped even trying to take pictures and just stood in front of our table with his arms outstretched, blocking us from the view of passersby.  I felt somewhat like a celebrity whose beleaguered bodyguard was valiantly fighting off the paparazzi.  I was waiting for someone to resort to fisticuffs, but alas, the parties involved were mostly all talk.  As we watched this all go on, our tea-making instructor took away our dried tea cakes and brought us fruit, dduk, and what I think was cheese to dip in a bit of the green tea/chocolate fountain we had been eyeing before.  It was even better than it looked.  When we were about three-quarters finished with our little feast, our photographer friend approached us and asked if we would mind leaving now.  He had gotten the pictures he wanted, and his arms must have begun to get a bit tired.  Apparently there was some sort of photo contest for the festival, and we were his secret weapon.  Glancing longingly at our unfinished choco-tea fountain leftovers, we stammered our thanks and, befuddled, wandered off in search of the next adventure the festival had to offer us.

The coveted picture that threatened to cost lives and which will probably end up on some brochure for the Boseong Green Tea Festival  in 2014.  (At some point in the proceedings, the Hubs found and joined us.)

This has ended up as quite the long post, so I will just let the following pictures and their accompanying captions tell you the rest of the story. (Virtual high five if you just read that last phrase aloud in a Paul Harvey voice.)

Cute traditional Korean turtle ship made of green tea cans

Cute traditional Korean house (hanok) made out of green tea cans

Lunch was green tea-fed grilled pork and, of course, kimchi.

We picked up some delicious green tea ice cream on the way to finally find those amazing green tea fields we heard about so much.

But we got a bit lost...

And then....we found them.

And they were indeed beautiful.

It's April, Winter! Seriously?! Seriously!

10 April 2013

So I just realized that it has been over two months since my last entry, and while many may not have noticed, apparently my aunt did, so Aunt J, this one's for you. ;)

The last we spoke, I had just come back from Thailand, and had written up about half of the trip.  Since then...

The children have come back from winter vacation.  I have gotten together with other expat friends out of town a few times.  I have started baking my own bread at home because you just cannot find decent whole wheat bread in Korea (seriously, it's impossible).  The only reason I actually have whole wheat flour is thanks to iherb.com.  I am a little in love with that website.  I have helped organize and enjoy two movie marathons (one 90s, one 80s, not to mention the upcoming Lord of the Rings Extravaganza) at a friend's apartment in a neighboring town because it has been just TOO DARN COLD to do anything outside (and I love movies!).   In related news, I have frozen my bum off due to the endless winter on the peninsula; seriously, it's April, Korean Winter!  It's time to let go!  We have bought a tiny 1999 Daewoo Matiz in which to toodle around town and the Korean countryside.  I have lent my voice to a character in a video game produced by local expat game designers (so much fun).  I have started to workout fairly consistently at the local community center where they open the windows to let the freezing cold air in to ... to...... I really don't know why they do this; if someone could explain this to me in such a way as to help me overcome my annoyance at this apparently common nationwide behavior, I would really appreciate it.  I have also been trying to keep my hand in the craft of acting by volunteering my time to read sections of public domain books for librivox.org - the recordings of which I have not yet posted as I can't help constantly analyzing and re-recording them in an effort to produce the best possible product (*shakes fist in the air, screaming at perfectionism and OCD tendencies in general*). Did I mention it's been really cold?

And now I am trying to reassure my friends and family back home, and admittedly, in rare weak moments, myself, that the U.S. media is trying to terrify its audience about the situation in North Korea much more than they should.  I actually asked one of the Korean English teachers in our office what he thought about the situation as business seems to be going on as usual all around me.  He said they are used to this kind of thing A) every year around the time the U.S. and South Korea participate in war games, and B) whenever a new South Korean president is elected (like this year).  He said he wasn't worried about it and advised me not to be either.  Of course, with the U.S. news sites that I follow to stay abreast of what's happening at home constantly flashing bolded headlines proclaiming how close the two halves of Korea are coming to a nuclear catastrophe and other things about N.K.'s "bellicose" rhetoric, not to mention the constant barrage of these scary-sounding articles posted by fellow expats via Facebook, albeit half in jest (seriously guys, stop that!), one can't help but pause and wonder if I should be worried.  And I do - "wonder" that is.

But then I remind myself that were I to allow myself to be the kind of person who lives in a spirit of constant fear; were I to ignore what I see with my own eyes and experience for myself; were I to worry all the time about "what if,"  I never would have married the Hubby, or gone to graduate school, or auditioned for anything, or moved to New York, or run a half marathon, or driven a car, or traveled anywhere but my own hometown in beautiful east Texas (as much as Mom and Daddy would have liked that).  Psychotherapist Wayne Dyer said, "You'll seldom experience regret for anything that you've done.  It is what you haven't done that will torment you."  While I can't say that I won't ever regret actions I have taken in the past (I have to admit I regret eating way too much Mexican food with the girls in Seoul last weekend), I know that I will regret not having a courageous spirit, and I will regret consistently making decisions in life based on the bad things that might happen if I take one particular course of action as opposed to weighing the risks and focusing on the amazing experiences I will have if I choose that course.  That being said, Mama didn't raise no fool, and please rest assured, family and friends, that should the need arise, we will hop into our newly acquired, little 1999 Daewoo Matiz and hightail it to the closest evacuation point, but until then, rather than trusting the sensationalist American media, I choose to trust in this...

"Be strong and courageous!  Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go." Joshua 1:9

Hopefully things will calm down here pretty soon.  Hopefully spring will come and everyone on the peninsula will be in too good of a mood with the arrival of sunshine and flowers to make war.  Maybe this is all winter's fault in the first place.  I hope so.

Thailand, Elephants, and an Overactive Imagination

22 January 2013

Today is my first day back in cold, cold Korea after spending two weeks with the Hubby on the vacation of a lifetime.  We went to tropical Thailand for fifteen days...and loved every minute of it.  Well, almost every minute.  Squatty potties were invented by sadistic men whose chief goal and joy in life is to maliciously plot ways for women to get urine all over their feet.

We left for Thailand having completely planned our entire two week adventure, which went surprisingly according to that plan.  Unknowingly, the night before we flew out of Seoul, we booked a room at the same guest house where we stayed the first night we arrived here just a few short months ago.  The nice man who runs the guest house actually drove us to the airport at 5 in the morning as he said it was way too cold for us to stand outside waiting for the shuttle.  Which it was.  Very Cold.  The plane ride was fairly uneventful, except for the presence of a guy sitting a few rows back, who we good-naturedly dubbed Marvin, since his nasal, carrying voice resembled that of the ambitious Marvin the Martian of Looney Tunes fame.  Marvin's dulcet tones kept us awake in spite of the constant thrumming of the engine that usually lulls me to sleep on airplanes.  After touching down in Bangkok, we found the shuttle van that would take us to our hotel, and I was introduced to riding in a car on the left side of the road for the first time in my life.  Once at our hotel, we collapsed, exhausted from a full day of travelling.  Early the next morning, we loaded up in the van again and headed back to the airport to take the Underground (or "subway" for you NYCers out there) to the Hua Lamphong train station.

Clock in the Hua Lamphong train station in Bangkok

Express train

We only spent a few hours in Bangkok...

Walking around one of the many wats (temples) in Bangkok before going to the train station

and then the adventure really began with an overnight train ride to Chiang Mai in northern Thailand.  We had reserved tickets in a sleeper car ahead of time and were quite lucky to have the whole little section to ourselves, two upper berths and two lower.

Sitting on the Hubby's bed here, but I slept on the top bunk

We opted for the air-conditioned car over the one merely cooled by a fan and the night breeze blowing in through open windows, but as we would soon find out, when they said it would be air-conditioned, they meant it!  I actually had to put back on the winter coat and scarf that I had brought with me, remnants of the Korean winter we had left behind, in spite of the outside temperature being in the upper 70s to low 80s.

While not the most restful night's sleep I have ever had, I was pleased to have my little bunk bed to doze in as the train chugged along slowly while scenes of gorgeous landscapes full of lush greenery and massive palm trees sauntered past our window.

Thailand countryside at sunrise

Our train as it takes a curve

Once in Chiang Mai, we actually found a tuk tuk (small motorbike contraptions that serve as taxis all throughout the country) with a driver who knew our guest house by name and who happily chattered along the way, trying to convince us to let her be our guide on a trek into the nearby jungle.

Not our tuk tuk, but this gives you the idea.  Also, please note that Tex Mex was to be found in Chiang Mai. More on that later.

We checked into our guest house, a very nice little place owned by a couple who proved to be two of THE most helpful people on our trip, always ready to answer questions and offer advice.  The first day there, we simply strolled along the Old City area, inspecting various wats (temples) and taking more pictures than I'm sure we needed.  At some point, we made our way to a tourist information area and booked a trip for the next day to go on a one day trek, jam-packed with different activities.

The trek day began early in the morning as we were picked up by our driver/guide at our hotel.  We rode in a song-tao, which is basically a pickup truck with benches installed on either side and covered with a metal canopy to shade its passengers from the sun.

In the song-tao

I made sure I was armed with plenty of sunscreen and bug spray as my fair skin always seems to accumulate not only freckles and sunburns but also numerous vestiges from visitors of the buzzing, bloodsucking variety.  I felt nothing if not prepared for the day.  We only picked up two other members to form a small group of five, including our guide.  Our fellow trekkers were two ladies from Argentina, who thankfully spoke English much better than I speak Spanish, although they were both eager to help me dust off my limited linguistic abilities.  Our first stop of the day, we were introduced to a small group of elephants, and although I had expected to be nervous about actually riding the massive animals, my excitement surprisingly far outweighed my fear once I was actually in front of them, and I clambered up into the saddle eagerly.

Hubby feeds the baby elephant bananas.  It LOVED them!!

Us on an elephant!

The path the elephant took was winding and, at times, fairly steep, and she hugged the edge of a precipitous drop-off that I tried to avoid looking at for long periods of time, instead choosing to focus on my faith in eons of an ingrained animal instinct for self preservation and sure-footing.  Even so, as she persistently raised her trunk over her head, expecting me to place a small banana in the cradle the appendage formed just for that purpose, I regretted not having had the forethought to purchase more of the fruit for the duration of the ride, as I had quickly gone through my meagre supply, happily feeding both my noble steed and the baby elephant that accompanied our slow, lumbering entourage.  A small flutter of disquiet emerged in the pit of my stomach, and I brushed aside the notion that she might decide to exact revenge for my perceived stinginess with a misplaced step, resulting in my unceremonious tumble from the seat above her shoulders.  My rampant imaginings of elephant retaliation notwithstanding, the ride up the mountain was absolutely breathtaking, and I enjoyed myself immensely.

Asking for bananas

View from an elephant

(The video is from the zip line cage we were in when we crossed the river after riding the elephant.  It's a little shaky since the Hubby didn't realize the camera was actually recording from its spot hanging around his neck when we crossed.)

When we reached our next destination, the flutter of unease in my belly grew a bit as I realized what our next activity was.  White water rafting.  Those who know me well, know that as a child, I had a rather unhealthy fear of water that may possibly be traced back to a particular swim lesson at the tender age of three or four when I somehow failed to understand the necessity of holding one's breath when being submerged in water, and my swim instructor, one kid on each hip, proceeded to attempt to introduce me and another child to that particular rite of passage. The attempt was not successful and led to about twenty years of a love/hate relationship between me and various swimming pools and beaches.  Now, I can do OK with swimming, but rafting down a river with large rocks that may or not have a date with destiny with my head, hard though it may be, was not a little disconcerting.  After the Hubby was able to to talk me into actually getting in the boat, I braced myself and chanted this recurring mantra that I have.  "You drove a sixteen foot moving van through crowded streets in New York City. If you can do that, you can do this."  Much to my surprise, the white water rafting ended up being my favorite part of the day, exhilarating in spite of distasteful visions of me tumbling headfirst out of the boat into a huge boulder, the large yellow raft covering my weak, but struggling, form as I tried to fight my way to the surface.  Also, I may or may not read way too many fanciful novels.  After the white water rafting, we relaxed, floating calmly along a stretch of the Mae Ping River on a bamboo raft.

The calmer part of the Mae Ping after the bamboo raft ride

Still after that, it was time for hiking.  We ate lunch, pad thai of course, with fresh pineapple for dessert...

Lunch with Andrea and Marcella, our new Argentinian friends

and then we headed up a well worn trail in search of a large waterfall.  It was beautiful, and we tried to take as many pictures as possible to remember it.

Beautiful

We trekked for almost an hour before we finally made it to our destination, spotting a huge spider and the largest termite hill I have ever seen along the way.  The waterfall was also the largest I have ever seen, not to mention the coldest.  The water was freezing, and I was the last to break down and decide to get in, but I did it faster than anyone else.  There was no wading in.  I was in the water within two minutes and promptly got right back out.  But I did it!

Hubby in front of the waterfall

We were pretty exhausted after we made our way back down the mountain and only half-heartedly meandered around the orchid and butterfly garden that was our next stop.

The last detour we made was probably my least anticipated.  Our guide took us to see the women of the Karen Hilltribe, who are predominantly referred to as the "Long Necks."  The reason behind this nomenclature is apparent when you see the ladies.  From the age of five they begin wearing metal bars that are fashioned into coils that snake around the girls' necks.  Every five years, they add more coils, also adding weight to their shoulders to push their breastbones down while simultaneously pulling their heads up, thereby lengthening their necks.  The reason I didn't want to see them was not because I found this practice grotesque or disgusting, I simply felt like bringing tourists by the truckload to simply gawk at the ladies felt a bit too much like exploitation in my opinion.  Granted, they do make crafts and goods that tourists often purchase, creating a stream of income for members of the tribe, but in the words of one of our Argentinian companions, "I do not feel good after."  In spite of my feelings, however, one of the girls voluntarily posed for a picture for me, so I felt like I had to take it as I didn't know if to refuse would be insulting.

This girl is 22 years old, so she's had rings added maybe three times.

Well, I think this is long enough for a single blog entry, so I will stop for today at the risk of boring you (whoever might read this) to tears.  To be continued...