More bugs, Staring and Hairy Monsters

When I last updated, I had just gone to the Victoria and Albert museum exhibit. Actually, no, it had been a while, I just hadn't kept up my blogging. That was an interesting exhibit. I love learning about European Kings etc, so it was a pretty great exhibit. Since then, life has been very exciting. There was a bug on my bed. I fell out of a chair and ran into a desk at the same moment, resulting in a leg wound. I was stared at. I saw some cats.

Oh wait, no that's not true. I live in Korea, so many exciting things have happened. I think I will start with student stories this time. First, I must update you with this picture:

One of my former middle school students drew this...Apparently I have a football head. Maybe he's seen "Hey, Arnold" and thought it was a good thing.

Actually, I think this picture is quite hilarious. My favorite part of the picture is the hair on certain people....aka Michelle, the owner of our school. No, that's not what her hair actually looks like.

Facebook just tried to get me to spell "Velociraptor" "Velocipede." Can you imagine a velociraptor-centipede. The horror! The teeth and the legs! And the aggression.

While we're at it, here's Veloci-bee:


There actually was a bug on my bed. I was minding my own business laying down, when suddenly "Plop!" there's a bug next to my hand. It was gross. I sent it flying off my bed, which meant that I promptly lost it in my room and spent many a minute attempting to find that bug. I did and he met his match in the form of my shoe. I'd thought that it fell from my ceiling, until I saw one a couple days later in my room and it was flying. Also, I developed super-human bug hearing, so I actually heard that one land on the floor across the room, before I saw it fly.

The bugs in my apartment are not only giving me super-hearing, but also are causing me to jump when I see the shadow of my arm move. Or my blanket out of the corner of my eye. or my foot touches my other leg...Perhaps one day I will get over the horror of that centipede and the bugs. As I write this, I had a small white thing on my leg and I jumped extremely dramatically, only to remember it was the end of a roll of tape I had just started.

In other news, I spent about 2 weeks forgetting my camera wherever I went. I went to a Cat Cafe with Carrie, which was kind of cool. If you can't tell, it was a cafe where cats just wander around aimlessly and you pet them. Carrie spent her time being loved by the cats and petting them and having them chase her toys. I spent my time getting repeatedly hissed at for touching the cats and having them ignore my toy. Not that I'm bitter.

Perhaps they sensed my fear of this cat and resented me for it:

That thing was just gross. Carrie loved it. But it was gross. To quote "Friends"--"Maybe it's because it's a minion of the anti-Christ."

There was also a cat with little-mini midget legs. It was very adorable.

Here are some pictures, courtesy of Carrie.


-I resent being placed in a box shaped like my head.
I would glare, but I can't see you anyway.

I think I ate too much.

My ears are squooshed, so I shall sleep my life away.

Last Saturday, I went to dinner with a bunch of friends from work and other people that I met that day. It was very fun. We had Korean BBQ as usual, then wandered around a bit and of course ended up at our usual place, Ho Bar. I know I've always joked about the Tides being my high school mascot, but I didn't quite realize that other people would think it was equally funny. We were talking about our various mascots, so of course I said "We were the Tides. Our mascot was a wave," which everyone found deeply amusing. Poor, put upon Gig Harbor.

Sunday, I met up with Carrie and her friend Rosie in Insa-Dong to find presents for Grant and Adrienne for their birthdays. Rosie's visiting, so she wanted to go too. I found Grant an awesome pocket-watch among other small things. I cannot say Adrienne's present because her birthday hasn't happened yet. We wandered around Insa-Dong, went to the only Starbucks in Korea that has a Korean sign and got some desert. Then we decided to go to Namsam Tower and explore, which resulted in a "MY CAMERAAAAAAA" Dramatic Realization. That morning I'd thought, "I must not forget my camera" but I did, so I guess I just have to return to Namsam. Darn. It was very cool. This is the view, courtesy of Carrie again:


Photo-Bomb!

That day was full of many interesting moments of me being stared at. Or leered at. Depending on the person. Carrie, Rosie and I were waiting for the subway when, suddenly, an older man about 65 I'd say, said "YOU HAVE BEAUTIFUL EYES (or face)!" and then kept walking. I was a little taken-aback. His wife walked by behind him laughing hysterically.

Then, about 2 minutes later, this older security guard, again I'm guessing about 65-70, clicked at me like a horse. Not even joking. He clicked at me like you'd click at a horse when you want it to start walking. Then, when I glanced over, he did a very obvious looking up and down at me, while also leering. Some of you may think I am being dramatic, but, alas, I am not. There are witnesses and Carrie was equally freaked out.

Then, that evening when walking back to my apartment, I was waiting at a light to cross the street. A motorcycle gang, with very decked out motorcycles complete with flashing blue light strips were all sitting on their bikes stopped at the stop. And every single one of them was staring at me. For a good 2-3 minutes. Not even joking. I refer to them now as the Creepy-Rapist-Motorcyclists.

As I write these stories, some of you may think that this is not a normal occurrence for me. It actually is very normal for this to happen to me. Older women stop on the street to watch me walk by. People stare on the subway. On the bus. On the street as I glide by on my hovercraft. Just a couple days ago, I was getting on the bus with Blossom and an older man (this time about 75) said something to me, then proceeded to stare at me the entire time we were driving down the road. I am not sure what he said, because he didn't have any teeth.

At least it makes up for being called a "Hairy-Monster" by a student, because I have a lot of (blonde) hair on my arms. Then, later that week, the same student rubbed my face saying, "furrrr." And yes, this is the same student who asked me what my leg hair was.

I shall end my blog post here for now. Later, I will write about more student stories and finally seeing Kellie!

National Museum of Korea and the Vultures of Condor

Sorry I haven't for a while everyone. I had intensive classes, which were only twice a week, but for whatever reason, those 930AM-10PM days left me completely exhausted. Who would have thought. Thank heavens I wasn't doing that 6 days a week!

So I am finally writing my blog about the National Museum of Korea.

After Elaine, Carrie and I wandered around looking at nature, we heading to the National Museum of Korea, which you can see pictures of the outside two posts back.

The stairs were painted for the special exhibit from the Victoria and Albert Museum. It looked kind of awesome.


We also saw this awesome stroller:


We entered the building, which had a very cool entrance. This is what it looked like:

There were several floors in the museum, beginning with the earliest people. This exhibit included things like:

The "Jar Coffin" aka an urn

Some knives

Some necklaces:

Most of the things in the museum were labeled very specifically and helpfully. For example, these were labeled as "Bronze Z-Shaped Artifacts"

These ducks:

And these very comfortable looking bronze shoes.

And these cool paintings

Also this guy. Remember him?

Here are some Hindu gods.

I learned while looking at this that the word "Hindu god" is the same in Korean as in English. I know this because the people standing next to me were speaking in Korean and all of a sudden I understood "Hindu god" as they were speaking.

We continued on, which lead to this dragon, which is described as a "4th century Tripod Cauldron with Handle." As I think you may notice, the English translations and information were not very helpful...

This awesome helmet

A chastity belt...errr, wait, no I don't know what this is

This guy who's looking a little menacing

This thing with a Phoenix on top described as "Ring pommel"

These are "Silver Diadem Ornaments" err... Gold?

Oh look, more Placenta jars!

Here is a pot with a fish on it:

Some donkey/giraffe figurines, which are looking very happy

Some clay figurines, which I have concluded 2 year olds made.

More interesting things with dragons on them


This was pretty cool:

This stoic sheep

And this sword, which I took a picture of just for Grant.

This frog is super cute

As was this one:

This guy on the left is kind of ugly.


I learned that the Symbolic meaning of a cat in Korea is.....Wait for it. Wait for it. A 70 year old man.

And a butterfly is an 80 year old man.

Poor cats and butterflies, they are so put upon.

These were really beautiful



This wall hanging was ENORMOUS.


Oh you might look at it and think, oh it's not that big. Oh but just you wait, here I am standing in front of it:

The feet are quite a bit larger than my head.

Attack of the birds!

A pipe set:


This guys mustache was awesome


Carrie and I taking a break in the little mini-chairs

Me being a photo-creeper

This thing was amazing. Look how many stories high it is!




And here are some other random, awesome looking things.


My, what nice teeth you have.


After wandering around the museum for a long time, Elaine, Carrie and I headed to the Seoul Station area to get dinner, since Elaine could catch a bus back to her place from there.

We got Naeng Myeon (aka cold noodles. so good) and lazed around a bit because our feet hurt like none other. We saw this cool bicycle statue:


We hung around and chatted for a long time, before heading home after a long day. It was a very nice day.

I went back to the museum a couple weeks later to see the exhibit from the Victoria and Albert Museum about the 16-1800's. It was very interesting, though of course we couldn't take pictures. My favorite part was definitely the King Vulture of Condor. Mostly because the name reminded me of Lord of the Rings. They also had a lovely razor set from England, which I wish I could have taken a picture. It made me start singing Sweeney Todd.

Well that was my time at the museum, hopefully I didn't bore you with too many pictures! More blog posts to come about funny student quotes and old men literally horse-clicking at me.