September I hardly knew ye

Cripes! The start of a new term at work, my internet throwing successive tantrums, a recent trip out of the country, and my general laziness and tendency to say, "Naw, I'll write something tomorrow" has led to an unintended two and a half week hiatus. Whoops. So I figured I needed to sit myself down and get something out before this month just completely passes me by.

First and foremost: Fall is here! It arrived exactly thirteen days ago on a Monday morning. How do I know this? Because fall is just that awesome. It comes with a crispness in the air and a coolness that you can feel even under the remaining summer heat. It's not pushy though like Winter which comes barreling in to set up camp for four months. It pops up, gives you a quick wink to let you know it's in town, and then lets Summer fade out. When I came downstairs that Monday morning I paused for a second and oh hey, there it was. Fall is the best season ever and I'm so so happy I'm abroad in a country that experiences a beautiful Autumn like the one back home.

And to ring in the harvest season, Korea celebrated Chuseok (추석) this past week. Chuseok is a three-day holiday that you'll hear most foreigners describe as the Korean Thanksgiving. Everyone goes back to their hometowns (or as most of my kids said to "grandma's house" wherever that may be) to spend time with family and in the words of my students to "eat yummy foods". It's one of the most important Korean holidays.

The holiday this year was from Sunday the 11th to Tuesday the 13th so a group of us girls from work took the opportunity to take a mini-vacation to Shanghai. You'd think that considering we'd only just started the new term we wouldn't be in need of a break yet but those first couple weeks are tiring so it was a more than welcome stay away. More on that adventure soon! That is when I actually finish up on Vietnam. Heh.

CDI always makes up missed class days though so I had to work both days this weekend which was not too fun. Luckily I only had one class today though that was out by 1:30pm so I'm spending the rest of the day relaxing and catching my breath. Literally. Somehow I came down with bronchitis and I have a real nasty cough and that obnoxious chest pain. Dr. Google and her associates however recommend basic home treatment like liquids and rest so I'm holding off on a trip to the pharmacy just yet. So far sitting next to my humidifier is helping a lot actually. In the event of needing more than just charades and coughing at the pharmacist though, this site seems to offer a decent Korean-English dictionary for medical terms. Or at least it's a Korean-English dictionary for medical terms. Whether or not those terms are accurate I haven't a clue...

So that's that in my life right now. I anticipate the next few months being pretty busy but I want to make sure to share some more of what's been happening lately. My first ever K-pop concert! Flying in style and delicious food in Shanghai! A visit to a house shaped like a giant toilet!

At least one of those adventures means I forever have the perfect ice breaker for awkward situations at parties. This really has been a successful year.

Trivia of the Day: Ganggangsullae (강강술래) is a 5,000-year-old Korean dance that was first used to bring about a bountiful harvest and has developed into a cultural symbol for Korea. It incorporates singing, dancing, and playing and is exclusively performed by women. The dance is mostly performed in the southwestern coastal province of Jeollanam-do. It is often associated with the Chuseok holiday and Daeboreum. Traditionally, this dance is performed only by women at night without any instruments. Young and old women dance in a circle at night under the moonlight. They go outside in traditional Korean clothing, hold each other's hands, make a circle, and start rotating clockwise. The lead singer sings a line and everyone sings the refrain 'ganggangsullae'. The song tempo progressively becomes faster. They sing about their personal hardships, relationships, and desires. During the dance, the women play a variety of games. The dance can last until dawn.

China Visa with less than 6 months on ARC

I recently went through the process of getting a visa for my upcoming trip to China. When we went to Vietnam I needed one as well and all it involved was filling out a form at the embassy in Seoul and coming back the following week to pick up my passport. Easy peasy.

China though? Not so much. If you're a foreigner living in Korea (specifically a US American since that's what I am in case some of this info may not apply to foreigners of other countries) and you want to take a trip to China, the visa process involves just a bit more work. You can no longer apply for a visa directly at the Chinese embassy so you need to find a travel agency to take care of it for you.

And if you're like me and you have an ARC (Alien Registration Card) that is expiring within the six month period from when you are applying for a visa, you will hear that the Chinese embassy in Seoul no longer grants visas in those cases. So you have to get some extra paper work and send your documents down to a travel agency in Busan where the Chinese embassy there will give you a visa. Still with me?

Once all was said and done, the process wasn't that much more difficult but I think I was just so worried that they wouldn't grant me a visa that I worked myself into a tizzy. This post will probably be way too late to help anyone hoping to head out to China for Chuseok but for future reference I thought I'd compile the steps you need to take if you want a visa for China with less than six months left on your ARC.

Step 1
If your ARC has less than six months on it then you need to get yourself to your local immigration office and pick up a Certificate of Foreign Registration (I have heard you can also get one of these at your city hall or district office but I can't confirm this). Bring your passport, ARC, and a stamp (I bought one at the office) into the immigration office and request this form. It takes less than five minutes and you leave with a sheet of paper that basically just re-states all the information from your ARC and passport but with a fancy stamp on top of it.

If you're in Incheon then the immigration office is located right behind Inha University Hospital. I took a cab and told the driver "Incheon chu-rip-kuk" or "Incheon immigration". I think I also threw in "Sa-mu-shil" or "office" for good measure but kept butchering it and he finally just said in plain English "Office?". Somehow even when I attempt to speak Korean I sound like an idiot...

Step 2
Find a travel agency to send your stuff to. I highly recommend Kangsan Travel as I had a very positive experience with them. They have an office in Seoul as well as one in Busan. I was super paranoid about mailing off my documents, particularly my passport, and having them get lost or be returned with a fat rejection stamp on top. So I emailed them beforehand just to confirm that they definitely would be able to get me a visa with my soon-to-be expired ARC and they assured me it would be fine.

Step 3
Fill out your visa application. You can find the applications through Kangsan Travel here. The first PDF is the main application form and the second is an extra form to fill out if you're applying for the visa in a country other than your country of nationality. So basically all foreigners in Korea need to send that one as well.

Step 4
Gather up your documents. What you'll be sending:
- Passport
- Copy of your ARC, front and back
- A 3cm x 4cm passport photo
- Application forms
- Certificate of Foreign Registration

If you don't have passport sized photos you can either get them taken in a subway station at one of those little photo booths or at a photography shop. Just look for a shop window full of family portraits, walk in, and tell them what you want. I needed one for Vietnam too so I had plenty of extras.

Step 5
Mail your documents off! I just brought everything into the post office, told them I wanted to send something express to Busan, and the worker helped me fill out the address in Korean. You can find the address at the page I linked above.

Step 6
Pay the visa and handling fee. For most foreigners the fee is 70,000 won but for Americans it's 220,000. Gross. On top of that I also paid 30,000 handling to Kangsan. You can pay by wire transfer at your bank which is super easy and safe. The account name and number details can also be found on the applications page linked above. I emailed Kangsan to let them know I'd transferred the money and I also sent them the address to mail my passport back to. 

I'd sent my things off on a Tuesday and by the Friday of the following week my passport was back with a brand new visa inside. I've heard various things about the Chinese embassy in Busan possibly changing to the no-visa-for-an-ARC-with-less-than-six-months like Seoul but at least for the time being you can get one if you follow these steps and go through Kangsan Travel. I'm sure there are other agencies you can use as well, I just know I had success with this one.

Happy travels!

Trivia of the Day: Caribbean Bay is an indoor / outdoor water park located in Yongin, South Korea. Opened in 1996, it is the largest indoor / outdoor water park in the world. The Caribbean Bay park reproduces a typical bay in the Caribbean Sea. The park includes a wave pool, the world's longest lazy river ride, a sandy pool, a wading pool for young children, various water slides, and a salt sauna. The children pool also has a baby pool which is very shallow for adults but perfect for babies. Caribbean Bay has received "Must-see Waterpark Awards" from International Association of Amusement Park Attractions.

Things!

So it seemed about time I take a breather and check in. We've been keeping real busy these past two weeks and it hasn't left much time for blogging. I'm actually not sure how long it typically takes most people to put an entry together but I've always been slow about it. I like to mull over what I'm writing and I take awhile picking out pictures to post and I'm easily distracted so more often than not my blogging sessions are interrupted with side trips to Oh No They Didn't! and Facebook. And when I sit down to write I want to get it all out in one go, none of that saving-to-finish-later business. That means usually I'm sitting at the computer for let's say about 3-5 hours when I'm assembling a typical entry. Also I like to write at night.

Since we've been doing a lot of early days to get the most out of a trip into the city and since my new schedule means I'm not home until 11 o'clock every night I really haven't had a chance to sit down and work on anything. Work has been a bit stressful and I have a lot weighing on my mind in regards to what my plans will be when I'm back home in the US. On the plus side though we've been up to some great stuff lately so eventually (I promise!) there will be lots of new pictures and stories. Plus that full Vietnam recap! I know those entries will pretty much take me twice as long as usual so I'm waiting for a long, do-nothing-day to get going on those.

In the meantime, here is a random list of goings-on on my end recently:

- Rain. Torrential rain. Drizzly rain. Plain rain. Just-enough-drops-to-warrant-opening-that-umbrella-rain (the most annoying kind, to be honest). My introduction to the Monsoon season began in Vietnam and is continuing in Korea. It is an extremely damp experience, I have to say.

- My Friday afternoon class (my five girls who I absolutely love) met my boyfriend when he came in to see the school and they went crazy. One of them started bringing in her friends who are in other classes so she could point at him and say "Boyfriend!" before they all started screeching. They were discussing us in the hallway and I heard both "handsome" and "beautiful couple". Also when we came back from Vietnam a few of them asked "How was your vacation?" but one of them asked "How was your date?" haha.

- I have not gone grocery shopping in three weeks. A few needed items have been scooped up at the downstairs convenience store but mostly this is just a testament to how much we have been eating out/grabbing breakfast on the way out the door. Oh well, Lotte Mart and I needed a serious break from each other. $13 for a box of strawberries? Girl, please.

- In September I'm going with four of the girls from work to Shanghai for Chuseok! Chuseok is roughly the equivalent of Thanksgiving and we'll have at least a four-day weekend. Our flights are booked and now we're working on getting visas. I'm thrilled about all the traveling I've been able to squeeze in during my time here and this trip falls nicely in between my summer vacation and possible departure in December. I know when I go home it will most likely be some time before I can plan any more big trips so I'm happy to be getting my fill now.

- A new pizza place just opened downstairs so we tried it out on Sunday night. It wasn't bad and the wheat crust was pretty good, albeit a legit shade of purple. They even gave us a few freebies to assure we'll come back and I was excited because next to the bottle of Coke in the bag looked like three of those mini containers of Parmesan cheese but of course it was actually three containers of sweet pickles. Ugh, I'm always fooled by the sweet pickles here.

- I recently walked past a girl wearing a shirt with Karl Lagerfeld's face on it and it was the best shirt ever. I know she bought it here because the markets are overrun with weird clothing designs and celebrity faces (hello, there was one featuring a collage of Sponge-Bob, Michael and Janet Jackson and someone who may have been Taylor Swift) and I have made it my mission to track it down. Don't fail me now, Korea.

- Tomorrow night Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 debuts here and so ends my childhood (actually I will never let this happen, who wants to grow up and admit they're never getting that letter from Hogwarts? Life's more fun this way). I'm especially excited because the past few HP movies came out later in Korea than the US and it would be a bummer to have to wait when so many people have already seen it. So after work we're going to catch one of the late shows and I already know it will be amazing. I haven't missed an opening night since Goblet of Fire (or maybe it was Prisoner of Azkaban, though these days opening night means "midnight") and I'm so so excited to have one last Harry Potter premiere to watch with awesome people :)

Also, I am assigning "Go see the new Harry Potter movie" as homework for all my classes this week. If only our school took field trips...

Trivia of the Day: Dokkaebi (도깨비) is a common word for a type of spirit in Korean folklore or fairy tales. Although usually frightening, it could also represent a humorous, grotesque-looking sprite or goblin. These creatures loved mischief and playing mean tricks on bad people and they rewarded good people with wealth and blessings. Dokkaebi are described as the transformed spirits of inanimate objects. The most common objects said to become Dokkaebi are usually useful everyday implements that have been abandoned by their owners or left in perpetual disuse, and include such wide-ranging objects as brooms, fireplace pokers, pestles, flails, and sometimes even trees smeared with maiden's blood. They are different from ghosts (귀신) in that they are not formed by the death of a human being, but rather by the transformation of an inanimate object.

Most Korean legends have Dokkaebi in the stories. They are about Dokkaebi pranking on mortals or punishing them because of their evil deeds. One of them goes like this:

An old man lived alone in a mountain when a Dokkaebi visited his house. With surprise, the kind old man gave the Dokkaebi an alcoholic beverage and they become friends. The Dokkaebi visited the old man often and they had long conversations together, but one day, the man took a walk by himself in the woods near the river and discovered that his reflection looked like the Dokkaebi. With fear, he realized that he was gradually becoming that creature. The man made a plan to prevent himself from becoming a Dokkaebi and invited the creature to his house. He asked, "What are you most afraid of?" and the Dokkaebi answered, "I'm afraid of blood. What are you afraid of?". The man pretended to be frightened and said, "I'm afraid of money. That's why I live in the mountains by myself." The next day, the old man killed a cow and poured its blood all over his house. The Dokkaebi, with shock and great anger, ran away and said, "I'll be back with your greatest fear!" The next day, the Dokkaebi brought bags of money and threw it to the old man. After that, Dokkaebi never came back and the old man became the richest person in the town.