It's been a good week full of research, lots of reading, Skype conference with my professor, and relaxing with the other REUs. Thank God He gave me Friday to relax, enjoy Daejeon, and watch a great match although that should have ended differently but "it is [already] written."
Side Remark: KITTIES!!!!
There is a big mamma cat who gave birth to 5 tiny and cute little kitties right outside the girls' dorm! You can guess who's feeding them. Annika and I went out one night and gave them my tuna. The two big cats (I assume it was the mom and the dad) ate most of it but I left some for the little ones too. Then another day I brought them a milk carton. One brave little kitty came out and tried to steal a lick of milk while her mom's face was in the way. It was way cute.Jung-ang Shijang Traditional Market
So, the girls had decided to wake up at 6 a.m., take a taxi to the Yuseong Spa, relax, head over to a Traditional Market, return and relax at the university, maybe take a bus to the art museum, and enjoy watching the U.S.A game at the Santa Claus Bar at 11 p.m. That was our main plan. Well, I'm going to borrow my friend's phrase from her blog, "plans make Him laugh." Turns out that our morning started like this: (keep in mind that Annika and I are roommates, and Tiara lives next door)
Rrrrrrrr rrrrrrrrrrr rrrrrrrr
"Allie, the alarm is going off" (tired voice)
"Turn it off!" (mean voice)
"Okay" (sweetly)
Both girls fall asleep
[30 min later Tiara knocks.. no answer]
[30 min later AGAIN Tiara knocks... no answer]
zzzz zzzzzzzzz zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
"Allie wake up it's 10 a.m."
[Throws pillow at girl on bed. Allie hugs pillow and goes back to sleep]
Needless to say, we didn't wake up at 6 a.m. like we planned, so we didn't end up going to the wonderful Yuseong Spa to relax. We did however
wake up to start the day by taking showers, walked through the International zone, ate at a Japanese Fusion place, and took the Subway train to the Daejeon Station. This traditional market, named Jung-ang Shijang, is the biggest open market in the city of Daejeon. It reminded me of "Magdalena" in Peru except this market had more Korean specialties. Everywhere you walked there was some kind of food, object, cds, etc. for sale! When we first started walking this lady wanted me to buy her blackberries. I figured, yeah sure.. I tried asking her how much, and she said "chu chu" holding up her thumb and the finger on the right of it (from my perspective). I mean, yeah 2000 for a big bowl of blackberries, why not.. I gave her a 10,000 won bill and she only gave me 5000 back with a smile. What? I tried to explain to here that I thought it was 2000 and she just kept smiling.
Well, since my friends were leaving and delving deeper into the maze full of food stands, I didn't have a choice but to leave with my black bag of black berries.At first the market had a keen smell of fish.. lots of fish, big and small, fresh and some with flies above them, eyes staring at the world, others being dissected by old ladies taking out bones and intestines, and octopus too -- some alive, other neatly packed in small spaces for the buyer to see. Then, the roots section. There were stacks of them. When we randomly took a turn we saw that a band in blue glittered outfits was playing. I spotted an old lady by her stand smiling and clapping. She looked so happy that I felt like giving her a hug.. but of course I didn't haha. Aww It made me happy that she was happy. Man, I can't wait to be an old lady.. I'm going to be a cute one like her ha!
Before I finish my discussion on the traditional market we visited, I would like to point out that they have a great selection of purses and bags! Their Louis Vuitton symbols were "L" and "W" or "V" and upside down "V" rather than a L and a V. But, Tiara and I did find some that we liked, so I bought a cute backpack of the world and she bought her first purse by herself! Good for her!
Art Museum
We took the subway back to KAIST and rested for an hour. We then meet up with Matt, walked to the CE building to get Anthony, and ran into the grad students outside the building who helped us get information about the Art Museum we were headed to (which we had no idea where it was). This turned out great for us: (1) We got directions and (2) we were given information about the Gap Temple from the "Captain" (the head police officer for the CE building at KAIST). Hehe, and we laughed with the grads especially Alexander.
"Ahn nyong Haseyo" - the "Captain"
"Ahn nyong Haseyo" - all of the grad students (replying back to the "Captain")
(sharply) "Bye." - Alexander
[laughter]
When we finally got dropped off after a 6000 won taxi ride to the museum, we noticed that many people all dressed up were headed towards this beautiful looking building. Turns out the Daejeon Orchestra was playing Tchaikovsky and I was missing out! But, that's okay we got to see some beautiful artwork. There was a whole gallery that was dedicated to this guy named "Lee"? Well, I thought his pictures were good. After looking at them very closely I noticed a lot of hidden messages that interested me. One, which I hope to post, looked like a chaotic game of soccer with a soccer ball in the middle. The other, a squid on the right side, noodles vertically placed on the left side, and a tentacle extended from the right to the left of the bottom of the painting. The third picture contained some tiny fishies and the squigglies could be interpreted as squid. Well, this probably has something to do with the fact that I was extremely hungry for dinner and I had a strong desire to watch the World Cup games (especially the USA match). Let me know what you think about these interpretations if Lee's art.
There were also some interesting sculptures outside of the art
gallery and the orchestra building. Tiara and Annika were fascinated by this on funny structure with a huge ear on the side. I liked the one where two naked kids were reaching for a slice of apple on the top of something. The taller kid had his hand on the small kid's butt. I have no idea? My favorite one was where the were three walls and each showed the progression of a guy walking through the wall with a boulder on his shoulder (I think).
Chicken + Juice + Ice Scream = great Dinner
Once the taxi dropped us off at the International Zone, Anthony, Annika, and I found a guy with chicken rolling around on a stick (on the back of his truck). The sign was in Korean, but we could still understand that "3 [chicken] = 10 000 won." It was located at a great spot: in front of a 711. Ahh, we bought drinks (mango juice for me), sat outside and ate our chicken like carnivorous beasts--- meaning using chopsticks and hands. Oh what a wonderful dinner.
U.S.A game at the Santa Claus Bar
We've enjoyed this little International Bar and since it is now officially Shen's (our grad student from UAkron) favorite place in South Korea, we came here to watch the USA game. Boy that was a great place due to the cheering, but a terrible place to be due to all of the smoke. The first couple of times we've been there everyone was about our age or a little older -- university students mostly. Today though.. oh, so many old people! Not to be rude but, come on Mr. white-haired, Australian-accent, screaming-maniac-for-the-other-team, clapping-for-no-reason... the least you could do is blow your smoke somewhere other than towards the side of us and move from left to right to block our view of the T.V. screen!! Boy, if the U.S.A. game hadn't been so amazingly intense, I would have definitely left by myself to find a better place to watch the game.
Anyways, I will pretend that whoever is reading this has a strong knowledge of the game. Man, at first when Slovenia scored only about two people were
clapping-- the white haired guy blocking our screen, and some random guy in the back.. but when U.S. scored... EVERYONE was out of their seats, jumping, screaming AYYYYYYYYYYYYY, hugging each other, high five-ing random strangers, and literally making the whole basement vibrate. Then, the harmonic chant began: "U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!" The second goal was even louder. and the third--- out of this world. Except, you could imagine the devastating call by the ref when he said that the last one was "off sides." People were screaming in a chorus "bull..." Ahhhhhhhh that was NOT offsides for one, and the sideline refs were terrible in the game! C'mon!!
Well, it's so early here (2 am) and my roommate went to sleep since she had a terrible headache at the bar.. I think that calls for me to lay down and rest. Until next time! Toodles!
-Allie R.
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