Get on the...sTEAmtrain!!!! ^___^

Lost this post somehow! But now it's back up! Also lost the comment left, sorry!! :( I don't know who it was from either!! ><



Just do it!

Y'know what's damn good? Tea. Oh Wow. We have had some damn fine teas in the last couple of weeks, the computer teacher gave us some of his own made jam-like substance stuff made out of some sort of untranslatable citrus rind, and the English teacher taught me how to make this amazing ginger tea. Peeling ginger! Adding sugar! And sloshing it around in a massive barrel full of hot water for 10 hours! We definitely enjoyed the fruits of our labours there!! (Wait, do you get it?... fruits?! Oh, wait... ginger is not actually fruit is it. Damn.) The most amazing tea experience though, yet, was at an incredibly awesome Tea House in Insadon. Yes, I did sort of flame that district last post, however I have since changed my view of the area. Sigh. Once again, I prove myself wrong. How I do hate that so! Anyway, after purchasing some radcore chewy taffy-esque substance that is of utmost deliciosity, we stumbled up the seemingly most unreliable and narrow set of stairs I have dared to creak on. We opened the doors on a darkened senseriffic paradise, a place with such eclectic collectibles, it felt like a more crowded, more awesome version of my house. Times one thousand. People sat on a variety of different chairs, the room's random pieces of wooden furnishings creating little alcoves and screens covered in handmade and painted Hanji (Korean paper) creating low cave-like places for those within to whisper and sip tea. The best thing about this place, however, was the tiny birds who flitted around in flashes of yellow, gray, and black, in shadows, and in the fading sounds of their calls. They were so charming that one was inclined to stop talking or suckin' down [one's] darjeeling like Mrs. Nesbit (I actually had plum tea, but, one cannot avoid quoting Toy Story. Ever.) and just stare in naive wonderment at the sheer cuteness of these little dears. The plum tea, by the way, was spectacular. It came out in a rustic looking cup and with a pine nut floating on it's liquid goodness. Mmmmm. And with the tea we were served two Tteok (traditional rice cakes) and these little marshmallowish things made of rice covered in black sesame seeds and little hardened bits of rice. Sigh. I am getting used to the fact that everything is made out of rice. But it was all very good, nevertheless.

Tea on!

There was also a really cool looking 'Free Hugs' dude in Insadon, who I totally glomped. I think he was surprised. Mabes it was the speed at which I came at him. I'm Monsoon Moon, comin' atcha like a beam, like a ray, like a laser. Don't try and stop me. I'm quick like lightning. I'm frightening. I'm comin' atcha like a buzzard. Glompage with strangers = win.

We made our way back that Sunday night to Gangwha, the island off Korea where the school exists, meanwhile I discovering the delights that is known as intense nausea on coaches. I knew I hated bus travel for a reason. Lame. Unfortunately this will have to endure twice a week until Christmas. Fortunately my angel of a mother packed me some ginger tablets for this reason. It was just bad luck that I have only just discovered that I actually had them on me at the time. Although I was pretty delirious for those two hours, so I had no mind to even think of looking in my bag.

So we slept that night with the awesome lady near the North/South Korean border. It appears that we'll be there most of next week, which is an awesome change to crashing in random people's houses every couple of nights. It becomes tiring after...the first couple of times. It's now been something like 10 or 12 different houses. Anyhoo, we spent the next day with the poor kids, playing around and being hung on like trees with bunches of monkeys. I spent the whole day worrying about the Korean bathhouse we were purportedly attending that night, until I got word that we were to have sashimi instead. Whheeeeee! Oh ya, it was great. And then... we went to the bathhouse. Plans changed again, and my worries were back to haunt me. I've been naked with strangers heaps of times. Okay, once, at a bathhouse in Turkey. So I wasn't worried at all about this aspect. I was terrified that we were attending with the ajumma we were staying with and two other girls. I would rather be with old people in the form of strangers than with people I had been talking and joking around with the whole day.

But I was to go in and come out unscathed by the experience. We stripped down, and entered a steamy bath room. We showered and scrubbed ourselves silly, and then sat in a tub at 37 degrees centigrade. It was so relaxing, if not a little bit unnerving in that all the other ajummas were staring at a western girl sitting in the tub with them. I think I am grateful, rather than annoyed, that I can barely understand a word of Korean. We then joined the men in the sauna room, a massive hall-like place with two televisions and mats sprawled everywhere. The fact that I had to wear pink while the guys got to wear blue annoyed me. On most walls of this giant room were massive oven-like structures, each holding a circular room full of people sweating to different temperatures. We baked ourselves in the 56 degrees C room, drank Shikhye a traditional dessert drink made out of, you guessed it, rice. How rice-ist of me. We then boiled our skin in the 61 degrees C salt room. The floor in that one was unbearable to walk on, and as we lay on salt rocks sweat finally dripped off me. How cleansing!! We did not dare to do the 100 degree C room that night, however I think that the bath houses will be visited on a regular basis during this trip. Hopefully. I'm sure we'll burn in one then.

Also: Photos!! XD