Seoul Lantern Festival

On Saturday afternoon I met up with the boys (Kevin, Keith, Reed and Derek) to head for Seoul. We were planning to meet up with Nadia and Chris and Lisa at the lantern festival later but decided to go earlier so we could do some shopping in Myongdong (another neighborhood of Seoul with a lot of high-end fashion stores).

So we just wandered around from store to store down the streets that all look the same, including multiple storefronts of the same store (2 H&Ms!!!!I was in heaven). Kevin was looking for a winter coat but the rest of us were low on money so didn't really look for anything in particular. I perused the selection of a 2 story shoe store but was sad to see that even in the men's section the inventory in my size was somewhat small. They had canvas Sperry Topsiders deck shoes. it made me think of my brother and Grandfather. I would have bought them but then remembered that it's November and it's not really the time of year to buy canvas deck shoes.

I enjoyed wandering through the men's departments at all the stores we went to...H&M, Forever 21, Zara, Steve Madden, and the Lotte Department store, a big huge fancy department store...what can I compare it to? It's definitely above Macy's. They had sections of all the top designers...Armani, Dolce&Gabbana, Vera Wang, Gucci...

A lot of foreigners here like to make fun of the Korean's style. But personally I love it. Especially the men's style. I mean, like it or hate it, you have to admit that they take a LOT of care about their appearance. Their styles are impeccable. In H&M alone there was a whole section of the store devoted to men's evening wear. And it was full of shoppers with a long line for the dressing room. Custom-tailored clothes are really affordable here, along with really nice fabrics. So people dress really nicely. And even the men use cosmetics (not makeup...well, not much, but things like lotions and cleansers and stuff) and put a lot of effort into their hair. I guess you could call them 'metrosexual' but I don't feel that this term does justice to the way they look. Here's a picture of the 4 main characters of a popular TV show that came out last year...maybe it will help you understand what I mean.



Of course, they don't all dress like this all the time. But overall the style tends toward this really put together, attractive, stylish look. The girls are quite similar. They all put a lot of effort into their appearance and it shows.

Ok so anyway, after shopping Keith left to meet his 2 Korean friends and the rest of us had dinner and headed for the lantern festival. By this time it was dark so it was a good time to see all the lights.

So picture downtown Seoul. With a street festival going on. During the G20 summit. Imagine how many people there might be. Then triple it.

It was crazy. But fun. There were street vendors selling cotton candy, dokbokki, silkworms, and this really good spun honey candy wrapped around walnuts. We bought some of the latter. And avoided the silkworms at all costs. Although the smell is pretty inescapable.

So anyway about the lantern festival. There is a stream below street level near Seoul City Hall that is real/original. However over the years highways and roads were built above it and covered it up. And for a long time it was a really dirty, dangerous, shady area. But when President Lee Myung Bak was mayor of Seoul about 5 years ago he undertook the project to revitalize the area and restore the stream. So now it's a stream about 20 feet below street level with walkways on either side and it's basically a little park in the middle of downtown Seoul. It's really quite neat.

We wandered around looking over the rail at the lanterns for a while. We finally found some other white people (of which we saw probably only 10 all night). They told us where the line was to get down to the stream. Against my wishes we got in the queue. Luckily it only took about 35 minutes to get through. I hate crowds so I would have just as soon not gone down. But i'm glad we did. Miraculously we ended up finding Keith and his friends and later we ran into Nadia and Chris and Lisa, so we all ended up together at the end so we could grab some food before catching the bus back to Janggi.

The rest of the weekend there wasn't much exciting going on. I went to my Korean class. I impressed everyone with my ability to take a previously unknown verb and conjugate it. Luckily from what I've seen so far verb conjugation is really easy and uniform in Korean. So now I'm heartened and am working harder than ever to learn the language! I made verb flash cards and picked up a few Korean books designed for Korean children to learn handwriting and vocabulary. So they are perfect for me. Hopefully I'll be able to speak in full sentences soon!
I finally got a bank account last week. After the director took me there she left because the teller spoke English. As I was filling out a form I had to write my work address, and I wrote it in Korean. He was impressed with how well I can write Hangul. So now I can read and write, I just need to learn what it all MEANS! I still sometimes am blocked in my brain with my other foreign languages trying to come out...when I'm angry at my students I want to speak German. When I don't understand something I want to throw out a Spanish word. However I noticed on Friday night at the bar, as the night wore on my Korean improved. So maybe that's a sign that the ability is there, I just have to sort it all out! I'm getting there. Slowly but surely.

Ok, so here are the pictures from the lantern festival! As you can see the 'lanterns' are more like giant papier mache sculptures. But it was pretty cool.





















This one reminded me of the headwaters of the Mississippi...I was glad my brother wasn't there to push me in. Although don't worry, my friends threatened me enough.






So, there you have it. Another successful venture into Seoul. I may even be ready now to go alone if I ever have the occasion to. And don't worry. I found out (albeit not until Sunday) that the G20 was in Gangnam, which is the neighborhood I was last week at the German beer hall. So don't worry. I wasn't a part of any riots.

And no, I still haven't eaten the dog. Every weekend we plan to and every weekend we end up doing other things until too late. But someday soon I will have it, and don't worry, I will give you a full report.

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