Gyeongju Spring

Wow. I've been living here for just over 7 months and haven't really said much about the place.
Gyeongju is such a beautiful city, but it's been too cold to really get out and appreciate it. It's been warming up lately though, the Cherry Blossoms are finally out! This weekend was great, on Sunday my friend True Park invited me and about 10 of our friends out to his Dad's cabin in the countryside near Mt. Namsan. The taxi driver dropped us off at the bottom of a slight hill. We had no idea where we were or where we were going and all True had to say when I called him was "just keep walking". haha. It had the potential to be the start of a scary story (much like that time we were on Korean TV...)The Cabin is an awesome place. The experience got off to a bad start, completely my fault. I've been studying Korean for a few months and when I met True's Dad (who speaks no English) I totally chickened out and didn't say anything beyond 안년하세요, even though I knew how to say much more than that. I'm still pretty upset with myself for missing that opportunity, which would have also impressed and made his Dad feel a bit more comfortable. Nothing left to do now but to learn from it and step it up next time...right?! Anyway, the rest of the night was great (sort of ;)) We had some delicious 삼겹살 for dinner outside the cabin, followed by tons of drinking and cream of mushroom soup (made by a Chinese Woman ;)) inside the cabin. I didn't have to work the next day, so drank quite a bit of 소주, was hoping to just crash at the cabin and get back in the morning, but that hint went without notice.
I also finally went out to Anapji pond with Kayley and her friend Andrew who was visiting from the U.K. It is a beautiful place, it's perfectly lit up at night. I'm not much of a photographer (but have been more interested in photography lately so maybe someday I will be able to take wonderfully artistic photos!) so I didn't take any pictures, but it is a great place to just take a stroll with friends. Andrew's last night here was on Monday. We had one last get together, had dinner at a 김밥천국 then went out for Makgeolli (traditional korean rice wine). The Makgeolli place we went to was a bit more run down than the other places I had been, but it was a great place. They gave us some 삼겹살 and kimchi as a service (free) and we sat around a table and played Korean drinking games ( 3,6,9, the chopstick pointing game, baskin robins 31, the finger game, the counting game) It was a great time. It really was a shame that Andrew had to leave so soon.
I'm excited for spring to be here! I want to get back out and enjoy this beautiful country. Starting this weekend with the Cherry Blossom Marathon! I will definitely try to blog more often, if nothing else than for me to look back on in a few years.


WOW! I just realized I never blogged about the time I was on Korean TV!!
Ok, so one day I got a call from Nina. She use to take Korean Lessons at the community center and a representative called there asking for foreigner's names. They called her and invited her and 3 friends to taste traditional Korean food for a TV show. Nina, Cara, James, Felisa, and myself met this guy at the bus station and drove out into the countryside. Out in the middle of nowhere was this traditional Korean house(? when we asked what it was he told us it was an "experience" haha-so we were out in the middle of nowhere with some random Korean man at an "experience") where there was a table set for us. They brought out two dishes, one was Codfish skin wrapped around some sort of meat. It was not enjoyable. The other was Codfish skin wrapped around veggies, it was pretty good. They taped us saying how we couldn't believe it was fish skin and how good it was haha. After the taping they brought us some chicken soup and then drove us back to the bus station. It aired later that week and was a very short clip, but it was a good "experience" haha.