vlog #5: a long rant

Caution: Only watch this one if you miss me a LOT. This will cure it.

all l is on!

ALL L IS ON!!!!

you are being public blog emailed! boo yeah! (read here for a description of what that is.) everyone will be able to read this email on my blog so i can share information with everyone whilst specifically addressing people. little brother Danny said that he thinks that "this will be a really neat way for you to kind of catalog your experience, conversationally."

Alllison, I'm emailing you specifically because i just took a dance class today and i feel awesome. tired? yes. light-headed and sore? more and more every second. but i feel inspired. i have forgotten what it's like to have a really good dance class, and i really do want to get better. trying as hard as i was and being amongst people who are so much better than me really opened my eyes to how much i've stopped trying at school.

okay, so this dance class is run totally in korean and it's basically a jazz class. alllison, i took THE BEGINNER LEVEL - the lowest possible level i could take and it almost killed me. okay, so i've never taken a dance class outside of school, but is this what i'm to expect? the little korean woman running the class may have been close to 50, but she was FIT - kind of like Robin if she was korean, and she was tough. maybe koreans work harder than the classes i'm used to, because after this class, no one left! everyone just stayed from 8:30 to 9:00 working on the combo (which, by the way, was long and really fast). alllison, i'm pretty sure if i keep on taking this class, i will be a better dancer come september. please, encourage me. now, i could sign up for a month of classes at 110,000 won for a month (~$110), or just a coupon of 10 classes for 130,o00 won, which i think is more practical because it requires less commitment, which could turn out being Bad News Bears, because i'll do a total of 10 classes for the entire summer.

good news #2! i went to this church called Jubilee (and it's awesome but that's for another email) and asked some lady about singing lessons, and she was all like, "oh yeah! totally! ...but, hold on, are you looking for opera singing, because the guy i'm thinking of is more musical theatre..." I KNOW! isn't that totally wack how i seem to be taken care of out here?

one last thing: you know how sometimes we like to talk about racism? do you think this applies?



maybe you can't tell what i'm referring to. i'll blow it up.


now, to me, it seems like they took a brown happy face and gave it a fro and called it a Black girl and a Black boy, but my friends here seem to think they're just sheep. I don't know. i suppose it's not very important.

okay, friend, i'm tired, and i'm going to bed.

good night/morning!

-esther

vlog #4: a quick korean chat

Ag! I'm late for work! I have to buy an umbrella so the Korean acid rain doesn't kill me.

dear danny

dear danny,

i thought of you today. not only because i miss you and you are my favourite human being, but also because of this meal i had today:

in case you don't recognize it, it's ramyun, and that is your favourite meal. i ordered it from a restaurant. if you observe the colour a little closer, you'll see that it is faintly orange. that is because i was able to order it with a slice of process cheese on top. i thought this was just some weird thing that you thought up of all by yourself, but apparently not. fortunately, i melted it before i could thought to take a picture.

i have to go. i have to call our korean uncle. this is my fourth try. the other three times, i tried to speak korean (which failed) so they got what i can only assume is our cousin to translate. i think we're going to try and have dinner later this week. but, you know, i think it's important in this whole getting in touch with my roots thing - because if parents didn't move from korea, that's kind of where we'd be. weird, eh?

i also learned from talking with some other teachers here that our parents were some of the early ones to move from korea - that they were the adventurous ones. that makes me really proud and happy because as much as we've been outsiders because of our ethnicity in stoney creek, but also being so endrenched in Canadian culture because we were born here, our parents were doing big things and who we are is kind of a testament to that.

okay, danny, i love you, and i hope you don't mind being public blog emailed.

-esther

hey keely! i'm in korea!

Hey Keely!

It's Esther in Korea! It is Sunday morning and it still blows my mind to think that it is at night where you are. I think we might actually get some sun today, which would be really nice.

At this point I think I should tell you that you are the first in a series of experiments: a public blog email. I figure I'll be writing most people the same kind of thing, but people still want to be contacted in a some-what personal manner. So this email that I'm writing will be on my blog as well. Except with pictures and links. I hope you don't mind. You, of course, are certainly not expected to email me back in blog form, or really at all if you don't want to.

Anyway, I've chosen to write to you because you're the first person I specifically thought of while out here looking at stuff. I saw the Great South Gate yesterday, of which I knew nothing about until you. I remember you saying, "Hey, that gate thing burned down," or something like that. Then I said something like "What gate?" "It's like one of the only things to survive the last 600 years. How do you not know about this?" But that, of course, was in my white-washed past. Now I'm in Korea, therefore, very Korean. (ummm....)

Now I've seen it, and I was actually really surprised because I didn't know where it was - I didn't even know it was in Seoul, and I was just in Namdaemun Market, and then I was like "Oh! This is what Keely must have been talking about!" But I guess you heard it from pH, and we all know he's more Korean than I am, but now you are more Korean than me by extension.

Korea's fun so far. I've done a lot of practical shopping in high stress areas like the market. My lack of Korean makes me feel extremely prone to being ripped off, but never the less, it's fun, and the prices I get are never really that bad. My friends here tell me that it's expected that I bargain, but I don't even like doing that in English. And then add the fact that I speak very little Korean. It took me forever just to explain that I wanted a blanket. Then to demand a lower price seems ridiculous, when I can only use hand signs and the price must be written down for me every time. But I got a really good deal on a digital camera! The dude spoke really good English, and it was a display model so I spent like $130 on a 8.1 Megapixel, 3.6 zoom digital camera plus 2GB of memory. Not to my credit though - I just lucked out.

It would be cool to have you here. My apartment screams for your practicality and you always seem to do well with those kinds of things. Plus I think you'd have so much fun in the Market. (That's basically the only thing I've done so far.) And the cheap clothes shopping is plentiful. Today I'm going to Gangnam subway station to shop.

So the internet connection I've been piggy-backing isn't very reliable. Maybe they're figuring out that there seems to be way more computers in the area and are taking the proper precautions. I hope not. Just wait one week until we get our own! This means I'll have to post this email later, and it will neither be Saturday night for you, nor Sunday morning for me when this goes online.

Okay, I'm going to stop writing.

I miss you!

-esther

vlog #3: i can't speak korean

Next time, I'm going to try to seem more excited about this. When I feel self-conscious, I try to play it cool, but when I'm cool, I look sleepy.




Despite my troubles, I got a digital camera! Which means pictures! I'm so f-ing hi-tech. I think I'll have to get a flickr account. I'm all up in your internet space.

vlog #2: arrived in Seoul

Okay, guys, here is vlog #2 for realz, this time. I don't like this one for the following three reasons:
1. The background is uninteresting.
2. I don't have a lot to say.
3. My hair's really bad.

That being said, enjoy!

vlog #1: waiting for my rocket to come

In keeping with YNBS, here is my korean vlog! Not hidden from all of you, but rather displayed for all to see on my blog! Man, I'm bold.

it's time

It's five days until lift-off. I haven't written since then, because I have been doing NOTHING. Whenever a holiday comes along, I, inevitably, end up incredibly indolent.* I love being busy, but, more than that, I hate being not-busy, so I save the things I have to do, then I end up forgetting to do them or doing them at the last minute. Like packing. Or learning Korean. Or writing in my blog.

Anyway, in the spirit of Not Being Shy, I think I'm going to put up a video blog - because what could be more outgoing and possibly embarrassing than putting videos of myself on the internet? I hope to document my trip with blogs and emails.** † However, as much as I wish to be very insightful on my cultural confrontation and to be seeing lots of interesting things on my trip (which will be relayed to you by the camera I'm going to buy once I get to Korea), I make no promises. There is no guarantee for quality or quantity for the next three months.

I'm not sure how I feel about the whole thing. There's been a lot of waiting, and I think I have run out of excited. Plus, I have no idea what Korea will be like. All the websites and travel books seem to tell me is how different that place is, so it's hard to maintain excitement for something that is no more than an abstraction to me. I am excited about meeting up with Christopher Crazypants in Vancouver during my layover because 1. It's been such a long time since I've seen him; and 2. I have a good idea of what it will be like (i.e. awesome).

But here's what I know about Korea so far:
1. I'm going to Seoul, a city of a population of 20 million people. An old friend that I don't speak to anymore once wrote this to me: "You [are] one in a million. Which means there are about 8 of you in NYC." It follow that there are about 20 of me in Seoul. Damn.
2. Readers of TIME magazine voted Rain as the most influential person in 2007, and third most influential person in 2008. I'd never heard of Rain until The Colbert Report. K-pop is apparently really big.
3. On the streets in Seoul, the numbers don't go in order. You need a map to get anywhere.
4. They have musical theatre in Korea! Evil Dead:The Musical recently moved there with an apparently K-pop-ish take on it. And they have tons of it, and it's good! Like Sweeney Todd and The Producers, along with some of their own wordless, funny, Taekwon-do musicals like Jump.
5. The biggest church in the world is in Korea.
6. Karaoke.

We'll see how my ideas get fleshed out and how my assumptions will be knocked down. Wish me luck!







*I first learned this word from a really funny email. It's a long story, that I was going to write, but like so many of my stories, it'll probably end up not as funny as I thought.

**Letters take more than a week to go back and forth, and I'm far too impatient and lazy. I still have two postcards with addresses and stamps on them from about a month ago to Sue and Lisa, but I haven't had the time to write something on them and put them in the mail. Add this to the list of things I haven't done. However, if you would like mail, email me your mailing address.

†Danny's lending me his laptop for Korea. He's such a good brother.