My neighbors have been incredibly nice to me ever since I met them. We walked in the park together almost every night until it started raining so much (and I stopped walking), the mom had brought me American food (syrup, pancake mix, Jell-o, peanut butter, and canned tuna) three times, and they've taken me out to eat and on a couple day trips (to an amusement park and to the border). One of the first few weeks I was here, they asked if I could tutor their daughter, and I said no. It's illegal for me to have another job, and I was still scared of getting kicked out of the country. I ended up agreeing to tutor her once a week for an hour for free. I still only had one friend, wasn't doing much with my evenings, and I really do genuinely enjoy tutoring. So I tutored her for free once a week, and they took me out once in a while and sometimes bought me things. A couple weeks before vacation, they said I should come to the beach with them. I said sure. The initial plan was to do two weekend trips, but they had to cancel the second. They asked if I could do one 5-day trip instead. We would visit their family friends in Andong, then go to Sokcho, which is a beach I've been dying to get to. I said why not? Haha. Why not...
The first day of our trip, they picked me up about 6am. We started driving, and stopped for breakfast a few hours later. Now, Koreans don't really differentiate between breakfast food, lunch food, and dinner food. They just eat food. I was starving, and, used to Dad's cross-country races, assumed we wouldn't stop again until lunch around noon. I ate bibimbap, which is rice mixed with vegetables, some spicy sauce (most of which I took out), and lots and lots of sesame oil. Lots. I wasn't sick, but did not feel well all morning. We stopped 3 times before lunch, and every time the mother tried to get me to eat more food!
A couple hours after breakfast, we made it to Andong. We stopped first at a traditional folk village, met the family's friends (a couple and two young kids) and looked at the mask museum. We took a bus to get to the actual village. It's big enough that it took several hours to walk around. People still live there, so you're only allowed in a couple houses. The surrounding area was gorgeous - bright green rice fields, ponds of lily pads, small mountains in the distance, and lily pads. There is also a small pine forest. Everyone was really excited about the pine forest, which I didn't understand until I saw it. The trees are extremely tall and very slender. There are enough leaves at the top to provide shade, but the leaves don't start until very high up. You're surrounded by thin, vertical, weaving lines as high as your peripheral vision can see. There's no undergrowth, so the ground was a soft carpet of needles. The atmosphere felt very calm, even with lots of little kids running around. (Didn't hurt that there was a slow river passing in front of a cliff just beyond the forest.) Pine trees apparently give off some sort of chemical or something that's good for the health. (Kimchi, seaweed, walking barefoot on stones, and mud from the west coast are all also "good for the health." It's a favorite phrase here. I think there's a Korean word for it that we just don't have in English.) On the teachers' trip the next week, some of the older teachers were even hugging pine trees.
In one area, they had some traditional swings and games. I started pushing the kids, and they were having so much fun! I did that thing where you run under the swing to get them really high, and they about flipped out! Traditional swings are meant to be stood on (they tried to teach me how to swing myself standing up, and it is so hard!), and I think the kids were not used to going so high! It was a lot of fun.
After walking around, we had lunch at a restaurant there. Actually, we had a feast at the restaurant there. There were at least 3 main dishes, a soup, and at least 10 side dishes! There had to be about 50 plates on the table. I told the father that I thought it was a feast, and he said it was a normal meal. Still feeling a little sick, I just had rice and grilled fish. This fish was amazing! The father said it was probably trout or mackerel, but wasn't sure. I think it was grilled in oil, but it might have just been the oil from the fish. It was grilled whole, only missing its scales. It was amazing! There was more flavor in one bite than in any serving of fish I've ever had in the States! I think I have a new favorite Korean food. The craziest thing was that the father and his friend though that the fish tasted flat!
After lunch, we drove to the friends' parents' house. It was a small house in the country, with a yard, one large room running the length of the house, a kitchen and bathroom on the side, and 3 bedrooms off the main room. The yard had a small vegetable garden and some kimchi pots in it. I didn't take pictures because I didn't want them to feel like I was treating their house like a tourist attraction. We had some watermelon, the grandparents gave the kids money, and I took a nap. That evening, we went to a nearby restaurant for dinner. We grilled some pork outside, and I ate a lot because I was so hungry! (And it was so good!) Then, the women brought out more meat and huge bowls of rice porridge! I do not know how Koreans eat so much.
I went to bed that night on the floor in a room with the mother and her daughter. Pretty fun first day. I was excited for the rest of the trip.
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