Welcome to Qingdao!

What's up, Qingdao?

Possibly the most exciting thing about being there was the discovery of exotic flavors of Oreos! While I type this, I am munching on some Green tea ice cream flavored Oreos left over from my second China trip.

But careful... the fruit flavored ones taste like cough medicine.






And the second best thing to find out was definitely that you can have landslides in Chinese bathrooms! Our hotel bathrooms specifically. That was a shocker.









And these drinks were great... We had them nearly every day for about 7 yuan each (a little more than a buck) and they were soooo delicious. The orange and mango were my favorites. There was a man who worked there every day who helped us out with his suggestions. It was all handmade, too!
By the way, this is my lovely roommate through the whole trip, Soyeon. She was so sweet to share a room with me, even though I don't speak much Korean, and she doesn't speak much English!

We also got to make mandu... that is, dumplings, with Chinese students one day! They were pretty delicious... probably because I helped so much. hahaha.
In this picture I am warning the photographer away, for it was mine. ALL MINE! Hahaha... actually I was trying to stop him from taking more pictures, but it looks pretty funny anyway.




I'll leave it at that today and save the longer trips for their own posts! Last picture: This is the other American, me, the guy who encouraged us to come (and knows Chinese), and the guy who lives in our dorm!

Music video time!
I admit this is just a run-of-the-mill kpop boy group music video... it has the ridiculous outfits/haircuts/doll-like faces... but the song just sticks in my head. So I thought I'd do the favor and share it with you!
Bwahahaha

Laying it All Out... The Beginning of a Busy Summer

China!

I've finally reached summer. I walked into this summer thinking I would be really bored. Most of the students in my house were going back for the summer, and Korean students often have different ideas of summer than American (meaning, they study) so I was sure I would be alone all the time. That's not how it turned out at all, but then, there were only two things that consoled me: China. Yes, I realize "China" is not two things, but I was going to go to China two times this summer, so that makes two trips. I will explain both of these trips through a series of posts, not just one each, so hold tight!

Okay, I don't want to depress you with my explanation of my first trip, so just know that I compare it to my second trip, which was amazing. So basically, an okay trip becomes in my mind not so great in the light of a such a wonderful trip.

My first trip was with my school. We were going to Qingdao, China, a coastal city closest to South Korea. The first week, we studied Chinese in the morning, then had free afternoons and evenings. The second week we went travelling a bit and saw various places. While it was a good experience, and I definitely had good times, this was not my favorite trip for a few reasons. For one, it was not a very well planned trip. It was the first trip to this school, and the school itself didn't do so well. Most of the time it felt like they didn't care much about what we wanted, but they just wanted to show off and follow the schedule, throwing us around and taking us places to make us run through and get back on the bus. Number two was the area we were in. Someone later told me it was a place that Korean companies used to be involved in, then they all pulled out. So basically it was full of a bunch of half finished apartments and buildings that really depressed me when I saw them. Here's a great example of how this city was planned, hahaha:

So as you can see, that is a crosswalk. With a bush in front of it. Bwahahaha... we all died when we saw this.
Another thing that made it not the best trip ever was the group with which I went with. Don't get me wrong... I really liked all of them, and the problem was not entirely their fault. But, I went with around 20 Koreans and one American. That is bound for some communication issues and some feeling of being left out... And lets just add that there was LOTS of drama on this trip (in which I was not involved). It didn't help that they liked drinking more than seeing sights, and for someone who doesn't like drinking at all, that's no fun. As most of you should know, its the people you're with that make or break a trip. So part of the time they made mine, part of the time they broke it.

Ok, maybe you thought it wasn't necessary for me to tell you that it wasn't such a great trip. True, but then you wouldn't have gotten the feeling of the posts. They would just be pictures and stories with no background, and that's not any good. Plus, part of travel blogging is sharing the bad stuff too. So, I don't say this all to make you feel bad or anything, it's just so you know, you know? Haha, glad I got that cleared up.

A Happy Planning Mistake

I guess the first story is the first thing that made us notice that the planning for this trip wasn't so great. We arrived at the dorm we were going to stay it, only to find that the conditions were not so good. There was no AC... and the bathrooms had no toilets, just squatty potties, and get this... The shower was over the squatty potties! Btw, this is a squatty potty. So weirdly enough, someone in charge said we could go to a hotel. So we did. And this is what it looked like:

With this kind of view:

So that was awesome! Probably the best problem ever. Haha.

I'll leave it at that today and start on the adventures on my next post!

Music video: I'm going for a more indie one this time! I just heard this and I love it. She has such a different sound than most Korean girl artists.

An Island of Friendship and Clams

Sometime in June my Korean friend invited me to a retreat with his church. I went with the preparation team, early in the morning down to an island in the south called Anmyundo. So it was me and... let's see... 8 guys, I think. Haha. Anyhow, we went early and bought lots of food and ate more of it... then we looked at all the prettiness!

As you can see, it was very pretty. This is a picture of the kaetbol, or mudflats. So inside our cute little pension, the guys practiced praise songs and I sang along as best I could. My reading isn't so fast, haha.
Here's the Korean version of In Christ Alone, which we sang!



Then, they made me sing in In Christ Alone and Amazing Grace in English by myself... haha. Somehow I had more confidence because they couldn't speak English so well. Afterwards they were all like, "Wow, you should come to our church sometime!" Haha, I don't say it as a a bad thing, but its pretty easy to amaze Koreans with English skill. ;-)

That night we went looking for clams before the rest of the retreaters arrived. Sadly, not being able to see does not help with finding clams. Haha.

It was a really nice time to spend... we had barbecue, fellowship, and fun! The next day, after the rest of the people arrived, we went digging for more clams... And I found a lot this time!

No... I didn't find all of those. :-)

All in all, a super cool experience that I probably would never do in the States!

Well, over and out. And here's a new music video... Different than usual, yes, but I just watched a wonderful drama, and this is a song from it. I approve! Ignore the video though... it's just visuals from the drama.

This is Home Part II

and our adventures go on!

Paldang Bike Trip

Ever since the biking disaster from a previous post, some of us had been wanting to go biking along the Han river on a nice day. So we went reeeeally far east and rented some bikes for the day and went biking! It was gorgeous scenery... It was countryside, no city, and so refreshing.

Yeongdeungpo Time's Square

One of my ichat partners took me to see "Snow White and the Huntsman" (before it came out in the US, I might add ^^) and to eat spaghetti at a restaurant named "Molecole" inspired by the things that make up the world (and, no, I did not mistype that), and then eat ice cream Korean style!

Busan

Our Korean teach actually planned a trip for us to go to Busan, in south South Korea, so we went!

Here's the first part:
Elaine, Pau, Tati, and I took a bus while the others took KTX. Our bus was comfy :-)
The first part of the day we went to the museum in Busan and the Korean War memorial.

Next, we went to Nampodong, a fish market, and then we went to Busan Tower. I have never seen anything like the fish market in Nampodong! It was probably the most fascinating place I went to while there, and definitely the most smelly. It was just like in the dramas. A huge warehouse full of FISH! And we had the chance to eat the fish that was swimming there! In fact, the man just picked the fish up and chopped its head off in front of us! Haha, some screamed. Upstairs at the fish market is a sort of food court just for sushi! I... did not take the chance. I just went and ate some normal Japanese food. Haha.

All in all... you can see that this trip was amazing... Beautiful, etc.

Okay, everyone! This is going to be the last post like this... Honestly, I don't get anything out of it, because it's so much that I can't tell you anything about it! So, I'm going to do more frequent, shorter posts from here out. I'm sure you'll appreciate that as well, right?

Music video: Monster, yo! From Big Bang, my favorite crazy boy band.