A Beautiful Saturday in Namdaemun

Namdaemun is definitely a world like no other.  You can find just about everything if you know where to look.  There are many side streets where you can get lost for hours.  Unfortunity for Rocketman, I found the jewelry section of Namdaemun.

Stall after stall filled with jewelry.  Everything you could ever imagine.  It's hard to navigate through the aisles because they are very narrow and people are making jewelry in their little stalls.  It is overwhelming to see so much and I left with my head spinning but my pocketbook still full.

                          All these pictures in this first section of my blog were shot by Rocketman.

                                 Saturday is not the day to go to Namdaemun if you hate crowds.

                                                 But it's a great place for people watching.

                                                                Belly dancing anyone?

                               After a few hours, I was starting to feel like this little guy.

             Need to exchange money?  You can find ajummas all over Namdaemun with their wads of cash. 

                                      Lots of ajumma buying frenzies going on too.

Namdaemun food delivery service.  It's amazing watching them navigate the crowds.  It's very much like a dance.

                                    More belly dancing attire.  It must be a popular hobby.

You can find lots of food also at Namdaemun.  I was surprised at how many vendors spoke English trying to get us to buy their food.

                               I even found some maedeup which is a popular souvenir gift.

                                        Rocketman got a great shot of Namsam Tower.

             Now these are the pictures I took.  Another picture of an ajumma buying frenzy.

                                                                And another shot.

                                                           Ready for the lunch crowd.

 Rocketman just LOVED this outfit and wanted me to find one just like it.  I don't think so and he was just kidding.  But I love how ajummas follow their own muse when it comes to fashion.  The louder and more sparkly, the better.

                              I've never tried the silkworms and I'm not in any hurry to try them.

                                             Someone was selling these cute coats for your dog.

 This ajumma's table was pretty packed with ajummas.  She must have had lots of bargains.

 

We met up with SeJin, Sarah's husband, and had a wonderful meal.  I found Sarah's blog in 2006 when we were preparing for our move to South Korea.  Her blog really put my mind at ease with the whole idea of living in South Korea.  She lived here almost 10 years well before the huge ESL (English Second Language) teacher invasion that has occurred over the past five years.

We tried to get together before she left but time ran out and she is back in Canada with little Grace.  SeJin hopes to follow soon but is waiting for all the paperwork to be processed.  Hopefully, it will happen soon so he can join them in Canada.  But until that happens, we hope to get together again with him.  We had a great time.

I kinda felt like this guy as we made our way back to Suwon.  We got home past 10 pm and we were both exhausted from the day.  This week was suppose to be our vacation but like all things in Korea, you have to be willing to change.  Hellena came from Quatar last week and we decided last minute to meet her in Busan.  But she ended up being sick all week so that canceled our plans.

I tried get a hotel in Busan for this week but they are all booked up due to the Busan International Film Festival.  But we just found out that Hellena is coming back at the end of the month so we are planning a vacation with her then.  The weather is simply beautiful this time of year in South Korea so we would like to take a trip.

Hanji - The Korean Medicine Cabinet Part 9

 Hanji class on Friday had me covering the doors of the cabinet with this hanji paper which will be the inside.

                                             And this paper on the outside of the doors.

                            This is what the inside of the door looked like when I was finished.

 Guess who showed up late in the afternoon?  My favorite hanji classmate.  She had been missing in action for about two months.  She was doing exhibitions and other things that had kept her away from hanji.

 So of course, she saw I was struggling with putting the chinese characters together once I had cut them up so she sat down beside me and glued them in place for me.  She is a sweetie!

                                  Here's what she had finished for me by the end of class.

I also covered the inside of the cabinet center with the this hanji paper.  It looks awesome.  I must say the day ended much better than it had began.

We were up late Thursday night and I was need in sleep when our intercom starting buzzing at 7 am.  I jumped out of bed and ran to it to find that it was the management office button that was buzzing.  I pressed it and immediately heard a man's voice saying "Yeoboseoyo."  I answered in English and he rattled off a bunch of Korean to me.  I told him that I didn't know in Korean and that I was an American.  He talked for a few more sentences and poof he was gone.

I was awake by that time and then the same thing happened again at 7:20 am.  The management office doesn't open until 9 am and our relocation agency that would help us in these situations also does not open until 9 am.  He called a total of four times with me wondering if the building was on fire or the elevator didn't work.  I even called Rocketman which is what I do in these cases and he didn't have any solutions either.

Then at 8 am, the doorbell rings and I can see it's a security guard at my apartment door.  I was still in my pj's so I ran into the bedroom to throw on some clothes.  Meanwhile, he starts pounding on my door scaring me half to death.  I grab my cellphone and call Rocketman and I tell him to grab the nearest Korean co-worker.  So I have a Korean on the line when I open the door.

The guard starts talking and I hand him my cellphone.  He explains to Rocketman's co-worker that there have been complaints in my building about the intercom not working properly and that someone would be coming to the apartment to look at it.  Rocketman's co-worker explains that to me and we hang up.  The security guard puts out his hand to shake mine which I have never had a Korean do and when I placed my hand in his, he proceeded to crush my fingers in a deathgrip.  I jerk my hand from his yelling, "OUCH" and off he went.

But now I am steaming and when 9 am rolls around I call Jennifer at our relocation agency who is also a dear friend.  She is shocked and can't believe what happened.  She calls the management office who was unaware anything had taken place and they would call her back after investigating my complaint.  Jennifer told me it would probably be sometime that afternoon.

Jennifer called me about a half hour later and the management office had said that the guards had denied every contacting me.  She insisted that it did happened and to get to the bottom of it.  They called her back saying that now the guard did admit calling me at 7 and several times but he denied ever shaking my hand.  He insisted that never happened.

By then my other Korean friend, Hannah, called to say hi and I gave her the whole story.  She was beyond angry and called Jennifer who than called the managment office and gave them an earful.  Hannah and Jennifer also gave me an earful about opening the door even if it was a security guard.  To be honest, but that time I wasn't thinking clearly and with him pounding on the door, I really thought he probably had a master key and would come in anyway.  I have heard of this happening to many over here.

It ended with a big apology from the management office (so what) and a promise from me to Jennifer that if ANYTHING strange happens during her non-working hours to call her no matter what.  She says she always has her phone on and with her. 

The thing that made me the most upset was not the early hour wake up calls but that fact that he lied about it and repeatedly.  It stupid, just admit you made a freaking mistake.  The managment office said I should never had gotten notified that early unless there was a fire or another serious emergency just like I thought.  But lying is something I hate most and to be basically called a liar myself still has me upset today.  While would I lie?  Really, come on we are all adults and make mistakes.  This was also coming off of my 5 hours perm the night before so I was not in the best of moods anyway.

But hanji class magically made me forget all I had experienced the past few days.  I love how crafting can do that for you.  It really does for me and I'm thankful I have it in my life.  We ended up having a fantastic weekend which I will blog about tomorrow.  We got to meet Sarah's SeJin!!!