20K and a Year Away

안녕하세요 – Hello! That is the extent of my Korean vocabulary – well, and yes, 네, which is pronounced Ne, just like yes in Greek. I knew that would come in handy one day! HA! It is very interesting being a total tourist and not understanding anything. I must say that it is not as comfortable as I would like, but we have our phones for emergency translation.

As an update, I have a local SIM card for my phone – feel free to call me (6951), I exchanged money at the airport – which is good because I could not get the ATM to take my card… work in progress – and we have had a PCR test and a rapid test – all negative – since we got here. The bus/train situation was crazy. We arrived an hour late to Incheon only to learn there were no buses heading from the station we planned to use, so we took the subway into Seoul, transferred to the train station, caught a train to Andong, and arrived at 11:30pm local time – which was 26 hours after we left the hotel in Portland. I had enough time on the subway to watch a video on the transfer at the Seoul station. Yay, sim card! We were just happy to have made it!

We have been here a week and have walked a ton. Matilda’s teacher friends have been so nice and helpful. One of them took an entire day to show us some of the sights and feed us traditional food. It is an amazing country with so much to see. We are planning to stay in the Andong area, but there is plenty to see here. Everything is fairly open and everyone is very polite. It has been an interesting adventure just to see how the people relate to one another and to us.

It is a little different historically for us. Everywhere we turn there is an ancient structure in the middle of the city. The great thing here is that they are all accessible. You can tour most of them for free during regular business hours. We were walking along yesterday and happened upon 3 different temple structures before we got to the end of the road. I put them on the list to go see next! I told Axel he can have a day of no walking and I will check them out on my own.

We have explored the city a little. We have been to two stores all by ourselves and crossed the city to see a museum. Fortunately for us, a lot of people speak English or are extremely patient with us. There are those who pretend we are not there, too, which is totally understandable since we can’t talk to you anyway. It’s not that we don’t want to, really.

We walked to the Folk Museum yesterday. It was in the 70s, sunny and warm. We visited the tourist office and got a duck – it’s part of an official game in Andong to get people to go to historical sites and get stamps to win ducks – which are apparently marketing ducks for a campaign. For every 5 locations you visit and collect stamps, you get a duck. I got 5 stamps on the first day out. I have another 4 already, but don’t really need another duck… but it is a contest and I have a horrible need to win contests… so I will probably collect another duck. It is an illness, nothing I can do about it, just have to do what it says. Luckily for me, I hate spending money, so I will never have a gambling problem, just a free contest addiction. I know you have it, too. No shame! Show me your ducks!!

A very nice older man who was volunteering at the tourist center walked through part of the Folk Museum with us to answer any questions we might have. He was very curious about what we were doing there and how we found out about the duck game. I told him Matilda was here teaching and that she had shown us how to play. He asked if she was in Seoul or Andong. I told him Andong and he asked if she was like me – eyes and hair. I told him she was, and now I think he will ask every blue-eyed, light-haired woman that goes to the booth if she is my daughter. HAHA!

Today, we are walking to the Andong Traditional Food and Soju Museum. Soju is the traditional alcohol made in Korea. Andong produces a lot of soju, which is about 46% alcohol. I hear there are free shots after the tour. Good thing we’re walking!