The week plus in review.

Ok, so I'm a slacking blogger. Or a blogging slacker, something like that. At the moment I am making cupcakes. Just to make cupcakes, really, but also to take on the train ride to Seoul tomorrow for Buddha's birthday lantern festival. I successfully completed a two week spring cleanse and feel fabulous for it. Yay cleanse! Now bring on the cupcakes...

So last weekend was fruits and veggies only, appropriate for the earth day celebration being held downtown. A friend was performing with his band (in a bus stop---classic), so we made sure to get there for the show. It was fairly small, especially in comparison to the earth days I've been to in Portland. There was some good performance however, especially from the Daegu step dance academy. There were also stations were you could pot a plant and make some kind of pot holder. Even basket weaving! A lot of it was for kids, as are many things in Korea. For a while I thought it was just because I'm teaching children all day and that's my perception of things here, but I really do think it's super family oriented.

On Tuesday we went to the Korean sauna/bath house, known as a Jim Ji Bang (or something close to that) and soaked and sweated out toxins like nobody's business. I've been wanting to write about the bathhouse experience for some time, but can't quite find the words to really describe it. I will try. For one, bath houses are absolutely everywhere, and they are always full of Koreans doing their bathtime rituals. So, the sheer number of them and consistency with which they're used is incredible. Some are nicer than others, and luckily for me, the one by the house is pretty nice. They all have shower areas where women (I can't speak for the men) will soap and scrub for what seems to be hours on end. Everyone has these rough little scrubby mitts which are meant to be used as basically a full body pumice stone to get every iota of dead skin off your body. After you scrub all the parts you can reach, you have a friend scrub all the parts you can't as hard as possible. If you're too tired or scrub yourself, or without a friend or the nerve to ask a stranger to scrub your unreachable parts for you, a lady in black lacy underwear will be happy to help you out for somewhere around 10,000 won (about $10). I should mention that you can also get this done at Olympus Day Spa in Tacoma and Lynwood, Washington, where it's a little more spa-like and a little less utlitarian. This is actually where I had my first two Korean bathouse experiences, but I have to say that while the set ups are simiar, the practical use is completely different. So after you scrub yourself shiney, you can sit in the hot tubs of varying temperatures and ingredients. One or two are always some sort of herbal soup, often green tea or mugwort. There is a cold pool to dunk in when you get too hot, and also steam-sauna rooms to sit in and watch T.V., or scrub yourself down with some salt (as if the scrubby mit wasn't enough). On another floor there is a mixed mens and women's dry sauna space, with a variety of rooms all made of different materials. The one by my house has a charcoal and onyx room which is my favorite, as well as several jade and amethyst rooms, a salt stone room and a rose quartz room. You get little orange pajamas to wear, blankets and can hang out for as long as you like. Many people stay the night here when travelling or, perhaps, simply avoiding home. All of this will put you back a mere 6,000 won (about $6 USD). Incredible. Aside from the luxury of the easy access to hot tubs and saunas etc, I think what strikes me most is the culture of the bath house. Women are not at all modest, and don't seem to care who sees them doing what while naked. Babies are taken starting at around 2-3 years old, and scrubbed down like anyone else. I've seen really elderly women as well, scrubbing, soaking, sweating in the saunas, wrinkles and all. Out of everything I love about Korea, I think I will miss this the most of all. So, yey for Tuesday and yey for the JimJiBang.

Thursday was a rather long day, on account of the preschool field trip to the part for a picnic and a look at some butterflies. It's hard to herd the kids around, but fun to see them outside of class, having a good time, playing games, being kids. At one point I had caught a little flying bug of some sort off another teacher's jacket and was showing it to one of my new preschool kids, Ben, who at first thought it was cool, and then decided to smoosh it. I made a sad face and pretended to cry, but I don't think it will really prevent him from squishing bugs in the future. boys.

On Friday, Timber and I got our tickets for the Studio Ghibli museum in Tokyo for next Tuesday. I'm excited to go to Tokyo, but especially excited for the museum and really, really can't wait to pet the cat bus. We also found out that our summer vacation will be from July 29th to August 2nd, which means I don't have to work on my birthday! score! So, we've decided to go to China. We're going to go to Qingdao, Tai'an and climb mount Tai (Tai Shan), one of the 5 sacred mountains in China. I climbed Huang Shan in September, and can't believe I'm going to be able to add climbing another giant internationally famous mountain to my list of things I have done.

Today I went to yet another completely non-helpful Korean class, had a delicious lunch of BiBimBap with friends, re-visisted foreigner agony consulting (Now "Himilayan Market") to buy some chick peas and ended up enjoying a free sampling of their new restaurant menu, and saw "Monster Vs Alien" at the movies. I can't say I'd reccomend seeing it in the theater, but it was a good way to spend the rainy afternoon.

So, yep, tomorrow is the Lantern festival where I will hopefully buy a handmade lantern, probably see some cool stuff and come home super late on the KTX to get some sleep before the week starts itself over again on Monday.