MERRY CHRISTMAS!
Exams are finished, grades are in, the first semester has come and gone. What does this mean?
Christie's off to Germany and Austria! That's right, I took up my friend, Ros, on her invitation to visit and travel with her over the Christmas holiday. Ros and I taught together at Indianhead, my first school here in Korea, and she is now teaching in Dresden, Germany. I'm looking forward to traveling again with my Aussie friend! Also, we will have the opportunity to spend a few days with my Spanish friend, Paco, who will be my skiing buddy on Christmas Day in Innsbruck!! I've skiied in Michigan... how different could the Alps be after not skiing for four years???!!!! (Let's hope I don't follow my brother's lead with international injuries... OH! Sorry bro, are you reading?!) CENSOR, CENSOR
Anyway, here is my itinerary... kind of hazy after New Year's:
Dec. 22: arrive in Munich at 5pm
Dec. 23: travel to medieval Rothenburg by train to see the last day of their famous Christmas markets
Dec. 24: back to Munich to meet Ros, then onward to Innsbruck
Dec. 25: skiing!!! Merry Christmas! Yodel-eh-ee-who!!
Dec. 26-28: Salzburg, where I will sing all songs from The Sound of Music as many times as possible while prancing around the city and its surrounding filming sights
Dec. 28-30: Vienna, where we will hopefully be able to catch a concert
Dec. 31: train back to Dresden for New Year's Eve with Ros' colleagues
Jan. 2: Ros returns to school... and I will soonafter head to Prague for a couple of days
Jan. 4-8: Day trips from Dresden, perhaps an overnight to Berlin...
Jan. 9: back to Munich to see the city and Neufchenstein Castle (I love castles!)
Jan. 11: back to Korea...
So, there you have it, expect pictures and stories to come at the end of this journey! Enjoy the journey, as my family and friends back in the States are always with me, on my mind, on these trips!
MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR! Always thinking about you!
Love,
Christie
Thursday, December 21, 2006
Kimchi-making time!
KIM-JANG: the span of time (approx. two weeks in November) when all married women in Korea get together with the womenfolk of their family - or of their church, in this case - to make the year's supply of kimchi. What is kimchi, you ask?? At it's most basic, fermented cabbage with oodles of red pepper powder, garlic, salt, sesame oil, radish,... and I think that's all...
Having lived in Korea for almost four years now, and having acquired a taste for this potent Korean staple that emanates from your pores for the rest of the day and night, I decided that I could not let another year pass without taking part in this annual event. So, I took a personal day and helped with my friends, the women at my church!
The entire process took about 5 hours - mind you, I attend church with some very experienced kimchi makers who have this down to a science! The kimchi was packed away in plastic tubs large and small, and either left outside sealed tight or placed in the kimchi refrigerator (YES, this is necessary unless one wants ALL of the food in his/her refrigerator to have a kimchi taste and smell) to let time take its toll on the heads of cabbage.
Afterwards, we enjoyed lunch prepared by the pastor's wife. Good times!!!
"Thanksgiving dinner" at church
I have found an amazing community at the church I have been attending the past eight months. With the exception of about five to ten of us teachers from the school that attend, everyone else are Koreans, most of whom only speak Korean. In the past month the church purchased headsets so we can listen to the sermon while sitting with the rest of the congregation instead of huddled in the back, listening to Jen's translation (she's the pastor's daughter and speaks English, as well as her brother, Jae).
Anyway, every Sunday at noon, after the service, we all go upstairs and enjoy a Korean lunch together. Well, one of my fellow teachers suggested loudly that we prepare an American lunch for everyone sometime. She said this with the pastor's wife in earshot, and she LOVED the idea!
ME? Well, I loved the idea of paying back the community somehow for their kindness. However, preparing a meal for fifty people for the first time was not at the top of my list. I first wanted to help them prepare a few meals, to see how much food they needed and just get some experience cooking for a mass of people. The next Sunday, however, Pastor's wife approached me and asked if November 18 would be alright for us to prepare this meal (she approached me about it because I am the oldest of us foreigners that attend the church - that's how it goes here, I was responsible).
How did it go? We all worked as a team, half of us in charge of desserts and my half in charge of the main course - 6 shepherd's pies, 5 baked spaghetti, and garlic bread. It turned out pretty well! They liked it, although I think the shepherd's pie with its rosemary flavor was a bit bland for the Korean taste buds. We cooked all of the pies and spaghettis in mine and my neighbors' ovens in my building, which is all staff apartments (the church kitchen does not have ovens, since most Korean food is prepared on the stove). In the end, it was fun! When will we cook next??... don't ask, please!
Monday, December 04, 2006
Pins and Needles
My marathon training for March 18, 2007 in Seoul was off to a rocky start back at the end of October; I had been suffering from a stubborn left knee for the last couple of weeks of our cross-country season. Runners do not take it sitting down when an injury arises and warrants rest and recuperation. However, I knew that if I wanted to be able to run with Jaci, my co-cross-country coach, and April and Virginia, two other colleagues that work as dorm RAs, I better allow my knee the chance to get well.
Then I remembered what I had been waiting to try since arriving in Korea: ACUPUNCTURE! Where better to take advantage of the centuries-old form of medicine right here in the area of the world where it originated!! (How blessed am I that three years had to pass before I would need a doctor!) One of my cross-country athletes, Dennis, who had also been suffering from a knee injury, visited an acupuncturist and, a week later, came back to train and eventually become our #4 runner! I decided I had better give the pins and needles a try.
I arrived at the clinic and was seated with as diagnosis form that included questions ranging from my age to my alcohol intake to various details regarding my "feces," as well as questions about my muscle, joint, and bone "symptoms." The nurse took my blood pressure then stood me on what was labeled a "body composition machine," on which I had to grip a silver-plated handle in each hand as the screen's bar graph slowly crept up to... well, some point that must have meant something to the nurse, but nothing to me. Next she sat me at another machine my feet again on metal plates, holding two metal rods with a strap around my forehead. I felt a bit like Frankenstein, only not strapped to a table (yet) and no metal rods poking out of my neck... was that a heavy-duty form of acupuncture the Doctor was trying on the big guy, come to think of it?? Hmmmm, let's nevermind that. Anyway, the machine began scribbling frantically on a chart with red, blue, and black pens, marking a picture of the human body and creating bar graphs on the sheet of paper. FASCINATING!
How pleasantly surprising it was to sit down with the doctor one-on-one for about 20 minutes while he asked ME questions about MY body rather than just looking at a chart or down my throat and in my ears for five minutes before diagnosing me and sending me out to pay the hefty bill (as occasionally happens in Western medicine these days). Granted, some of that time he spent sweating profusely as he struggled to recall the necessary English for his questions.
He next led me into a different room where I laid on a warm marble table/bed (actually, hard marble beds are quite popular here in Korea, and people spend a lot of money for the "luxury"). The doctor placed a heating pad on the stubborn left knee before proceeding to quickly stab six small embroidery-size needles into me - right palm, wrist, thumb, inner elbow, right foot, and lower right shin. He vigorously twisted a few of them as if tuning an instrument. After the subtle pinch, I felt nothing. He also focused a heating lamp down over my feet as if they were a burger and fries up for an order.
As I laid still for twenty minutes, I couldn't help but marvel at the age-old treatment. How did he know EXACTLY where to position the needles? How does that particular place on my palm, leg, or elbow affect my heel or knee? And how did the pioneers of this ancient medicine discover it? Thousands of years have passed since someone in the old Asian countryside, at a loss for any other cure, decided that perhaps a swift poke, or series thereof, would at least distract the patient from the original pain. However in doing that, he hit the jackpot - or pressure point - and was healed.
My attention was unpleasantly snapped back to the present by the modern Western music playing above me; how can one consider the incredulity of the mysterious "needlework" with Jamiroquai's 90's hit "Virtual Insanity" rudely interrupting my reverie among the scholars and early Chinese doctors??
The last three treatments included a two pulsating patches that tried to jumpstart my knee, a quick chiropractic session, and a waterbed massage.
For two hours I underwent these various treatments and paid a trand total of $10. CRAZY! Pennies in comparison to the cost of 5 minutes with the chiropractor in the States!
After a week and a half that totaled about 5 visits, my knee pain disappeared... of course, I haven't had the chance to go back in the past two weeks, and my knee's stubbornness has returned, which means that I must return to ancient China... in my mind, at least, while I lay upon the nice warm, marble bed!
EVERYONE GO TRY ACUPUNCTURE! If you keep your eyes closed, you'll forget that there are needles dangling from just beneath your skin! :)
Then I remembered what I had been waiting to try since arriving in Korea: ACUPUNCTURE! Where better to take advantage of the centuries-old form of medicine right here in the area of the world where it originated!! (How blessed am I that three years had to pass before I would need a doctor!) One of my cross-country athletes, Dennis, who had also been suffering from a knee injury, visited an acupuncturist and, a week later, came back to train and eventually become our #4 runner! I decided I had better give the pins and needles a try.
I arrived at the clinic and was seated with as diagnosis form that included questions ranging from my age to my alcohol intake to various details regarding my "feces," as well as questions about my muscle, joint, and bone "symptoms." The nurse took my blood pressure then stood me on what was labeled a "body composition machine," on which I had to grip a silver-plated handle in each hand as the screen's bar graph slowly crept up to... well, some point that must have meant something to the nurse, but nothing to me. Next she sat me at another machine my feet again on metal plates, holding two metal rods with a strap around my forehead. I felt a bit like Frankenstein, only not strapped to a table (yet) and no metal rods poking out of my neck... was that a heavy-duty form of acupuncture the Doctor was trying on the big guy, come to think of it?? Hmmmm, let's nevermind that. Anyway, the machine began scribbling frantically on a chart with red, blue, and black pens, marking a picture of the human body and creating bar graphs on the sheet of paper. FASCINATING!
How pleasantly surprising it was to sit down with the doctor one-on-one for about 20 minutes while he asked ME questions about MY body rather than just looking at a chart or down my throat and in my ears for five minutes before diagnosing me and sending me out to pay the hefty bill (as occasionally happens in Western medicine these days). Granted, some of that time he spent sweating profusely as he struggled to recall the necessary English for his questions.
He next led me into a different room where I laid on a warm marble table/bed (actually, hard marble beds are quite popular here in Korea, and people spend a lot of money for the "luxury"). The doctor placed a heating pad on the stubborn left knee before proceeding to quickly stab six small embroidery-size needles into me - right palm, wrist, thumb, inner elbow, right foot, and lower right shin. He vigorously twisted a few of them as if tuning an instrument. After the subtle pinch, I felt nothing. He also focused a heating lamp down over my feet as if they were a burger and fries up for an order.
As I laid still for twenty minutes, I couldn't help but marvel at the age-old treatment. How did he know EXACTLY where to position the needles? How does that particular place on my palm, leg, or elbow affect my heel or knee? And how did the pioneers of this ancient medicine discover it? Thousands of years have passed since someone in the old Asian countryside, at a loss for any other cure, decided that perhaps a swift poke, or series thereof, would at least distract the patient from the original pain. However in doing that, he hit the jackpot - or pressure point - and was healed.
My attention was unpleasantly snapped back to the present by the modern Western music playing above me; how can one consider the incredulity of the mysterious "needlework" with Jamiroquai's 90's hit "Virtual Insanity" rudely interrupting my reverie among the scholars and early Chinese doctors??
The last three treatments included a two pulsating patches that tried to jumpstart my knee, a quick chiropractic session, and a waterbed massage.
For two hours I underwent these various treatments and paid a trand total of $10. CRAZY! Pennies in comparison to the cost of 5 minutes with the chiropractor in the States!
After a week and a half that totaled about 5 visits, my knee pain disappeared... of course, I haven't had the chance to go back in the past two weeks, and my knee's stubbornness has returned, which means that I must return to ancient China... in my mind, at least, while I lay upon the nice warm, marble bed!
EVERYONE GO TRY ACUPUNCTURE! If you keep your eyes closed, you'll forget that there are needles dangling from just beneath your skin! :)
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