Gyeongju, Day 2

Sunday, August 2nd: Splish Splash, I Was Taking A Bath

The original plan was to wake up early and go see a temple. That lasted right up until the alarm went off and Sarah and I promptly decided no thanks, we would rather sleep for another two hours. Story of her visit. We finally made it out of the hotel by eleven and set off to explore Gyeongju. Our first stop was Tumuli Park.


Tumuli are tombs from the Silla dynasty, which lasted from 57 BC to 935 AD. Tumuli Park has twenty three tombs of Silla royalty. The tumuli look like large grassy mounts and they're all over Gyeongju. Many of the tombs have been excavated and the largest tomb is open to visitors, with reproductions of the burial and some of the treasures, but mostly all you see are the grassy hillocks. They're immaculately maintained and there were flowering trees surrounding the tombs, but there wasn't much to actually see.

Our next stop was the 7-11, where we scrounged together a breakfast of Denish pastries (not a typo), some sort of blueberry cream cheese sandwich thing and nuts. Eating was a bit of an adventure in Gyeongju. While Sarah was here, we ate mostly western food. Korea is not an easy place to eat if you're vegetarian and since Tonga doesn't really have restaurants, Sarah was understandable more interested western food that wasn't normally available to her than trying to figure out what Korean food she could eat. That's all fine and dandy when we were in Seoul, but western food (at least, non Korean/western fusion food [*shudder*]) was far more difficult to find once we left the capital. A lot of our meals were pretty hit or miss.





After breakfast we went to Anapji Pond. Anapji Pond was built as a pleasure garden by King Manmu in 674. The buildings have been destroyed, but the pond is full of lotus blossoms. It's a really lovely spot, if very crowded. Sarah and I spend another hour wandering around, taking pictures of lotus blossoms.


We also did the whole "posing in front of cultural monument so we could take a self portrait and sent it home to our parents in an attempt to convince them we're not dead yet" thing and, well, it ended poorly. We posed crouching down on some stepping stones making a path through the pond and as we were standing up, I overbalanced and toppled backwards into the pond. Luckily my purse didn't get (too) wet and I didn't loose my shoes scrambling out of the pond, but I did end up looking like this:


We (well, I) squelched back to our hotel, stopping briefly at Wolseong Park to see Cheomseongdae, the the oldest astrological observatory in the Far East.


Once back at the hotel I tried to wash the worst of the mud and pond scum out of my clothes in the shower and while my stuff tried, Sarah and I hung out at the hotel for a few hours. The owner of the hotel told us about a free traditional music performance held at a nearby resort that we decided to check out. It was, to say the least interesting. There were a few good acts in the first half, but the second half was a Korean/western fusion band playing western songs on traditional Korean instruments. In theory that sounds interesting, but in practice it sounds like this:


Halfway through the song Sarah and I looked at each other and incredulously asked, "Is that ABBA?" There was also a visible drunk man in the audience who kept running onto the stage to try and dance with the performers. It was an unique take of traditional Korean music. On the way home, we stopped by the train station to buy our tickets for trip home well in advance. (That was a bit of an adventure. The ticket seller kept saying there was no train to Seoul that night and I kept repeating Tuesday over and over again, but we finally understood each other and got our tickets.)

The train station was across the town from where we were staying and as we got off the bus we heard a flurry of whispers from a large group of western tourists staying at the same hostel as us. "Wait, is this our stop? Why are they getting off? Should we get off?" The strangest thing about the trip was the tourists. They were everywhere! I don't normally see that many tourists in Korea, since I don't live in a touristy area or spend much time at tourist spots, but they were everywhere in Gyeonju and I kept being mistaken for one. They were loud and complained about how no one spoke English and kept obviously disregarding Korean culture and for a person who travels as much as I do, it turns out I'm an awful snob about people traveling in the country where I live.

The rest of the photos from the day are here.

Gyeongju, Day 1

Another vacation post. (For the record, they're all being tagged I got Seoul after the chorus from the Killers song "All These Things That I've Done" because a) Seoul/Soul puns are even funnier now that I know the correct way to pronounce Seoul and b) I unapologetically love Hot Fuss, even though I know that makes me an emo hipster.) After a week in Seoul, Sarah and I decided to ventured out into the countryside and on Friday (08/01), we left for Gyeongju. If you look at the map, Ansan (where I live) is the blue pen and Gyeongju is the green pen. Gyeongju was the capital of the Silla Empire, which lasted for nearly a thousand years (from 57 BC - 935 AD). At its height, Gyeongju had nearly a million inhabitants and was the capital of the entire Korean peninsula for 300 years. It's full of tombs and temples and pagodas and lotus ponds. That last one will be important later.

The quick and dirty highlights version is we went to a lotus pond full of beautiful, delicate blossoms...


and I fell in. OF COURSE I DID! Was there any other way for that setup to end? If I were a stick figure drawn on the back of an Hello Kitty envelope, it would have looked something like this:


I Twittered about it that night (I'm in ur social network, connectin' with mah peepz), saying Today I fell in a lotus pond. Some days I feel like I really shouldn't be allowed out of the house without proper supervision. Several people responded, saying things like Doesn't Sarah count as proper supervision?, and the answer is no, no she doesn't. Trust me, it's more fun that way.

I originally planned to write about the entire trip to Gyeongju in one post, but that was taking too long to finish, so I'm going to do it day by day. (And also, Step by Step.)

Saturday, August 1st: Sorry, No Train, But How About This Dragon Trolley?

Sarah and I left my apartment around ten and took a bus to Suwon, with plans of catching a train to Gyeongju from there. Suwon, the capital of the province I live in, is only twenty minutes away from me by bus and, as one of the primary suburbs of Seoul, a major transportation hub. We got to the train station by eleven, only to be told there were no tickets to Gyeongju until eleven that night. We decided to try our luck at the bus terminal and got tickets on a bus leaving at 4:40, leaving us five hours to kill in Suwon. We decided to check out the Hwaseong Fortress. Quick history lesson: Hwaswong Fortress, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, was built between 1794 and 1796 by King Jeongjo to honor his father. The fortress is primarily a wall that surrounds the inner city of Suwon with various gates and outposts along the perimeter.


We had a bit of an adventure actually finding the fortress and due to poor directions (we were told to get off HERE, with here being no where near where we wanted to be) and ended up wandering a couple of miles through Suwon, hoping to stumble upon some sort of fortification. We eventually found Paldalmun, the South Gate, and then located the rest of the fortress wall, up a very steep hill. By the time we made it to the top of the fortress, we were hot, sweaty and a bit cross, which is probably why we opted to ride the Dragon Trolley with a bunch of children instead of walking along the fortress. I'm pleased to report that the Dragon Trolley is just as awesome as it looks and I a met a very nice Korean boy who told me all about his favorite comic after a bit of prompting from his dad.



After the trolley ride, we doubled back to get a closer look at the northern stretch of the fortress. I hiked along the southern stretch when I first moved to Korea, but I didn't make it this far around. The Suwoncheon (Suwon River) runs through the middle of the city. The Hwahongmun is one of the two floodgates that lets the river through. The whole area was very picturesque, with the traditional eves painting and the walls and parapets and children splashing in the river. Less picturesque was this sign:


Careful, drivers. Don't drive off this very obvious embankment into the river. (I laugh, but given how Koreans drive [hint: craaazy], it's a pretty reasonable warning to give.) Given our difficulties finding the fortress and the subsequent trolley ride, we left for the bus station well in advance, only to decide to catch a taxi (screw you, bus!) and arrived at the bus terminal with time to spare. We sampled the different bakeries for an early dinner and left Suwon by 5:00. The bus ride was long. The only two adjacent seats were in the middle of the very back row, which means no arm rests, air vents or seat lights. Not even a window to lean against and gaze out. We spent the first hour of the trip stuck in Seoul traffic and two hours into the trip, the overhead lights on the bus were turned off, meaning we couldn't read. (I may have exclaimed, "Hey!" angrily when the lights went out, earning me several dirty looks from my fellow passengers trying to sleep.) Without an air vent the heat was stifling and the teenage girl I was sitting next to (who did have an air vent) kept pushing her fleece blanket onto my lap.

We arrived in Gyeongju late and found small, curly black hairs all over the floor of our room, but the hostel had held our reservation and after a quick trip to the local grocery store for a mini-broom, we cleaned our room and went to bed. The rest of the photos from Suwon can be found at the bottom of here.

Happy Birthday, Harry Potter

On Friday (07/31) Sarah and I wished Harry Potter a happy birthday in style and went to see Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince on 3D IMAX. Turns out only the first fifteen minutes were in 3D, which we found out twenty five minutes into the movie when the 3D still hadn't come back on. Still, I think we looked smashing in our special glasses.


I'm throwing the peace sign (when in Asia...), but you can only see the tip of one finger. The perils of self portraits. Photo taken by Sarah.
I really enjoyed the movie, but it reminded me how very little I remember of the original series and it inspired me to re-read the books. The library at my school has the entire series (in English) and I'm currently on Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. I'd forgotten how much I *loved* these books the first (several) times I read them. I mentioned to a friend that I was suitable impressed with the English book selection at my school library and I was checking out some books to read. She snotted HA - you read kiddie books, and I just stared at her blankly because, hello, have we even met? I find YA Fiction a valid and entertaining genre. Do I need to get that put on a shirt?

After the movie we headed to the Yongsan Electronics Market where I finally - two hard drive crashes later - bought an external hard drive. An external hard drive is a terribly *boring* purchase, since it doesn't actually *do* anything and if I drop that sort of money I want more excitement than whee! let's back up my Word documents!, but I've had two hard drive crashes and both times I lost everything. It was time to have a backup. It is a very Whovian hard drive. I partitioned the hard drive; one third is a backup and the rest is storage for my rather large collection of .avi files. The backup is named Time Machine (which is the name the Mac backup system - not my fault), and I named the other part TARDIS, because it is a very small hard drive that has an awful lot of TV series in it. And now look, I've gone and posted to my blog with my geek showing.


Yongsan at dusk

Korean Folk Village

On Wednesday (07/29), Sarah and I went to the Korean Folk Village in Suwon. (Fun story, the first time I was in Korea [summer 2007] at least one of the signs for the Korean Folk Village said Korean Fork Village. The 'l' and 'r' sound are the same symbol in Hangul [ㄹ] so it's an understandable, if funny, mistake, but I will forever think of folk villages as fork villages.) Folk villages are a pervasive part of Korean tourism, but with 282 buildings, workshops, markets, games, a theme park and five traditional performances, the Korean Folk Village is the largest.

It's quite simple to get to the Korean Folk Village. Take Line 1 to Suwon Station (Sarah and I took a bus from Ansan because there are a half dozen buses going between Ansan and Suwon, but the subway is the tourist friendly way to get there from Seoul) and go to the Tourist Information Center next to station to buy your tickets and catch the free shuttle bus.


Sarah and I spent an hour or so looking at the traditional homes and playing on the nol-ttwigi, the traditional Korean see-saw. Unlike western see-saws, riders stand on either end of the nol-ttwigi and jump, forcing their partner into the air. There's a video (not mine) of traditional nol-ttwigi here, but Sarah and I weren't that good. No midair acrobatics from us; we mostly tried not to hurt ourselves and shouted a lot.




We also caught a few traditional performances. First, we saw a pungmul dance (traditional farmers' dance). Pungmul was traditionally performed by musicians and dancers during farming festivals. The musicians play drums, gongs and a horn while the dancers played a small drum while dancing. The dancers wore sangmo, hats with long ribbons attached to them. The dancers caused the ribbons to move in elaborate spirals and patterns by moving their heads.


As we were leaving, we stumbled upon the kunettwigi, or traditional Korean swings. Kunettwigi are much larger than western swings and the rider stands on the seat instead of sitting. It's actually quite hard, since I'm use to pumping with my legs, not my entire body. (I'm sure it doesn't help that I can't remember the last time I was actually *on* a swing.) It was a lot of fun, if challenging. Sarah was quite good at it, but I never managed to get very high.

The full set of photos are here (down at the bottom). Incidentally, a few days ago something happened and my set of Suwon photos got 18,000 views in 24 hours. I don't know *what* happened - it was probably a bug - but it was very unsettling to refresh my Flickr page and discover 400 people had viewed the page in the past ten minutes.

Obama!

Back to the vacation posts. On Tuesday (07/28) we went to Costco. People are always surprised to hear there are Costcos in Korea, but there are seven in Korea, four of which are in Seoul. On the way, we stopped by my school so I could transfer money home.


Due to complicated and boring reasons, to transfer money I have to withdraw the money from my bank and then go to another bank to actually send it home. Until very recently, the largest bill in Korea was a 만 원 (man won = 10,000 won), or roughly $8. It's still the only bill offered at many ATMs, which means that when I need to transfer money home, I end up with a very large stack of cash. I sent home 1 million won (about $800) which meant I ended up with a stack of one hundred bills. Here I'm showing off my sack of money in front of my school.

On the way back from Costco, laden down with bags and bags of cheese, a guy came up to us on the subway. We exchanged greetings, shook hands (very difficult to do when holding bags and bags of cheese) and he asked, "어디서 오셨어요?" (Where are you from?) I told him we were 미국인 (Americans). He asked if I spoke Korean and I told him 조금 (a little). He thought that over, looked at us and said, "Obama!" Then he bowed and walked off. Sarah and I spent the rest of the trip discussing what the proper response to that would have been. Clinton? (Hillary Clinton had been in Korea a few days prior and pictures of her with Korean president Lee Myung-bak were all over the newspapers.) Micheal Jackson? Oprah?!

영어 캠프! (Vignettes from English Camp)

On the last day of English Camp, as a review, I gave the kids a bunch of letter posters (I printed PowerPoint slides with the letters of the alphabet in different fonts) and let them decorate them.
Sarah arrived on Friday, but my vacation didn't start until Tuesday. On Monday, I had to go into school and teach my last day of English Camp. My first English camp was with the first and second graders and we studied the alphabet. I'm not sure how effective it was; half the kids clearly already knew the alphabet from their hogwons and the other half were floundering because trying to cover the entire alphabet is a lot for one week. Due to construction (all the classrooms are getting new floors, hopefully ones that don't give people splinters) class was held in the library. It's a nice library, very modern, but it was also full of crazy Korean robot children who spend their summer vacation studying in the school library. Every time I did something that was even remotely noisy, like play a game or speak in a slightly raised voice, I would have an instant audience of forty or fifty kids, only half of whom were my camp students.


I had some alphabet letters that had originally been bought for the English room. They were meant to be used on a felt board, but we just glued then on the letter posters.
I gave all the students English names on the first day of camp. I wasn't planning on it, but everyone seemed to assume they would get English names out of the deal and it certainly did make it easier to learn the kids' names. Coming up with a list of English names off the top of your head is surprisingly hard, so I used a website that randomly selected three popular English names and let the kids pick which one they liked best. The list was based on the most popular names in America for 2007 and wow, people name their kids some weird and gender-ambiguous names. There were a few traditional names like Jack and Amy, but there was also an Ashlyn, a Brayden, a Riley (boy) and a Kennedy (girl).


The idea was that the kids were suppose to decorate the posters with things that started with the letter. Some kids did better than others. Steven glued random letters onto his R poster. It ended up spelling ROJ.
To make each class a little more fun, I found a bunch of alphabet clips from Sesame Street and played them as we started. The kids loved them, and a few of the more outgoing boys would come up to the stage and dance to the music. My mother (of four children) always swore that Sesame Street was a really fun show, but I never believed her until now. I ended up spending a lot of time going through the archives on the Sesame Street website and wow, there are some really funny skits and some really talented musical guests, like Anderson Cooper reporting live from GNN or Tilly and the Wall singing the ABCs.


Audrey just drew some flowers and a heart around her (upside-down) Ss. I didn't have the heart to tell her the poster was upside-down.
I taught the kids to fist bump me when they did a good job or finished an assignment and they loved it. My siblings and I have been fist bumping each other and shouting, "Pound it!" for years, so it only seemed right to teach my students to do it too. The kiddos were *very* enthusiastic about the fist bumps and I spent the rest of the week nursing sore knuckles.


Caroline, on the other hand, did very well. Not only did she draw a glass (one of the examples from the textbook) and grapes (not one of the examples, she's just that smart), she wrote both words out phonetically in Hangul. She also wrote out G phonetically in Hangul (지 = gee). Gee is the name of a popular Kpop song that came out this spring. When we learned the letter G, half my students immediately started singing the song. I always appreciate it when Kpop helps with my lessons.
Sarah came with me to school on Monday and sat in on the class. The principal quickly learned that there were two - count them, two - foreigners in the building and came to the library to meet Sarah. The first time he stopped by we were in the middle of class so, after some mutual bowing, he left, but the second time he came by during a break, so I was able to introduce Sarah, my 미국인 친구 (American friend). Then he came back a third time, this time with a camera, and took a few pictures of me and Sarah. I imagine the photos will show up on the school website soon. What a great promotional picture to show the parents - look! we have TWO American teachers at our school, at least for a day. My kids were also fascinated by Sarah. When they first saw her, they hid behind me and asked, "Teacher! Who dat?" One of my second graders, Audrey, likes to tell me what color things are. "Teacher," she says, pointing at my shirt, "green! Brown (my skirt), red (my glasses), pink (her dress), blue (another student's shirt)." On Monday, she marched right up to me and Sarah and started telling me the colors. "Teacher, green (my pants), black (my shirt), purple (my glasses), red (Sarah's shirt)." Then she pointed at Sarah's blonde hair and said, "Teacher, yellow hair!" "Yes," I told her, "that is yellow hair." Sarah and I laughed about it for the rest of the trip.


It was a good activity, even if most of the kids didn't really grasp the whole point. Happy students are happy!

Gyeongbokgung

Hyangwonjeong @ Gyeongbokgung
The first of the vacation posts! (Technically, it's the third of the vacation posts, but it's the first of the post-vacation wrap up posts, i.e. the part where I feel guilty for ignoring my blog for weeks and spam it with photos. Lots and lots of photos.) Sarah arrived on a Friday and the next day, we headed into Seoul for some shopping and sight seeing. We spend a few hours looking at fans and posing for (other people's) pictures in Insa-dong, then walked to the nearby Gyeongbokgung, or the Palace Greatly Blessed by Heaven.

Gyeongbokgung was built in 1395, shortly after the foundation of the Josoen Dynasty, and served as the main palace until 1592, when the Japanese burnt it down. It was rebuilt 300 years later, only to be destroyed by the Japanese again in 1915. It's a story that's repeated throughout Korea; this was once a site of important cultural patrimony until the Japanese burnt it to the ground. I had no idea the Japanese were so arson prone. Restoration of Gyeongbokgung began twenty years ago and it's a lovely, if no longer authentic, site. (In all honestly, I spent enough time in the museum and archaeology business to know how very few "historic sites" are truly authentic and Gyeongbokgung is at least a well done restoration.)


We arrived at Gyeongbokgung in time to see the changing of the guard ceremony. Maybe it's my own history in historic reenactment, but I always love watching other people suffer through it. I especially enjoyed the costumes (I know that one's pure schadenfreude), the weapons and the dude playing a conch shell.


One of the things I like the most about the Korean palaces are the roofs. The mixture of the upturned roofs and the brightly painted eves create an appealing and quintessentially Korean image. (I do apologize for sounding like a travel guide. I can't help it; I just really like traditional Korean roofs.)


The main throne hall of Gyeongbokgung, Geunjeongjeon, is surrounded by a two tier terrace decorated with statues of the Chinese zodiac and the guardian spirits. This one is, I think, a tiger, or possible Baekho, guardian of the west. The palace guidebook and my two week only memory are unclear as to which.


Korean buildings are heated by ondol, a system of heated passageways underneath the floor. Traditionally smoke from a wood fire was used to heat the passageways, while modern ondol systems are a series of pipes filled with hot water. (The heater in my apartment didn't work particularly well, so this winter my apartment was heated solely by my building's ondol.) This is the chimney for the ondol system at Gyotaejeon, the queen's primary residence.


Behind the main palace is Hyangwonjeong, a small pagoda on an island in the middle of a square pond. The lily pads were so thick that the ducks in the pond had to waddle across them to reach open water. Hyangwonjeong is a well known symbol of the Joseon dynasty - I've seen multiple pictures of it - but I didn't know where it was until I visited Gyeongbokgung.




Gyeonghoeru Pavilion was built as a spot for the king to entertain guests and throw lavish parties. It's surrounded by a pond, and the king and his entourage would boat around the pavilion during the parties while Mount Inwangsan towered over them. I'll be honest, I would have totally partied with the Joseon king.

The full set of photos are here.

Taco Night!

Sarah taught me how to make homemade tortillas* on Wednesday! She's in the Peace Corps, so she knows these things. They were super easy to make, which was a surprise. Sarah said they were easy, but me and cooking don't get along so well. If I was the sort of person who ever made Jello, I would probably manage to burn it.

On Monday, we went to Lotte Mart, the Korean equivalent of Super Wal-mart, and bought flour, salt and oil for the tortillas. We also picked up some tomatoes, onions and garlic to use as filling. We tried to buy beans, but could only find the sweeten red beans used for 팥빙수 and while 팥빙수 is delicious, tacos are not the time nor the place for sweet sticky beans. Then on Tuesday we went to Costco and, among many other things, bought avocados and cheese.

Wednesday night, we made the tortillas. We spiced the dough with Cajun seasoning to make them extra tasty (and because my family is insane when it comes to Cajun seasoning). Sarah also suggested adding taco seasoning or garlic for flavor. Both sound delicious. Sarah showed me how to make dough and I made the tortillas. We bought a rolling pen, but they still came out pretty oblong. Cooking is hard, yo. After we made the tortillas, Sarah chopped the vegetables while I cooked the tortillas. Well, actually she chopped all the vegetables while I watched the first tortilla cook. My stove is actually a hot plate and isn't very efficient. (I have to pre-boil water if I want to make pasta or else it takes half an hour for the water to boil.) The first tortilla took nearly twenty minutes to cook, but the rest went much faster.


The first plate of toppings: tomatoes, red onions, avocados and garlic. We possible cut too much garlic, but it was super tasty.


The second plate of toppings: cheese and avocados. You'll notice there are avocados on both plates, to which I say, "What's your point? Girls gotta have their avocados!"
Once the tortillas were cooking at a decent speed, we piled our toppings onto the tortillas while they cooked and then ate them straight from the stove. They were delicious! We only had vegetable fillings this time. Next time I either need to find beans to use or saute some tofu to use as filling.


Om nom nom nom nom!
*I'm currently reading 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus and on the way to the airport to pick Sarah up, I read the section about maize and homemade tortillas and I very seriously considered running away to Mexico, right then and there. Because making life choices based on the availability of tortillas is a totally valid decision.

Vacation!

I've been friends with Sarah since high school. We met when I first moved to North Carolina in 8th grade, but I mostly remember her as that girl who skipped very violently and she says I was the new girl with the weird pig lunch bag. We had the same PE class in 9th grade though, and ended getting in a long conversation about Harry Potter and how, seriously, was child services never called? We've been friends ever since.

Sarah is currently serving in the Peace Corps in Tonga (in the South Pacific), but right now, she's in Korea visiting me! (She's currently on the floor of my apartment watching Gossip Girls. Korean internet is a tad bit faster than Tongan internet.) This is super exciting for a number of reasons. I haven't seen anyone from home for the past ten months AND I'm getting the next two weeks off school.

Taking a vacation at home, especially when you have a guest, is a new experience. I'm enjoying taking the opportunity to really look at my city. I tend to get stuck in a rut, hanging out with my friends and ignoring all the things Korea has to offer. On Saturday, Sarah and I went to Insadong, a shopping district in northern Seoul. Insadong mostly sells traditional Korean objects: hanji (traditional Korean mulberry paper), celadon pottery, silk bags and fans.


There will be loads of posts coming, but right now I'm just going to enjoy Sarah's visit and my vacation.

WWKIP Day 2009

World Wide Knit in Public Day was this weekend and last weekend! In Seoul, we celebrated last Saturday.


The Seoul KIP was held at the Seoul Arts Center in Seocho. The Art Center is very nice; all open and green with dance performances and sculptures and lots of families enjoying the nice weather. We met at the Mozart Cafe next to the World Music Fountain. The World Music Fountain mainly played things like "My Heart Will Go On" by Celine Dion and the theme of Chariots of Fire, but the kids seemed to like it.




I would like it to be known that I am wearing the exact same glasses as that six year old boy.
There were about fifteen knitters, including a couple of people I'd never met. There are five or six Stitch N' Bitches in Seoul and I can only make it to three of them, so it was nice to have a chance to meet some new knitters. We took up two tables, and even eventually managed to get two tables next to each other.


Starting with the redhead and going clockwise: Siobhain, Jennifer, Sha, Jinny, Angie. Please notice the looks we're getting from the passing ajumma.


Starting in the bottom right corner and going clockwise: Denise, Carson, Bethany, Kathie, Nikki's mom, Nikki and Michele's hat.


From left to right: Bethany, Caron's seriously adorable sock monkey cup cozy and Kathie.
Nikki organized a yarn swap (I got nine skeins of yarn even though I didn't actually bring anything to swap) and a knitting quiz. The quiz was a combination of your knitting experience and knitting knowledge. I did quite poorly on the last part. One of the questions was Odd One Out: Nupp, Noil, Thrum, Slub. I thought they all sounded like things parents threatened their naughty children with. As in, boy, you're asking for a nuppin' when we get home.


From left to right: Nikki and Carson
Angie was selling raffle tickets for an ugly blanket and a bunch of people were working on squares. Siobhain was making a square from Chenille and eyelash yarn held together and the yarns became horrible tangled, as yarn is wont to do. Marie and I were helping her untangle the knots, and we decided that this wasn't a mere tangle. This was performance art and should be displayed as such. There was a grass field next to the fountains, and we stood in the middle of it and worked though the knots while the Koreans watched with bemusement. One of the ideas behind WWKIP Day is to draw attention to knitters and show the public what exactly the knitting demographic is. In Korea, I think we proved that it's crazy waegooks.