How to Get Hitched in Korea

This post is no BS and straight to the point on how to get married in Korea. First off, congratulations! :) If everything goes smoothly (which we hope it does), getting married in Korea is actually quite easy. 

Steps for getting married in Korea (2 foreigners. Not sure of the steps if you are marrying a Korean):

1. No matter what your nationality, you need to obtain an Affidavit of Eligilibity of Marriage. You can obtain this from your Embassy. If you are a US citizen, you need to jump on the embassy's website and download a form to fill out and then schedule an appoitment to go to the embassy.  You will need the form, and if you were married before, your original divorce papers or notarized copies. If not, you just need your form. The cost is $50.  They take cash in form of Korean Won or an American credit card (no international fees or anything will be charged on it). If you are a South African Citizen, you don't need to physcially go to your embassy. There is a form you can fill out and mail to teh embassy. They embassy (they only send out diplomatic mail once a month) then sends the form to SA where they will notarize the form and send it back to you. That can take anywhere from a few weeks to 3 months. We needed the document faster so we went through docs4expats.com, paid a bit more money, and had the documents in hand in a week. But if you can wait and want to save some cash, it's easy to go through the embassy. 

2. Great! You now have the documents you need in hand. Now you just need to go to any local "gu" office. It can be in Seoul, your town, another town, doesn't matter. We chose to do it in Seoul since we were up there for the weekend anyway. The gu office in Seoul we went to is behind the US Embassy. The MOFAT office where you get your marriage certificate apostilled then behind the gu office. As you walk in, there's an information person there who speaks English to help you. She may or may not give you the form you need to fill out. Fill the form out, take a number and wait. We didn't have to wait. You will need 2 witnesses to sign the form. You can find the form online (I don't know how but you can ask a Korean friend. We found this out later) and fill it out and have any 2 people sign as witnesses at anytime and then just bring that in wiht you to the gu office. We asked 2 random Koreans in the office that day (as there were no foriegners there to sign for us at the time).  Last resort, that does work! Make sure you have your Affidavit of Marriage of Eligibilty, your passport, and 200 won with you (each copy is 200 won).  Go back to the desk with everything filled out and hand it to the disgruntled government worker there and she or he will do a few things then hand you a piece of paper in Korean and that's it! You are now legally married! Done and done! 

3. The next thing you want to do is since the certificate is in Korean, you will need to get it apostilled. We wondered around for a while and walked in circles until we found where we were supposed to go. If you are at the gu office in Seoul, here's how you get to the MOFAT office. Walk out of hte building and turn left. At the next street (it's small) you come to take a left. Walk down about 50 meters adn on teh opposite side fo the road is the Korea BD building.  It's the building next to teh very obvious Tax office. Walk in teh BD building and go to the 4th floor. Turn left out of hte elevator and go to the first office on teh right. The little old man speaks English adn will help you.  Take a number, give them your certficate, pay 1000 won per apostille, wait 20 min (we hit up the Starbucks across teh street) and you're done. We thought they would also translate it to English but they don't do that. More information on that to come. :) 

4. Walk outside, jump up and down, kiss your husband or wife and do a happy dance.  You are now married! 

***The procedure if you are marrying a Korean is a little different. I know you have to wait 3-5 days for your certificate and the procedure for the Korean before hand is a bit different. Sorry for not having that info.

CONGRATS!!! 

A Yankee and Boerseun Get Hitched (AKA Wedding Weekend)

Being from two different sides of the world and then deciding to travel for a year and then who knows where life will take us after that, Hawie and I had been talking about dun, dun, dun.....getting married. After a, Lindsay had no idea it was coming, proposal in September over Chuseok (Korea's Thanksgiving and one of their biggest holidays, also when we met each other for the first time), we decided to sign the marriage certificate and get hitched on 11/11! There were a number of different reasons but reason number one was...it was easy to remember!

Day 1

 After obtaining all the documents needed and inquiring exactly how we do this signing of the papers in Korea thing, we were off for a great weekend in Seoul to sign the papers on Monday. Up early and out the door and on the bus we go off to the train station. A little graugy and neither of us morning people, this was not an easy task. Luckily we could sleep an hour train ride up to Seoul. First stop was to check out a hiking/outdoors retailer area in Seoul to find Hawie (he is what they call "big size" in Korea) hiking boots for Nepal. Nepal and hiking the Annapurna circuit is our first stop on our gap year of travel.  It was still a bit early so we grabbed some coffee and started wandering around the area. Both of us had been up there on separate occasions but it had been years and we couldn't quite remember where the shops were. We wandered through an open market with fresh fruit, veggies, fish, goods and spices. There are many of these in Korea. We like to just meander around the one near us in Daejeon. This one was bustling and huge and full of energy on a Saturday morning. We came across some street food. They would grind the beans and then take the ground beans which make a paste, and mix it with some other spices and then fry it up. We bought one of those. Decided it tasted like cross between a Korean pancake (pa-jeon) and a hash brown. It was good but a bit greasy for that hour of the morning. After that we decided to keep searching. It didn't take long and we came across all the outdoor shops. We just started going into each one. Really they have mostly the same stuff so doesn't matter too much. The first shop we went to the guy spoke a little English, that was a plus! And on top of that, he had boots in Hawie's size! Well....him or his cousin down the street. In Korea if they don't have a size they seem to pick up the phone, call their buddy or cousin or whatever, and 5 minutes later, wah lah! Your size and model is in  hand! The guy helped Hawie alot and he found boots he really liked! Score! Now I had to find boots. That didn't take very long either. The little old man that helped us didn't speak any English but was super cool. Bonus! Boots were finished pretty early on.

It was now lunch time so we opted to go back to the market and see if we could get a bite to eat there. There were many little stands in the middle with everything from blood sausage (soon-day) to dumplings (man-du) to soups (kal-gook-su) to Bi bim bab (rice and fresh veggies with a spicy red pepper paste sauce action goign on). We decided on bi bim bab. You squeeze in next to random Koreans, order 2 bowls, watch the little old woman put the veggies in and rice and that's it! Sit and eat and try to not bump elbows too much with the quiet Korean sitting next to you. It was by far the best and freshest bi bim bab I have ever had in Korea. It totally hit the spot! And quite the experience as well! We had a short conversation with the woman running the stand and a couple next to us. With full bellies and boots in hand, we head back down to the subway to retrieve our other bags and head to the hotel we booked. I got a killer deal on a really nice hotel. It was a bit far from most things but totally worth it!

After getting a bit turned around, we finally found the hotel and checked in. Sat down, took a nice deep sigh of relief and excitement and enjoyed some TV and a beer while we regrouped. There was a jazz club we really wanted to go to. We were planning on doing that on Sunday night but Sunday was looking to be a very full day and we decided we may be too tired. We were a bit tired but not totally pooped out so we decided after some relaxing to head out to the club across town. We got there just in time and snagged a seat and table in the back by the entrance. We had some dinner and a few drinks and enjoyed some more music and called it good. It was a really nice evening! We were quite tired by now. Hawie suggested we take a taxi back to the hotel. Keep in mind the hotel is across Seoul. Seoul is huge. I reluctantly said yes, as my feet hurt a little from my shoes. We get into a taxi, give the driver the address on the business card from the hotel and crossed our fingers. The taxi driver didn't seem to know. He called the hotel and asked and then seemed to have it sorted and put the address in his GPS. A little background on the how people drive in Korea. If you walk out of car and you don't have whip lash, it's a miracle. They drive like this....lots of gas on, gas off, gas on, gas off. It's terribly uncomfortable if you are a passenger. Some drivers are more aggressive with the gas on and off and it can be quite miserable. Unfortunately we had a "lead gas on, gas off foot." Not only that, there were 3 turns he missed on the highway. A 33 minute, 20,000 won, miserable taxi ride later we landed at our hotel. I would've kissed the ground if it hadn't rained. The subway would've been a bit more hassle but cheaper and faster. But Hawie was trying to make it nice! Shame! Too bad you can't pick your taxi drivers by how well they drive for their passengers! Over all an awesome day!

Day 2

The next day we got up super early again! We were off to Lotte World. It's like Korea's Disney World, sort of. It's the largest indoor amusement park in the world (of def Asia). We both love roller coasters so we thought we would be kids again and go to Lotte World. But the lines can be really long, as the only official day off that Koreans have is Sunday, we wanted to get there early and beat the lines. We had a list of the best rides from a buddy of ours, Ian. Hawie has been there once before. We got there and it was huge and awesome! First up, an indoor roller coaster. We were super excited and ran to where it was. We were soon let down as it was closed for repairs. But that was ok! We then scurried off to the next ride. It was more like Pirates for the Caribbean ride at Disney World but better! Super awesome. So we did a few of those rides all inside then decided to move outside. It was a cold day. Not super terribly cold but enough to be uncomfortable. There was an outside roller coaster too so we weren't that bummed about the indoor one being out of commission...until we got outside and the outside one was out of commission too. That was okay there were other rides! We then headed over to the gyro swing (see picture below). One of the most thrilling rides I've ever been on! It was awesome and made up for the roller coasters. Next up was a ride we had no idea what it was. Turns out it was a mix between the space roller coaster ride at Disney World and the tea cups. That one and gyro swing tied for first place! If the line wasn't so long and we weren't so hungry, we would have gone again!

We grabbed some weird pizza for lunch then headed back inside. Luckily, just in time for the parade! YEE haw!! We got a decent place to stand and had a good ol' time watching the "Happy Christmas" parade full of foreigners in costumes. A bit weird but super fun. After the parade, the Koreans tend to scatter and it's a mess so we just stood still, waited and "made ourselves look big" for our survival as they cleared out. It worked! Everyone came out alive and no freak outs! We then headed to the Korean Culture Museum. Yes, they also have one of those in the biggest amusement park in the world! It was really cool actually! After the Museum we were running low on energy so we decided to go grab a drink and re energize before we headed back to the hotel.

Back at the hotel we had a quiet evening as we were sooo pooped out from 2 full days of awesome-ness and being on the go, we ended up ordering in pizza and watching a movie. It was perfect after all the excitement of the weekend. Plus we had to get up super early the next day to head to the "gu" (city hall type deal) to sign the marriage certificate.

Day 3

Off to the "gu" office we go. Up early, excited, packed up and ready to go! We dressed up, with layers as it was one of the coldest days we had so far. The gu office was pretty easy to find as it was behind the US Embassy. We knew we would need two witnesses to sign for us while we were there but as it was a Monday, we did not have any witnesses. A friend of mine had gotten married in Seoul years ago and said her and her husband just grabbed the foreign couple behind them in line and they signed for witnesses. We figured push comes to shove we would do the same thing.  We get to the office and the information lady was nice and greeted us and directed us where to go. We took a number and she gave us a form to fill out while we waited. There was no one in front of us in line so our number came up pretty quick. We weren't finished filling out the form but rushed over to the desk anyway. The lady behind the desk was not happy about life. She threw her nose up at us and just handed us back the form. So we took it aside and frantically filled it out.  We then took the form back to her. She again threw her nose up at us, said "witnesses" and handed us back the form. We were very polite, looked around, and to our dismay the room was vacant of any foreigners. We looked at her and asked "what should we do?" She shrugged and was absolutely no help. We looked at each other and smiled and said "ok, here we go!" We asked the kind information lady who spoke English to sign for one witness and she did and giggled! One down, one to go! We took a breath, looked around and luckily I spotted a nice looking Korean woman who appeared to be about our age. I scurried over to her and asked her to be our witness. To our surprise she spoke English and was very kind and signed the paper. We then rushed back to the "friendly" lady behind the desk and gave her the form for the third time. She said ok and started to process the paperwork. We snapped a "selfie" of us in the office.  She asked how many copies we wanted, we paid her less than a dollar (or much less than 10 rand) and she handed us the copies of our marriage certificate. We smiled, kissed each other and thanked her. She actually smiled and told us "congratulations!"

Whoop! We weren't quite relaxed yet. Next step was to go to one more place to get the our newly acquired document translated to English and apostilled (basically a notarization that is recognized world wide). It's chilly and we are now off to figure out where this office is. We wander around a bit determined to find it on our own. We finally stop on a side street corner to regroup. As we did that, a Korean woman walks out and in almost perfect English asks us if we are lost. We giggle and reply accordingly. We ask her if she knew where the office is, she said she didn't but looked around with us.  She was helpful and sweet but we didn't find the office. Finally, I said "Let's go back to Fort Knox (US Embassy) and ask one of the police officers where it is!" Hawie agreed and we were off back again around the corner. It's a pretty sure bet the police officers speak English also probably have to patrol the office we were headed to as well.  Luckily they could point us to the correct building and we were off across the street and down a ways again for the third time. We finally get to where we need to be and get into the building (the guards were quite confused when they asked why we needed to enter) and get to the help desk! yay! We get there, the woman greets us and whips out a map (sigh) and shows us where we need to go...back across the street, around the corner and down across the way...again! At least we were there a few times before looking for it so we had an idea. We get all the way back over there and turns out it was the building almost directly across from where were were standing when the woman asked us if we were lost. Turns out the Ministry of Foreign Trade (MOFAT) where we got the map is not the actual office to get done what we needed and they send everybody to the other building anyway. We giggled and walked in.  We took a number and they Koreans were very nice and helped us out! After handing them our stuff she said we had to wait about 20 minutes. At this point with all the excitement and confusion, we hadn't even eaten breakfast let alone drank coffee. Luck for us there was a Starbucks across the street! We headed over there, ordered, sat down, called the family one more time, and sighed and took a breath! After we were now full of coffee and a bagel, we headed back over to pick up what we thought would be our TRANSLATED, apostilled marriage certificate. We get back over there and pick up our stuff. It was apostilled which was cool but no where in English did it have what it was. Ok...great! So we asked if they have a transltation (everywhere that we read said they have translated copy that thye give you when you are there). I don't know if it was the language barrier or what it was but they gave us a big negative on the English translation. Because the rest of the world is also fluent in Korean...COME ON KOREA! Because I'm sure if we need it for South Africa or the US at some point, they'll know EXACTLY what it says and what it is! We didn't even care at this point and knew there were lawyers who could translate and notarize it Daejeon. Of course they are much more expensive then what we thought the MOFAT office would be. But hey, you live and learn. So, if you need your document translated to English, the MOFAT office doesn't do it! ;) Not to mention the lawyer office across the street from where we got our certificate wanted $60 (about 620 ZAR) to do it. We shrugged it off for later, took another deep breath, smiled and said "hey, we're married!" : D

Next adventure we were off to take 'wedding' pictures at the traditional Korean Palace across the street. Still pretty chilly at this point we we didn't care and were off running. We had both been there a few times before so knew the layout and where we were off to! Hawie (the photographer), myself, the camera, tripod and remote control had a great time taking pictures! We set up the tripod and used a remote to take the pictures. We had a great time "posing" for the camera all around the palace! We are married, got the pics and now it's time for food! :) We were orginally going to go back to Itaewon and get some brunch but were cold, a bit tired and had to work the next day. So we opted for eating near Seoul Station and then jumping on a train home! Which is exactly what we did!

When we got home, Hawie really wanted to get me a bouquet of flowers (he's a sweetheart). So we went to the local flower shop around hte corner from our house (Hawie also used to teach their little boy at his school) and he got my 11 white roses (as it was 11/11) and we headed home. We wanted to do one more photo shoot when we got home with Pepero and and the flowers. And that's what we did. Anytime Hawie can take pictures he is happier than a pig in 'poo'.  ;) We had our second photo shoot and a ton of fun! Then promoply changed out of our 'wedding apparel" and sat down and relaxed the rest of the evening after an incredibly unforgettable 3 day wedding adventure!!

It was an adventure and am awesome experience! We are lucky to have experienced it and lucky enough that we both had the patience, communication and understanding to adventure at getting married in a foreign country together!

 We hoped you enjoyed sharing our adventure together through the blog and thank you for reading!! :D

Taekwondo in Korea

 

After being in Korea for quite some time/a few years, I decided it was time for a change of scenery in my fitness life. Hawie had done Taekwondo (TKD) years back.  He started Hapkido (합기도) when he moved back to Korea and now has his black belt, 2nd dan (I'll explain later). He loved it and I thought it might be a good activity to give a whirl....when in Rome kinda thing. So with the help of Hawie's Hapkido master, we found a do-jang (gym). The gym is right across from Hawie's gym which is about 200 meters away from our house. Perfect! So we went over there, I attended a class and was in. My master and  instructors don't speak really any English and my Korean is survival, if that. I know, I know, I've lived here 3 years now and don't know that much Korean. It's embarrassing really but that's the way it is. :) 

Let me give you a bit of background on doing martial arts in Korea. OK! So first thing is, you do not attend class with adults. Martial arts gyms, unlike the western world, are a place for to occupy your child, give them some excercise, drain them of their energy, or keep them from being beat up at school. Hagwons (private specialized schools in English, art, martial arts, music or studying) are all over and extremely popular in Korea. Kids often attend 2 to 4 hagwons a day on top of all their time at actual school. So instead of doing calss with a bunch of adult, you are in a room kicking, punching, running, making a fool of yourself with a bunch of kids. You can choose your time you go but the latest time is usually the best becuase it is for the oldest group of kids, ie upper elementary to middle school aged kids. In turn, you become like one big family. Korea is a very, very, very family orientented culture. It is something about the culture that I really do enjoy and will miss when we leave. 

ANYWAY, I take up TKD as an adult class with a bunch of kids. Of course the grand master is much older than me, has a wife and 2 kids of late elementary age. There are 2 other instructors that I train with. One is very humble, quiet and has a very kind demeanor. He is actually the one that trains me more often then not and is just slightly younger then me. He is great at his job and is a really good teacher. He speaks absolutely NO English but when teaching something that has lots of body movement, language barriers are broken. Then there's the other instructor.  I call him the new instructor, as he came on 2 months after I started. He is a jock to it's finest. He's super nice and laughs and smiles a lot! As for being a good teacher, not so much but he does have some English and can be helpful at times. I do not work with him very often but it's fun/frustrating when I do. :) The kids at the gym are great but don't want to speak English, I totally get it and don't blame them, and I'm the only girl and old at the gym. They really just don't know what to do with me. I try to interact and play with them but it only goes so far before they try to be the "cool kids." Even with that said, it's still like a family and TKD is most often the highlight of my day. I enjoy being with the kids as well. I teach university, and all though is fantastic, it is really nice to be around kids in a non teaching setting. 

 

One thing you need to do is laugh at yourself and not take things quite so seriously most days in TKD. This is a challenge for me and is still a challenge to this day. If I have perfectionist tendencies towards anything it would be sport related, definitely NOT when washing the dishes. We were not born kicking, blocking and punching things. So these aspects were all very new to me. Not only are you learning how to kick and punch, you are learning jangs (poomses) which are about 20 moves or so per poomse involving kicking, punching, and blocking in a certain order, also called a "form". Click here ( 8th Jang ) to see it performed. There are 8 you need to learn before you test for your black belt. Thank goodness they got easier to catch on to as I got further down the line with time but at first....wooo weee!! What a hot mess that was! I'm not in my 20's anymore, and even with 2 younger brothers when we were young I didn't even kick or punch them. Really I just tried to pinch and dig my nails into them, which did a whole lot of nothing but made me feel a bit better as it released my frustration. But then only to irritate them more and they would just fire back. So if I was ballsy enough and smart enough as a child, I would have kicked and punched them and then maybe this TKD thing would've been easier at the age of 30. But no such luck. Lindsay was starting from square one. At the beginning the mental and physical challenge knocked me on my butt. I wasn't quite expecting that. But they would also train me one-on-one and I was getting through one poomse a month.  It slowed down for a bit, then I went of vacation, and they didn't work on poomses much with any of the class for a while and we just worked on kicks. When I came back from summer vacation, he had changed my class time to 2-3 pm since the kids were out of school as well. That class were the kids, including myself who were going for their black belt test in September. I loved training with those kids! They were younger and way more cute and so much more disciplined.  I got to really bound with them over the 3 weeks we had class together. 

The clock is ticking at this point. I am very nervous.  It's August, I have one month to get through the last two poomses and be able to be comfortable enough to perform them for my black belt. At this point, I just trust my master and instructors and pray that I will be ready for the the big test day. Keep in mind, Korea very much a last minute culture with big things. They always wait to the last minute. In 2 weeks I got through my 7th poomse and then had a little over 2 weeks to get through the 8th and most major one. What I didn't know is that when you go for you test, everyone does the 8th poomse and then they choose a random poomse 1-7 to test you on. We can accredit that on the language barrier and cultural barrier. ;) 

After my test happy and glad to be done!

Ok! After a very emotionally, physically and mentally challenging 2 weeks prior to the test, the big day has arrived. I arrived at the gym at 8am. Stretch, practice some more and then off I go with my one instructor (the one that has really trained me the most) to the testing site. We pull up and there's TKD vans everywhere and kids in their uniforms and parents and all sorts of craziness. It's a REALLY big deal to test and get your black belt as a kid in Korea so the kids take it very seriously (sometimes) and are very proud when they pass. The energy is awesome! I'm still extremely nervous. My instructor in his super limited almost no English tells me to relax and breath and I'll be fine. We get there and I practice facing the direction I will be facing when I go in front of the judges. Luckily we find out which random poomse we will do prior to getting in there. Thank goodness it was one of the poomses that I could do really well! That was a bit of a relief. As all the hustle and bustle was going on and kids and parents and instructors are in and out and all over the place, I am practicing in the middle of all of it. On top of that, I am the only foreigner in the entire place!  Koreans always stare and anyway but this time they would stare and point even more. Being in Korea 3 years at this point, you learn how to tune it out. I don't blame them so much. Sometimes I even find myself staring at foreigners on the street just because they look so different then all the Koreans. ;) 

You test in a huge gym! There are 3 tables of judges you need to go in front of and there are 360 degrees of second story bleachers with kids and parents sitting in them. Underneath is the holding area where you wait your turn. Each person has a number and you test usually with your gym.  Since I was the only one testing for my 'dan" at my gym, I was by myself. Or so I thought I would be testing by myself as my master had said. At the last minute I was thrown in (as a time saver) with another group of kids from another gym. This knocked me off a bit. There's already so much going on, I'm nervous and feel a bit unprepared and I'm thrown in to test with other people. In the middle of all that, this other master comes up to me and says he knows my master. I was polite and tried talking to him and he knew some English and was trying to calm my nerves and help me. Turns out he was the first owner of my current gym and my master trained under him and now he is, in my instructor's words, KING of Taekwondo. Apparently he is really high up in the TKD world. It was an honor to be there with him and have him help me out. 

I did the test and at the end of each thing, I was shaking and bright red. I didn't make a mistake but hesitated on one move in the 8th poomse. But for the most part did really well according to the grand master and my instructor. My instructor who brought me was super pleased and excited. It's a huge honor for them to be seen and train a foreigner.  I was excited for him and happy that my master sent me with him.  I thought that I would find out then if I passed or not. Turns out you need to wait an entire month. It's been a month and no word. But that's okay. I'm sure they took pity on me and passed me. Haha. 

My adrenaline was pumping so high that day and all the stress leading up to it, through out the day when I got home, I would all of  sudden feel like I was powering down, then be ok again, then randomly hours later power down. All in all, the experience was amazing. I wouldn't give it up for the world. That day and few weeks leading up to the test was one of the toughest things mentally, physically and emotionally I have ever done. Going to TKD in the first place was a huge step out of my comfort zone but I am so glad I stepped out and wished I would have crossed the line much earlier. Cheers for now! Thanks for reading!

I have since found out that I officially passed my black belt (1st dan) test! I'm not sure who was happier, my master or me when I found out! In about another month I should have my black belt with my name on in Korean and the name of the Taekwondo school. It was an adventure telling my instructor I wanted Lindsay Bateman on the belt and NOT Lindsay Milligan. I had not written "Bateman" in Korean in a while and had forgotten. So we tried together to write it in Korean. At first, my Master gave it a try. He spelled it "바트맨" which translate to "Batman." I giggled and we worked it out. But even over here in a different culture and language, my surname is still mis-pronounced.  It will be interesting to see what my name will look like and what is on the belt. ^^

Thank you for reading!

 :)

After my test at home happy to be done!

Oh my China!

DAY 1: ARRIVAL 

 Not knowing when or if we will be in this part of the world again, Lindsay decided that China had to be visited. Hawie had already been to China his first year in Korea and didn't feel the need to go back. The other draw was that my good friend Kim was finishing up her 6 months of teaching in China around the same time I had vacation. Kim was going back to the good ol' US of A to get her graduate study on. Kim and I thought it would be nice to meet up in China, even if it was only for a day. It was set, tickets were booked, plans were confirmed with Kim, and the Chinese visa was in the passport. Kim and I planned our flights to land at the Beijing Airport about the same time. What we did not anticipate was that Lindsay's flight would be delayed for 9 hours. Super bummer but still got to see Kim for a bit. Luckily, I had booked a hotel room already and had the address. So Kim made her way to the hotel to chill and wait for me. She had flown in from a visit to Mongolia that day and was a bit tired as well. She got us some Peking duck and other food and a few beers while she waited for me to arrive. I was supposed to land at 1pm and didn't make it to the hotel til 11pm that night. But better late than never! ;) The hotel was high class. We decided to splurge as both of us always travel on the cheap and stay in hostels. But we went all out!



DAY 2: Kim's Departure

We woke up early and decided to get our workout on! Best part, well two best parts, were the buffet breakfast in the morning and to counter act that, an awesome workout room. The treadmills and bikes had virtual trails you could run and bike on. I want one! After Kim and awoke early and got our workout on for an hour, we proceeded to stuff our faces full of Western and a bit of Chinese food for breakfast. We then headed off to the airport. Kim had kept her bags at the airport but were both over weight. We spent a few hours going through the suitcases and sorting stuff, throwing away stuff, and I took some stuff so I could mail it to her later. It was as success! Her bags made weight and no extra fees were paid! After a hiccup with airline company and luggage, Kim was off to her next big adventure. After 5 years overseas, she headed back to the states. If you have lived over seas for a period of time, you know this is a bit frightening and overwhelming. I feel blessed I could be there to support her and send her off. :)

After saying farewell to Kim, I headed back to the hostel to regroup. I had no plans and was going to take each day as it came. I bought a map, inquired at the front desk about how to get some places, sat down with a beer in the beautiful courtyard and started to plan at least the next day. At this point it was close to 5pm so I decided to just plan, explore the area and call it a night. siheyuan, traditional courtyard residences. Many neighborhoods were formed by joining one siheyuan to another to form a hutong, and then joining one hutong to another. The word hutong is also used to refer to such neighbourhoods.

Road down the Hutong on the way to the hostel

The area the hostel was in, is called a Hutong. Hutongs are a type of narrow streets or alleys, most commonly associated with Beijing. In Beijing, hutongs are alleys formed by lines of
Since the mid-20th century, the number of Beijing hutongs has dropped dramatically as they are demolished to make way for new roads and buildings. More recently, some hutongs have been designated as protected areas in an attempt to preserve this aspect of Chinese cultural history. (wiki).  It was really cool to stay in an area like that. It really gave you the feel of how everyday Chinese live. There was a group of older men who played Chinese checkers and card games outside the hostel almost everyday. There were a couple of stalls and a hole-in-the-wall restaurant up the street that we ate at a few times.

No eggs for dinner tonight. Ah man..

Later that evening I met another teacher from Korea. We were staying in the same dorm room. We chatted a bit and she was headed to the Great Wall the next day and invited me to go with her. SWEET! She was headed to a less crowded part of the wall called Muitanyu. The hostel wasn't very helpful at all with directions but we were resourceful and felt we had enough information to get there.

The cool doggy at the hosel. She was very sweet and kept me company!

Courtyard at the hostel

Courtyard at the hostel

Courtyard at the hostel

Everyday life in a Hutong

These guys hung out on teh stoop of the hostel almost everyday and played games.

If go to Beijing, I would highly recommend staying here! :)

DAY 3: Great Wall Muitanyu

Thank you random Chinese man for posing for the picture. :)

Supposedly there was a tourist bus that leaves the bus station (close to the hostel) at 7am. We aimed to catch that bus, not anticipating not being able to find the bus at all. We didn't find the bus and missed it's 7am departure time. So we stopped for a cup of coffee to go and then made a new plan. New plan, head back to the hostel and ask for more details on where exactly to get the bus and then head back again. The hostel people, again, were not very helpful. The information we did get was to take a local bus, get off at the last stop, then either get a minibus taxi or catch a connecting bus to the wall. This sounded doable for sure! The morning was off to a rocky start as you can see and didn't get much easier after that. The girl I was traveling with realized while back at the hostel periodically that she had lost her debit card. She decided to try adn not worry about it too much and take care of it when we returned. Still putting a bit of a damper on the day though.  We then trekked back out to the bus station again and hopped on the bus. We got stuck in massive traffic on teh way out to the next small city. I just assumed this was normal for Beijing but turns out we hit two accidents on the highway on the way out and it is not typical for Beijing to be in this much traffic.

After the highway we started to come back into a town area. As we did, the bus made a stop. The second stop it made, there were 2 men getting off the bus and signaled for us to get off too for Muitanyu where were going. I like to think of myself as a pretty smart traveler but for whatever reason that day, my guard was down. It might have had something to do with our rocky morning and being up since 5am or who knows. But we followed them and got off the bus at a bus stop not even quite in the city center yet.  Turns out they work for a minibus company and just wanted us to take their company (of course to make money) to the Great Wall. We told them no many times and ignored them til they went away. Luckily the bus we were on ran every 10 minutes or so and we grabbed the next bus pronto. The bus was quite full and we ended up standing in the front of the bus. Turns out the next 4 stops were full of the minibus drivers trying to lore unexpecting, off guard tourists off the bus.  I'll tell you what, China is full of scammers. I wouldn't trust most Chinese as far as you could throw them. But it's part of their culture and they're all used to it, I suppose. We eventually made it to the last stop! WOOO HOOO!!!

There was a sign for the next bus we needed to catch but no 'sign' of where to catch it. We tried asking a few people, they spoke no English and we had no Chinese so that deemed useless. We headed toward a bigger bus terminal in the back and thought that might be a good place to start. We were being followed by a very persistent minibus driver so we ducked into the women's room for some reprieve and to use the facilities. Double whammy. That didn't matter too much because the driver waited outside for us anyway. I saw some Chinese, what looked to be tourists, on our way back to where the bus dropped us off. Luckily one spoke English and helped us. Turns out, the bus we needed to catch doesn't run any more due to the construction on the road in to the great wall. Ok, great! At least we had an answer. He helped us negotiate with a really nice minibus driver who wasn't pushy at all and very laid back. As we got in, 3 exchange students from Hong Kong, jumped in as well. They spoke pretty good English and a bit of Korean (they love Korean dramas) and we had a fun little talk on the way to the wall. They were got off earlier then us but were super fun and made us feel better about getting into the minibus with a random driver as well.

Approaching the wall

Just in case you need a souvenir for the way up to the wall

very authentic chinese man selling food and metals on the wall

A 20 minute, speedy gonzales, race car ride up to the wall and we were off! We were super excited to be there and it now being 12pm, were just happy we made it in one piece after the rough start we had. It was very hot by this time but at least it was a pretty clear day and the sun was out (not lucky when you are hiking in it but lucky because we could see so much more of the amazing surroundings around the great wall). There's all sorts of things you can do at the great wall. It's less crowded then the Bataling part but still a bit touristy. There are cable cars you can take up and down from the wall (it was a bout a 20 minute hike up just to get to the wall itself) and you can even toboggan down if you so please. Looked pretty fun but was super expensive for a 2 minute ride down so I passed on the ride down.  We hiked the wall for about 3 hours. It was amazing! The views were incredible, the wall itself was incredible, the million billion steps, not so incredible. Never in my dreams would I thought I would be on the Great Wall. Seeing that the word excercise was not in the vocabulary of the girl I was hiking with, we took the cable car down. She was exhausted and thought that the cable car might be the better option. We got down, ate lunch, took our speedy taxi driver back to the bus stop, jumped on the bus and within an hour we were back at the Beijing bus terminal where we started. All in all, a good day!

Flames! Please! Cover yourself!

Very lucky to have such a clear day!

Yep, we hiked up to the where the wall disappears out of sight.

We only climbed a few stairs that day

We made it!

Unrestored part of the wall

DAY 4: Pearl Market

Day 4 was pretty chill and laid back. The Great Wall chica wanted to go back to the Pearl Market and invited me to go with her. The Pearl Market was not as cool as it sounded but still super interesting. It is basically similar to a huge department store (Asian style) where you can bargain and talk down the price of everything. We did a bit of souvenir shopping there and ate some lunch. It was a nice relaxing day after the hectic great wall day previously. Beijing is super easy to get around by subway. We headed back after the Pearl Market because she had to leave to catch her flight back to Korea. That evening I met an Aussie, Lisa. Lisa and I hit it off right away! Lisa didn't really have a game plan for the next day so I invited her to go with me. The plan was to head to the Summer Palace then to the Lama Temple that was super close to the hostel.

Lama Temple from teh outside

Around town. All sorts of bikes

hungry?

DAY 5: Summer Palace, Lama Temple and Night Market

We got up fairly early and hit up the Summer Palace. A famous emperor long ago built the Summer Palace for his mother. Lucky woman. It was really like a small village of temples and buildings and gardens and a huge lake surrounding it. There were many many people and it was super hot. But Lisa and I had a fantastic time and cruised around the lake and took in the scenery. We then headed back towards the hostel to Lama Temple. This is a famous temple, huge and gorgeous! By this time of day, the crowds had thinned out! There was barely anybody at the temple! This was a nice reprieve from earlier in teh day. Super relaxing and nice to just chill at the temple. I always love the energies at the temple! We came back and chilled out a bit then decided we had enough energy to hit up the famous Night Market. This I was pretty excited about! In the mean time, Lisa had to change rooms (the hostel is bit unorganized) and she met two girls in her new room. So the 4 of us ventured out to the market. The market is famous for many items you can eat on a stick that are fried such as: spider, centipede, snake and scorpion, among other things. I will let you enjoy the pictures!

Lama Temple

Across from the Night Market

Yummy! The silk worms in China are much larger then the silk worms in Korea.

Spider and Centipede fried on a stick

Dumplings I had along the way.

Scorpion BIG and small.

Snake

So that's what starfish look like in the middle

lots and lots of seafood

Belle had bought a lotus flower from a woman near the hostel. We didn't know how to eat it or what you do with it. The cute little Chinese guy showed us how to eat it. It was good!

DAY 6 Great Wall Second Round and Super fancy restaurant

The cool aussie chic wanted to go to the Great Wall and I wanted to see another part of the Great Wall. We decided to go back to Muityanu part of the wall again due to ease of getting there and little to no stress. It was unclear how to get to the other part of the wall I was interested in and honestly did not want to deal with scammers.  It was awesome! The cool aussie chic and another girl we met while trying to get a minibus up there were great and in shape! We hiked the wall at a nice speed that day! The weather was cloudy and misty that day so it was a totally different experience then the time before. Still just as awesome! Worth it to do it again! I couldn't decide which day was better! We were super pooped out by the time we got back! The girls we met the day before were just chillen that day and had found a vegetarian restaurant that looked interesting and they wanted to go (one of them was a veggie). Lisa and I waited patiently for the girls. We were getting very hungry by this point as we didn't have much to eat in terms of real food all day. After a few hiccups in trying to find the place, we found it! It was not what we expected at all! It was a beautiful 5 star restaurant apparently run by monks. It was one of those, you def need a reservation place to get in. We obviously did not know this. There was a small area in the front of the restaurant where they said that we could eat. Not as fancy as inside but still pretty cool. We looked at a menu, which were huge and beautiful filled with pictures.  Looking at the menu, it looked good but Lisa and I were starving by this point. We made the decision, as nice as it would have been to eat with the girls, it just wouldn't be substantial enough for us for that day. It was pricey and the portions inevitably would have been small. We need something much more than that! So we thanked the girls for the invite and apologized. One of the girls, who was already on a roll earlier, did not want to take no for an answer. So after some stern "no's," Lisa and I were on our way back towards the hostel to find food. We had seen a small place a block or so from the hostel that always had a lot of people there. It was a definite hole-in-the-wall local place but we decided to give it a try regardless. We did and it was perfect!! We got a huge amount of food for a minimal price, were stuffed and happy! :) Job done!

The menus at the super fancy restaurant

DAY 7 Temple of Heaven and Peking Duck

I was bit bummed it was my last day. I wish I would have stayed much longer in China. But, China, we will return for you! I was excited to hit up the Temple of Heaven knowing there were people in the park around it doing tai chi.  Hawie had seen it when he went and I was hoping it was still part of the culture and going on. The Aussie and I woke up super early again. Feeling a bit tuckered out from the hike the day before we pushed through. We got to the Temple of Heaven quite easily and meandered in to the park. When we entered there were elderly people old school dancing.  As we got further in there were more and more people doing tai chi, playing a form of hackey sack, meditating and doing aerobics. It was fantastic! One of the best parts of the trip. The park was gorgeous and the energy from all the people exercising and feeling refreshed so early in the morning was incredible! We spent a lot of time chilling and watching the people and taking it all in. There were all sorts of forms of tai chi, from super slow to medium paced to tai chi with swords. People of all ages joined in. They seemed to have no concern that hundreds of people were passing by and observing. It was like they were in their own worlds' enjoying every movement. Fantastic! The Temple of Heaven was pretty cool. There weren't many people there so it was quite and nice. The energy was powerful and relaxing at the same time.

After a great time in at the Temple of Heaven and surroundings we decided, because it looked close on the map, to walk from there to to Tiannamen Square and the Forbidden city. We pushed through, made it and arrived in Tiannamen an hour later. Not as close as we thought. After a relaxing morning at the temple, the square and Forbidden city were an abrupt wake up call. Loads of people everywhere and on top of that, it is in city center. The square was not much to see but absolutely gigantic in size.  It was still nice to be there. We then went over to the Forbidden City where it was just a mass chaos of people.  Looking back, it would have maybe been better to have a guide so you knew mroe what you were looking at and the significance but to be honest, we were so tired at that point, we didn't care. The buildings were beautiful but we couldn't go or really see the inside. After about an hour and half of wandering around, we decided to head back to the hostel. The buildings were starting to look similar and we felt we got the gist. My partner in crime for the past three travel days was definently feeling it! Besides, I needed to pack and get my stuff organized for the flight out the next morning...very early!

Tai Chi in the park outside the Temple of Heaven

Tai Chi in the park outside the Temple of Heaven

Tai Chi in the park outside the Temple of Heaven

Adding swords to the mix

Temple of Heaven

Temple of Heaven

There are three paths. Only the Emperor was allowed to walk along the middle path.

Tiannamen Square and Forbidden City behind me

Inside Forbidden City

Inside the Forbidden City....not so forbidden anymore

We wanted to see the Kung-fu show and the hostel would have arranged tickets and transportation to the show for us. But we weren't really feeling the show that night. My partner in crime really was itching to Peking Duck. So with a little bit of research, we found a place. Not only was it close to the hostel, it had great reviews AND there was a free show along with it! Perfect! We had the afternoon to relax then headed out for some Peking Duck!! We had the address in Chinese and had a sense of the general direction (thank you google maps). We went to a place we thought was it. We asked, and it wasn't but they pointed us in the right direction. Half way down the street, mind you it's a street full of nice restaurants, we asked a guy standing outside. He said, "oh yes, here, here. Come in." We had a sneaky suspicion that it was not the correct place but went in anyway and asked the waitress who then pointed us in the right direction. Sneaky suckers they are! It was actually one thing I did not expect as much in China. Cambodia, sure, they are a 3rd world, trying to revive themselves coming out of the Khmer Rouge. But China...come on! We found the place! It was set up as you were in a courtyard and was gorgeous! We had a great time eating duck and watching the "show." It was a perfect end to the trip!

Inside the Peking Duck Restaurant

Beautiful Menus

Preparing the duck

Delicious-ness!

Desert they gave us. They were almost too pretty to eat but very delicious as well!

After coming back and running into a few Aussie blokes, who were VERY entertaining, I finally made it to bed. The next morning I shipped out. A bit worried I was cutting it close with my flight time and the time I left, I didn't sleep much. My travel partner in crime was super awesome and walked me to the airport rail at 5:15am. It was an entertaining wait for the rail to open the gates as the taxi drivers tried to get us to take their taxi to the airport. I was very thankful to have her there with me to fend them off. Got to the airport, the wrong terminal pretty fast! I had to then jump on a very slow bus to the next terminal, then ran the opposite way of the ticket counter, came back, checked in and found out my flight was delayed 3 hours anyway. So it goes. At least I wasn't rushed through security. Which was a tremendous hassle anyway. All in all....an amazing trip filled with incredible people, an awesome hostel, time with Kim, a few adventures and tons of fun! Oh China!