Field Trip to Incheon

Today we had a field trip!! We went to Incheon, which is famous for its pottery, and we go to paint some cups. I hope mine turned out ok! I had so many ideas after I turned it in! So sad, but I will post a photo as soon as I receive my cup in a couple days. We also went into a traditional private Korean school (hagwon). That was actually the first thing we did. I'm not doing this in chronological order, but whatever. I write it as it comes to my brain! So at this particular hagwon (not sure if it's the same as others, but I assume it is), they sit on the floor on pillows with a desk/drawer thingy in front of them. I was sitting there for 5 minutes and I grew so uncomfortable. These kids have school from like 8am til 11pm. Imagine sitting in that position for such an extended period of time. I was ready to get outta there! But we went there not to study, but to learn about the traditional bowing they do in Korea. They have tons of different ways to do so depending on who you are bowing to. They get pretty intricate. We had a few volunteers participate in the demonstration and they put on traditional Korean clothing called hangbok, I think. It's beautiful and colorful. I may want to buy one, but I think they're super duper expensive! Not sure, and they're usually worn for weddings, I believe.

Another activity we did was painting. We only had one color, black. so we had to utilize shading, which I am HORRIBLE at! Of course, I stood next to the artist of the group. Her artwork was amazing! But I would hope so considering she went to art school. Someone in the class actually called out my first painting and laughed! "HA! somebody just drew a tree!" I guess we were supposed to paint what the instructor painted, but I thought she was just showing us technique. Boo to her for not making the instructions clear. But I did redeem myself on my second painting. :) It definitely looks a lot better than the first!



We had a traditional Korean lunch at a restaurant today. We have been eating all our meals at the university cafeteria, so this was the first time we had food from a restaurant. The food was amazingly delicious! We had to sit on the ground and my booty was hot. Literally and figuratively. Their floors are warm because they heat their water through underground pipes, which I think it is such an efficient way to keep a home or any other place warm.

So, tonight I tried Korean street food for the first time! A few friends and I were walking down the street looking at the different vendors trying to see which one we wanted to try first. We saw most of the same food but we came across this cute old Korean man making some weird swirly thing on a stick. We definitely gotta get this! So we did. It was a potato that was swirly cut in a contraption that was deep fried for what seemed like an eternity (aka 2 minutes-ish). There were two plates of spices that you could dip the potato on a stick in - one was a cheesy powder and the other was a chili powder. We were smart and dipped it in both and boy oh boy was that thing good! First experience with Korean street food = A+++ We wanna try more and more and more!!!! Maybe tomomorrow!