Shanghai City Tour Part 2

After the museum, we went to a pearl gallery, where I got to learn about the industry in Shanghai. I got a little lecture over this tank of oysters about the various pearl colors and how there isn't just one pearl in the oysters, but usually quite a number. The store guide had me guess how many were in one, and I guessed wrong, of course. I think there were like ten pearls in it, but none of them were good. She gave me two small ones to keep as a souvenir. I don't really know what to do with them now.



Next I had to guess which string of pearls out of three was fake, and I guessed right this time, but probably only out of luck. She showed me how to identify real pearls: if you rub them together, they will grind each other down a bit and produce dust, whereas plastic won't change. I did not get a free string of pearls for guessing right this time.

I looked around and ended up buying a couple nice looking pearl pendant necklaces for myself and my mother for not a lot of money. The saleslady was trying to get me to buy four and get one free, and in retrospect, I probably should have gone for it, given they were only $15 apiece, but I had already spent so much money getting to Shanghai that I felt buying a lot of souvenirs would be a bad idea.

After the pearls we went to a silk factory and gallery, where I saw the process of silk production.

Here are the little silkworm cocoons that they use for silk strands:


Ropes of silk strands:


More cocoons:


Silk work life cycle? Hard to see.


Machine:


You probably can't see the tiny strands, but the machine is unwinding them from the cocoons:


I got practical demonstrations on how the silk is stretched into thin layers for reasons I don't remember.




And another demonstration on a larger scale, for use in quilts and comforters. The silk comforters are only silk on the inside, apparently, with cotton covers. The silk is good for temperature control--warm in winter, cool in summer.


Finally, I got to look around the gallery. I considered getting silk sheets, since they were as low as $65, but I have so much stuff to bring home from Korea that I'm trying to reduce the amount of big things I buy. Plus I won't have my own bed for years to come, and I don't want to be traveling with a set of sheets all over the world.

Here are a couple bedding examples (much pricier than sheets):





The rest of the gallery was a lot of scarves, handkerchiefs, ties, and clothing. I was trying on some traditional dresses for a while, but had some trouble. The Large size was a bit too small, then the XL size fit on me, but I wouldn't be able to sit down in it. The saleslady found me a dress in XXL (here, my tour guide reminded me kindly that these are Chinese sizes, so it's really not that big), but there seemed to be a missing link between XL and XXL. The last dress was like a muumuu on me, and these are supposed to be form-fitting, so it was pretty unacceptable. I considered buying it anyway and taking it to the tailor, but only for about a half second. Considering it's silk and the amount of work that would have to be done on it to make it fit me, the tailor would probably cost more than the dress.

I ended up with a nice silk bag, which soon after I got it back to Korea, fell apart on the inside nylon lining and I've had to resew it twice. It was only $15, though, a good deal.

Shanghai City Tour Part 1

I had booked a city tour online for February 14th, basically the only activity I did in Shanghai due to sickness, weather, and time constraints. Because it was the first day of the lunar new year, a major holiday, I was the only one on the tour. I felt kind of bad that they had to work on a holiday just for one person. It also made the day extremely difficult for me, since I had to converse with the tour guide. I'd rather have just listened to her drone on to a group, and not have had to open my mouth all day.

Our first stop was the Shanghai Museum, where we had to stand outside in the rain and wait in line for at least 30 minutes. It was grueling. Once inside, I was given an hour to wander around and see the exhibits.

First I looked at some furniture:




This is supposed to be a detail of the above, but the detail is kind of hard to see. Pretty much everything in this hall was intricately carved.



Same problem here:



I totally want this set:


I enjoyed the architecture of the museum. These are the stairs:


Next I saw some paintings. Many of them would look like something else, then I would realize I was looking at it wrong, and I'd see what it was supposed to be.

Like, I think I must have been seeing some grumpy, disfigured old man in this one, but then I saw the bird and realized I was looking at a rock:




Next was pottery:





Floor design in the lobby:


Ceiling:


The End.

Shanghai First Night

For my Lunar New Year Holiday I went to Shanghai. I'm not going to say much about it, because it was a pretty lousy weekend, but I'll give you some pictures and videos over the next couple entries. I had been sick with some sort of flu since the Wednesday before, and even had to take my first sick day at Kate LA the day before I left, just so I could rest up enough to possibly be well enough to enjoy my weekend. Although I did get well enough to not alarm anyone at the airports (which I was EXTREMELY nervous about), I did not have a nice time in Shanghai, particularly since the first thing that happened to me was I got ripped off royally on the taxi fare home, since it was a major holiday, I assume.

I stayed at the Everbright Hotel, which has an exhibition hall and is popular with business travelers. It also has a pool, which I paid for a more expensive hotel for, then I found out charged a fee for use of the pool and athletic facilities, and I couldn't even use the stupid pool anyway, because I was too sick. What a waste. Otherwise, the hotel would have been totally nice, except it didn't have A SINGLE CLOCK ANYWHERE IN THE WHOLE PLACE. That really bothered me, as I had to use my cell phone to czech the time (my watch band broke recently), and my cell phone put me in the wrong stupid time zone. I also didn't have my charger, so I was afraid it'd run out of battery the whole time.

Because of the whole time issue, I was waiting an hour early in the lobby for my tour van to pick me up, and had tried to call them before the scheduled time to see why they were late. Luckily, n one picked up when I called.

Night exterior:




My room:


It was freezing in that damn room all night, as nice as it was. I wish they'd turned the heat on before I'd arrived.



It being the eve of one of the biggest holidays of the year, there were major celebrations going all night long. The fireworks started off like this:


But as midnight approached, began to look like this:


They continued strong until about 2am, and then kept going lightly until about 4am, then only sporadically throughout the morning and all the next day. I would know, as the medication I was taking for my sickness kept me up all night (I hadn't slept in days).

I stayed in the room all the first night to rest, so I would be strong enough to endure, or even enjoy, the city tour I had scheduled the next day.

Classroom Stuff

On Friday two vaguely interesting things happened.

The first was that a student went into an almost catatonic sleep in my class. I got a new class earlier this month with four very young students in it. At least one of them is in kindergarten, which is the one who fell asleep. Lots of students fall asleep in class here and there. Actually, I'm surprised I don't get one or more in every class daily, considering how overworked they constantly are. Somehow they manage to stay awake most of the time.

I saw that Wendy was not really that energetic in class, and had her head down on the desk for most of the first half of class, so I figured she was tired. Then I noticed she had totally fallen asleep, so I went over to wake her up. She didn't wake up right away, so I let it go. Most of what we do in that class is talk, anyway, so she wasn't missing much. She's so young that I figured if her body needed to sleep, she should just do it.

Then class ended and I wrote down her homework for her and let the other kids get ready to go while I tried to wake her up. I've never had so much trouble waking a person up in my life. I was calling her name, rubbing her back, shaking her, trying to tickle her, patting her on the cheek. One of the other kids even ran over and screamed her name at the top of his lungs, but there was nothing in all that except one of those false wake ups that kids do, then go immediately back into their kids comas. In retrospect, I should have asked them what her Korean name is, as she might have responded better to that. I ended up letting the other kids go and then the Korean teacher that they had next came in (I guess they told her) and woke her up in Korean. She asked Wendy if she was sick, but I didn't find out for sure, and I saw her still in the school a little while later, so maybe not. Honestly, though, it's not much proof she wasn't sick--kids and adults alike in Korea have to practically on their deathbeds before they can miss school or work. Anyway, crazy wake up adventure.

The second was something I heard on the recorded dictations they play in the Korean teachers' classes. Next door the teacher was playing an informative lecture that stated that even occasional smacking can be permanently damaging to kids, both physically and emotionally, and the speaker stated all this evidence to that effect. I found it ironic that this material would be part of the curriculum, considering that most Korean kids get smacked around 24-7-365 by parents and teachers. I also was kind of surprised it was allowed, since it might give the kids ideas about fighting back against abuse. But then I realized it's Korea, and ideas are discouraged from a young age, so there probably wouldn't be any trouble.

Hairstrosity

Yes, I got another haircut. I got tired of bringing in this specific picture, even to hairstylists in the US, and not being able to get what I want. So I found a new set of pictures to show what I wanted.

Here's a link to the pics. I printed this one and the next one in the series.

http://www.google.co.kr/imglanding?q=ashley%20greene%20twilight%20hair%20pictures&imgurl=http://www.collider.com/uploads/imageGallery/Twilight/jackson_rathbone_and_ashley_greene_twilight_movie_image.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.collider.com/entertainment/article.asp/aid/9866/cid/13/tcid/1&h=400&w=600&sz=130&tbnid=IBP3ho9MLpd3TM:&tbnh=90&tbnw=135&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dashley%2Bgreene%2Btwilight%2Bhair%2Bpictures&hl=ko&usg=__SyzlXy1f1TkOmgTuyAX6ipCzw9w=&ei=FLiLS6vmIJ7GtAPNhZCGAw&sa=X&oi=image_result&resnum=1&ct=image&ved=0CBcQ9QEwAA&start=0#tbnid=IBP3ho9MLpd3TM&start=1

Wow. That's a really long URL. Suckaas.

I think the hairdressers were having a little chuckle about me bringing in a picture of Alice Cullen for my haircut, but I could be wrong. I'm almost positive it was me they were laughing at, though.

Anyway, it seemed pretty easy to pull off, just taking off a few inches from my length, adding some layering, and then going at it with a flatiron. But no, it's just not that simple.

I could tell almost right away that she was not going to get it right. I don't know why the reluctance to chop my hair off, but she really needed to cut about two more inches off to get this thing right. I should have said something, but really at this point, I'm more curious to see how they mangle my hair than in actually getting a good haircut (which is impossible anyway). It's only ten bucks, so it's kind of worth it to have the bad experience.

So she didn't cut off enough hair to begin with. I did actually intervene and tell her to cut more off the back, because I really can't stand all that scrag at the back of my head and neck. Then this other chick washed my hair and they both dried it. Why Koreans feel that a person needs two people to dry one head of short hair is beyond me, but it happens every time. Next, the washy lady styled my hair, according to the directions of the other chick, who indicated the pictures. To my shock and disbelief, this woman pulled out a barrel brush and the hairdryer and started trying to make this happen with those totally inappropriate tools. It took like five minutes to do only a couple small pieces. I thought I was really in for it, and was eying (are you kidding, is that really how you spell eyeing?) the flatiron in the station behind us, willing her to wise up.

She wised up. Out came the flatiron and away went the barrel brush. But I almost started laughing when I saw what she was doing. Instead of setting the iron in my hair and pulling it down diagonally like she should have, she brought it straight down, then rotated it completely around at the ends, like a curling iron, to make these ludicrous boingy-curls. I got really masochistically excited at this point. I thought either she's got a master plan to make these Farrah Fawcett curls relax into a more straight sticky-outy style, or she just has no idea what she's doing. From her hesitance and fussing and the looks on her face, I guessed the latter and figured I should just remain amused, put my hat on when I go outside, and take a picture as soon as I get home, which I did.

Keep in mind I had to buy groceries before I went home, so this is what my hair looked like after having a winter hat on for about half an hour after I left the salon. It was a bit sillier at first. Don't I look disappointed?

Basketball

At the end of January I attended my first Korean basketball game. I remember thinking during the experience that it was totally surreal. I think because it was so colorful and everyone was so excited and loud and because it was like watching a video game. I was also confused about which team I was supposed to be rooting for, since everyone around me was cheering for the away team, and neither the fans nor the screens all over the walls were calling the teams by their team names, only by the sponsor name. That seems kind of screwy to me.


Here's the stadium in Ulsan:



The court seemed smaller than an American court, in keeping with my experience at the baseball game.


Cheerleaders:



Time out?


Resume game:


The house was seriously packed. I was quite disappointed to find that unlike at the baseball game, there were no traveling vendors, and no cheap beer. I hate beer, anyway. But I did get hungry and all they had for concessions were soft drinks and water, ramen bowls, and skewered hot dogs. Actually, I saw people with pizza, but I'd happened to have pizza for lunch, so I thought it would be a bad idea to repeat the meal.


Part of the surreality of this whole thing, yet which was so Korean, was the hype man who was out there riling up the audience practically the whole game:



I'm getting kind of lazy here, so I'm just going to give you all the videos at the end, instead of trying to fit them into appropriate places in the pseudo-narrative.

Here are some precious midget cheerleaders who performed after the first quarter or something:



There were a lot of events going between quarters, and even during time-outs and other game pauses that they stuck in there for fun. This was some sort of contest for audience members:



The cheerleaders for Ulsan's Mobus Phoebus team performed several times, often leading the audience in dances that they all know and love, which are of course totally foreign to me:


Stop. Bannertime:


These are the last few moments of the game. Ulsan won by some ridiculous amount, like 20-30 points. My friends, who actually follow the local sports, told me the opposing team was second in placings right now, and Ulsan was first. If the second place team gets their asses kicked this hard, I'd hate to see how the others play.

Second Korean Wedding

In January I went to the wedding of another of my coworkers. Korean weddings kill me. The first one wasn't too bad, just a little different in terms of having an emcee commentate the whole ceremony and people not sitting down and shutting up for the whole thing and a couple other minor aspects. But it seems to me that a wedding should be special. This second wedding was about the least special event I could imagine.

The wedding was in the Munsu Wedding Hall, by the soccer stadium. I went into the place and found that there were dozens of weddings going on at the same time, with new ones starting every ten or twenty minutes. I had to visit an info desk (well, two actually) to find out which room to go to, and when I got there I still wasn't sure I was in the right place. I was a few minutes late because it took so long to get a taxi, and people were all crowded around in the area outside the wedding room. I couldn't see the face of the bride, and the professional photos outside the hall of the bride and groom looked totally unfamiliar. Also, I didn't see anyone I knew from work.

This is what that area looked like, except most of the crowd was behind me:





Here's what the wedding looked like from outside, which is where I had to stay for the rest of the ceremony, since the inside was full:


I think about as many people were inside sitting down as were outside, not really watching the ceremony. I ended up deciding I was in the right place, but wasn't enjoying myself too much, not being able to see and not being interested anyway. Luckily Korean weddings are short, and the ceremony ended about 20 minutes after I arrived. At this point, professional photographers and guests were able to take photos:



A large group of the guests, including all of us teachers who showed up from Kate LA, were in a photo with the bride and groom. I don't have a copy of that, of course.

After the pictures were done, the couple retired and the guests took their buffet tickets downstairs for lunch. This was also a very unspecial facet of the event, as guests from all the weddings that finished within the same time frame were mixed in the same room and the same buffets. Leon (who overslept and didn't get there until the wedding was over) and I had to stand and eat with spoons, as there were no chopsticks left when we got in line, and no seats available at first when we had gotten our food. After a few minutes, a couple people near the column where we were standing left, and we got to sit down.



I wasn't too pleased with the buffet, but it was free food, so I filled up as best I could. We also had to rush out of there, because we had to get to a movie that we had tickets to. I've noticed that moviegoing has become a more popular activity here in Ulsan over the past several months; almost every time I go to the cinema now, any movies I want to see is sold out for the next four hours, or the next two days or something. It's kind of ridiculous. So this time I had tried to get tickets for us the day before and had to settle for a showtime almost dangerously close to the wedding end time. We made it in time, though.

In sum, I hope I don't have to go to any more Korean weddings.