korea: day 3-4

day 3:

we slept in and then went to dongdaemun (a different part) with will's aunt.  then had lunch at youngyang center in myungdong (ugh, i wish i knew how to type korean on the keyboard) with his aunt and uncle.  we had samgyetang and fried chicken.  after lunch we walked around and they took us to baskin robbins, which is pretty big here in korea.  then we went home and then went out again back to dondaemun.  i did some bargaining and got shoes.  we ended up watching the korea game at home because will's uncle was adamant about not watching out in public.  he said it more than 10 times so we finally decided not to.  according to him, a lot of young people these days believe that the south (along with the u.s.) attached the north first, so if people hear us talking in english or hear our bad korea they might harm us, especially at big events like the world cup.  i thought that was interesting.  they say older people don't think this way but because younger people did not experience much suffering after the war, they believe this.  he said that about 20% of young people believe this.  so we watched at home with my cousin and his friends.  but i did see everyone wearing red shirts throughout the city all day and some other things going on.  too bad korea lost - i thought they actually played better than uruguay, which made the loss worse than if they just totally sucked.

day 4:

my aunt brought us dduk and tangerines in the morning that she bought from the street market that occurs only on sundays.  it was really good.

we went to church with joseph, one of w's school friends from chicago.  the service was in english and i really liked it.  it was mostly korean people, and a lot of people for whom english is a second language.  the music was great and the so was the talk.

then will's cousin picked us up and we went to din tai fung (dumplings).  then they took us to min sok chon (korea folk village) which i loved..  they film a lot of historical korean dramas there, which i'm into so that was fun to see.  i realized how much i've learned about korean culture through historical dramas, because i recognized a lot of the things they showed here.  we ate tofu (that they made there) with kimchi, acorn jelly and seafood pancake with wine that they serve in clay jars.  we played with his 2 kids (5 and 2) too.  then we went to myungdong and had the best naengmyun i've ever had.

after that they drove by the location where will's father grew up.  will's family still owns the building but it's commercial property now.  will actually visited the old house and stayed there when it was still a house when he was little.  he says it was an old style house like the ones we saw at the folk village.  the bathroom was a hole in the ground and they pounded out clothes to flatten them.  it was really cool to see will's family history like that and listen to him recall his childhood memories.