This Hina's Ningyo

It's been almost four years since I started making hand-sewn plushies.  They show up in my blog every once in a while, but I haven't dedicated an entire post to them since 2016, back in my tender youth when I hadn't even won a plush prize yet.  Well, a lot's changed since then, and since yesterday was Hina Matsuri whether it's celebrated here or not, I decided it was time to do an update.

I thought the other day about all of the ideas I've had over the years, and the tricks I tried to make them work.  They range from giving Aizawa hair that flips up when he uses his quirk to accessories (shoes, hats, goggles, swords, etc) to different kinds of ears and facial features.  I wrote about the Cricut that a friend gave me last year, but it wasn't until my sister-in-law suggested it that I decided to try using iron-on vinyl for my plushies' clothes.  I happened to be in the middle of Tsukishima at the time, which was perfect.  Originally I was only going to paint on his number, but when I realized I could get every element of his uniform cut out perfectly and ironed on together, I went all in.  It was so easy I realized I could make up the uniforms of all the Karasuno boys, and if I ever get to the point where I sell at a con, it would make stocking that much easier....instead of bringing x-number of each design, I could just bring the number of bodies I hoped to sell, and assemble the uniforms and hairpieces as they sold.

AnimeIowa gets a shout-out every year around July, so you six faithful readers probably know that I've won prizes the last three years, for Sesshoumaru, Kuriyama Mirai, and last year Sugimoto and Asirpa.  But last year while I was waiting for news about AI 2019 I discovered a "craftalong" for Desert Bus for Hope (a fundraiser for Child's Play - a charity that improves the lives of kids undergoing medical treatment or living in domestic violence shelters).  I decided I wanted to participate, and ended up donating Link and Zelda plushies I'd made.  I thought they would be auctioned off and might raise a couple hundred dollars at most, but instead, they were used for a "raffle" kind of prize.  During one hour of the fundraiser, each donation of a certain amount (and multiples thereof) resulted in an entry, and at the end of the hour a winner was drawn.  I couldn't believe that Link and Zelda raised just over $2200, but I was really happy that my hobby - which, let's face it, is kind of silly - was able to contribute in a pretty tangible way.

Giving might as well be my theme for this year in plush.  Back at Christmas I decided to surprise The Evil One by showing up in California during her home leave, in spite of telling her I just wouldn't be able to make it.  My dastardly scheme involved a phantom package with gifts that I was supposedly sending to her parents' house, one of which was a plushie for her spawn, who loves Darth Vader.  I haven't made that many of these guys specifically to give away, but there's just something about this kid who loves Lord Vader that warmed the cockleburrs of my heart, so I spent the first week or so of vacation posting pictures of the progress on Instagram and apologizing that the package wouldn't be there when they first got there (part of my deception, you see).  And then I showed up at their layover in Denver and went on to celebrate with them in sunny California.  Which was all the better, because it meant I got to see her reaction to Little Lord Vader - she kept turning to me in the car and talking about his features, and saying, "I like him.  I love him!"  And when Evil sent me this photo of her daughter snuggled up with the Sith lord, I swear my heart grew three sizes.

One of the ironic things about the fact that I'm pretty much stuck at home with nothing to do while Covid-19 rages on is that there have been times when I wished for nothing but time to watch anime and sew.  As the weeks have dragged on, it's kind of gotten old.  However, it has given me the ability to focus long enough to solve some design issues I'd been grappling with.  About a year ago I decided to try making a sitting plush, but gave up when I couldn't figure out how to make Kitaro's shorts fit.  Since I threw away the body when I left Japan, I had to re-engineer his pattern before getting to the shorts, but during our Tsagaan Sar (but-not-really-because-the-government-said-No) break, I worked most of it out.  It's a design I want to play with a little more, because he doesn't quite sit up on his own, but at this point I'm more concerned with finishing his hair and drilling the holes for his geta, because he may become an entry for this year's Mini-Festival.

So what's next?  Well, first I have to finish my waifu, Hinawa (the other contender for this year's Mini-Festival entry), and then we'll see.  I have an outfit for a plush that I've been tinkering with for at least two years, but when I lost interest in the character my motivation also waned.  However, now I'm thinking that he might end up being my first ever art abandonment project - I could leave him in Ikebukuro somewhere and I'm sure someone would find him and appreciate him.  Like I said, this year's plushie theme is apparently giving.

Beyond the Bucket List

I assume you've heard the term bucket list before.  It's a phrase that implies there are things you HAVE to see, generally before you kick the bucket, but people also use it for singular trips.  The bucket list of things you have to do when you visit Japan, for example.  The thing is, I don't actually like this term.  Maybe I'm too old for it - in a way similar to the fact that I'm too old to really understand bullet journals (they happened after my time, yo) - but I think the bigger problem is that they deny the reality that there are layers and layers of possibilities in every trip.

I'd been resisting the pull of Japan since leaving, telling myself that I needed to buckle down and save up before I went back, because when I went back I was going to DO ALL THE THINGS!  I'd like to say that this was very practical of me, and applaud myself for not giving in to temptation...but I'm not really a very practical person.  As you know by now if you read my last post, my resolve broke about a month ago, and I started thinking about what else I could do in my favorite city in Japan.

See, my first go-round was all about geisha, shrines, and castles.  My focus shifted before I came back three years ago, when I went to about a bajillion festivals and art workshops.  Last fall I planned my trip around art exhibits and yokai hunting.  But the thing is there is ALWAYS something else to do there.  For example, the Ningyo Kuyo at Hokyo-Ji.  I've been wanting to come to this ceremony since I first learned that doll memorials were a thing in Japan, and this time the dates finally lined up.  I went to the Ningyou Kanshasai at Meiji Jingu, but this was completely different - more intimate and ceremonial.  Hokyo-Ji is a Buddhist nunnery temple where the head priestess was traditionally an imperial princess.  Normally they hold the ceremony outside, but since it was kind of rainy, we were gathered on the porch of the garden.  I ended up with front row "seats" - before it started they ushered all the foreigners to sit on tatami mats on the left side of the ceremony - and although it was a struggle to stay awake after about five minutes of chanting while different VIPs made their presentations, I was rewarded in the end with a musical performance (how much do I miss taiko?  SO much) and maiko dances.  Sadly I still haven't gotten to see the funeral pyre, but I guess that's just another reason to go back - I hear Tokorozawa holds one in June...

Another temple I neglected on past trips was Kosan-Ji.  This is where the Choujuu-Giga - a series of scrolls depicting animals doing wild and crazy things - were created.  They're often considered the earliest manga, and although I'd wanted to see where they came from the last time I was in Kyoto, there's never enough time to do everything.

From a subway station near my hotel I could take one bus all the way to the temple parking lot, so it seemed like the time was right to finally make it.  Actually finding the bus was the hardest part - it was one of those pesky JR buses that doesn't have a number, and as much as I love Google maps, they still haven't figured out bus stops.  The temple was beautiful, and walking across its wooden floors in my sock feet as I soaked up the sun was relaxing.  But its best feature was probably how it demonstrates one of the things I love the most about this place.  Kyoto is definitely a city, but all along its fringes are these beautiful bits of nature - mountains, forests, a lake.  I've said it so many times that it hardly bears repeating:  I'm a city girl through and through.  But I grew up in the country, and I've lived in Mongolia so many years that I also enjoy leaving civilization behind every once in a while.  Kyoto gives you both.

I steered clear of art museums this time but found more than enough art along my way.  I stumbled across yet another Zen Buddhist temple as I was cycling around Gion on my fifth day, Kennin-Ji.  I decided to go in on a whim - I needed to park my bike somewhere, since I was thinking about getting some ties cut that morning and Yasui Konpiragu doesn't have bike parking - but it turned out to be a serendipitous whim.  I was struck immediately by the beauty of the gardens, most likely because I've been building one in which to display my sacred relics.  If anything, I guess that was the driving force behind a lot of the sightseeing I did during this trip - later the same day I went to Eikan-Do specifically to see their gardens.

But Kennin-Ji also had some great art.  They had screens of Fuujin and Raijin - gods of wind and lightning - possibly the originals, since they seemed to be selling an awful lot of swag featuring them.  But they also had an incredibly beautiful contemporary sumi-e painting of twin dragons in the main prayer hall, done to commemorate the 800th anniversary of their founding.  When I left the temple, I felt like I'd done my professional development for the week, and felt just that much less guilty about wasting time on shopping.

I did not, though, end up going to Yasui Konpiragu afterwards.  See, in addition to a shit ton of shopping and hanging out with my padawan, I was looking forward to some quality time with Sensei, who turned out to be on vacation the same week as me, and announced that she'd be coming through Kyoto on her way back from Shikoku after I booked my ticket.  I realized that she was the perfect person to go with to get my ties cut.  See, Yasui Konpiragu's kamisama is famous for cutting ties with prejudice, and after getting yet another email from our favorite cyberstalker, I figured I could use a good tie-cutting.  Afterwards we wandered up to Yasaka Jinja, and then back toward Sanjo where her hotel was, stopping at Red Rock for lunch.  I hadn't realized til I saw her how much I missed her.

After a full day of shopping in Osaka on Saturday, trying to scurry back to the hotel through the rain while protecting my treasures, I kind of just wanted to eat yakiniku and stay in for the rest of the night.  But there was one, last thing I had to do; after flopping on the bed for about a half hour, I realized I'd be pissed at myself if I missed it, so I blow-dried my clothes, trudged down to the bus stop, and embarked on my way to Taishogun Street.  I went there last fall to hunt yokai, but I missed the main event - the Hyakki Yagyu, or Night Parade of 100 Demons.  Given my own particular idiom, this was totally unacceptable, and since it was happening while I was there this time, I really had to make it.  The Japanese do cosplay like nobody else in the world, with the end result being that you really felt like you were mingling with myths on the street.  Eventually musicians joined us and began to play - oh my taiko! - and the ayakashi danced off into the night.

I continued down the street past the stalls of the Mononoke Ichi - a market selling yokai goods - just narrowly resisting the temptation to buy a paper kitsune lantern (it was 3,000 yen and I was already bringing back both kitsune AND a lantern, or else I might have succumbed).  Further on Daishogun Hachiman Jinja was lit up with lanterns and stalls selling food, and I couldn't resist the lure of one more kakigori before I left.  Everyone should be so lucky as to both start and end a week in Kyoto with a matsuri.

This Could Be Love

If you've been reading this blog any length of time, you should know by now that not only do I teach others to make cool ass shit (cause I'm an art teacher, yo), I also make cool ass shit myself.  This is relevant because back in October I got a message from my friend Cori (from the Wayback in Mongolia), asking if I wanted a Cricut Maker.  Her hubby is a mechanical engineer for the company, and during a discussion of anime my name came up and since I'm the target market they offered to send me one if I was interested.

I'm definitely more crafty than tech-y, but I feel like only an idiot lets the opportunity to get new toys slip through their fingers (particularly if you have half-formed dreams of actually making money off your hobbies), so I told her yasss - onegaishimasu!  A few weeks later, a DHL guy was handing over a very large box, and I was facing the fact that until that moment, the whole thing had kind of felt like I'd dreamt it up, and I had some major housekeeping to do before I'd be able to set it up.  I left it sealed in its box as I swept the floors and rearranged my work surfaces.  Then I realized that my iPad is old AF and can't use Cricut Design Space because it won't update to iOS 10.  Luckily my school just bought a class set of iPads, and by promising I was planning to use the Maker for art club and that I would give up my firstborn child* if I broke one, I got permission to borrow one at night or on weekends as needed to get me started.  With that, I was finally ready to break open the box!

It crossed my mind to do an unboxing video for my new toy, but I don't have a cameraman and I've never really seen the point of watching someone else open up something exciting.  I was pleasantly surprised to see that it came with materials for my "first project," so once I got through the intro screens of the app I decided to try it out.

It's a cute card but relatively simple to make.  First I had to load a pen into the tool holder thing, and the Maker took it from there, drawing out the lines that you see.  The fact that they were drawn, not printed was kind of a surprise to me, and had me thinking about what all you might be able to do with a robot to do all of your drawing.  Next it used a blade to cut the cardstock down to size as well as cut out the letters, the tail of the kite, and the places where I inserted the blue.  So far, so good.

That said, the point of having one of these things - for me at least - isn't to make other people's projects, but to make my own.  I decided its first real test would be to cut a pair of glasses for one of my plushies.  Having mislaid my old pattern, I had to redraw it.  Then I had to scan it.  I could have done this at school, but it's mendoksai to use the scanner there, so I used the much more straightforward method and visited my friendly neighborhood combini - all of them have English-speaking copy machines that also print photos (or, you know, the Golden Kamuy paper sumo pdf, which was like Christmas coming early) and scan.  Eventually it made it to the school iPad I borrowed and I uploaded it to Design Space.

When I said above that I'm not very tech-y, I meant it, but as long as it's not too complicated a program, I can usually figure things out.  I think Design Space was created with users like me in mind, because it didn't take too long to figure out how to get it to cut out my glasses.  I was even able to alter the dimensions of it in the program to solve the slight proportion issue my drawing had.  The one issue I had was that I didn't have the right cutting tool for craft foam, so the cuts only went about halfway through...still far enough to be able to "punch out" the glasses.

I had my doll pattern already scanned and ready to go, so I uploaded it and tried cutting out a couple of head shapes.  That went pretty well but I wasn't too sure what to do next.  A week later I had my answer.  After cutting out the head I finally started making my Sugimoto doll, but so far he was bald.  Around two years ago I spoke to my Dark Lord and Master about business strategies** and he'd suggested making kits.  I've been toying with the idea but wasn't sure how to go about doing the hair.  This finally forced me to work on a solution.  I sketched out a pattern for Sugimoto's hair, scanned it in, uploaded it, and set the Maker to work.

At first I wasn't convinced that all the effort was worth it, and for one doll, it might not be.  That said, the pattern was a pretty complex one.  After putting the cutting mat into the maker, it went to work and was beautiful to watch.  Since one of my drawings didn't scan as well as it should have I had a chance to test how the two techniques compared.  After watching the rotary blade make quick work of the pointy bits on Sugimoto's hair I had to sit down to trace and cut the final piece.  I ended up with Sharpie all over my hands and it took probably about the same amount of time from start to finish as getting the pattern into Design Space and cutting it with the Maker.  I can see vast potential for the whole "make a kit" idea with that - I could design the basic hair shapes and customers could choose which one they wanted to make, using their own Maker to precisely cut the design.

With the end of the term and coming up on Christmas break, I didn't get any further than that, but I had plenty of ideas.  Now that I'm back from the holidays, with a new iPad of my very own, and very little motivation to leave the house hopefully I'll start putting those ideas into action.  Stay tuned.

*Joke's on them, though - I'm never having kids!
**Most people pay big bucks for the kind of advice he gives me for free.  What can I say - it's one of the perks associated with the lease on my soul.

The Otaku Report: Vol. 3

It's been about a year since my first Otaku Report, in which I tell you all about the fun weeb things I get to do because I live in Japan.  It seems apropos that I should give a shout-out to the best damn student of all time in this, the third edition of the Report. I mentioned to somebody before vacation that I was hoping to see an old student, and they thought I was being nice (no, they clearly don't know me well if they think I have nice impulses).  For me, I just thought it was sad that they'd clearly never had a student who was such a badass they'd actually want to spend time with them after graduation.

The Kawaii Kingpin and I didn't really break any new ground on the Way of the Weeb that week (there was more time spent in bookstores but that is all I'm going to say on that subject).  That didn't actually matter to me.  See, to make a Bungou Stray Dogs reference (this IS the Otaku Report, after all) I'd been feeling kind of Dazai lately.  A little too detached - you might even say no longer human.  Relating to people and interacting socially had become mendoksai.  It's probably a defense mechanism; after all, there are probably limits to how many times you can rip your still-beating heart out of your own chest, and yet that's the leaving nature of the expat lifestyle.  So I feel like I've been the lite version of my normal brew.  On the other hand, hanging out with the Kawaii Kingpin was just normal for me.  We didn't really do anything, just ate, talked, and shopped, but it was the best time I've had in a long time.

I did consider dragging him somewhere touristy with me - he left himself WIDE open when I first got into town by mentioning sightseeing - but I couldn't quite bring myself to do that to the best minion of all time.  Since he likes masses of people about as much as I do, it seemed pointlessly cruel (also, I'm still hoping he'll make it to Tokyo before he graduates and it would be nice if he actually wanted to see me).  I did drag him into Round One for a few games of big fat Space Invaders, but I don't think he actually minded that.

Speaking of Space Invaders, I first saw it at the Round One near Yokohama Station earlier this year and I've been itching to play it ever since.  Shaggy and I (but mostly Shaggy) used to play the Atari version of this game when we were kids, so it held a certain amount of nostalgia for me.  The Japanese arcade version of it is so lit, though - you actually sit in the gunner's seat and have this big ass laser thing to shoot the aliens with.  Playing with the Kawaii Kingpin revealed a fundamental difference in our approach to the game.  I was trying to keep from dying, while he was racking up points, with the end result being that he killed me on the point spread, but since he's a hardcore gamer it would have been surprising if it had ended any other way.

Back to Bungou Stray Dogs, back in September I got to go to the stage show at Sunshine Theater in Ikebukuro.  It told the story of the "black" period, or basically the first few episodes of season 2, which focus on why Dazai left the Port Mafia.  This might be disappointing if you're a fan of the Armed Detective Agency, or even of Akutagawa, who only appears in silhouette.  Since (for once) my favorite character is central to the story, I was okay with it.  Sensei had to help me buy the tickets, and she was a little worried because it wasn't in English, but I reassured her that I'd do just fine.  My Dazai plush was not quite finished because I managed to melt his bolo clip in the school's toaster oven, but since he was pretty much done I brought him with me anyways.

It may have taken me five short trips and one year of full-time living, but I finally got the chance to see a kabuki play.  After school let out in June I was messing around in Tokyo and saw an Art & Live poster in the train station.  When I looked it up it turned out to have listings of different fine arts events in Tokyo...one of which was a kabuki play that tells the story of Naruto.  After my second time watching Noh (aka, trying not to nap in public), I was questioning whether or not Japanese theater was for me, but if ever there was a kabuki for me, it would be Naruto.  For starters, some of the character designs already look like the old ukiyo-e prints of kabuki actors.  I also figured I could deal with the language gap, since (thanks to the anime's prolific flashbacks) I knew the story front and back.  I wasn't entirely sure how they'd manage to boil 700 manga chapters down into a play, but I was game to give it a chance.

Well, I should have figured that one out from something Blondie once told me.  She complained about how long the kabuki she saw was, and that she left after the first part.  I naively thought that this would be like a classic western 3-act play, with a short intermission thrown in.  As I later learned (according to Wikipedia), kabuki's concept is more than just entertainment...it's an escape from the world.  Personally I prefer to escape via a good book, but hey, to each their own.  Suffice it to say that intermission, when it came, was 45 minutes.  I went to the bathroom.  I went to buy postcards.  I drank some water and twiddled my thumbs, because I didn't bring a bento - and STILL I waited.  It was August, and in spite of the air conditioning it was hot in the theater, so I got drowsier and drowsier.  FINALLY the second act started.

The costumes were gorgeous, and I loved some of the ways they achieved special effects.  Sadly I don't remember them all that well at this point because it's been three months since then, but I remember thinking that they'd managed to tell the story while remaining true to the medium.  I was fighting to stay away to the end, but then the second, FORTY-FIVE MINUTE intermission started, and I decided it was time for me to go find the nearest Coco Curry.

Although I don't dote on my students here like I did in Mongolia, I don't hate them all.  Recently one of the girls in elementary asked if I watched Touken Ranbu, and I felt just awful, telling her shiny little face that I'd missed the opportunity to go to the Swords of Kyoto exhibit while I was on vacation.  There was a stamp rally, too, but I couldn't figure out where all the stops were and I've already written about one of those, so the final item in this Otaku Report deals with pop-up shops.  I was ecstatic to learn that one had just opened for Golden Kamuy on the 6th floor of the Marui department store at Shijo Kawaramachi (I'd be even more happy about it now...episode 20 was not precisely my kind of fanservice, but it was in the ballpark).  I didn't really care for the special design character goods - one of the things I love about those characters is their normal character designs, so putting them in different contexts didn't really work for me.  That said, anytime you can visit a shop selling ONLY goods from one of your current favorite anime, I call it a win.  Now I just have to hope that Goodsmile will get their acts together and make me a Sugimoto nendoroid.

Art on the Town

Honestly, sometimes I would kind of kill for a weekend with nothing to do.  I didn't appreciate how nice that could be when I lived in Mongolia, and now there's way too much to see and do (particularly when the school steals a Saturday from us each month.  It isn't that I need my downtime that much.  It's more that my feet wouldn't mind a few days where I stayed the hell off them, and now that I've started arting again I could probably put it to pretty good use.

I bring this up because a few weeks back was Roppongi Art Night...and by night, they apparently meant weekend.  There were, of course, things that stayed open late, but I missed some really cool activities on Saturday afternoon, aka Nihonga time.  The Tokyo International Art Fair (as opposed to Art Fair Tokyo, which I visited in February) was also going on in Roppongi, but I couldn't convince myself to go before my lesson (read: I was enjoying my Denny's time too much that morning) and I had just enough time afterwards to make it there and find Maman before it was time for my Meetup group.

See, I decided I would make an effort to be social.  Although I've become better friends with my favorite colleagues, I've been watching Wotaku ni Koi wa Muzukashii since I got back from Golden Week, and it has convinced me that I need an otaku friend in my life.  So when I saw that the Art in Tokyo meetup was going to Roppongi Art Night as a big group, I joined the waiting list, and eventually got a spot.

Did I find the fujoshi friend of my dreams?  No.  (Probably I should go to some sort of anime meetup if that's what I'm really looking for).  I talked to a bunch of people though, most of whom seemed like decent human beings, and exercised some rarely-used social skills, so I guess that's a win?  I'm open to going to another one, but I think the real joy of Roppongi Art Night is found alone.

Here's the deal: Roppongi Art Night is, by and large, installations scattered throughout a neighborhood of Tokyo.  Getting to see them involves walking around a LOT, and being part of such a huge group means standing around for possibly a lot longer than you would have on your own (I mean, how long do I need to stand in a field staring at a big, inflated plastic person?  Not a half hour, that's for damn sure).  More to the point, sometimes it's just nice to wander down a street, not looking for art, and coming across your favorite piece of the night, which is how I came across a shrine being guarded by two rows of foo dogs, covered with string and glowing in blacklight.  There was something magical about stumbling across something you weren't expecting to be there.

Particularly when it's not surrounded by people.  After grabbing a bite to eat, I made my way to the National Art Center, where DUNDU was going to perform with their giant, light-up puppets. They were fantastic, but I couldn't help thinking to myself that I would enjoy them a lot more if there weren't so many people around.  Of course, not being able to get close is a drag, but it was made worse by the fact that everyone and their brother were using their phones to take videos and pictures.  Admittedly, I did this too, but I tried to keep my phone down, and made an effort to experience it with my eyes, and not through the screen of my phone.

Date with the Devil

I spent all 3 years of my life in Korea living in a bedroom city.  This is basically a city developed as a place for people who commute to, let's say, Gangnam, to sleep.  Bundang was relatively new when I moved there thirteen years ago, and even though I love all that good culture shit and historic stuff, Bundang was a perfect place for me, to the point where I have a hard time imagining a life anywhere else.  

This is part of the reason why I haven't seriously pursued coming back to Korea - no matter how much I loved it, nothing would be the same about another go-round.  Knowing I was going back to Bundang to see my own beloved Dark Lord and Master, I headed down to Butterfinger Pancakes in Jeongja (aka, not the one I took Engrish to) and had breakfast.  Or brunch, because it was 10:30 by the time I had a seat.  I walked over to Sunae from there, stopping in the middle of the bridge over the Tancheon because it had stolen my breath, the memories of walks along the water, and one particular night when we decided at midnight to go play basketball further upstream after several hours drinking at the Family Mart.  In Sunae I got a haircut - not much of one, because I want to keep it as long as I can, but I also want to start getting rid of the damaged hair - before walking on to Samsung Plaza.  Which is now AK Plaza, but like I give a crap who actually owns the shopping center above Seohyeon Station.

This is the area around Samsung Plaza at night.  Although shops and restaurants come and go, to me it looks pretty much the same as it did when I first arrived thirteen years ago.  I approached it through a park that sits between the two stations, where I once partied with the degenerates many, many moons ago, sitting on big, stone balls (again, there's a joke to be made there, but I've still got three days to go).  When I got to the area we hung out in that night, I was a little surprised to realize how close it was to Seohyeon - for some reason, I thought it was in the middle - but everything in our lives gravitated toward this shopping area, so I guess it makes sense.  But when I sat down there yesterday, and looked at the former Samsung Plaza, I was able to see it with new eyes, and realized there are similar shopping districts all over Seoul.  It was the fact that this was ours that made Samsung Plaza special.  My friends that lived in Ilsan or Suji had their own special places...even if they weren't as good.

In Seohyeon I was planning to go to Kyobo Books, but it turned out to be the grand opening of the newly minted YP Books instead.  After close inspection I decided it was same-same, and noticing that it was already 1:30 decided to call up my Dark Lord and Master.  Because he's Korean, you don't invoke him with a pentagram and blood sacrifice...most of the time I use the payphone in the subway.  As I walked down the stairs, I realized how strange that would seem if anyone really looked at it - the same foreigner using the same payphone over the course of nine years to call the same ahjjusshi - like some sort of spy checking in.  The pentagram and blood would probably be less suspect.

As it turned out, he was already at his cafe, so I jumped on the Bundang line and headed back to Jeongja, wending my way across the Tancheon and up a block to Spera.  Where we talked.  And talked.  I brought up the fact that my mom remembers him fondly when I say I'm going to see him, and then laughed because it's essentially his fault that I have been overseas as long as I have.  If I'd gone to a different school, I might not have had as positive an experience, or felt as comfortable going back when poop hit the fan.  His wife and spawn showed up and joined the conversation...I can't believe Michelle has finished her first year of college!  When I first came to GDA, I walked into the staff room one day to see a midget cutting paper.  Being witty, I tried to make a Star Wars reference - Aren't you a little short to be a teacher? - and was informed by one of my coworkers that this was our boss' daughter.  She was in first grade at the time, and already capable of tearing people to shreds with a comment and a shrewd look.

That saying about apples and trees?  It's probably true.  And not just because she's evil too - while I was talking to the two of them they'd do the same dumbass actions in response to any given comment.  It was both endearing and hilarious.

They left to get Michelle a haircut and Evil Incarnate and I continued to talk.  One of the things I love about him is the fact that I can pitch crazy ideas - such as my retirement plan - at him and he talks through them insightfully and seriously.  At least until he realizes exactly what he's hearing.  "I'm sorry, that's hilarious.  You're a white girl from America, sewing plushies in Mongolia, based on Japanese anime characters, and using fabric from Korea.  You realize how messed up that is, right?"*

Eventually, he asked if I wanted to go get dinner, and made the mistake of asking if I wanted Korean or Western.  In the old days, if I was feeling generous, I would have said Western, because even though my Master is Korean, he's a New York boy at heart, and doesn't get to eat Western food much.  Instead, I said Korean without thinking about it, and since he knew where a dalkgalbi place was, it worked out.  I haven't had dalkgalbi - stir-fried spicy chicken - since I lived in Shanghai.  The place my chingus and I always went is long gone, and I haven't put forth the effort to find one since, because I haven't been in Korea long enough on any given trip.  The four of us sat there until we were picking the last remains of the bokkeum-bap - rice stir-fried with the last of the chicken and topped with cheese.  Michelle and I talked about traveling, although I didn't give her much sympathy for not traveling abroad - she's been all over the world, and by the time I was her age I'd only been to Canada.  

Two and a half of my five-days' vacation are over, and I really haven't done anything worth blogging about, but the thing about living in Korea is, it's your friends that really make it.  And I guess that's true wherever you live, but I'll take time with Azhaar and my Dark Lord and Master over wandering new places any day.  Seoul is always here for me.

*(Previously: "I'm watching an American belly dance in Korea at an Egyptian restaurant, who's been taught by an Australian.  I don't know what country I'm in.")

Happy Hunting Ground

I really, truly hate the phrase, "Getting there is half the fun."  It must be a relic of a bygone era, where travel meant something besides being crammed in with way too many idiots.  Take the journey from UB to Seoul, for instance.  When Enkhaa got me to the airport, the check-in line was probably the longest I've ever seen (in UB, at any rate).  Then the security line was long, and so was immigration...when  I got through I only had 40 minutes til we were scheduled to take off.  Incheon was no picnic, either - Azhaar estimated I was in the immigration line an hour, and THEN I got triggered by a bunch of people who were NOT MOVING to get through customs.  This meant that I didn't get on the train into town until 11:20, and fortunately I was second in line, or I might have spent the following hour on my feet, hating life, because it was packed.  

I hadn't actually thought much about the final leg of the trip - getting to Azhaar's flat - until I wheeled my little carry-on off the elevator above Noksapyeong.  This was when I realized that I'd just assumed I'd be able to find her apartment.  As I mentioned last time, I have a pretty badass memory, but I've only been to her place twice, both times following her up the hills after midnight, and I'd received a message from her while I was waiting in the never-ending immigration line telling me to let myself in because she had a headache and was going to bed.  So even though I'm pretty good at sweet-talking people into loaning me their phones when I can't use mine, I didn't want to wake her up unless I had to.  Well, my memory came through in the end.  At the bottom of Noksapyeong hill, I found my first landmark - kimchi pots - and then got to the noraebang (I thought it was a supermarket, but I recognized it when I saw it), and when I got to the 7-11 where we bought my coke the last time I visited, it became a matter of finding the place I thought was right, and confirming it by checking the wifi names.  Easy cheesy.

This morning Azhaar (in her bedroom) messaged me (in the living room, LOL) wanting to know what I wanted to do today.  #1 on my list was the fabric market (followed closely by a call to my Dark Lord and Master to figure out when I could see hiim).  After a quick shower our consultation led to us scurrying out the door to hit Macca's (I'm reverting to the Aussie slang for everyone's favorite burger joint for the next four years...Ronald &Co. shouldn't suffer the indignity of being associated with a despot) for breakfast before taking line 1 to Dongdaemun station (where we should have taken exit 9, but we got there in the end).  Back in my misspent young adulthood, I spent a lot of time trawling the aisles for the perfect sparkly bits to add to my belly dance cossies.  It's a little slice of paradise - if you know what you're looking for, you'll find it there.  If you don't, you'll find something anyways.

Well, I don't dance much anymore - maybe I'll dust off my bedleh someday - but I'm almost as enthusiastic about my newest hobby: designing and sewing chibi plushies.  This week saw the end of a month-long sewing frenzy brought on by a half-cooked whim regarding a booth at this summer's AnimeIowa (it was a short-lived whim...at some point I realized I probably ought to be able to use a sewing machine before I go into business).  The problem is, I'm no longer satisfied making simple characters with whatever material I have on hand.  When I started thinking of it as a business, I discarded my old personal obsessions and developed new professional ones (well, sort of, anyways.  I'm still only designing characters I like...but now I take into consideration what people might be willing to pay shit tons of money for.  Also, what would look cool AF).  

Azhaar suggested we go to the fifth floor first, and get fabric afterwards.  I thought this was genius, since it meant I wouldn't have to carry tons of fabric around with me while I was trying to squeeze past people who have absolutely no awareness of their surroundings.  Like many markets, you'd best approach DDM with a plan.  When we got to the fifth floor we chose a time-honored strategy - picking a corner and working our way up and down the aisles, stopping to pick up the things on my list:  ribbons, buttons, chain, buckles.  I was looking for very specific things, but as mentioned above, if you know what you want, you can probably find it.  If you're patient enough, anyways.  Raycie LaRaye taught me this strategy,  and it served me well - by 1:30 I'd found everything I needed, and helped Azhaar find a few things she didn't, but since she was having fun I didn't feel too bad.

After sitting down for a few minutes, I decided I wanted to pop down to the cloth floors to look for iridescent fabric...and if they had any colors of fleece I needed, it would probably manage to find its way home with me.  I stuck my LeSport duffel bag in my backpack for this exact purpose, but when I got to the fourth floor most of the stalls had rolled down their shutters.  Between the time we had walked past on our way to the beads and jewelry, it had become a ghost town, so maybe Azhaar's suggestion backfired a little.  An excuse to go back on Monday or Tuesday is not a bad thing.

Shopping doesn't seem like that strenuous activity, but we approached it with killing intent, so we were famished.  While we were at Macca's that morning, I noticed that they were now serving mozzarella cheese sticks.  This food has been haunting me for several months - in Osaka the Kawaii Kingpin suggested we stop into Lotteria for some when we got back to Kyoto, but neither of us actually remembered.  By the time something random dug the thought out of my head, I was back in UB, a million miles from anywhere that would serve them.  Over Christmas break considered trying them at the Lotteria in Incheon, or else possibly at Denny's back home, but neither actually happened, and the ones I found at a restaurant in UB were completely unsatisfying.  So when I pointed out the fact that Macca's had them, and she suggested Lotteria's were actually really awesome, I'd come full circle.  True to both of their words, they were amazing...but I was a little underwhelmed by the serving - two short sticks.  There's surely a joke to be made in there, but I've got four more days to make it, so I'll leave it there for now.

Village Idiots

Just one short day til I return to the land of my one true love...Belynda's cane!  There's really no reason to be as stoked about a short vacation as I am, and yet I am.  Between doing my current job and looking for another one, I'm pretty well past my tolerance for stress.  So tonight, one last flashback to a calmer, simpler time - my second stint in Korea.

It was during that era that Bronte and I became really good friends.  She'd already taught me how to make sundubu and given me a Korean name, but when I came back to pinch hit for five months, we got to know each other as more than just supervisor and staff.  I got to know that she was every bit as badass as I thought and way more goofy than I imagined - as evidenced by her demonstration for the bed-wetting thing that we saw pretty much as soon as we walked into Min-Seok-Cheon, the traditional folk village.  When she found out I'd never been, we decided a visit was in order, even though it was summer and destined to rain.

She, on the other hand, was discovering the depths of depravity a good little Mormon girl was capable of thinking.  Since this isn't a post about going to Seoraksan and the rest stop we visited on the way back, I'll leave it at that.  You've probably read enough of my posts at this point to know what I mean, anyways.

Min-Seok-Cheon is in Yongin-Si - close to Suji if I remember right, but even with my memory I couldn't find my way back there at this point.  Blame it on Bronte taking the lead...normally ten years wouldn't matter, I could do it blindfolded with one arm tied behind my back.  We're now living in the age of Google Maps, anyways, so my abilities aren't as necessary as they once were.

Anyways, we went out to the folk village in spite of rain, because it was the two of us on an adventure, and what's a little rain between friends?  Well, I'll tell you what it is - a terrible time to visit the folk village.  Normally there is all sorts of pageantry and stuff, with people wearing festival-level costumes.  Instead, we mostly had to amuse ourselves.

Which admittedly was not a problem.  We probably got a few dirty looks along the way - I'm not sure that you're actually supposed to climb on the great stone turtle - but I rarely let a little disapproval stop me.

One thing we did get to do was throw a pot.  Korea has a great ceramic tradition, and there was a little studio where you can use a potter's wheel and make a bowl.  Being a certified art teacher and all, I've done that before, and didn't feel like I really needed to do it again, but Bronte hadn't, so she tried it out.  When she was finished, the ahjjushi took it off the wheel and got her address so it could be delivered after it had been fired.  

Besides performances and the pottery, there were traditional houses and displays about traditional Korean life.  There were restaurants, too, but for some reason I don't think we ate there.  We did stop for tea before we left; I may have been getting over a cold, since I seem to think I got a citron tea.  Or maybe it was just because the rainy weather made me want a hot tea.

Walking around a soggy folk village may not seem that dreamy, but it was all about the company, and that was true of so much of my time in Korea.  It seems like there was always something going on in Seoul, but that wasn't what made it the experience that it was for me.  Instead, it was walks down the street and eating at kimbap shops and really, just spending time with friends.  I've got things to do when I'm there over the next five days, but it was those ordinary, everyday moments that made me love living there.

Hitting a Wall

Just three more days til I return to Korea and my one true love...dalkgalbi!

There comes a time in every expat adventure when you feel like you've seen it all.  (This is not to say that it's true...there is still lots more to experience, but the feeling remains.)  When that happens, the time has come to wander a little further afield.  It's been ten years since some of my homegirls and I decided we would hike the walls of Hwaseong, the fortress in Suwon, but I'm pretty sure that was our thought process.  Seoul was played out like snap bracelets, but Suwon had exciting possibilities.  Or at least one exciting possibility.

However, I think it took us two tries to actually do it.  The first time, the three of us came from different directions, and since none of us had been to Suwon before, I set the meeting place at Suwon Station, exit one.  If you're not sure what exit to meet at, I say go for exit 1.  If there are multiple exits, there will definitely be an exit 1, and if not, you'll find each other regardless.  The problem was that Suwon Station had both metro exits and KTX exits, and way back in 2005 the three of us were wandering Korea without cell phones.  People used to do that back then.  I promise.

Anyway, in this case, the second time proved to be the charm, and we met up and found our way to the walls.  Hwaseong is fantastic.  It's historic, but like I give much of a crap about that.  Ringing gigantic bells, on the other hand...  The hike itself is gorgeous, and the company - Heather and Jen - were the kind of friends that I could be myself with and not worry about them thinking that I was going to hell for every other thing that came out of my mouth.

Expat living: it attracts the black sheep.

This is true even amongst Mormons.  Jen and Heather were both church friends (as opposed to my degenerate GDA friends, who were also black sheep, just the kind that needed a few grown-up drinks to hit the noraebang...)  Well, here is a little bit of Mormon trivia for you - we are cheesy as...well, something that's extraordinarily cheesy.  As we passed one of the towers on the wall, one of us noted the similarity to this tower in the Book of Mormon called the rameumpton.  Basically the function of this tower was people would go up on it to pray about how much better they were than everyone else (FYI: these weren't the good guys).  So we decided that this would make an excellent photo op, and being the person who doesn't mind being slightly (or more) blasphemous for the sake of a good picture, I got tapped to climb up the tower and pretend to be a Zoramite.

It was a fairly clear day.  I was pretty sure I wasn't going to get struck by lightning...

On the way to the wall, we passed a variety of vendors and I was happy to find one that had these really cool, fold-up hats.  I bought two of them.  When we met up, it had actually been really sunny, so I was happy when the clouds gathered - I was pretty much as paranoid about skin cancer then as I am now.  I'm pretty sure my friends thought I looked like an idiot (or an ajjumma...possibly both), but they were good sports and had a high tolerance for dorkiness.

We didn't make it all the way around the walls...at some point - I believe around the time we decided to go wading in the stream - we decided we were hot and thirsty and needed melon bars.  We veered away from the wall into a market area, where old men were paying paduk or something, and wandered in and out of shops until we made our way back to the station.

People always ask if I'd go back to Seoul to work.  It's a complicated question.  I was a lot healthier then, and I love the fact that there's always something to do.  I really consider Seoul to be my second home...but like my first home, that life's moved on without me.  Most of the people I loved there are gone, and I don't know if I have the guts to go back to an empty house and build the thing up again.  That didn't stop me from applying to a job there when Belynda told me about an IB school that was advertising for an art teacher - although it did cut the disappointment when they wrote to tell me they'd just offered the job to someone else.  Thus, the search continues.

Take a Hike

Here is a lesson for you all, in a "Give a cat a cupcake" sort of way.  If you give an art teacher a primary lesson to teach on her so-called day of rest, she'll feel a little bitter.  If she feels a little bitter, she'll probably procrastinate actually preparing it.  If she procrastinates, she'll need something to do instead.  She might think about putting her laundry away.  If she looks in her closet, she will probably realize that she HASN'T EVEN STARTED PACKING TO GO TO SEOUL ON FRIDAY!!!*  That, of course, will make her realize she hasn't really thought too much about what she's going to do there (besides catching up with Belynda, her Dark Lord and Master, and shopping at the Dongdaemun Fabric Market).  She'll need to check out Atlas Obscura, since she lived in Seoul for three years already.  This will get her thinking about all the things she did when she lived in Seoul, that she didn't blog about because she didn't have a computer back then.  Knowing she didn't have a computer back then will make her feel lucky to have one now.  And if an art teacher feels lucky, she will probably sit down at her computer and procrastinate planning the primary lesson she's supposed to be teaching.

So a couple of weeks ago, when I, you know, had job prospects, I felt like there was a very real chance that I might be out of Asia next year.  (Now?  Who knows.)  This prompted me to crunch some numbers and decide that I should spend my last Tsagaan Sar not in Mongolia, but in Seoul, so I booked a flight for Friday.  I have waxed poetic on numerous occasions about how much I love Korea, but not actually written about most of the things I enjoyed there.  To get me in shape for the upcoming blog-a-thon, I'm writing about a few of those things this week.

Korea has some great hiking.  I was just about as lazy then as I am now, but the weather was nicer for more of the year, so I actually went on a few more hikes.  Smack dab in the middle of Seoul is a hill called Namsan, and one weekend my friend Anika and I decided we'd meet in Myeongdong and hike it.  Neither of us actually knew what the route was, but we figured if we kept heading uphill we'd get there by and by, and we did. 

It was a bright spring day, and we enjoyed the view at the top of the city.  After some cotton candy in the park around Seoul Tower, we decided to start hiking down the other side.  I loved being able to rely on chance like that when I lived there...just choosing a path and wandering along.  On this particular auspicious day, we ended up at the bottom of the hill where Noksapyeong Station sits, walking past a place called Chili Chili Taco, which stopped us in our tracks.  After our hike, we decided it was a perfect time for some food, and since neither of us had had Mexican in a long time, we stopped in and discovered their burritos, which I still consider to be one of my top five finds during all my years in Korea.

I loved this experience so much that when my mom came to visit me, right before I left Korea for the last time, I decided I would take her up Namsan.  Gracie is NOT much of a hiker, but when Anika and I hiked Namsan, I noticed the cable car, and decided it would be just fine. 

My mom did not agree with my assessment.  See, first you have to walk uphill a little ways to get to the cable car.  Then, of course, you have to ride the cable car up the hill.  Maybe this probably shows the self-centeredness of youth, but I wasn't actually aware that my mom was afraid of heights until she got panicky on the ride.  Oops.  But eventually we made it...to the exit.  Which was not, apparently, on the peak of the hill, so I heard a lot of complaining as we huffed and puffed our way up the last of the steps.  But we finally made it, and Gracie agreed that the view was very nice.

She hasn't visited me overseas since.  I wonder why...

*I've actually given more thought to the perfect wardrobe for me and Five's nerdy-nerdy Japan holiday than packing for Seoul.  It's how I roll.