Mud, Mold and Sabuk

Well life on the other side of the world has been a little crazy lately. Fun and stressful all at the same time.  Allow me to explain.

Two weekends ago, Jason and I visited the small mountain town of Sabuk to spend some time with Jason's cousin, David, and David's Korean wife, Joy. Sabuk is the town that Joy grew up in and spent most of her life in before she moved to the US six years ago. Her parents and one of her brothers (there's 4 siblings in all) as well as her nephew all live there in the house she grew up in. 

Before going to Sabuk, I didn't know exactly what to expect, but kind of imagined a little farming village. But, in all actuality, it is a ski town. The town itself is really small with not much to it, and there is a big ski resort (okay fairly small, but big for Asia, supposedly one of the biggest in Asia) and a casino, all set in picturesque, rolling mountains covered in dense forests. We spent our time there eating a lot of tasty new Korean food- Joy's family owns a restaurant- and exploring areas around the town and resort. We also went to a beach town about an hour 1/2 away with clear blue water.

It was interesting spending time in such a small town and with a Korean family. We got to see some more of Korean culture that we don't experience in Seoul very often. Joy's parents were there, but we really didn't spend much time with them or get to know them. It is difficult because of the obvious language barrier (they speak NO English), but also just the culture is very different. Joy said that her parents are old country people and don't talk a lot, don't show a lot of emotion. But even though they didn't spend a lot of time around us, they always made sure we were enjoying the food and had everything we needed- all of this was done through Joy, of course.

This past weekend, Jason and I got to partake in a "Mud Festival" in a beach town called Boryeon, about 2 hours south of Seoul. It's a small town, known for the mud that it produces that is rich in minerals and is supposed to be really good for your skin.  Foreigners and Koreans alike flock to the town and pay jacked up prices to stay cheap hotels, and bathe themselves in mud during the festival. Everyone was covered from head to toe in mud, it was pretty funny to see. They had mud painting, a mud bath, mud slides, mud jail (if you're caught without mud on you, you're thrown in mud jail and mud is then thrown on you), massages, facials, pottery, etc.... We panted ourselves in mud, went down the mud slide, got massages, made mud people out of clay, and just had a generally muddy and good time.  The beach was great, too, supposedly the nicest one on the west coast of Korea.  So we got in some sun and just had a really different, fun weekend.

And the mold.  Around a month or so ago, we discovered that there was some mold growing on the wallpaper in several rooms of our apartment.  We researched how to clean it, and figured we would try to fix the problem ourselves before involving our school (the school pays for the apartment).  We cleaned it, but after a few weeks it all grew back... even worse than it was before.  

So we told our school about a week and 1/2 ago and we've all been trying to figure out what to do ever since. In the few days after we told our school, we discovered that it was much worse than we realized.  We looked in our closets, and found that they were covered in mold.  And then, we started finding some of our things were covered in mold as well.  The worst was a pair of Jason's shoes that had been sitting under a bed.  They were COMPLETELY covered in grey, green, white and yellow mold.  It was truly disgusting.  So that's when we decided that we need out pronto.  

Since last Sunday we have been sleeping at a coworkers house (about a block away) and spending as little time as possible at home.  It's kind of a bad deal for everyone involved.  Our landlady is trying to fix the problem, but she's no mold expert, so I don't think it's doing much.  We've been arguing with the director of our school trying to get out of our apartment and find a new place to live.    It's kind of stressful and not fun and unhealthy.  Hopefully we'll find a new place this weekend.

Sorry so long, like always.  Oh, and we head out to Japan in about a week.

Trivia:

• What is the only inanimate sign in the Zodiac?
• Who is the Greek god equivalent for the roman god Athena?
• Finish this line: "Hello, my name is Inigo Montoya.  you killed my father,..."