Today, it was back to the grind. Homestay dad apparently left the apartment at 7am and won’t return until 11pm. (He is getting an MA in city planning after he works as a municipal official–oof!). Homestay sister went to school, and so I tagged along with Homestay mom to her art class. I thought she was teaching the art class. As it turns out, she was taking a semi-private lesson with a friend and the teacher. Her friend lives in a fancy apartment near Namsan mountain, only a few “blocks” (Blocks? What are blocks in Seoul??) from the guesthouse I stayed in two years ago. I was amused by this sign in the subterranean parking garage: I can’t tell if this is just for pregnant woman or not. I assume not because we parked there. Homestay mom and her friend were working on dackjongie dolls, which is a traditional Korean artform. It’s like papier-mâché, except less runny and using a special kind of paper (한지) made from a Korean tree. Homestay mom has a few of these paper dolls in the apartment, and her friend also had made a lot of whimsical figures. I was really surprised by the level of detail and anatomical accuracy of the dolls, until I watched their teacher at work. She rules with an iron fist. At one point, she picked up the frame of one of the dolls (head, torso, legs) and determined that the legs were too short. As Homestay mom nodded, the teacher proceeded to rip the legs off violently and reform them with wire and paper. Apparently, once you get the hang of it, you can apply to become a teacher of this traditional art form. After lunch, we went with Homestay mom’s friend and her mother-in-law to the Korean traditional village (한옥마을), which has some restorations and replicas of traditional Korean houses. Unfortunately, we discovered upon our arrival that the houses are closed on Tuesdays. Maybe I’ll file this away as something to do with the boyfriend when he comes in August. There were still things to see and do, like an assortment of useful straw items: And tacky photo-ops! Tomorrow is the placement test for the Korean Language program. I reviewed a few chapters tonight, but it’s not worth it to try and re-memorize a bunch of random grammar points that we covered this past year. I’m also excited to meet some other students and eventually add some structure to my day. Since Homestay family doesn’t speak very much English, I spent a good deal of time being silent. Oh, Korean, why are you hard! Things I learned today 은행나무: ginkgo tree (은행 is coincidentally the word for “bank” in Korean, so this can also be translated as “bank tree”)