Last night, Nana and I went to our first-ever meeting of the Royal Asiatic Society, an old and respected club of shameless dorks who want to learn more about Korea. We've had our eye on joining the Society for a while now, but not until yesterday could we muster up the time and the energy to trek all the way downtown for a lecture.
Thankfully, it looks like the RAS could be well worth the effort (and the 80,000-won membership fee--discounts for married couples! finally, my motives become clear!). While last night's lecture certainly didn't earn any style points--the speaker could barely speak English and was completely shackled to his hideous Powerpoint notes--the content was very interesting: a history of Korea's representation in Western cartography. (Apparently, we white folk took a good three centuries to notice that Korea is, in fact, a peninsula, not an island. But, hey! At least we knew by then that it existed!)
What's more, we signed up for a day trip to Ganghwa Island with the RAS this Sunday--Ganghwa-do being one of Korea's UNESCO World Heritage Sites, on the strength of its fortresses, its temples, and its prehistoric dolmen tombs. We've been wanting to visit Ganghwa since we learned about it, and sweet serendipity caused the RAS to reschedule the trip for precisely the weekend we're able to go. Plus, apparently we'll get to visit a certain RAS member's swanky Ganghwa-do pad. (Nana says: "Bonus for networking, eh?")
But the real news, I suppose, is that Nana and I are finally finding/making the time to get out and do something, other than sit around and work all the time. Slowly--very slowly--we're getting this school thing under control and carving out little pockets of dorky leisure. If only we could wrangle some Korean lessons somehow. Though that may have to wait for the summer.
Ah! It's too bad that we live so far out of town--the RAS adjourns for a round of ale after every meeting, but our long train ride back to Nowon gets us home pretty late. Though maybe we'll just have to suffer through some sleepy Wednesdays here and there.
In other news, Nana and I got to share our bus home with an utter lunatic tonight. Tourettes or schizophrenia or something. Shouting, flailing. Totally weird.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
Ah, reminds me of the time I was on an bus in Ottawa, and the cops stormed the bus and forcibly detained the man *in the seat right in front of me*. When his head flew backwards from the force of the officer's "detention", I was grateful I had just sat up from digging around in my bag for something.
It was all fun and games until they hauled him off the bus in front of his lady friend, who wailed and paced all the way to the next stop. Why she didn't just get off with him was a mite bit unclear.
Post a Comment