A Day In The Life...: June 2018

Saturday, June 30, 2018 by Amy

Hiking Gamaksan & Soyosan

The Simons invited us to go hiking today up north! Gamaksan and Soyosan are both mountains. Yep that's right, we hiked 2 mountains in one day. It was about an hour and a half drive to Gamaksan. We hiked up to a really pretty Buddhist temple. On the way, we crossed a huge suspension bridge. It extends 150 meters over a really pretty valley! It's kind of weird to walk on cause it moves quite a bit. A lot of people were definitely struggling to walk in a straight line....me inlcuded. Spencer did a pretty good job though.

Dinner with the Simons!

The Simons Family invited us over to their house for dinner today after church. Brian is an Orthopedic PA for the Army and Jessica is a licensed therapist. They have 7 kids. 3 of them are in college in Utah. We met the four youngest kids: Florence, Sophia, Diamond, and Giselle. Florence and Diamond are adopted from Liberia. We had a really fun evening getting to know their family. They are so outgoing and friendly. We had an extravagant fish dinner and a DELICIOUS brownie dessert that Sophia made. It was seriously so good.

Changgyeonggung Palace & Jongmyo Shrine

Today we went to Changgeyonggung Palace! It's the second of the grand 5 that we've visited since being here in Korea. We also visited the Jongmyo Confucian Shrine right next door!

The Shrine was cool. It was literally just a really long building with 19 doors leading to rooms that represented the dwelling places for the spirits of 19 kings of the Joseon dynasty. When they ran out of room, they built an annex with another 16 rooms. Once every year in May there is a ceremony where they honor the spirits of the former kings and prepare a huge feast for them and participate in traditional dances and chants. We got to watch a cool 13 minute documentary on it. The best part was it was in a room with AC. (Hallelujah!) You had to take off your shoes before entering and then there were these little chairs on the ground that you sat on. They were pretty much stadium seats but bigger and way more comfy!

The DMZ

Today was an AMAZING day! I had the opportunity to go with several members of the branch up to the Demilitarized Zone between North and South Korea. Two members of our branch work up there. Unfortunately Spencer couldn't go because he got called in to work today last minute. We met at noon at Gate 13 of Post. It's only about an hour and a half drive up to the DMZ from Seoul. We made it in good time. When we arrived we had a briefing with Lieutenant Commander Dan McShane ("Danny"). He's actually one of the few guys up there that's Navy rather than Army. He walked us through the history of the Korean War and the armistice agreement that was signed. We were the first tour post summit! Here's a link to a video of the historical summit between Kim Jong Un and Moon Jae-in for those interested.

Here's a quick recap for those who haven't brushed up on their Korean history....

Korean Baseball. Buckle Up.

Spencer's agency invited us to a baseball game tonight. We, of course, accepted. We ended up going with Irene and Susan (former booker at ACE Models). We had VIP seats right behind the plate. We ate KFC and snacks while we watched America's sport...in Korea. We were cheering for the Doosan Bears. Rooting for Doosan is like rooting for the Yankees. They're consistently the best team in the league (though the Korean league consists of 8 teams...all within the city of Seoul). Each fan section has their own stage equipped with huge speakers, cheerleaders, and a yell leader. They let you bring in your own food (and alcohol)...so there's a lot of drunk people which comes in handy when it's time to cheer. Each time a team is hitting, the whole fan section stands up and chants together. They have a song for each individual player when they're at bat. They don't even play music because the fans are so loud. It's literally nonstop yelling and cheering. Nothing like baseball in America.

Temple Trip :)

This morning we went to the beautiful Seoul Korea Temple! We made it just in time for our session. Spencer and I got to be the witness couple! That was both of our first times serving in that way. The session was in Korean, so we had headsets. Most everyone in the session was American though so we fit right in! The temple itself is really small. The celestial room is really simple with only 1 sealing room coming off of it.

The outside of the temple doesn't match it's surroundings at all. It's in the middle of a part of town called Hongdae which looks very similar to Myeong Dong. Hongdae is full of restaurants, shopping alleys, and animal cafes from meerkats to raccoons to sheep. The temple is tucked away behind all the craziness. There are no flowers on the grounds. Instead, there are delicately shaped trees and bushes that make it unique and very different from what I've come to expect temple grounds to look like.

Seoul Tower

Last weekend we hiked Namsan Mountain to see Seoul Tower with some of the models from Spencer's agency. I made it my goal to hike Namsan everyday for the rest of the summer. Today was my first day. It's not a long hike, but it's straight up. Apparently they don't believe in switchbacks or gradual ascent in Korea. It's just up. Fastest point from point A to point B? A straight line. Koreans really have that principle down.

Getting all the way up to Seoul Tower is tiring especially in the humidity, but the view at the top will take your breath away. Namsan is the geographical center of Seoul. You can walk around the top of the mountain and in every direction you look the city seems to go on for miles. Seoul is surprisingly big! And even crazier is how tall everything is. Usually cities that are so big geographically are relatively flat. Not the case here. Everywhere you go you're surrounded by skyscrapers.

Modeling in South Korea

Well, it’s different here than anywhere else! The way they do things here is much more agency-controlled. For example, anywhere else, going to a casting means just me showing up with my book and they look at me, maybe give me some clothes to try on, take a picture or two, and say goodbye. But here, going to a casting means I meet at the agency, and my managers drive me and the other models to the casting together, take us in, introduce us, talk about us, tell the client about our other work, we try on clothes or just get pictures taken, and then we all go back to the agency together. It seems that it is only that way because the models do not speak Korean, but there is almost nothing said at castings! Which is why everywhere else models are allowed to do it themselves, but here, apparently we wouldn’t be able to handle it. The managers also attend every job with us. So any time I have a shoot, there is a manager there. I believe it is for translation purposes, so that the photographer/client can tell me what they want me to do, but I have had two jobs so far where my manager was not able to go with me, and I did just fine understanding what they wanted. I speak broken English almost as well as I speak normal English.

Gyeongbokgung Palace

Today is a Korean National Holiday...don't know which one...but Spencer has the day off! We decided to go visit one of the Five Grand Palaces of Seoul! All 5 palaces were built during the Joseon Dynasty which was founded in 1392 and lasted until the early 1900s. Gyeongbokgung Palace was built in 1395. It was destroyed by fire during times of war, but was restored in the 19th century. It was destroyed again by Imperial Japan in the 20th century. They once again restored the palace and it's grounds to their original state. The palace is HUGE! There are over 7,000 rooms and approximately 500 buildings. We had no idea it was that big when we went. You could easily spend 5 or 6 hours walking around! We only had 3. You can't enter very many of the buildings but they have all the windows open so you can see in.

Work Work Work Work Work

Well I did my first real job! It was for some random underwear company, Mon2Sun, but the funny thing is: they never had me in just the underwear! It was all like lounging around with barely the label sticking out!! Haha I love how proper Asians are!