Last Weekend -- late update

Last weekend (Nov 11 & 12) was a pretty slow weekend in terms of events. On Saturday I was not feeling well, so I decided to take it easy and do some of the stuff I needed to at home. I got a lot done on my scrap book, and started a lot of other projects. The problem that this caused a paper and picture scrap filled bomb to explode in my apartment. It took me until Thursday night to get it all cleaned up!

On Sunday I went to Seoul to go to the Seoul National Art Gallery, and did some shopping in Namdaemun and Insadong. I started the day at Namdaemun, and actually saw the gate (mun means gate) for the first time, even though I have been there many times). I also had lunch at a street food stall -- mmmmm seafood pajoam (pancake -- sort of). From there I walked to the art gallery. The Art Gallery is located on a really pretty street beside one of the palaces.The Art Gallery was cool. It had a huge modern electronic and technical art display on -- which is not my favorite -- but I enjoyed it. There was a great piece titled the emptiness of water. It was a huge piece of metal with holes cut out for all the enclosed bodies of water in the world -- but not the oceans. I really liked it; it is neat to look at Canada like that -- we really do have a lot of water in our country! From there I walked to Insadong. The walk from the Art Gallery (near city hall) to Insadong is always interesting, 'cause there are many embassies in the area, including the American, so there are often protests and events there. It is always fun to see the number of riot police ready to move in at the first sign of trouble. I have yet to see a violent protest here, but Claire saw one in Osan one day. Just before Insadong I stopped into one of the biggest book stores in Seoul -- their English section is the size of a small book store on its own -- and bought a couple books about Korea that I wanted -- including a cookbook. Then shopping in Insadong before heading home -- I love Insadong.

Korean Medicals

So about 2 months ago my boss told me that since I had been in Korea so long I had to go have a medical. I had to go or the school would get charged a lot of money (~$1000.00). Fine, I said -- not at all impressed. Then I asked if I could go to see a doctor in Seoul who would speak English -- more about that fruitless adventure in an earlier post.

Sooooo I had to go to the hospital in Osan, with Samantha (my boss) and our bus driver. I went this morning. It was the funniest thing ever. First Samantha filled out the form she was given which included questions about age, health history etc. The diet question was (Samantha's translation): Do you like vegetables? Meat? Only meat? What?????? Also it didn't seem important that my father had had a heart attack -- ok then....Moving on....

It was in this large room, with lots of small side rooms. They weigh you on a scale right at the front door -- fully clothed -- except shoes. Then take you blood pressure -- again right there in front of everyone. Next they test your eyesight -- I had contacts in -- but that was OK?!? Ok now a hearing test -- sound proof booth and press a button when you hear a sound.

So far so good -- not too strange. But it is time for the urine test. I get handed a paper cup. You know they kind most often used at water coolers. Very sterile I'm sure. And I am given a piece of litmus paper that tests pH and some other stuff. I pee in my cup and head back into the office with it. I later realize that I was supposed to pee in the cup and then dip in the paper and dump out my pee -- I didn't understand the dump it out part.

Next the blood test -- pretty basic. Only one vile, and it was a regular need -- not one of the more modern ones we have at home. After that a chest x-ray -- really? Why????? Ok then. There of course was no reason why.

Then I got to see the doctor -- he said 2 or maybe three words to me in Korean (without Samantha there) then "ok" -- and sent me off. It was rather entertaining as he sat down, so I started to sit and just as mu but hit the chair he jumped up and said OK and sent me on my way. Finally I had to go into the dentist room -- yikes -- I have never been to any dentist but my one at home. But he just looked in my mouth with a mirror and a little light.

Done and done -- too weird -- not sure what that accomplished.

Deoksugung Palace

This weekend was another busy one -- that is the way it is set to be for the next 6.5 weeks -- yikes is that all?!?

On Friday I headed out to WaBar to wish Jill and happy b-day again. I knew some of the guys were going on a pub crawl, but with a doctor's appointment in the morning that was not an option for me.

On Saturday I headed into the city to see a travel doctor. My appointment was at 10:30 and I went to the International Clinic in Itaewon. I arrived at 10:00 and checked in, they did not have my appointment written down. Apparently there are 2 International Clinics in Itaewon (Why did this surprise me?) thankfully I was early. They gave me directions and I headed to the other one. I got there and handed them all my stuff. I need to talk to the doctor about my trip to South America, but I also needed a basic checkup that all foreigners who stay longer than 18 months or so need. I really did not want to go to the doctor with my boss, so I had my boss call the clinic to make sure I could go there. But at this point the woman behind the desk says they don't do these checkups -- How to Frustrate Foreigners 101! I say my boss called to check. She says they must have miss understood, I said -- My boss is Korean, you spoke in Korean!!!!!! I never will understand how easy it is for people to have miss understandings about something that is soooooo freaking common!!! argh!

I did see the doctor about shots -- turns out I have all I need. And the doc speaks Spanish, so we did half our meeting in Spanish -- fun fun. Then he gave me a prescription for larium (the crazy malaria med) and antibiotics. They are much cheaper in Korea so that was great.

After that I hit Insadong for some quick shopping then back to Osan for Jill's party. It was a great time. Lots of people some drinking games, sorry I forgot my camera was in my bag -- I have a bad tendency to do that. I switched to water early on so that I would be ok the next day.

It worked like a charm and I woke up at about 10 and headed into the city to Deoksugung. It is a palace in central Seoul. I have never been there before (why? Well probably because it is so close I kept putting it off). They have a changing of the guard ceremony. It was fun to watch. I love Korean traditional clothes. They are so bright and colourful. I also always like looking at the photos after, 'cause then you can see that all the facial hair is stick on (he he:)

Inside the palace was really nice. Some of the buildings are quite old. This is the only palace in Seoul that survived the first Japanese invasion in the late 1500s. And some of the buildings even survived the other invasion and the Korean war! So they are pretty old. One is not painted, which is shocking in Korea. Like usual the buildings are absolutely beautiful. The painting on them is just fantastic.There were also some really nice gates and walls in the complex. They have great brick work and carvings. This is an incense burner. It is very large, it could hold about 100 incense sticks at once.Just inside the main gate is a large statue to Kong Sejong. He is the most famous Korean king. He developed hangeul (the Korean alphabet) among other things. The amazing thing about hangeul is that it was specifically developed to create an educated populace, when the wealthy could already read and write in Chinese. He developed it to allow the poor to become educated and it was specifically made easy to learn. That is why the UN has named their literacy award after him.

Aside from all of that, the park on the palace grounds also includes a beautiful treed arbor, and some displays of ancient Korean technology. The treed arbor was great because while I was taking pictures of it I started watch a little boy, being a little boy. I love how similar kids are from one country to the next. I did not get the picture I wanted of this boy, but check out these 2 the before and after, notice the birds in the first and the posture of the boy in the second.
Of the ancient technology they had this water clock. The cravings on it are beautiful. The rocket launcher was also cool.
So Sunday was a great day, and much more relaxing, which is good.

Jill's Birthday et. al.

November 1st was Jill's birthday. Happy Birthday Jill!!!!

This was a good excuse to go out for chicken and beer. Besides it fell on a Wednesday which is our normal dinner night anyways. So we headed to our favorite chicken place pork deugae (or 2 forks) and ordered one of each kind of chicken (sweet, hot, regular and smoked) and chowed down -- yummy. There we 8 of us -- so we ended up having to make a maze for the poor waitstaff by moving the tables around -- oops. But it was a great night.

Around the table from front to back to front starting on the left are Liz, me, Natalie, Brenda, Craig, Jill, Mel and Amy.

Then today being Thursday my boss bought us dinner. He is possibly the best hagwan (after school academy) boss in all of Korea, and he buys us dinner every Monday and Thursday (actually the office staff do the ordering, but he pays). So they have started asking what we want, and we talk about it earlier and choose. Then it arrives at 7 and we eat quickly between classes, and if we are still hungry we eat the leftovers at 8. It has been great. We had kamjatan tonight. It is spicy potato soup with pork on the bone. It is delicious and it is heated at the table so the restaurant brings a burner and gas along with dishes. Then they come back and pick up the dirty stuff later. I think the delivery system here is great. Also you get a bunch of side dishes with every meal -- man am I ever going to miss kimchi (Korean spicy pickled veggies -- usually cabbage).It may sound weird but it is spicy and delicious.

Triptitaka Koreana and a Random Day

So this weekend started normally. Friday was Tom's last night so we went to the WaBar to say bye. Everyone was there and it was a good night -- and I left pretty early 1ish.

Today (Saturday) started normally as well. I had made plans with Becky and Sam to go to Deagu and then to see the Triptitaka Koreana -- an important set of Buddhist wood block carvings. We caught the bus no problem and headed to Deagu. When we arrived in Daegu things started to get weird. We had to take another bus to get into the city from the station. When it arrived the bus driver got out and started yelling at an old lady waiting to get on -- very strange, we just stood back and waited to see what was going to happen. About 5 minutes later he let everyone (including the old woman) onto the bus. Now although I have been to Daegu several times I have rarely gone straight from Osan, so I am not used to looking for where to get off the bus, therefore we ended up getting off a couple of stops early. This turned out to be a good thing, 'cause there was a nice looking church there, so we went to take a look around. It was really pretty and huge -- in comparison to the usually small churches that are EVERYWHERE. The common ones are normal buildings with glowing red crosses, but this church was more traditional in looks, and very large.
From there we headed in the direction of the downtown. We ended up in the shopping area by Daegu station, and wandered down many random streets. At the beginning of the shopping area we came across the Boobie bus ... No joke!Near the boobie bus was what appeared to be an anti-Bush petition signing, with great movie posters that had Bush photoshopped into them. Next we went down a side street selling blood sausage (normal) and steamed pig liver -- a little odd even for Korea.

Next it was on to an info booth to figure out what to do, and get a recommendation and note for a jimjilbong to stay at. We also asked about the local cuisine, as every city in Korea is known for a different kind of food. It was now about 5 so we decided to wander a bit more. As we headed back through the shopping district we came across a group of dancers, some wearing rain coats with x's on masks over their mouths (very odd) -- That's all I can say as we never figured out what the significance was. Then we found the herbal medicine street (Daegu is a major shopping city). It smelled great, but we didn't know what anything was. We turned down another street full of beautiful tea shops. There we met a crazy man who wanted to be my 'good friend' after finding out Becky was married -- so it was time to move on.

It was now time to find food which was a ways away. We decided to keep walking, it had been good for us so far. So we did, and at one point we had to take an underpass, which lead into a mall. As we walked through the mall looking for a way out we came across a body building contest -- very funny. Most of the guys looked like they has known about the contest and had been preparing. They were oiled and tanned and wearing speedos, but one guy was as light skinned as Koreans come and was wearing shorts, with them tucked up around the edges, very funny. From that point on the walk to the restaurant was less interesting, although we did magically end up coming across a number of monuments and such, which was cool.
For dinner we had galbi jjim (we have recently learned that jjim means cooked in a double boiler). We went into the most crowded restaurant on the street figuring it was the best -- and it was good. The meal had more garlic in it than I usually eat in a week -- and I like garlic -- yummy!

From there we went to a DVD room to watch a move -- Swing Girls it is Japanese -- and quite funny. Then ice cream and finally we got in a cab to go to the jimjilbong that the info woman had told us about. At this point things got funny again. The woman said the place was only a ew minutes walk from Daegu station, but we seemed to be driving far. We went further and further we realized that we were not heading where we had planned on going -- we had no idea where we were. We did end up at 'a' jimjilbong, but none of the outside signs said that and inside, there were machines with tickets, no person -- all very complex. It is a very basic sauna, but a large jimjilbong area, with a space that looks like it is an outdoor pool in the summer. That is where I am writing this from. It turns out we are very close to where we need to be tomorrow morning so all is good :)

The next morning we relaxed as we didn't fall asleep very early. We stayed in the strangest jimjilbong ever, and on top of that there was a huge group of teenaged boys there with no supervision making noise 'till about 3 or 4 am! The sleeping platform was made of metal (with wood on top) so every time the boys came up and walked around they made tons of noise -- uugh! Oh well they finally went to sleep and so did we, but that explains not getting up until 9.

We took a cab straight to the bus terminal for Heiansa, where the Triptitaka is. The Triptitaka is a collection of 800 year old Buddhist woodblock carvings. There are thousands of the blocks stored at the one temple. It is a World Cultural Heritage site because of the significance of the blocks. Going to see the Triptitaka has been on my list of things to do since I arrived back in January (after Christmas). And I wasn't disappointed. The blocks were amazing to see. Stacked on 6 shelves, each stacked 2 high in long rooms full of shelves. You cannot touch them, but they do have one on display to see, and another that you can get a copy of the print (I didn't 'cause I was too big to go in my scrapbook, and otherwise I wouldn't know what to do with it). It is just amazing to think about the amount of time that went into making them. Also their ability to create the buildings that hold them is fascinating. In the last 10 years (or so) the Korean government tried to build modern buildings to hold the blocks, but when they were moved they started to grow mold, so they moved them back into the original buildings, built more than 800 years ago.

The bus took us almost all of the way to the temple which was nice it was only a short climb from the road. The temple itself was very nice as most of the buildings were very old. The buildings that hold the triptitaka have amazingly escaped both Japanese occupations, and an accidental fire. Making them some of the oldest temples in Korea. Some of the other buildings on the site have been rebuilt in the past 100 years or so. On top of the beauty of the temple, we picked a great time to go for all the fall colours. They mountains were beautiful. Some individual trees were amazing.

Hallasan is TALL -- My Jeju weekend

Last weekend I went to Jeju-do. A largeish island off the south coast of Korea. It is THE travel destination in Korea. Everyone visits Jeju at some point. All foreigners go, but so do all Koreans. The island is about 200 km long and 50 km wide. In the middle is Hallasan, the tallest mountain in South Korea. The island is subtropical, which makes much of the vegetation different from that on the mainland. I really wanted to go, mainly 'cause I have hiked all the other famous mountains in Korea, so I had to do Hallasan, but also I needed to see the place that has been called 'the Hawaii of Korea' and 'Korean Disneyland', not that I had too many expectations that way. They welcome all people with signs including this motto all over the island:
I took Friday off work and headed to the airport (it is a short one hour flight -- or a 5 hour bus ride and an 11 hour boat ride). I got to Jeju around 2 pm -- it was rather odd to be on such a short flight again. When I got there I stopped at the info booth and asked lots of questions. I found out that although there are 4 paths up Hallasan only 2 go all the way to the top -- important news -- since I really wanted to go all the way up. It is too bad the paths that go all the way up are the really long ones, making it a full day activity. So next I headed to Seogwipo the 2nd largest city on the island. It is on the south coast and seemed well placed to do some traveling from. I got in to town, grabbed some food and then found a cheap motel ($15 per night -- pretty good for a place with my own bathroom in Korea). I paid for 2 nights so that I could leave my stuff there the next day while I hiked all day long. Then I went wandering. There are 2 waterfalls in the city that I wanted to go see. So following signs I was trying to find the first one. But that was more difficult then I thought it would be. I walked down one path, and got very close to the falls, I could hear them, but the trees by the path were so overgrown that I couldn't see anything. Then I tried another way. Along the way I passed lots of tangerine fields that were nice. I never realized how short those trees are. I could probably pick tangerines from the top of the tree without anything to stand on. The island is famous for it's tangerines.
After about 40 minutes of wandering I ended up at a shell beach. This beach is an important site, as the rocks hold tons and tons of fossilzed shells. It was a very cool beach. There were 3 distinctive types of rocks present that were all pretty cool. Lava rocks, layered rocks and sandy type rocks. There were several rock wishes on the beach and one man was going round balancing rocks on their smaller ends, this is a common thing to see here.

While on the beach I looked out to sea and noticed a bunch of 'women divers'. These women wear wetsuits and masks and free dive to as deep as 20 meters for shellfish. It is a hell of a way to make a living. So today there are about a tenth of the women involved as there were a few decades ago, and most of the women are older.
They are cool to watch, but I can imagine that it is rather painful to do all of that free diving. They say the most common side effect is headaches -- yea no kidding, I can get a headache from swimming to the bottom of a swimming pool too many times! It was really crazy watching them come ashore, because they definitely were not young.

After leaving the beach I headed a different way from which I had arrived and I saw this tipi. I am not sure what is was used for -- but hey why not have a tipi in the middle of an island in Korea?!? Then I noticed that I had found the waterfall that I was originally looking for. This was also my introduction to the tourist trap that is Jejudo. It cost me 2000 won ($2US) to get in to see the waterfall (now I knew why the other path was so overgrown). Over the next few days I would notice that everything for tourists was more expensive than anywhere else in Korea -- but at least my motel was cheaper -- good to go during the off season. So inside this little park was one of the Dolharubang, ancient Jeju stone carvings. This one was one of the original ones, as there are many new carvings all over the islands.It is pretty cool. No one really knows what they were used for, but they are pretty fun looking.

Not far from the carving was by far the most gigantic aloe plant I have ever seen, it was huge!

The picture does not do this plant justice. I could not find anything to use as a measure of its size, but some of those pieces were at least 5 feet long!

About 100 meters into the park was the waterfall. It was a nice one:

But even more beautiful than the falls was the river. On the way out of the park I took this picture. I love the way the clouds are reflecting in the water. It was a really beautiful night.

There were a bunch of beautiful coy in the river, begging for food.

I wandered around the city a bit more that night. I found the other waterfall, but I was too late to get in to see it. At least I knew how to find it. I also found a sauna, which I knew would be important the next night (after the hike).

So Saturday began early. You must start up the mountain before 9:30 or they don't let you up. The earliest bus out of my city was at 6, I made it to the bus stop by 6:15, because early starts are a good thing for hiking up mountains -- and I wanted to get to see the horse show after the hike and I knew it would be a long one.

I took the longest path up, because it was the more easily accessible of the 2 that went to the top of the mountain. The sign said it would take 4.5 hours to get to the top (not the worst I have done). Actually the hike was not bad at all for the first 5-6 km. It was not very steep and really well taken care of, most of it was even a wooden boardwalk.Then it got steeper, which it was obvious it was going to do, because the path a a huge number of progress signs and height markers so I knew I was going a long way across and not that far up.

But then it got steeper, and finally I broke through the trees and came out to the alpine portion of the mountain. I could now see the peak. Not too much further now.

The top was amazing. The crater was cool. I had never seen one before, but sadly the lake that is there in the summer had just dried up, the mud was still wet. I did it in 4 hours-- yea!

At the top of the mountain was a radio transmitter, this is why the best cell phone reception in Korea is at the top of the mountains. Although usually the transmitter is on a nearby peak so that you don't see it on the popular hikes. On Hallasan that is not possible.

On the way down the mountain I may have been a little crazy taking the other path, but I try not to go up and down the same way. The sign at the top of the mountain said the way down would take 4 hours and 40 minutes. I didn't believe it would take longer to go down than up. I don't know why, Seoraksan took 6 hours to go up and 7.5 to go down. Since the path up had been pretty easy, I thought down could not be too bad, I was wrong.

It started ok, and was very beautiful. The path was having a lot of work done on it, so it was not as easy as the way up. Some of the construction hikers even had to walk over -- funny. The best part was the fire extinguisher on the mountain. Good idea -- just seemed a little odd.

After about 2 hours of the down I was dead, but then the forest changed to a pine forest, and those always remind me of home. I am not sure why, I guess 'cause the deciduous forests look different and the pine forests look the same as home, so that made things feel better for a bit. Still by the time I finished 8 hours after starting, I was pretty dead.

After getting down, washing my face and changing my shirt, it was time to figure out how to get to where I wanted to be next. I really wanted to go see a horse show that was not too far away and figured I would just take a cab, since no matter what you had to take a cab out of this area anyways. That made life easy, as I would have had no idea where the show was if I had tried to take buses.

After the 20 minute cab ride my muscles had stiffened slightly, that made walking fun :) I bought a ticket for the show, but had 40 minutes to kill. Right next to the show they were having a wheat grass festival, so I walked over to take a look. It was cute a really tiny festival. The wheat grass flower arrangements (and other ones) were cool, but I wasn't really taking much in.

I went back to the arena for the show. It was very cool. The performers are Chinese (apparently). They started with acrobats who can contort their bodies in ways that bodies should not move. Then they the horses came out. They did some whip demos and then road around hanging off the horses, one guy rode the horse on his head, then 2 guys rode 2 horses with other guys standing behind them and a child stood on the shoulders of the 2 standing guys. Pictures were not permitted until the end, too bad.

After that I caught the bus back to my city (the sun setting behind the wheat grass where I waited for my bus was beautiful). In Seogwipo I grabbed dinner, hit a sauna 30 minutes before close (better than nothing) and when back to my motel to bed.

The next morning was grey and promising rain, just as the weather predicted. I got up and headed out to the waterfall that I missed on Friday night. On my way there it rained really lightly for a few minutes, and I thought about buying an umbrella and didn't, knowing I would regret that decision. 10 minutes later I did when it started to pour and I was soaking in 2 seconds! Oh well. I got my umbrella and saw the waterfall. This one is special because it fall straight into the sea, which is not common in Asia (apparently).

After that I collected my stuff from my room and headed out. I really wanted to go to the paper doll museum nearby. I think the paper craft work here is unreal. You can judge for yourself. These are made with sheets and strips of handmade paper. Just incredible!

From there I went to Jeju city and then to some lava caves. On the walk to the caves I passed many fields surrounded by the traditional rock fences that are typhoon proof because of all the natural holes in the rocks.The cave was very cool. You are not allowed to take pictures inside, and I decided to follow the rules, since I was the only foreigner around and it would be really obvious if my camera flash went off in the cave! The cave was a long hollow tube formed by the lava as it flowed between the rock.

This statue is a copy of the lava pillar at the end of the area of the cave you can walk in.

By this time the rain had finally stopped and I thought about going to the beach, but didn't feel like getting wet again, and I knew I would be in salt water that night at the jimjilbong anyways. So I went back to Jeju city. There I went to the folklore museum, it sounded like the best one for English signage, which is really helpful. It was a nice museum. Then I wandered and came across a jimjilbong -- which was perfect because it was 8 and I was ready for a hot soak. Yea sauna!

I got up at 6ish Monday morning, used the coolest sweat room ever it was full of huge chunks of rock salt -- so nice! Then had another soak before heading out to look for a cab. When I got outside the sunrise was amazing, a great way to say goodbye to the island.