Wow, oops.

Sorry for not posting for 2 months. It's been a strange couple of months full of ups and downs. I think we are over our honeymoon stage with Korea and now trying to get a handle on the cultural differences in the workplace. Combined with a little bit of sickness, depression has also been an issue. I think that if someone had handed me a ticket home I would have taken it. But not to worry, not to worry! Now it is vacation time. As many of you may or may not know Rob and I are headed off to Japan for 16 days! SWEEET! Check out our itinerary below.

I promise that when we get back we will start blogging once again! We will reveal all: the good, the bad and the Korean. When we get back it will be a new hopefully happier semester, many mistakes/misunderstandings will not be repeated. Cheers!

Konichiwa, bitches Japan, July/August 2008

Saturday July 19
-fly from Seoul to Narita, JP
-take the train from Narita into Tokyo
-find a moderately priced hotel/motel/hole in the wall in the Shinjuku-gu(the young hip fashion district of Tokyo)
-chill out and take in the big city lights

Sunday July 20
-take a subway (egod, i'm already terrified) to Harajuku to see the Harajuku girls.
-spend the afternoon exploring the area
-walking tour of Shinjuku-gu

Monday July 21
-hop on a train to Kyoto
-find a cheap hotel (or park bench, or internet cafe)
-go geisha hunting
-explore temples and parks

Tuesday July 22
-marvel in the wonder of Kyoto and all its mystery and tradition
-try not to die from excessive financial expenditure

Wednesday July 23
-open day, get drunk in public, visit with strangers, make an ass of ourselves.
-hop on a train to nearby Osaka for a reunion with fellow University classmate, Natsuko Yoshino

Thursday July 24
-exploration of Osaka and all its glory and beauty...and bars
-look for a cheap hotel (or pc room)

Friday July 25
-look around in wonder, pinch ourselves and remind ourselves that we are really in Japan.
-enjoy our last night in Osaka

Saturday July 26
-hop on a train to Mt. Fuji, meeting other Uni classmate Jon Braden.
-begin at roughly 7pm our ascent to the top of Fuji

Sunday July 27
-at daybreak, arrive at the top of the 3000m volcano for a view that i hope will never forget (providing it's not cloudy, wouldn't that just suck)
-head down, spend the next huge amount of time recovering.

Monday July 28
-visit with Jon in a small village just outside of Tokyo.

Tuesday July 29
-hop on a train to Hiroshima
-arrive, walk to the Peace Park (the true ground zero)
-take in one of the most atrocious acts of the 20th century

Wednesday July 30
-hop on a train back to Tokyo, try not to be consistently and horribly depressed
-check into the swanky and bank-breaking hotel in Atasuku-gu
-explore the area

Thursday July 31
-Pick up the Hillstead family from the airport in Narita
-bring them back to the hotel in Atasuku-gu, and doubtless show them their room so they can crash after their 14 hours of flying.

Friday August 1
-explore Ginza, and area, the downtown core of Tokyo. check out some temples, maybe the fish market, and other things in the area.

Saturday August 2
-last full day in Japan, explore some things i cannot miss

Sunday August 3
-Check out, travel to Narita, wait for our flight
-Fly back to Seoul
-Take a train back to Taebaek
-resume our normal routine in slavery and submission of our jobs :(


this itinerary is subject to complete and abrupt change.

Seoul: Children's Day Long Weekend May 3-5

Day One: DMZ tour, Insadong, and the World DJ Festival

After hectic, last minute preparations, we departed to Seoul on the evening of Friday, May 2. It was a comfortable four hour train ride to Seoul from Taebaek, and another healthy hour or more on the train to Tongducheon, the small city where the US army base is. We were traveling just as the subways were closing down, so in the end, after a short cab drive and multiple transfers, we arrived at our 30,000won love motel at about 1:30am. We quickly grabbed a bite to eat and hit the sack, getting a healthy 4 hours of sleep before getting up to make our way to the army base. It was a beautiful day, showing the signs that it would be hot before too late.

DMZ

After a two hour bus-ride to the Joint Security Area, we were given a briefing by the USO about the history of the DMZ and the Joint Security Area itself. This is a unique place where both North and South Korea share the duties of patrolling, and where any peace talks or conferences take place. Here we had to sign a waiver telling us not to talk to, wave at, make any gestures at, or even smile at any North Korean officers. Up to this point, I thought we would only be seeing North Korea from a distance, not 30m. Our first stop on the tour was the Freedom House, a building that the South built to hold reunification talks and peace talks, however, it has remained empty since they built it ten years earlier.

We were guided to the outside of the building where we could see a row of small buildings; some were painted blue, some were painted gray.
The blue buildings are South Korean, the gray ones North Korean. In the distance we could see a three-story building manned by a guard on the staircase, looking at us through binoculars. This was our first view of a North Korean. The area itself is split by a Demarcation Line, the true border. Let me explain a bit about the border, the De-Militarized Zone (DMZ) is actually a 4km wide border that stretches the entire length of the peninsula. In this area, there can be no military activity. The actual border is a line called the Military Demarcation Line (MDL), which nobody can cross, except in the Joint Security Area, and even there, it is only allowed inside the buildings. In the past, when people have crossed the line, firefights broke out, creating a diplomatic crisis, and killing many people. So it is carefully watched. We were allowed inside one of the blue buildings to see where the conferences took place, and were actually allowed to step over the MDL, symbolized as a line of microphones, and inhabit very briefly, a space in North Korean territory.

After we finished viewing the tense borderline, we continued on the tour and ended up at a guardpost that overlooked North Korea. From there, one could see many kilometres into the North, including a small village known as Kijŏng-dong or “propaganda village”.
This is just inside North Korea, given the name Propaganda Village because for many years, there was propaganda blaring on loudspeakers all day every day, telling the Koreans from the South to abandon their posts and defect to the North, which if they were to actually do, they would be killed. Though there were many farmers and some people doing construction work, we were told the village is mostly uninhabited, and that the construction was just to keep the buildings from falling apart. There was another village on the inside of the South Korea portion of the DMZ, but we were banned from taking photographs, as they could reveal tactical intelligence of what lies on the border inside the South Korean side.

The last stop on the tour was the "Third Tunnel", one of four tunnels dug by the North Koreans as part of an invasion plot. When the South Koreans uncovered the tunnels in the 1970s, the North Koreans denied all knowledge, and painted the tunnels black, claiming they were abandoned coal mines, even though the walls were solid granite, with no coal in the area. There was a very beautiful garden here, only a few yards from the DMZ.



Truly exhausted, we headed back into Downtown Seoul, looking for a love motel to stay in for the night. A love motel is an inexpensive motel that is a little bit seedy but clean and simple. Did I mention inexpensive? This time we decided to stay in the market/temple district Insadong. By coincidence, we stumbled across a Lotus Lantern Festival going on. The temples were all alight with lanterns, concerts were all over the place, and giant lotus lanterns were all over the place.





After chilling out for a few hours taking in the scenery, we gave my cousin Ryan Hillstead and his wife Lisa Styles a call to hang out. By then it was after 10pm, and we were already exhausted, however, after a short phone call, we were convinced a trip to the World DJ Festival was worth the tiredness. And it was, it was great fun. Our first chance at a live music festival since our arrival in Korea, and we weren't disappointed. We ran into many of our EPIK friends while there, and dressed up in fancy costumes at no cost. The weather was beautiful, the atmosphere wonderful, and the music awesome, so all in all it was a great experience.


After a good 3 hours of chilling out at the festival, we decided to head back to our hotel, and after feigning several outrageous cab prices, we found a cab that would take us back at a reasonable price. It would not be the last time we would have cab issues on this trip.

TO BE CONTINUED....

Erection Day!

Yes, that's what I heard all Tuesday, "Kaserine Sansangnim (Katherine teacher) do you know Wednesday is erection day? No school!!" Ah... yes I know, and I think you need to practice your L's a bit more. heh heh heh.

So on erection day, I went on a picnic with Rob and some teachers (and their wives and children) from my school.

walking...some trees... it was a really cold day, at least 5 degrees celcius. brrrrrr!
getting close to the source of the Han river...


My co-teacher, Cho Sansangnim, Rob and I at the source of the Han river... Strangely, we didn't actually take a picture of the source... But apparently the legend goes that a dragon was trying to reach the sky, so he swam up this river. For some reason he got stuck in a small pond and could go no further. Some Korean people trapped the dragon in the pond, by trapping him in a crevice or something, where he now still waits to be released.

My friend, Jibi Sansangnim, his wife and their son. Jibi also needs to practice his not just his r's and l's but his v's as well. He pronounces Robert as Lover... or Lubber...
Here he is saying, "Lover, have some grapes." Rob was confused, was Jibi coming on to him?
Delicious food. Cute kids. Good times. The End.

just an addition

it was very beautiful at the summit of taebaeksan, this is my second full ascent, the first time the weather was nice. Spring is here, even though there is some snow on the ground at the top, but it was still quite warm.



here is one of the 1000 year old yew trees i mention on the video, these trees are very ancient and majestic and only seem to grow at the summit of the mountain, not quite a pine tree, not quite deciduous, but something in between.



This photo was taken by a randomly passing Ajjumah, with our friend Pearly. Pearly also lives and teaches in Taebaek, and she too is a Canadian from Vancouver. Canada has practically invaded Taebaek by way of English teachers, we hold at least half of the foreigner population here (which is like 5 of us)...

On Saturday we go to Gangneung to see the Cherry Blossom Festival, I am very excited to see the beautiful flowers. The Cherry Blossom trees line many of the streets and in their prime are very very VERY beautiful, expect many photos. Until next time. 안뇽히 가세요!

Mashisoyo! (It is delicious!)

I've had many people ask me, "What the H E double hockey sticks do you eat in Korea?"
Well, let me show you! Below are pictures of my current favourite meal "Paek Bun". That roughly translates into rice dinner. It's a good compromise for Rob and myself, as I get delicious Dwen Jang Jiggae (spicy tofu soup) and Rob gets whatever the meat of the day is. The first time we went together, he got chicken. The second time, he got squid. Rob says that squid is quite tasty, but personally I feel a bit queasy when I see him eating the suction cups and the little pointed head. Poor Squidward. (side note: I accidentally got a bite of squid in my Sin Du Boo (soft Tofu) soup yesterday, it feels like eating... maybe a tire? ugh...)

Here I am spooning out some delicious soup into my bowl of rice. Often though, when you go out to eat with Koreans they will just share the bowl of soup and eat directly out of it. They like to share; it's a friendship thing. They share spoons and soju glasses too. Also, you may notice the plethora of side dishes. These are always different.
Here we have yummy squares of kim (dried seaweed), spicy gimchi (fermented spicy cabbage), fish flesh, bean sprouts, and the dish of meat (spicy chicken?).



My favourite soup! Dwen Jang Jiggae mmmmm...Mashida! (Yummy!)



And here are some more random side dishes, you never know what you'll get! Here we have little fishies, bean sprouts, hot peppers, radish gimchi, and molassessy peanuts.




Ah! Our other staple food Kim Bap! Kim = seaweed and Bap = rice. You can get many different kinds of Kim Bap, I prefer mine sans ham and fish flesh. Up in the corner is another type of gimchi. This kind of gimchi is not spicy, but tastes more like saurkraut... only vaguely. It's some sort of pickled radish anyway.

Mashisoyo? Mashisoyo!
(another side note: In Hangung-mal you often answer the question with the question. It is delicious? It is delicious!)

Our Backyard...

Yay! I'm actually not exhausted from teaching, so I am blessing you with a second post today! Rob found a wonderful hiking path just a hop, skip, and a jump away from our apartment!

The path meanders through a pine tree forest. It smells so good. The pine trees are completely different from Canadian pines though. I will have to get a proper picture of a Korean pine tree. Next time I'll take some close ups for all ya nature lovers out there.



Here I am pointing at our apartment after hiking for awhile. We really do live in the mountains. Not near, not a 15 minute drive away, but in the mountains.

"Um, Rob, which way do you think we should go?"

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood... One road takes you on a shorter hike and back to Taebaek. The other one we still don't know how far it goes. We hiked along it for awhile, but didn't make it to the end. Next weekend perhaps...

Ah, a random pile of rocks. These are everywhere in Korea, and although I do not know what they mean, I am sure they have some significance... Or, maybe a pile of rocks is just a pile of rocks....
and to end the hike on a happy note we walk past a Korean graveyard. Sweet!

Oh the things you'll see... Part One

Indeed. I've seen a lot of amazing things and a lot of strange things...
Unfortunately, I usually don't have my camera with me at the time, but here are some lovely things that I have happened to capture...

I know Rob posted it before, but it's so good I must post it once again.
The wonderful coffee/canned drink/telephone combo. Yes, it is convenient! Yes, it is a good idea! Why do I find it hilarious? I don't really know. But I pass it every day and I giggle.




"What, is this not a perfectly reasonable place to park?"
Sure, the sidewalk's as good a place as any. Why not? But wait, this was moments before we saw another car driving half on the sidewalk and half on the road. I was not quick enough to get a picture though...sigh.

I'm now getting used to the car or truck driving on the sidewalk phenomenon and casually step aside, no big deal.

One last thing. I found some wonderful socks in the grocery store... look carefully.
Yes, that is a man peaking over the stall watching a woman urinate... oh yeh!


... more to come in the future!