Seoraksan, Teaching

Seoraksan

Forgive me for the lack of posting, once school started, we've both been sort of swept into that mode, and we haven't done much more traveling, though I suppose that's not much of an excuse, as lots of interesting things have happened. We did get an opportunity just before school started again to travel to the Seorak Mountains by Sokcho, the northeast corner of Gangwon-do. This was our second trip there, the last time being the first week in Korea. The snow gave everything a different atmosphere, and although there was lots of snow, it wasn't that cold. I love hearing people complain about how cold it gets in Gangwon, then I show them the weather page for Saskatchewan, falling past -40. Truly there is nothing to complain about.

Anyhow, we were braver this time and ventured further into the park, unlike the last time we were there, we weren't being carted around like schoolchildren, so we decided to see how far up we could get. Kat has discovered that certain heights have an effect of rendering her knees into rubber, so she stayed back after a certain point, and i continued on to a cave known as Geumganggul, about 250 feet up a stone staircase and metal staircase (what brave soul installed that I wonder?). I am fine with heights, becoming accustomed to them through both film work and construction, yet when I was climbing up, and seeing through the metal grates at the 100 foot drop below me, I felt a little nervous.




But, when two ajummahs (elder ladies) passed by me singing to themselves, I reminded myself that it couldn't be that bad. At the top was a shrine inside a small cave. Many paper lanterns hung from the ceiling, I am guessing that it was a pilgrimage to many Buddhists, and I have been told there is a Buddhist hermitage a half day's hike along the same path that led us to the cave.




Of course, the swastikas don't have the same meaning in Buddhism, if I am not mistaken they are symbolic of peace and enlightenment, one further irony that the nazis' would corrupt a symbol of this religion of love and peace.



Teaching

The new semester has started now, and finally, both Katherine and I are finally doing what we came here to do, finally starting to feel like we're earning the money (We already got a raise! This isn't a job, it's a money machine!). But the kids are great, fascinated and excited about our presence, I feel like I just gained 500 new friends. Certain things about the job are great: the hours, the fact we only teach 2-5 classes a day, and the almost weekly business meeting. Let me offer an explanation of this. Work is almost life encompassing as a teacher. They go to school as much as the students, 8am-10pm, monday to saturday (the students do this as well, which may be a little shocking). So it is also your only real social contact next to your family, though many of the teachers are from out of town, transferred because the education board forced them to, so many don't even have family. So nearly every week (sometimes multiple times a week), all the teachers go for "business meetings" which involve copious amounts of food and soju. Soju is like the Korean Vodka/Whiskey, very high percentage of alcohol (20%), and a smooth taste. Because it is actually considered impolite to refuse a drink, often the younger attendees are forced into drinking excessive amounts of liquor (I have found there is a trick though, if you've had your limit, you just dump your glass in another glass under the table, and then you can pass up the drinks that can turn the next morning into a hellish hangover). The food is delicious though, it reminds me of fonduing in the sense you cook your own food.

Oh yeah, teaching was the topic, I like the routine I'm falling into, I feel like I can actually live my life with all of the time that a 9-5 job allows. The days go fast because of the amount of teaching, and I can go home and relax, watch some Star Trek or work on a script, study some Korean language, or go for a walk. I see how some people come here and don't want to come back.

Three months have already passed, and it seems like it's only been a blink. With a trip to Japan in late July to look forward to, it seems to me that the year will pass by quickly, and we'll see what the wind offers at the end of our term.

For now, I wish you Annyonghee Kaseyo (Go in Peace!)
Postcards are on the way.
Robert Teacher

Beijing pt. 2

Let me say one thing about the food in China, mostly delicious, but they'll serve anything that moves. I tried a few different meats I hadn't tried before, Pigeon (as pictured above), Ostrich, Scorpion(is that a meat?), and starfish.

That night, after the Temple of Heaven we went and checked out a wicked acrobatics act. A group of 30 or so acrobats (larger than the crowd I think), did a nearly two hour show rivaling some of olympic level gymnastics (especially for the age group, i think the ages were about 10-18).

After our trip to the Temple of Heaven, we stopped by the nearby "Silk Market". A huge five story structure stuffed with hundreds of stalls selling everything from expensive jewelry, to counterfeit brand name clothes, to silk (and polyester that they claim is silk). It was an enjoyable experience, though I think I spent too much money there. There's something exhilarating about buying in Chinese shops. The asking price is NEVER the buying price. If you go by what they ask, they are ripping you off.
"Oh for you, special New Year's price of 400 Yuan!"
That is nonsense, so you must pretend they are insulting your intelligence by asking so much. "Do you think I'm an idiot? 40 Yuan!"
They look at you all upset and personally hurt by this offer, "Oh this is your 'just joking' price, how about 300 Yuan?"
At this point you must play the hard edge and walk away. As you walk away, they yell out lower and lower prices, "200...150..100...okay 50, 50 Yuan!" And then you get the actual price.

There is something quite surreal about being in these dimly lit shops bartering over some silk pajamas or a jade pendant. This is what I imagined China to be like in a way, this is almost the cliche of the country, and while interesting and cheap, Kat and I moved on and took a trip to the Lama Temple, a Buddhist temple celebrating the Spring Festival.



That night we went out for Peking Duck, a delicious dish that I had only heard of prior to going to China, but this was the dish that was Beijing was famous for, and it was delicious. They serve you a whole duck, and the chef comes out and carves it for you. You take the meat and sauce and vegetables, and wrap them in a little pancake thing, and voila, a delicious dish. We decided we'd have desert in the little night market just off of Wangfujing Dajie. The menu: seahorses, scorpions, starfish, lizards, and any other thing that could gross you out stuck on a stuck and deep deep fried.




The next day was probably my favourite of the whole trip, we went to the "Mutianyua" section of the great wall. Our tour guide picked us up from the hotel, we were fortunate enough to have a private tour, just the four of us, and our guide and driver. Nana, our guide was an interesting character, constantly referring to us as "the big nose", referring to the entirety of western civilization. She told us many stories, some true, some the consensus of folklore, urban myth, and stereotype. At one point I asked her a question about the government, and she declined to answer it, on the grounds that we could be spies. I thought that told lots of the influence of the dictatorship. However, when we got to the wall, we were on our own, and it would be the highlight of the trip.






A quick stop by a Jade "factory", and then we were off to another stop on our tour, the "Ming tombs", or a portion of them. There is a long walkway of maybe a half kilometre that is lined with giant marble statues of creatures, real and make-believe that are stunning in their size and beauty.




The last thing we did that day was to stop at a teahouse where we sampled five or six different types of Chinese teas. Some were delicious, others were not. However, the funniest thing that I have perhaps seen was the "Peepee boy". This is a little statue that when your water is at the right temperature, when you pour the water on it, it pees. Well, the first test went right in Kat's face.



We crashed pretty hard that night, Kat was asleep by 9, and I stayed up a little later writing some postcards.

The next day would prove to be the last of exploration, we went to the Dongyue Temple first thing in the morning, this is a Taoist temple as opposed to the Lama Temple which was Buddhist. This temple was the most active out of all we had been to with many different dancing acts and performances in addition to many booths and such with great souvenirs and wares that are meant for the natives, so everything was dramatically cheaper. After a few hours of the temple, we moved on to the Drum Tower, which was a beautiful view, but lots of steps, and expensive for what was really only a few minutes to see. The area around it however, was wonderful and unique. It was surrounded by the "Hutong". This is a fancy word for an elaborate set of alleyways and courtyards where many people live and have businesses. In stark contrast to the skyscraping apartment buildings everywhere else in Asia, these Hutongs are a dying breed, and are quickly being torn down by the government to replace them with, you guessed it, skyscraping apartment buildings. I find it interesting, in China, you don't own your property. In a way you do, but in the end the State owns all property, and you can really only lease it from the state. So to tear down the Hutong is quite easy, as the gov't can just "relocate" the residents at will. Lisa and Ryan took a rickshaw (sp?) tour through the Hutong, and Kat and I took a leisurely stroll. A very interesting environment.




Lisa and Ryan flew back that afternoon, so Kat and I stuck close to the hotel, taking in the mall and shopping at the Beijing 2008 Olympic store for souvenirs. I think it would be wonderful to see the Olympic Games, however, if one wished to see anything else besides the games, they wouldn't be able to, as the place would be so crowded. A city of 12 million that will be so busy, traffic will be a nightmare, and prices for everything sky high.

The next morning we flew back to Seoul, and have been kicking back and taking it easy for a few days. We still hope to get out and do some more sightseeing around where we live, but the days are getting fewer and I hope we still get some stuff done.

Peace
Rob

Beijing pt.1

Well, I know this isn't exactly an adventure in Korea, however, this is our travel blog, so it still counts. Katherine and I went on a 5 day vacation to Beijing with my cousin Ryan Hillstead and his wife Lisa Styles. From Feb. 6-11 we stayed at a hotel in the central district of Dongcheng very near the famous Wangfujing shopping street. This trip coincided with the Lunar New Year and Spring Festival, an event of proportion that we would liken to combining Christmas and New Year into a week long festival.

The airport at Seoul was extremely busy, lineups were hundreds of people long, and it took nearly 2 hours to get through check-in and security. It was a much simpler experience then the last airport at L.A., except for Kat trying to sneak a utility knife onto the plane in her "art" supplies. But they confiscated it, and we were again on our way. The flight was short, about an hour and forty five minutes, and we arrived in the Beijing International Airport to a simple, and less technological. I expected massive amounts of communist propaganda posted all over the place, but if it was there, it was hidden by the cell-phone advertisements. We spotted a cab and managed to communicate a rough bearing for our hotel, which we found easy enough.

The hotel was quite nice, we were placed on the 12th floor which had a nice view of the city. Though it was only around 1pm, we could already hear fireworks and firecrackers going off in the background. We did a little exploring of the area close to the hotel, the Wangfujing Dijae, a shopping/tourist strip with malls and shops littering the area. Kat and I ducked into a side alleyway and found some more shops. After some bartering with a merchant over a painted mask, we headed back to the hotel to rest in preparation for heading out for the New Year's Eve celebration. We watched the fireworks from the hotel room for a while before heading out to "Bar Street" or Sanlitun Lu, where we thought we might hit up some cool places. We found one place with a "band" which consisted of four people who played mostly to prerecorded pop songs, but the highlight of the performance was "Love Me Tender":


We weren't subject to it for long, we decided to duck out close to 12am, poised and ready for a fireworks display. We asked the concierge at the desk where we could see a good fireworks display, and he sorta laughed, and told us that we just had to go outside. How naive we must have sounded.




The next day we ventured to Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City. A huge, complex with thousands upon thousands of people stuffing in to see the ancient, extravagant buildings. Art and function are considered into everything, with treasures and wonders everywhere. The giant photograph of Chairman Mao Zedong is quite ominous on the Gate of Heavenly Peace, and there are police everywhere. I found it a bit shocking to see that the majority of police officers were between the ages of 18-30, many looking very young. Though there were foreigners in the forbidden city, there were not many, and we were asked a few times to get pictures with a few of the locals.
A beautiful area, one could spend the whole day going in and out of galleries and museums all over, but we managed to see quite a lot in just a few hours. The next stop along the way was the Temple of Heaven. Another location that was less than ten minutes cab-ride from the Forbidden City. We were fortunate to show up just as the sun was going down, so the light was beautiful, and the crowds were dissipated in comparison to the Forbidden City. The Temple of Heaven was massive in size, with large parks flanking both sides of the main strip, and several large structures that were far and above the most beautiful we would come across the whole trip.


more to come...

Taebaek Snow Festival

Taebaek Snow Festival Concert

Oh man, this concert was something I can honestly say I've never seen before, and hopefully never will again. I don't know what I expected, but I was not prepared for the onslaught of cheesy Korean pop music that we endured. Oh well, here are some of the more interesting moments of the night.

Korean drummers, not very good, but entertaining.


The first afro I've seen in Korea. Also, the girls that are clapping their hands are some of my students!



Awww, so cute, Korean soldiers dancing in front of the stage. Notice the heart shape the one soldier makes with his arms. This is a popular gesture here.


And the best part of the night was this crazy electric violin. Amazing!




ANNNND, apparently Rob and I really stand out in a crowd of 1000 people. Of course, the whole event was in Korean, so we can't understand anything that is being said. Suddenly, Mr. Cho (my co-teacher) starts laughing, and says "they are talking about you" and we hear the host say "Where are you from?". Ah, what? So, I yell out "Canada!". If that wasn't strange enough, later on in the evening she mentions to one of the musicians something on stage. All we hear is "Canada" and "hi". So if Taebaek didn't know about us before, they do now. Yeah, we're celebrities.

Random Findings

I was very bored today, so I forced Rob into taking a walk with me.
The best way to learn a city is to walk it. You always see things that you would never have seen if you rode in a bus or car. We were told that there were many hiking paths that went up into the mountains, we just had to find them. We walked along a main street for awhile trying to find a bridge to cross the river. As we were walking we saw four beautiful birds.


I don't know if they were cranes or herons, I'm leaning more towards heron because it flew with its neck curved, but I don't know for sure. They were a dusty blue colour, and darker blue under their wings. They were standing in the river, but when we walked by they became airborne gliding around in formation for a while before resting in the trees on the far side. After that we found a trail that didn't really look public, but we decided to walk it anyway. It was a nice footpath beside a frozen river. After a bit though we saw in the distance a monk doing monk things, so we decided to turn around quietly and leave him to his monkish activities. The second path we found seemed more promising as it had a sign, with a map. This was a really nice path that followed a frozen stream up the mountain. In the summer i am sure it will be just beautiful, when the leaves come out, the ferns wake up and the flowers bloom. Along the way we found an underground spring with absolutely delicious water, and a outdoor gym. We didn't follow the path to the end, as the sun was setting. Maybe tomorrow...

new years at the summit of mt. taebaeksan

Kat and I decided to take it easy this New Year's Eve, and went out for a tame supper with friends and fellow local foreigners Mike and Susie Rowe. Delcious Bakgalbi (chicken and cabbage in a red pepper paste fried up in a communal grill in front of you) was the main course, followed by some ice cream and coffee at the local coffee shop. It was at this coffee shop that I met a group of foreigners traveling from Daegu to spend New Years at the mountain summit. This is a tradition that many Koreans have been doing for generations and generations, the local superstition being that if you make a wish upon the first sunrise of the year at the top of the mountain (or at the shores of the East Sea), it will come true. So we invited them over to have some celebratory New Years drinks at our apartment, and then we would head off to the mountain. After about 2 hours of sleep (more like 2 hours of sobering up), Grahaem (forgive my spelling), Liz, Ann, and myself embarked out to climb the mountain. Katherine decided to sit this one out (or should i say sleep this one out).

We arrived at the base of the mountain just a little before 4am, as it would take a few hours to get to the top. The crowd was quite large, it's difficult to really estimate well how many people did the trek, but it was in the thousands. All of us filed up the mountain slowly, the cold increasing the further up we went, same with the level of snow. I spent most of time listening to my iPod and taking in what was going around me, though i never brought a flashlight, there was enough ambient light from the moon and others' flashlights that i had no difficulty seeing my footing. I won't forget the sight of people and flashlights lining the narrow rock stairs for as far as one could see. As we approached the summit, the trees all around became white ghosts from the wind and ice crystals, bent and random. I saw a few yew trees lining the path, ancient trees with life spans of a thousand years or more. Ancient ghosts lining an ancient rock path built by some forgotten culture, leading to two stone shrines at the summit.



This is Chonjedeon, there were buddhist ceremonies taking place at dawn here, and it was our destination. When we arrived at the top, however, the biting wind and lack of shelter created a very miserably cold morning, and unfortunately, had already numbed everybody's extremities, and to wait another hour to hour and a half for the sun to rise could be disastrous. However, luck, or fate was in our favour, and the local mountain climbing shop owner whom I had talked to the previous day about the journey was there with a tent, and invited us in to warm up. Keep in mind, this tent is a two man tent (being generous), and we managed to fit six people in it. But that worked, and we warmed up with a propane burner, and three bottles of soju.

The sun came up, and shone for only moments, glowing the mountain range in the distance, and taking my breath away, realizing that we were above it all. No pictures do any justice of the summit, but the mountains stretched for hundreds of kms, and you could see even the most distant, faintly against the horizon. However, it would be shortlived, and the sun disappeared behind the clouds until much later.





So we headed down the mountain again, with our new friend Sung Moon, the mountain climbing shop owner/mountain climbing club president. We stopped at a Buddhist temple and monastery along the way, and then hit up some lunch. By the time I finally got home, it was 2pm, the travellers had continued on their way back to Daegu, I had a new Korean friend, and many new memories, which I reflected on as I slept for seven hours without rolling over.