Cliffs and Sand

This past weekend we had a holiday. This was the final three-day weekend we have left during our time here, so we decided to spend the entire weekend traveling. We went down to Busan—a warm beach city in the southeast of Korea—with several of our coworkers. David, our coworker James and I decided to take the overnight bus on Thursday night to beat the traffic that was sure to arise on Friday. The trip took about five hours, from 11 to 4 in the morning. I slept a bit on the bus, but it was far from a restful sleep. We got into the Busan bus station very early, and hung around until the subway opened at 5:10 in the morning. The bus station is at the very north end of the city, so we took the line all the way down to the coast to check out the city’s large fishmarket (Jagalchi fish market). Although it was still very early when we got there, there were many different stalls of fish open. The whole place reeked of scales and sea—but it was worth a good long glance over. We meandered down the alleys, looking at both live and dead selections of fish. There were several cats in the market, which were fun to look at. David took a lot of pictures of the boats and the vendors. Eventually we stopped at a vendors hut and ate a spicy dish of eel and peppers.

A man and his dog, which amused us quite thoroughly.




One happy cat. :)

Ships resting after a long dawn of fishing.

One thing that immediately struck us about Busan is how clear the air is there. By international standards it’s by no means clean… but compared to Seoul the sky was much bluer and beautiful! When we finished our food at the fish market we took the subway back north toward Geumjeong mountain. It’s a huge mountain in the middle of the city, but even though it’s surrounded by Busan, climbing the mountain really made us feel back in nature. It was pretty gorgeous 540m hike up the mountain. We got to the top and followed our Lonely Planet Guide’s instructions to get to a pretty remote temple on the mountain’s other side. Seokbulsa, as the temple is called, took 4 hours to get to in total. The hike there was pretty strenuous, but it was among the more unique temples I’ve seen in our stay here. The place is basically a crevasse in the mountainside, with large Buddhas etched straight into the huge towering stones. Because it was Buddha’s birthday, the place was filled with worshippers, so we were shuffled around from place to place.

On our way up the mountain we found a pretty cool little Buddhist prayer cave and stopped to investigate.


James looking out over the city.


Seokbulsa.

The coin offerings of Buddha's birthday.

After lingering a while on the mountainside and eating a free meal of bibimbap and soup at the temple we hiked back down and caught a bus back to the subway. The beach was calling my name (for the first time in 8 months, I was sweating from the outdoor temperature!!!) so we took the subway to Haeundae beach. The place was packed with foreigners and Koreans alike. We found a spot and tried out the water. It was quite frigid. I only edged in up to my knees, but James and David barreled into the waves (and consequently screamed like little girls because it was so cold). After an hour or so, our coworkers Steve and Meekyung arrived on the beach to join us. They’d decided to take the Friday bus down, but the traffic caused their ride to be nearly seven hours long! We stayed out on the beach for several hours, soaking in some long missed sunlight. Meekyung, like most Koreans, was shying away from the sunlight. In most Asian cultures, white skin is considered ideal, since only manual laborers should have sun-darkened skin. Once the sun set we went to Papa John’s and ate some delicious pizza! It was almost comparable to American style, but not really.
The whole city was pretty much booked for cheap rooms that weekend, so on Friday night, David, James and I had to go stay at a jimjilbang. This is a public bath that Koreans love to frequent. Men and women have separate facilities and everyone gets stark naked. There were five or six large pools with many different temperatures and jets. There were also three or four different sauna rooms and masseuses for a little extra money. It was such a surreal experience, being butt naked in a room with about 150 other women. I was the only foreigner, so I naturally drew attention anyway. I wandered around by myself, trying different pools, until a Korean woman started talking to me. Her English was fluent, which is rare here. She quickly befriended me and took me around to all of the different saunas and baths, teaching me about the health benefits of all of them. Despite the weirdness of being naked, it was an incredibly relaxing and overall very enjoyable experience. After the baths I changed into pajamas and went up to the sleeping room, where you get a thin blanket and sleep on the floor with everyone. I found David and James and crashed in the corner. While the room was loud and hot, I was pretty exhausted from the poor night of sleep on the bus the night before, so I slept the entire night.
The next morning we hit up Dunkin Donuts for breakfast and then went with Steve and Meekyung to Haedong Yonggungsa Temple. It’s a very picturesque place that’s right by the ocean. There are rocks and waves right at its base. We walked around and explored it for over an hour. David went a little nuts with the camera again.

Us together at the temple.

A cool bridge David found.

Little Buddhas.



Two giant golden pigs! They were quite cheerful looking.

We went to Taejongdae Park afterward, where 150-meter cliffs drop into the sea. A ferry carted us around the peninsula, so we got a great seaside view of the cliffs. We also got to see the cliffs up close when the boat dropped us off and let us climb the rocks for about a half hour. They were rather impressive, but they didn’t come close to the Cliff of Moher in Ireland. Guess we’re just too spoiled cliff-wise! Apparently the Taejongdae cliffs are a popular suicide spot: about 100 people a year throw themselves off. At least, that’s what we heard word of mouth.


It started raining really hard, so we decided to head back to our rooms and check into the hotel. After we made the long commute back, we went out to eat sashimi (aka slabs of raw fish with lots of side dishes. The meal was huge and absolutely delicious! I’ve always been a really big fan of sushi, so the meal was like a miniature dream come true. =)
I crashed early that night, exhausted from all of our traveling and lack of quality sleep. The next morning we went to a local restaurant that offered a full-blown American brunch (which is difficult to find over here). Eggs, waffles, sausage, bacon, toast, juice, coffee, salad and hashbrowns for $8. It was heavenly. I haven’t had an American style breakfast like that in over 10 months. After out leisurely brunch, we headed over to the aquarium. Busan’s aquarium is the largest in Korea, and the entire thing is underground. There were all sorts of sea creatures, including a huge tank with loads of sharks and giant groupers bigger than me! We were only able to spend an hour there before we had to leave and catch our train back to Incheon. We took the KTX train, which is the fastest train in Korea. We got back to Seoul within 3 hours (almost half the time of the bus). Most of the time we were going up to 190 mph! It hardly felt like we were moving either. The train was so smooth.
Our week back has been long so far. Watched the finale of Lost last night (in which the series has been cemented in my heart up there with Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings). Was grumpy with the kids today. It’s so hard to control my bad moods around them sometimes. I try not to let it affect them, but it’s almost impossible.
Next weekend we’re looking forward to going fishing in the Yellow Sea with some of our coworkers. I’m sure I’ll have a nice juicy blog about that in the week to come.

Lotus Lanterns

What a week! Sometimes it feels like the world is about to go up in flames all around us. We've been looking forward to our summer vacation, which is in the last week of July. Our main/dream destination was Thailand, where we're planning to stuff our faces full of amazing food in Bangkok, go elephant trekking in Chang Mai and enjoy a few days on the beach down south. Unfortunately, all of the "Red Shirt" riots have made the country a hazard zone, and it doesn't look like it will be calming down any time soon, so we're looking into other vacation spots. Sad times. Also, this week, South Korea finally pointed the official finger at North Korea for sinking their warship the Cheonan. The torpedo they recovered from the ocean floor clearly had North Korean writing on it. The North of course, is denying it, even going as far as threatening all out war if the South tries to push their sanctions. Comforting, yes? We're keeping an eye on the news and keeping out passports at our sides. I doubt anything will happen while we're here, but it never hurts to be on the safe side.
Aside from these global tensions, our own existence has been pretty enjoyable. Last weekend David and I went into Seoul to check out the Lotus Lantern Festival. The festival was held in Insadong, where we went last weekend and hung out the entire day. The place was jam-packed with people. There were tons of foreigners. At one point I was overhearing as much English as I was Korean, which was quite a miniature culture shock.
The streets were lined with tents on Buddhism. There were many different crafts to do and foods to try out. There was even a tent dedicated to Buddhism in Cambodia--I went up and used my smattering of Khmer to communicate with them. It made me smile and I got a meat stick for my effort! The food was much more flavorful than any Korean fare. It reminds me of how much I miss southeast Asia and its food. Oh the food!

The Cambodian tent.



Drumming with a monk!




The place was so crowded that trash was overflowing out of the cans.

The craziest part of the day: we ran into a friend from Charleston in the crowd! What a small world it is that we run into someone thousands of miles away from where we last met them! We had a good time catching up with Hutch and touring the rest of the tents.

Me and Hutch.

We also went back to see the temple again. It looked pretty much the same as last week, only with a lot more people and a few more lanterns!


People were pouring water on top of the tiny Buddhas to bless them.

The parade started at dusk and the street was packed with people. The parade itself was over two hours long and filled with hundreds of colorful, hand-painted lanterns. There were huge wired lanterns pushed on crates and tiny individual lanterns carried by monks and other people. The whole scene was quite beautiful. David was going crazy with the pictures. A sea of colored light. That's how I describe the view that was the road.





We went back to the temple and saw that all of the lanterns we'd seen last week were now lit up in all of their glory.


Twirl!

Book Trailers and Such

I've been following a Young Adult author online for quite a while now, and she just finished the process of making a book trailer for her newest book out this summer. The whole process of creating one is really fascinating to me. I can't wait to read the actual book as well. She cut out all of the paper shapes herself and composed the music too:

weekend trompings

Following Children's Day and the wonderful break it gave us, the weekend seemed doubly relaxing even though we still went out and enjoyed Seoul some more. David had to go to a hospital in downtown Seoul to get a chest x-ray for his New Zealand work visa application. I went with him (quite early for a Saturday morning I might add). The hospital was right next to one of our favorite places in Seoul: Insadong. As we were walking around the area we discovered that Jogyesa temple and the area surrounding it are already decked out in lanterns in preparation for Buddha's 2554th birthday. The initial burst of color was so overwhelming and beautiful!


Pikachu lantern!









ALL the pretty lanterns.

David was carrying a pretty huge backpack since we decided to stay in Seoul most of the day. He was getting tired so we made our way to the nearest Starbucks and hung out there for two hours or so. I managed to get some writing done on my laptop while David read and slept. When my battery finally died we decided to go out and rest in the sunlight. We passed some pretty artsy shops on our way to the park:

This shop had a cool bike and Lego display.

We found a park with a nice grassy area, which, believe it or not, is rather rare here. Most of the parks are paved with cement and such. We took off our shoes and socks and lay in the grass, soaking up some much needed sun. David had fun snapping some pictures of the local wildlife while we rested. Funny thing, out of everywhere in the world I've been: Asia, South America, Europe... the pigeon is always there.


After the nice hour or so in the sun (I think my skin is actually starting to look less translucent!) we trekked back to the subway to meet up with our friends Jacob and Amanda Moore. They wanted to come snag a free photoshoot from David (he's pretty eager for people to shoot and practice on!). We took them down to Cheonggye Stream, which is a $313 million dollar effort to beautify the downtown core of Seoul. Lanterns were strung up there too, and there were also large paper lanterns floating on the water.




After shooting some pics of Jacob and Amanda (which will be posted on David's blog sometime soon) we went to eat at Kraze Burger. It was a pretty great burger joint. It even had a cool, retro American style menu:


I had a delicious chicken sandwich, which kind of hit the spot in my craving filled diet. Good sandwiches are hard to come by here. It's funny, you don't really know what foods you'll really miss until you don't have them anymore. Last week, I found a tiny jar of REAL GREEN OLIVES in a grocery store and ate the whole thing for lunch. I miss olives. And dill pickles. Still haven't found dill pickles here. Ironic since they seem to pickle EVERYTHING.
At the stream we also passed a World Vision Fundraiser. There was a concert and a coin tossing area. I've never seen so many coins grouped together in my life.



Next weekend we're heading back to the same place for the full-blown lantern festival. I can't wait!

More Wit and Wisdom from the Kindergarteners

Student: "Teacher, why doesn't Peter Pan want to grow up?"
Me: "Oh, I don't know. Maybe he thinks growing up isn't very fun."
Student: "AH! I think he doesn't want to die."

Quite some insight from a 4 year old. I never thought of it that way.

Recap

As my father most graciously pointed out- the blog posts have been lacking. I know it. I'm very sorry. So how about a recap of the end of April, beginning of May?
April was a straight month of work (as was most of March, with the very first weekend being an exception). April was also cold, which means we didn't travel anywhere. Even living overseas it's easy to get into a day-to-day routine/rut. Wake up, quiet time, writing time, school, dinner time, free time, TV show and bed. Wake up, rinse, repeat. The routine extends to the weekends too. We've spent a good deal of Saturdays working on our artistic pursuits. David's been doing a good deal of photoshoots and editing for those shoots (you can see the results here). I've been fervently working on the rough draft of a new novel, which means that most of the time when I'm not at school or enjoying the company of my husband and friends I'm glued to the computer screen in a creative flurry.
However, a few things of note have occurred.
The cherry blossoms, which I posted a picture of in one of the previous posts, came and went--heralding a very needed and appreciated spring. As David commented the other day, "I've never loved or needed spring more in my life." And I believe the statement to be mostly true. Six months is a long time to be leafless and cold. How do the Northlanders do it every year? I almost cry now every morning when I walk outside and see green on the sidewalk. Green. I've decided it's my new favorite color. So beautiful and full of life. Anyway- where were we? The cherry blossoms. That's right. David was ecstatic for the cherry blossoms and taking pictures with them. Although I was annoying sick with a sinus infection for over two weeks, we did a little photoshoot, which was fun. He also did a few shoots with coworkers and church friends.
One of these photoshoots was an entire day outing to Seoul Grand Children's Park. We went with some friends to the park. The place was huge, complete with a miniature zoo, flower gardens and even a marshland for me to get homesick over. The place was rather crowded with families and over lunch I saw one of the most fascinating yet traumatic scenes yet. There was a huge bang that sounded like a small explosion and several loud, angry yells. I looked up from my hamburger and peered through the crowd to see a Korean man going berserk about something. His wife was trying to calm him down and he actually hit her in the face. She recovered and tried to calm him down again. That time he tried to choke her. A security guard stepped in to literally save her neck. There was a lot more yelling (again, in Korean) and a stranger came and handed the lady a severely damaged camera (like, a David kind of camera, worth a lot of $$$) which turned out to be what the enraged man threw in the first place. The whole scene was rather dramatic and morbid. The rest of the day at the park was pretty satisfying though.
Last weekend we moved apartments, a task which sucked up our entire Saturday. We moved to an apartment with the exact same layout and size as our old one... except for several subtle differences. We're on the 12th floor now, which gives us a much better view. Our window has real curtains instead of blinds and our stove only has one working burner. And our loft has several inches of depth missing, which means our bed has to be without a stand at the bottom. It's really strange sitting with the exact same setup and catching the differences out of the corner of our eyes. As if we moved, but not really.
This week has offered a welcome break for us in the occurrence of "Children's Day." It fell on a Wednesday this year, which was a little strange for us (just the Wednesday off). Children's Day is the one day out of the year that parents set especially aside to spend the day with their children. Theme parks, zoos and the sort are a mob scene on these days, so David and I decided to stick local. We climbed the mountain near our apartment and took the subway to a Starbucks coffee place to enjoy a chai latte (taste of home!). On the walk to the subway, in our elation of the holiday, we did some rather sobering math. Even if we had every Wednesday off for the whole year, we would still work more days than the average American school teacher. I feel so terrible for Korean children, driven so hard and so long at such an early age. Apparently President Obama commended the president of Korea on their education policy and the Korean president laughed about it, saying he wasn't sure why, because Korea's system has so many problems.
Anyway, off that soapbox! I hope the update was satisfying. We should be taking at least one trip this month, so I'll have something more exciting to post about soon.

sometimes the cuteness is too much.

Today, in class, we were talking about weather and the following exchange took place.

Me: Have any of you ever seen the weatherman?
Toby (my most fluent speaker): Do you mean God?

I guess God is the ultimate weatherman. Sometimes kids give me such a fresh perspective on things. So many questions and so many observations on the little things that we adults just gloss over.

A new blogpost should be coming soon. We have a holiday on Wednesday so I might take advantage of it to post a nice long update.