Chusok Pt III: Backpacking-ish

For a 3 day trip I sure did have a lot to say. Getting out of Suji made me appreciate it much more than I had been and the first significant trip definitely deserves some attention.

Once we got there we tried a few motels & a hostel we knew about, but we got two rooms at the 3rd motel, and wound up playing cards all night on Sunday and 4 of us crashed in one room and 1 of us in the other room. Eh, it's all part of the fun. The second night we stayed at a Hostel which is run by an awesome guy who's fluent in Korean (obviously), English, & Japanese. We paid 50,000 Won to have his master guest room, which had 3 rooms, 4 big beds, and a common room. It was really spacious, very clean, had a big bathroom, free coffee, and for 5 of us to pay 10,000W each? I won't complain. We called him Willie because he only has one eye (a little insensitive on our parts, but we didn't disrepect him). If anyone sees this and is interested in going, it's the Seo-Cheon Guest House and his email address is eui9882@yahoo.co.kr if you'd like to tell him you're coming. We just walked in and he said to come back the next day and all was well. I have his card and phone number, so if you'd like more information, just email me.

The nice thing about the hostel the second night was the random people we met. Hostels are the poor man's way to travel, but they provide the most entertainment, and a certain amount of ease. Four of us sat around the table in the common area late monday night and two guys knocked on our door wanting to know if they could have a cup of coffee with us. So we invited them in - they taught directly in Seoul and were from Florida & Montreal if I can remember correctly... had excellent conversation about teaching in general, and we suggested some places for them to see. About an hour after they left, one of my crew was having a smoke out back and I heard an extra voice. So we invite the extra voice in, and play a round of cards, but more importantly talked about his bike trip that day fro Seoul to Gyeongu (keep in mind it took us 4 hours on a bus), and about his years of experience teaching in Korea & Hong Kong, and we all talked a bit about our experiences, and just had a really sweet night. In fact, I have added his blog to the right side of my blog, so make sure you check it out - he had some kind words to say about his occurence with us!

Due to the rain I feel we didn't get to do as much as I had hoped, but I enjoyed it all nonetheless. We took a bus out to the Sea of Japan when we got there on Sunday to see the Underwater Tomb of King Munmu. After an hour and fifteen minutes on the bus through the windy mountains we finally saw the ocean - the angry angry ocean. The sky was dark, the sea was loud, and full of deep blues and greens, and waves taller than me. However, we weren't sure of the stop and once the ocean became a distant memory we got off in a random rural town. Everything kind of looked run down and there was no sign of anything really. A korean man with decent english walked over and asked of us if he could help, but he pointed to an area on the map and said that we were there, but we all knew we weren't. So we thanked him anyway, walked on to show him we appreciated his help, but once we were out of sight we took the map back out. That's when another korean guy about our age got out of his car and asked us if he could help. He then told us in really good english that this was his home town, and we stuck out like sore thumbs. He even walked us to our bus stop and told us what time it would come by, and I was seriously impressed by his generosity. So awhile later, we got to where we were going... to see some rocks:


I expected this tomb to be much more grandiose, as it is billed as the world's only underwater tomb. King Munmu in the 1300's believe that he would come back as a dragon to protect Korea against invasions from the Japanese if he were to be buried in the sea. So his ashes are placed in the center of that rock formation in a pool underneath rocks. It was still a cool place to see though, and the waves were pretty intense.

Monday wasn't any drier... we went to the Korean Folk Village which was primarily closed due to Chusok & the rain:


And then we moved onto the Bulguksa Temple, which was the highlight of the trip for me. A temple that had been burnt down by the japanese was rebuilt 50 or so years ago, and has a number of pagodas housing shrines to various types of Buddha's. I managed to take a few illegal pictures:


Overall an excellent trip, and a very beautiful part of the country. I recommend it :)


(mounds that are traditional korean tombs for royals)

Chusok Pt II: Gyeongu To & From

Spending 3 days away from Suji was exactly what the Doctor ordered. However, the doctor did not order more rain, and insane traffic but we got it anyway.

Five of us trekked out of Suji at 5am on a grey Sunday morning. The bus systems start here at 5am so we waited to take the 1550 bus to Yangdae for the subway, and then the subway to the bus stop. Well, we got a little scared about waiting for and maybe missing the bus, so we hopped in some cabs and were at the bus station in central city Seoul by 6am for a 715am bus. We bought our tickets on line at www.kobus.co.kr & paid extra for the tickets on the "Excellent" bus... a steep 26,000W and within four hours we were in Gyeongu, on the South Eastern side of the country, pretty close to Busan. The trip itself was great on the way down... we had four seats directly across the back, the windows on the bus open unlike at home so there was a nice breeze, and the view was incredible:


Nothing but farms and mountains as far as the eye could see.


We stopped at a rest top halfway through, and it was along side a rather large mountain and a river:

It was all wood, like a pier, and restaurants, and of course bathrooms, and it put rest stops at home to shame. Not just McDonalds, Pizza Hut, and Subway like on the thruway, but you could get full on meals here. There was even carnival food all along the outside and I found something I never thought I would find here - Syracuse Salt Potatoes. Syracuse hasn't cornered the market on these, but very very few people know what these are even though the name says it all. Tiny boiled potatoes drenched in salt and butter. The koreans put their little spin on it though... they added sugar... and it was heavenly.

We had only bought our tickets one way. We were testing out the bus since many people told us it wouldn't be a good way to go, and the that train would be better. Well, since the trip down had been so nice and we realized everyone was completely wrong, the second we got to the station we bought our return tickets. It was 17,500W on the "Normal" bus, and we were scheduled to leave on Tuesday.

It rained constantly on Sunday & Monday and of course, on Tuesday it was beautiful. We kept close to the station and got on our bus at 1:40pm. Our bus had an indian theme to it, and was no where near as spacious and nice as the "Excellent" bus we had on the way down but it worked.


Unfortunately we were not home at 6pm like we thought, but rather 2am. We all went a little stir crazy around hour 8 and we had to coax each other back on the bus when we made rest stop #3. Apparently traveling on Chusock Day is 10x as bad as traveling in the US on the Tues/Wed before Thanksgiving. The rest stops which I had thought were beautiful on the way down were hell holes on the way back - swarming with thousands of people, dirty, & everyone was angry - and rightfully so. There was a TV on the bus which was cute in the beginning but 13 hours straight of korean television would be enough to make anyone go mad. You ever try watching a gameshow in another language where they have to learn Old MacDonald for an hour? I didn't think so. Also, we watched an inflight movie where a teenage Korean boy comes to terms with himself and his desire to be a woman by becoming a pro wrestler. He wins the championship, and everyone loves him at the end when he dressed up like madonna and sings Like a Virgin in drag. I kid you not. Well, 13 hours later we were at Seoul and had cabs back to Suji. I love traveling.

Chusok Part I: Presents for everyone!

This may be a 2 or 3 part series - not sure yet, but the first part will be an explanation of Chusok - the Korean version of Thanksgiving and the events I've partaken in so far...

Tuesday, Septemeber 25th is this year's Chusok. It's basically a Harvest Festival celebrating Korean ancestors that supposedly goes by the lunar calendar. I've seen where it is supposed to be in August, however I guess it has been in September most years. I assume its counterpart for scheduling would be our Easter, but it is more traditionally related to our Thanksgiving. Chusok starts the night before and ends the night after, so most Koreans will take 3 days off of work which means that as an English Teacher we also get 3 children free days and no obligation to celebrate the way they do. What do most of us do? Well a few guys went to Thailand, another that went to Taiwan, another to Japan, some choose to just stick around here and do day trips, and some have their relatives come visit (there are a few moms roaming around the streets of Suji and its quite cute). Myself? I'm going to take a 3 day trip to Gyeongu, a city about 4 hours away on the South Eastern coast of Korea to visit Buddhist Temples, and see old traditional Korea, with four others. Should be pretty exciting.

However, before the actual holiday, Chusok is a much talked about event and there is much excitement leading up to it in a school. Starting this past Thursday the moms started bringing in tons of presents. Here's an example of some of what I got:



I received a big box of bath stuff (seen above closed & open) from a mom who bought it at an extremely nice body shop. Other moms brought in food for all of the teachers. Then on Friday it was stuff galore... I received a gigantic box of various teas, gourmet brownies individually wrapped in bows, a really nice passport holder, a Lotte Mart gift certificate from our boss, juices, cookies, and just various cakes and whatnot were around the office. Some of the other teachers received various forms of gifts as well - one girl received socks, and another received high end procured meats. Very random, but very very good & extremely generous. Also, all of the kids dressed up in their various Hanboks (traditional Korean clothing) not too unlike the Kimono. Check out how friggin cute my kids are!



They come in dressed up and we spent the morning making Songpyon - VERY tasty rice cakes that look like little dumplings, filled with sugar, cinnamon, & sesame seeds, & black soy beans if you wish (which I didn't). We ate them for the kids' snack time and then they brought home whatever extras they had. I of course had no idea what I was doing, so I spent my time taking pictures of the kids:



Overall it was a pretty enjoyable day - and getting presents is always a fun thing. My presents to all of my kids? Mostly classtime spent playing games (educational ones of course - scrabble, hangman, guess who) and no homework. Hey, that'd make me happy - and its the gift that keeps on giving b/c that means I don't have to grade anything when we get bacK!