Jeju-do Part 2

Well, our first full day in Jeju we decided to climb Hallasan (Mt. Halla) which is the largest volcano on Jeju and is a Unesco World Heritage Natural Site.

While eating breakfast, we asked the owners of the restaurant which was the best hiking trail to take.  They told us to take the Gwaneumsa trail because it had the best views.  What they DIDN'T tell us was that it was also the most difficult trail.  We actually learned that from another hiker about an hour and a half into the four hour hike up the mountain.

It started up as a nice gentle walk  on a path under a canopy of trees:

Soon, however, the trail became a rough path of lava rock...

There were times when the terrain was so rough that there were wooden stairs or bridges (thankfully!)

And while the pictures make it look really nice... it was 8.4 kilometers of an uphill climb.

Needless to say, after about 3 hours of climbing (out of the 4 hours uphill), we felt like this:

Once we got near the top, however, there were indeed some beautiful views.

At the top of Hallasan is Baegnokdam, a small lake that is considered by the people of Korea as a "holy site"

The 4 hour hike down was a bit better and, since we decided to take a different trail down (this one was 9.6 kilometers), it offered different scenery.

Although, the path was just as rough most of the time:

There was a Unesco shelter on the way down that had some very basic refreshments for sale.  Basically, chocolate bars, Pocari Sweat (the Korean equivalent of Gatorade), and ramen noodles.  I must say, a bowl of ramen noodles has NEVER tasted so good before.

All in all, I'm glad I made the hike, although I have to admit that I would never do it again.  Once is DEFINITELY enough.

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Jeju-do Part 1

Well, I was able to arrange a 4 day weekend, so I made a run down to Jeju-do, a volcanic island off the southern coast of Korea known as "the Hawaii of Korea".  I'm not sure how much like Hawaii it actually is, but the island is beautiful and it was a really great trip. 

The cost of round trip airfare from Cheonju, an airport about 45 minutes bus ride away, was only 104,000 KW (about $95) so I paid the airfare for one of my Korean friends in exchange for him going with me as translator/tour guide.  I'm so glad I did that, since he was able to find REALLY cheap motels for me (one was only 20,000 KW/$17) as well as help get around the island.  Unlike the rest of Korea, many of the roadsigns are only in Korean instead being bilingual.

We saw and did a LOT in the few days we were there, so I'm going to divide up the trip into several different posts here.

When we arrived on Friday night, we visited Loveland which is billed as Korea's only "sexual theme park" since my friend really wanted to go.  Apparently a group of sculptors had collaborated to create a large sculpture garden of "romantic" art pieces.  Knowing how conservative Korea is, and from the pictures I'd seen online,  I was expecting it to be a combination of works that were either a bit cheeky or pieces similar to Greek sculpture.  Well... let's just say that Loveland is one theme park that is definitely not for children.

Here's a few of the tame pieces:

 After we left Loveland, we were trying to find the motel for the night and accidentally stumbled onto another of the sites we wanted to see, Yongdu-am/Dragon Head Rock.

Since we couldn't get very good pictures at night, we went back in the morning to get some better ones.

 

Since our hotel was only about 2 minutes away, it was cool to see.  However, I wouldn't recommend someone making a special trip for it (no matter how many times you see it listed in all the tourist info).

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DongHwaSa

This weekend I visited some friends in Daegu, then did a little sightseeing. I didn't have as much time as I would have liked but I did get to see DongHwaSa.

The weather was really nice so it made for a wonderful day just to be outside.

On the bus to Dongwhasa, a really nice elderly gentleman asked if he could sit beside me so he could practice his English.  I was happy to have him there, since he also interpreted everything for me as we went along. Once we arrived at the temple, he told me to come with him to get some food since it was free there. They had a very simple kitchen/dining area where  they were serving bibimbap (rice with vegetables) and a bean soup.  Well-- I say they were serving, but in fact you served yourself and washed your own dishes when you were finished.  The food was really tasty.

I found it really funny that on the train home from Daegu, I read an article in the newspaper about how "temple food" is becoming very popular/trendy because it is so healthy and tastes so good.  Who would have thought Buddhist monks would be trendsetters?

The temple complex itself was nice but not as elaborate as some of the others I've seen so far.  Apparently, the large temple is only about 20 years old.  However, the main attraction there is not the temple but the 33 meter (108 ft) tall Buddha. 

Unfortunately, they were doing construction on the plaza around the statue so you couldn't get close to it.  But, the photo below should give an idea of its size/proportions.  Just compare it to the children sitting in front of the fence.

I got quite a few other really nice photos while I was there.  Here are just a few of them:

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My commute

I guess I had too much time on my hands this week, because I put this together.

So, for anyone who may be interested, here's a short video of my daily commute through Dunsan-dong, Daejeon.

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Cherry Blossom Festival

A friend of mine, who is a grad student at Chungnam National University here in Daejeon,  took me on a tour of the campus yesterday since it's the Cherry Blossom Festival.  I didn't know it, but CNU is actually the second largest university in Korea with about 35,000 students.

Main Entrance

While I missed the concerts this weekend, I did get to see cherry trees in bloom (a big thing in Asia) and took some really nice pics.

The school apparently has a large art department and throughout the campus there are dozens of really nice pieces of artwork made by students.

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Food! Food! Food!

One of the things that you immediately notice when entering a new culture is the food. Every ethnicity, every culture has its unique foods that evolved over hundreds, sometimes thousands, of years. The Italians are known for pasta, the Germans for sauerkraut, and the Koreans for kimchi. But the "tastes" of the food go beyond just the "trademark" foods.

What sparked my thinking about this was lunch with one of my Korean friends this week. He was at my apartment and I was really tired so he volunteered to fix us some food. I took a short nap on the sofa and woke up to peanut butter, jelly, pickles, and fried eggs on toast. The funny thing is, once I took off the pickles, the peanut butter, jelly, and egg sandwich actually tasted good.

So, I thought I'd show some of the foods I've learned to really enjoy since I've been here.

  Dak Galbi is chicken with cabbage, onions, sweet potato and sesame leaves cooked with a medium spicy red pepper sauce.

Galbi JJim is "steamed chicken", literally a whole chicken slow cooked with potatoes, carrots, onion, mushrooms, peppers, and glass noodles with soy sauce.

One of my personal favorites is buddae jjigae, aka. soldier stew.  It is a hodge-podge of everything thrown into one pot:  hotdog franks, spam, sausage, rice cake, onion, green onion, kimchi, pepper sauce, sliced cheese, ramen noodles.

This is from one of the local carry-out places.  Fried rice, with soup and assorted sides (you always get lots of sides with Korean food).

 

Finally, while I've never eaten it myself (yet) beondaegi is cooked silkworm larvae.  It's supposed to be really good with soju (korean sweet potato vodka), but I wonder if you need the soju to be able to handle eating it!

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Spring!!

Well, it's been another month already! I still can't get over how quickly time's been flying by. I've been here for 7 months already-- wow! And spring is FINALLY here!!

This month has been a month of holidays. First there was St. Patrick's Day. Very little happened on that day, but on the Saturday following there was a big St. Patty's festival up in Seoul. A couple of thousand people were there, including the dozen or so of us who went up together from Daejeon. But when you have all-you-can-drink free Guinness beer, you should expect a crowd. There was also free Irish food, Irish step-dancers and lots of free crazy hats for people to wear. It was a lot of fun.

The following morning the group of us from Daejeon had breakfast at a nice little french restaurant in Itaewon.

The next weekend, we celebrated Passover with one of the Jewish teachers here. It was rather informal, with the running joke being that it should be officially named "Passover in Korea: Whatever works!" There were about 15 of us altogether: some Jewish, some Christian, some Buddhist, some agnostic.

One of the most memorable parts of it to me was when one of the teachers surprised everyone by chanting the "4 Questions" in Hebrew.



Last weekend was Easter. The weather warmed up, so Easter Sunday was an absolutely beautiful day. I had the window open enjoying the nice breeze and could hear some kind of "event" happening at City Hall, which is only about 1/2 a block from my apartment. Now, while it's not uncommon at all to hear things happening there as Koreans are really big on having rallies for all kinds of reasons I was a bit surprised to hear the music to the song "Via DeLarosa" clearly wafting through my window. It was a bit of a nice Easter surprise.

A group of us from my school attended Easter Mass at the only Catholic church in town that has an English service.

I must admit that it's a bit funny to be considered part of the "Outreach to Immigrant Workers". It took me a while to find info an English mass when I arrived so here's the info for anyone who may need it:

Daehwa-dong Catholic Church
Daehwa-dong Sundang (beside Duri Wedding Chapel)
Mass held each Sunday at 4:00pm
Reconciliation each Sunday at 3:30pm
Phone #:010-2010-3907

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