Another turning point, a fork stuck in the road / Time grabs you by the wrist, directs you where to go
The senior-most couple at our hagwon finally said goodbye today. The last of our cohort - the couple that showed us the ropes when we arrived nervous and bright-eyed last May - threw their parties for their students, said goodbye to the staff, and left. Our friends, our rivals, our supervisors, our peers...sixteen months of working together, partying together, fighting together, suffering together, exploring and discovering and navigating and stumbling and fumbling through Korea are over. Our Korean head teacher was so sad that she was in hysterics when she said goodbye, startling my sixth graders during their end-of-session exam. Tomorrow is a holiday, so as of Friday Joel and I will be the senior-most foreign teachers and the proverbial kings of the mountain.
It feels excessively weird.
So make the best of this test and don't ask why / It's not a question but a lesson learned in time
Living and making friends here is so unlike anywhere else. It's such a relief to find someone you can relate to when you're a stranger in a strange land that you tend to get attached to people very quickly. We were no exception. They showed us the ropes at work and around town, kept us laughing when things at work got tense, and reassured us when we were still learning what was worth worrying about and what wasn't. She was more resourceful with the internet than anyone I know and always seemed to have an answer to the questions I was asking, whether it was about food or travel or shopping around town.
It's something unpredictable, but in the end it's right / I hope you had the time of your life
She and I shared a lot. She was the first person I summited Mudeung with. She vented her frustrations over her student loans to me; I unburdened my marriage and life stage anxieties onto her. We found common ground in very different childhoods and even more different choices. We bounced off of each other's ideas, disappointments, dreams. She helped me to see what I have and don't have, and how to be grateful for both.
So take the photographs and still frames in your mind / Hang it on a shelf in good health and good time
No friendship can remain unchanged over the years, and it would seem that some must end. How can a person know if one ends well, or if it ends right? Or if it should end at all? Is it okay if it fizzles out over late-night hookah and kimbap, or should it just go up in a blaze of glory?
Tattoos and memories and dead skin on trial / For what it's worth, it was worth all the while
Perhaps these months will always be a gray area for me, but I loved it nonetheless. Safe travels, nigs, wherever they take you.
It's something unpredictable, but in the end it's right / I hope you had the time of your life
Wednesday, October 2, 2013
Tuesday, October 1, 2013
A Reporter's Glimpse into North Korea
I've toyed with the idea of turning this blog into a sort of North Korea watch blog after we get back home. Then again, I'm not sure if I will want to keep using it as our travel blog; we are, after all, taking the Foreign Service exam in Seoul on Saturday (at least we were, until the damn government shutdown cast doubt on that prospect...eff you, Congress!). Maybe I'll create a separate "North Korea Watch Page" or something.
At any rate, I just find any and all news that comes out of the Hermit Kingdom to be fascinating, including a shipment of ski lift equipment being cancelled due to sanctions and Kim Jong Un's former lover being killed by firing squad. This, however, is a slightly different piece, written by a reporter who has been allowed repeated access to the country by the regime over the last several months. He has written a piece in National Geographic about the different, and confusing, views he gets of the country, between what his government-appointed minders want him to see and the occasional glimpses of genuine phenomena.
At any rate, I just find any and all news that comes out of the Hermit Kingdom to be fascinating, including a shipment of ski lift equipment being cancelled due to sanctions and Kim Jong Un's former lover being killed by firing squad. This, however, is a slightly different piece, written by a reporter who has been allowed repeated access to the country by the regime over the last several months. He has written a piece in National Geographic about the different, and confusing, views he gets of the country, between what his government-appointed minders want him to see and the occasional glimpses of genuine phenomena.
We’ve learned that what we see in passing is often more revealing than our destination. We’ve found that unguarded moments can be captured in photographs taken from bus windows and that wrong turns can provide revealing details. Like the time our bus driver accidentally veered off a perfectly maintained Pyongyang street onto a narrow, dusty road pocked with potholes and lined with unlit buildings. Or when we spotted a moldy tower of apartments one evening, each room lit by a single naked bulb casting a sickly yellow light. We have ventured outside the relative prosperity of Pyongyang to cities without modern high-rises, where dimly lit stores contain half-empty shelves.
It is necessary to go outside the country—to South Korea, Britain, or China—to find the only North Koreans who can speak freely about the realities of totalitarian life: the ones who have left. “Looking back, I wonder now why we had to live such sad lives,” says a former North Korean coal miner, who fled to Seoul in 2006 because his father was politically suspect. Refugees describe a hidden caste system based on ideological background: Three generations of a family can be imprisoned if one member is convicted of a political crime.
The coal miner is one of about 25,000 North Koreans who have escaped to South Korea since the war. They have fled political repression, an enveloping police state, and desperate poverty. The UN estimates that one-third of North Korean children are chronically malnourished. But the number of refugees has dropped dramatically since late 2011, when Kim Jong Un tightened security along the once porous 880-mile border with China. In 2012 only about 1,500 North Koreans made the dangerous journey.
The North Korean government, of course, works relentlessly to present a view of life in which schools are filled with happy, well-fed children, stores are filled with goods, and loyalty to the Kim family is universal. People know to speak to reporters in surreal, mechanical hyperbole, spouting praise for their leaders. “Thanks to the warm love of the ‘Respected General,’ Kim Jong Un, even rural people like us can come here and enjoy mini-golf,” Kim Jong Hui, a 51-year-old housewife from the country’s remote northeast, tells me one day at the country’s first putt-putt golf course, in Pyongyang. Overwhelmed by this benevolence, she says, “I have made up my mind to do my duty to help build a prosperous, powerful state.”
It is easy, after many such encounters, to believe in the caricature of North Koreans as Stalinist robots. The challenge is to find the far more elusive—and more prosaic—reality. Sometimes that takes stumbling onto a subject that gets North Koreans to open up a bit.
Like Gone With the Wind. This nation revels in the 77-year-old novel, finding echoes of itself in the tale of civil war and the ruthless, beautiful woman who vowed never to go hungry again.
...
In a country with few entertainment choices that have escaped the propaganda bureaucrats, the novel gripped the capital. Today it’s hard to find an adult in Pyongyang who hasn’t read it. A guide at the Grand People’s Study House, a musty Pyongyang monolith, sees the book as proof that American women are poorly treated. A Kaesong bureaucrat, a haughty man with a fading blue-striped tie, sees the book as a Marxist morality tale. A woman with a troubled marriage tells me she discovered strength in Scarlett O’Hara’s cold-blooded tenacity. The book is entertainment and solace and inspiration. It’s a window into America. It’s a celebration of a people who, like the North Koreans, are fiercely proud of fighting the Yankees.
Sunday, September 1, 2013
Wake Me Up When September Ends/Me acorde quando setembro termina
Summer has come and passed / The innocent can never last / Wake me up when September ends
I suppose in a place like Gwangju - or Korea, more generally - as long as the system of cycling foreign teachers persists, saying goodbye over and over again becomes a way of life. I never wondered why the long-term expats were so much harder to get to know; it always seemed fairly obvious that the normal, mature caution exercised by adults when approaching new relationships might come off as a bit distant compared to the unnerving openness of newly-arrived teachers. I knew that was why the men and women with stable jobs and families weren't as freakishly friendly as the still-jet-lagged hagwon recruits, and why the old-timers joked about the new EPIK class with gentle disdain, and why our Korean colleagues were politely distant and approached us all with caution.
Despite knowing all this, it still feels odd to be on the other end of it.
Like my fathers come to pass / Seven years has gone so fast / Wake me up when September ends
Joel and I have been here for a full 15 months now. With five months to go, we have again found ourselves at the entrance to the maze of getting to know the incoming teachers as we say goodbye to the outgoing ones. To be fair, six/five/four months is not an insignificant amount of time to spend with someone, and we enjoyed the (even shorter) time that we got to know the teachers that were leaving as we arrived...but our minds have already begun to wander in the direction of leaving, and I worry that my efforts to get to know the new recruits will just look perfunctory and shallow.
The couple that arrived at the beginning of August has already lived and taught here for a year, so they are probably already too cool for me anyway. :-D We just welcomed a couple from Canada that is totally new to Korea (today is their first day on the job - good luck, guys!). We had them over for dinner last night, since we couldn't go out to eat as a group on Thursday last week. As soon as I found out they were ethnically Dutch, I immediately thought of one of my bridesmaids who married a man from a Dutch community in Iowa - it was nice to meet someone new and remember home (and not feel like a tool, since I already know so little about Canada).
Here comes the rain again / Falling from the stars / Drenched in my pain again / Becoming who we are
And so we begin September, and the fall - it looks like the horrific Texas-style heat wave that plagued us has finally passed, as the weather has been deliciously cool for the last few days. At this point we have said goodbye to all of the teachers that arrived after us, and at the end of this month, the last two teachers that were here when we arrived - the current senior-most teachers - will go home, and we will be kings of the mountain (or something). One or the other of us may be made Foreign Head Teacher (I personally am not sure they will continue the position). Meanwhile, pop culture back home is still reeling from this year's MTV VMAs, two of our friends from Austin just got married (Mazel tov!), and our best man is getting hitched in October. We have one more vacation this year (coming up in about two weeks, actually).
Oh, and we are apparently gearing up for war in Syria - because the last time we jumped into a conflict in the Middle East, it worked out really well.
As my memory rests / But never forgets what I lost / Wake me up when September ends
I suppose in a place like Gwangju - or Korea, more generally - as long as the system of cycling foreign teachers persists, saying goodbye over and over again becomes a way of life. I never wondered why the long-term expats were so much harder to get to know; it always seemed fairly obvious that the normal, mature caution exercised by adults when approaching new relationships might come off as a bit distant compared to the unnerving openness of newly-arrived teachers. I knew that was why the men and women with stable jobs and families weren't as freakishly friendly as the still-jet-lagged hagwon recruits, and why the old-timers joked about the new EPIK class with gentle disdain, and why our Korean colleagues were politely distant and approached us all with caution.
Despite knowing all this, it still feels odd to be on the other end of it.
Like my fathers come to pass / Seven years has gone so fast / Wake me up when September ends
Joel and I have been here for a full 15 months now. With five months to go, we have again found ourselves at the entrance to the maze of getting to know the incoming teachers as we say goodbye to the outgoing ones. To be fair, six/five/four months is not an insignificant amount of time to spend with someone, and we enjoyed the (even shorter) time that we got to know the teachers that were leaving as we arrived...but our minds have already begun to wander in the direction of leaving, and I worry that my efforts to get to know the new recruits will just look perfunctory and shallow.
The couple that arrived at the beginning of August has already lived and taught here for a year, so they are probably already too cool for me anyway. :-D We just welcomed a couple from Canada that is totally new to Korea (today is their first day on the job - good luck, guys!). We had them over for dinner last night, since we couldn't go out to eat as a group on Thursday last week. As soon as I found out they were ethnically Dutch, I immediately thought of one of my bridesmaids who married a man from a Dutch community in Iowa - it was nice to meet someone new and remember home (and not feel like a tool, since I already know so little about Canada).
Here comes the rain again / Falling from the stars / Drenched in my pain again / Becoming who we are
And so we begin September, and the fall - it looks like the horrific Texas-style heat wave that plagued us has finally passed, as the weather has been deliciously cool for the last few days. At this point we have said goodbye to all of the teachers that arrived after us, and at the end of this month, the last two teachers that were here when we arrived - the current senior-most teachers - will go home, and we will be kings of the mountain (or something). One or the other of us may be made Foreign Head Teacher (I personally am not sure they will continue the position). Meanwhile, pop culture back home is still reeling from this year's MTV VMAs, two of our friends from Austin just got married (Mazel tov!), and our best man is getting hitched in October. We have one more vacation this year (coming up in about two weeks, actually).
Oh, and we are apparently gearing up for war in Syria - because the last time we jumped into a conflict in the Middle East, it worked out really well.
As my memory rests / But never forgets what I lost / Wake me up when September ends
Saturday, August 17, 2013
Waterfalls and Water Parks/Parques aquáticos e cachoeiras
Korea is hot as hell. It really is - I am not exaggerating in the slightest. Over the last two weeks, we have had temperatures hovering right around 37 or 38 Celsius (that's upper 90s for all you Fahrenheit peeps out there) with ridiculous humidity. I normally walk the mile to my yoga studio and back in the mornings - just for a little extra activity - but I have had to start taking the bus because the walk back two Mondays ago was so hot and exhausting that it made my physically sick, which I then had to deal with at work all day. I rarely (if ever) check the weather forecast here, so I was surprised at how wimpy of a Texan I was until Joel told me that the heat wave has been so bad that it made the front page of CNN - about a dozen people in China have actually died.
To add insult to injury, the government is trying to crack down on "excessive" energy consumption by fining businesses and notifying residents when they exceed a certain quota. A while back, to save money, the Korean government apparently purchased faulty parts for their nuclear reactors from (you guessed it!) China, so now two of the country's reactors are down, resulting in considerable strain on the grid. And now, because of their ineptitude, I got a notice in our mailbox asking us to please try to reduce our energy usage because we exceeded our previous month's consumption by 114 kW (about $35). Because the notice was all in Korean, I mistook it at first for a notice that we were being fined - and proceeded to launch into a rage because we have only been running our AC unit on weekends. Needless to say, I was quite relieved when my coworker explained the notice to me, but the whole thing is kind of ridiculous. I suppose it is typical of government to punish its citizens for consequences incurred because of its own fuck-ups.
Anyway, we have been trying to escape the heat through a series of water-related activities. Last weekend, I went hiking on Wolchulsan (a small mountain here in our province) with two of my coworkers on Saturday, and then Joel and I went with another couple to a nearby water park on Sunday. Both were unexpected adventures, albeit in different ways.
The Waterfall
My coworker initially invited my to take her to the summit of Mudeungsan, the mountain here in town, a few weekends ago. However, Wolchulsan was recommended to her by a friend and a longtime resident, so we decided to do that instead, as I had been wanting to check it out anyway. So at 5:20 last Saturday morning, the three of us jumped in a cab to the bus terminal, and from there we bused to Yeongam and took another taxi to the entrance to the hiking trail. The scenery, of course, was beautiful, but the hiking was deceptively difficult. Wolchulsan is only 899 meters high, which is a full 200 meters shorter than Mudeung, which is a pretty easy climb. I thought it would be a breeze - and I thought wrong.
Once you get past the first part of the trail and begin the real ascent, the gentle dirt trail gives way to steep rock steps, jagged rock faces with ropes to haul yourself up, and steel staircases made hot by the merciless sun. It was relentlessly bright and obscenely humid, so naturally all three of us were soaked in sweat after barely an hour. We rested often and sought refuge in patches of shade. We graciously accepted snacks and the quintessential hiking cucumber from a friendly Korean hiker. We huffed, puffed, laughed, whined and did all the things that make a girls' hike so comfortable.
After taking about half an hour to rest at the summit (and snap a few pictures), we headed down to complete the loop we took up the mountain. Around halfway through the descent, we discovered the falls - a small waterfall made by a river snaking down the mountainside that had, of course, been reduced to a trickle because of the summer heat. Still, there was enough water still coming down to make it a highly tempting rest spot. We eyed it hungrily for a moment, then I slipped off my backpack and clambered over to the slick rock face where the water was sprinkling down, almost like a shower. I lost track of how long we stayed there, giggling and sighing and splashing water on our faces and arms to wash off the sweat and dust from the mountain.
After we made it off the mountain, we stopped at a restaurant a little ways down the road to eat "mountain vegetable bibimbap." The only other customers were a large extended family, to whom we probably looked ludicrous with our wet hair and bare shoulders. Eventually we got a ride back to the local bus terminal from a gracious woman who ran a pension out of her house.
The Water Park
Joel and I have been spending some time with a couple from Ohio that we met through a mutual friend. They are super cool and down-to-earth artists: the guy, who is actually half-Korean and has family here in country, specializes in ceramics, and the lady is a photographer. Anyway, she really misses the beach and the pool (much like me!), so we had talked about planning a trip either to the beach or to a water park. I am relatively familiar with the beaches around here, but I don't know anything about any water parks, so I went to the most logical source I could find for information - my students. They recommended several different parks to me, but the two that were most frequently mentioned were Caribbean Bay (next to Everland, outside of Seoul) and Jungheung Gold Spa (in Naju, a city in our province). The students insisted that Caribbean Bay was the best, but the prospect of spending W60k on round-trip bus fare in addition to another W30k for the entrance fee was not appealing, so I set my sights on Jungheung Gold Spa and began collecting intel.
When I initially asked around, no one seemed to know the price of admission, which I thought was odd. A Google search turned up a handful of blogs that mentioned the park, but still nothing on cost. I even tried poking around the park's (Korean-only) website, but no information on price of admission came up. Finally, I asked one of my Korean coworkers to look it up for me. You can imagine my shock when she informed me that single-person entry was a whopping 59,000 won (almost $60).
Teacher, what?
I asked my students about it, and they were just as flabbergasted as I was. They insisted that they had never paid that much, and nearly all of them had been at least once on a school trip. I discussed it with my sixth-graders, who reasoned that the W59k must be the price for those people who stayed overnight at the jjimjilbang, and that a day pass could not cost more than W15k. I thought that seemed reasonable, so I messaged our friends, looked up the bus timetable, and packed our bags.
Once again, I thought wrong.
We made it to Naju, but soon discovered that there were very few local buses that went to the water park. We negotiated with a taxi driver to take us to the park and were in high spirits until I started talking to the ticket window agent.
Me: Hello! How much for one person?
Ticket Agent: 59,000 won.
Me: Yes, but not for sleeping. Just for the day.
TA: 59,000 won.
Me: For one person?
TA: Yes.
Me: Okay but, we don't want to sleep here. I pantomimed sleeping, and then made an "X" with my arms. Just for the day.
TA: Just moment.
The woman got up and brought another agent to the window. I began again.
Me: So, how much for one person?
New TA: 59,000 won.
Me: Just for the day?
TA: Yes.
At this point, I am starting to feel the panic well up as I realize that I have unwittingly led myself, my husband, and our two delightful friends into a trap. "Ask them what it includes," suggested the guy.
Me: What can we do in the park?
TA: Water park and spa.
Me: Just the water park?
TA: Yes. And spa. He pantomimed a water slide.
...Teacher, what?
The four of us walked away slowly and stared at each other. Joel and the other guy studied the map as I studied their faces, bewildered. "It looks like there might be a beach here on the map," the other guy suggested hopefully. "Are we near the ocean, or maybe a lake? Maybe we can spend the day there instead?" So we walked around the parking lot to the "beach," only to find a small dock for motor boats to drag banana boats along a dirty-looking river. We returned to the ticket booth, defeated.
"What should we do?" the other guy asked. I sighed hopelessly.
"Guys, I'm really sorry...I had no idea. I can't believe I did this."
They assured me that it was no big deal, and after some nervous laughter we decided to bite the bullet and spend the money to go. After all, we'd come all that way, so we might as well just do it, right?
Alas, the unexpected surprises didn't stop there. Not only were all of the lines for the rides an hour long, each slide or other major attraction cost an additional W1,000, which you had to pay for by putting credit on a wristband they provided. The wave pool and lazy river required life jackets, which were another W4,000 to rent. The whole park only had a dozen or so rides. We went on a few slides and spent the rest of the afternoon pissing off the lifeguards by trying to sneak into the wave pool, drinking beer and joking about what a rip-off the whole experience was. We had fun, but the trip broke the bank for Joel and I until we got paid this week. Also, I feel like an asshole for leading two (relatively) new and lovely friends into such a ridiculous debacle.
In contrast, going to the beach tomorrow with my Dutch friend will only cost W22k. Perhaps next time I will stick to the devil I know.
To add insult to injury, the government is trying to crack down on "excessive" energy consumption by fining businesses and notifying residents when they exceed a certain quota. A while back, to save money, the Korean government apparently purchased faulty parts for their nuclear reactors from (you guessed it!) China, so now two of the country's reactors are down, resulting in considerable strain on the grid. And now, because of their ineptitude, I got a notice in our mailbox asking us to please try to reduce our energy usage because we exceeded our previous month's consumption by 114 kW (about $35). Because the notice was all in Korean, I mistook it at first for a notice that we were being fined - and proceeded to launch into a rage because we have only been running our AC unit on weekends. Needless to say, I was quite relieved when my coworker explained the notice to me, but the whole thing is kind of ridiculous. I suppose it is typical of government to punish its citizens for consequences incurred because of its own fuck-ups.
Anyway, we have been trying to escape the heat through a series of water-related activities. Last weekend, I went hiking on Wolchulsan (a small mountain here in our province) with two of my coworkers on Saturday, and then Joel and I went with another couple to a nearby water park on Sunday. Both were unexpected adventures, albeit in different ways.
The Waterfall
My coworker initially invited my to take her to the summit of Mudeungsan, the mountain here in town, a few weekends ago. However, Wolchulsan was recommended to her by a friend and a longtime resident, so we decided to do that instead, as I had been wanting to check it out anyway. So at 5:20 last Saturday morning, the three of us jumped in a cab to the bus terminal, and from there we bused to Yeongam and took another taxi to the entrance to the hiking trail. The scenery, of course, was beautiful, but the hiking was deceptively difficult. Wolchulsan is only 899 meters high, which is a full 200 meters shorter than Mudeung, which is a pretty easy climb. I thought it would be a breeze - and I thought wrong.
Once you get past the first part of the trail and begin the real ascent, the gentle dirt trail gives way to steep rock steps, jagged rock faces with ropes to haul yourself up, and steel staircases made hot by the merciless sun. It was relentlessly bright and obscenely humid, so naturally all three of us were soaked in sweat after barely an hour. We rested often and sought refuge in patches of shade. We graciously accepted snacks and the quintessential hiking cucumber from a friendly Korean hiker. We huffed, puffed, laughed, whined and did all the things that make a girls' hike so comfortable.
After taking about half an hour to rest at the summit (and snap a few pictures), we headed down to complete the loop we took up the mountain. Around halfway through the descent, we discovered the falls - a small waterfall made by a river snaking down the mountainside that had, of course, been reduced to a trickle because of the summer heat. Still, there was enough water still coming down to make it a highly tempting rest spot. We eyed it hungrily for a moment, then I slipped off my backpack and clambered over to the slick rock face where the water was sprinkling down, almost like a shower. I lost track of how long we stayed there, giggling and sighing and splashing water on our faces and arms to wash off the sweat and dust from the mountain.
After we made it off the mountain, we stopped at a restaurant a little ways down the road to eat "mountain vegetable bibimbap." The only other customers were a large extended family, to whom we probably looked ludicrous with our wet hair and bare shoulders. Eventually we got a ride back to the local bus terminal from a gracious woman who ran a pension out of her house.
The Water Park
Joel and I have been spending some time with a couple from Ohio that we met through a mutual friend. They are super cool and down-to-earth artists: the guy, who is actually half-Korean and has family here in country, specializes in ceramics, and the lady is a photographer. Anyway, she really misses the beach and the pool (much like me!), so we had talked about planning a trip either to the beach or to a water park. I am relatively familiar with the beaches around here, but I don't know anything about any water parks, so I went to the most logical source I could find for information - my students. They recommended several different parks to me, but the two that were most frequently mentioned were Caribbean Bay (next to Everland, outside of Seoul) and Jungheung Gold Spa (in Naju, a city in our province). The students insisted that Caribbean Bay was the best, but the prospect of spending W60k on round-trip bus fare in addition to another W30k for the entrance fee was not appealing, so I set my sights on Jungheung Gold Spa and began collecting intel.
When I initially asked around, no one seemed to know the price of admission, which I thought was odd. A Google search turned up a handful of blogs that mentioned the park, but still nothing on cost. I even tried poking around the park's (Korean-only) website, but no information on price of admission came up. Finally, I asked one of my Korean coworkers to look it up for me. You can imagine my shock when she informed me that single-person entry was a whopping 59,000 won (almost $60).
Teacher, what?
I asked my students about it, and they were just as flabbergasted as I was. They insisted that they had never paid that much, and nearly all of them had been at least once on a school trip. I discussed it with my sixth-graders, who reasoned that the W59k must be the price for those people who stayed overnight at the jjimjilbang, and that a day pass could not cost more than W15k. I thought that seemed reasonable, so I messaged our friends, looked up the bus timetable, and packed our bags.
Once again, I thought wrong.
We made it to Naju, but soon discovered that there were very few local buses that went to the water park. We negotiated with a taxi driver to take us to the park and were in high spirits until I started talking to the ticket window agent.
Me: Hello! How much for one person?
Ticket Agent: 59,000 won.
Me: Yes, but not for sleeping. Just for the day.
TA: 59,000 won.
Me: For one person?
TA: Yes.
Me: Okay but, we don't want to sleep here. I pantomimed sleeping, and then made an "X" with my arms. Just for the day.
TA: Just moment.
The woman got up and brought another agent to the window. I began again.
Me: So, how much for one person?
New TA: 59,000 won.
Me: Just for the day?
TA: Yes.
At this point, I am starting to feel the panic well up as I realize that I have unwittingly led myself, my husband, and our two delightful friends into a trap. "Ask them what it includes," suggested the guy.
Me: What can we do in the park?
TA: Water park and spa.
Me: Just the water park?
TA: Yes. And spa. He pantomimed a water slide.
...Teacher, what?
The four of us walked away slowly and stared at each other. Joel and the other guy studied the map as I studied their faces, bewildered. "It looks like there might be a beach here on the map," the other guy suggested hopefully. "Are we near the ocean, or maybe a lake? Maybe we can spend the day there instead?" So we walked around the parking lot to the "beach," only to find a small dock for motor boats to drag banana boats along a dirty-looking river. We returned to the ticket booth, defeated.
"What should we do?" the other guy asked. I sighed hopelessly.
"Guys, I'm really sorry...I had no idea. I can't believe I did this."
They assured me that it was no big deal, and after some nervous laughter we decided to bite the bullet and spend the money to go. After all, we'd come all that way, so we might as well just do it, right?
Alas, the unexpected surprises didn't stop there. Not only were all of the lines for the rides an hour long, each slide or other major attraction cost an additional W1,000, which you had to pay for by putting credit on a wristband they provided. The wave pool and lazy river required life jackets, which were another W4,000 to rent. The whole park only had a dozen or so rides. We went on a few slides and spent the rest of the afternoon pissing off the lifeguards by trying to sneak into the wave pool, drinking beer and joking about what a rip-off the whole experience was. We had fun, but the trip broke the bank for Joel and I until we got paid this week. Also, I feel like an asshole for leading two (relatively) new and lovely friends into such a ridiculous debacle.
In contrast, going to the beach tomorrow with my Dutch friend will only cost W22k. Perhaps next time I will stick to the devil I know.
Saturday, August 3, 2013
Fogging the Future / Nebulizando o futuro
I have noticed that I am updating this blog less and less often. Partly that is because there hasn't been all that much to write about on a day-to-day basis, as we are well past the initial adjustment-to-life-in-a-foreign-country phase. I have also found myself becoming increasingly busy as time goes on, mostly with extracurricular activities to maintain my professional (i.e. global health) profile. Funny how I always seem to find things to fill my schedule, and as a result to get way too stressed out. Hrm.
This is our second summer in Gwangju, and we are again suffering in the summer heat and humidity. I know our Texas friends are laughing at us for complaining - after all, I think the only place that has summers comparable to Houston is southeast Asia - and I myself wonder why we find it so unbearable. The truth is, though, that here we probably spend much more time in the heat. Back home, everywhere you went had central air, so the only places where you felt the summer heat was on your way from whatever building you were in to your car, or vice versa, or if you were sitting out by the pool (in which case, you could always just get in the pool). Here, we walk almost everywhere (since we don't drive), and there is no central air for the building where we work - the temperature is controlled by classroom, and the AC is tightly regulated by the school owner to save money, so the classrooms are never really all that cool. I have been taking two showers a day since June and I still wake up and come home from work feeling disgusting.
Summer brings its sorrows along with its joys. Unfortunately, some of the plants in Joel's balcony garden have not done very well in the heat. Specifically, the cilantro that he planted was killed by the blast of heat coming from our apartment's AC exhaust unit, as it was positioned right next to the vent. He has also been trying to deal with spider mites infesting his peppers and eggplants. The cosmos also died, and neither the peppermint nor the spearmint wound up doing so well. Luckily, the basil is still thriving, and I am trying to persuade him to use it to make pesto for me (no success on this front yet). Also, 75% of our staff is in the process of turning over: our coworker from Missouri left at the end of June, and we just said goodbye to the Canadian-Minnesotan couple (who got engaged while they were here) and welcomed a couple (one American, one Englishman) last week who are returning after teaching in Korea for a year. The friends from Texas will be leaving at the end of this month, to be replaced by a married couple from Canada, so we will have a lot more non-American representation in the coming year. After that, the current senior-most couple will leave at the end of September. Joel and I will be the last of the (current) old guard. Change can be good, and I am looking forward to meeting new people, but it is always sad to say goodbye to old friends. This year has been a bit of a bumpy ride, but we had some great times with the people we worked with, and I am sad to see them go.
On the bright side, summer brings lots of opportunities for travel. Earlier I mentioned our trips to Seoraksan and Jeju; for our July vacation, we went to Tokyo and just got back on Wednesday. I loved Tokyo almost as much as I loved Kyoto - I remain enchanted by Japanese food, shrines, culture, and just general awesomeness. Joel and I spent four days there with a friend and saw just about everything we could fit into 90.5 hours, including Shibuya (for the massive crossing), Harajuku (to watch the cosplayers), the Meiji shrine, Akihabara (for the maid café experience), the controversial Yasukuni (i.e. imperial war) shrine, Tokyo Sky Tree, Shinjuku (to finally meet my Japanese conversation partner in person!), Tokyo Tower, breakfast sushi at the Tsukiji fish market, the Kyu-Shiba-rikyu garden, and Ginza. Pictures will be available, as usual, on Facebook - when Joel gets around to posting them. We have four days in mid-August (which we haven't decided what to do with yet) and five days mid-September for Chuseok, when we are thinking about going to Ulleung-do. To be honest, I am re-thinking this, since the island (while lovely) is an absolute bitch to get to via public transportation.
We now have six months to go on our contracts, so I have really been starting to think about what comes next. I know that after we finish here, we will be traveling around the world to relax and see family for another six months or so, so it will really be about a year before we need to find jobs...I keep telling myself that it is plenty of time, but somehow I never seem to be able to convince myself. I started looking at jobs in my field again for the first time today, and it is at least a comfort to know that they are there. We have been discussing many options, which are (in no particular order):
1. Go back home, find jobs in DC, and settle in. Alternatively, Joel could go to school in DC while I work.
2. Come back to Korea, where we can get better jobs and Joel can pursue an online Masters degree. This furthers Joel's career ambitions, but not mine.
3. Look for teaching jobs in Japan. Joel could also pursue his Masters online with this option. Again, it doesn't further my career, but it would be a change of scenery at least - and I love Japan.
4. Apply to work for the foreign service. We are both planning to take the FSOT in October, so we will see if we pass and go from there. The drawback to this option is that the hiring process takes forever - if you pass all the stages, it takes 15 to 18 months to be invited to join an A-100 class and start getting paid, so we would be looking at starting sometime in the beginning of 2015.
5. Apply to work for the Peace Corps. This furthers both of our career ambitions, particularly mine, but it pays nothing and we can't have children during the 2+ year commitment.
6. Go back to school. I have been thinking more and more about getting my doctorate, but both of us being in school would put us into massive debt. Not cool.
On top of all of this uncertainty, the question of when, or if, to start a family still looms.
And I swear to God, if one more student asks me why I don't have a baby, I am going to set them on fire.
This is our second summer in Gwangju, and we are again suffering in the summer heat and humidity. I know our Texas friends are laughing at us for complaining - after all, I think the only place that has summers comparable to Houston is southeast Asia - and I myself wonder why we find it so unbearable. The truth is, though, that here we probably spend much more time in the heat. Back home, everywhere you went had central air, so the only places where you felt the summer heat was on your way from whatever building you were in to your car, or vice versa, or if you were sitting out by the pool (in which case, you could always just get in the pool). Here, we walk almost everywhere (since we don't drive), and there is no central air for the building where we work - the temperature is controlled by classroom, and the AC is tightly regulated by the school owner to save money, so the classrooms are never really all that cool. I have been taking two showers a day since June and I still wake up and come home from work feeling disgusting.
Summer brings its sorrows along with its joys. Unfortunately, some of the plants in Joel's balcony garden have not done very well in the heat. Specifically, the cilantro that he planted was killed by the blast of heat coming from our apartment's AC exhaust unit, as it was positioned right next to the vent. He has also been trying to deal with spider mites infesting his peppers and eggplants. The cosmos also died, and neither the peppermint nor the spearmint wound up doing so well. Luckily, the basil is still thriving, and I am trying to persuade him to use it to make pesto for me (no success on this front yet). Also, 75% of our staff is in the process of turning over: our coworker from Missouri left at the end of June, and we just said goodbye to the Canadian-Minnesotan couple (who got engaged while they were here) and welcomed a couple (one American, one Englishman) last week who are returning after teaching in Korea for a year. The friends from Texas will be leaving at the end of this month, to be replaced by a married couple from Canada, so we will have a lot more non-American representation in the coming year. After that, the current senior-most couple will leave at the end of September. Joel and I will be the last of the (current) old guard. Change can be good, and I am looking forward to meeting new people, but it is always sad to say goodbye to old friends. This year has been a bit of a bumpy ride, but we had some great times with the people we worked with, and I am sad to see them go.
On the bright side, summer brings lots of opportunities for travel. Earlier I mentioned our trips to Seoraksan and Jeju; for our July vacation, we went to Tokyo and just got back on Wednesday. I loved Tokyo almost as much as I loved Kyoto - I remain enchanted by Japanese food, shrines, culture, and just general awesomeness. Joel and I spent four days there with a friend and saw just about everything we could fit into 90.5 hours, including Shibuya (for the massive crossing), Harajuku (to watch the cosplayers), the Meiji shrine, Akihabara (for the maid café experience), the controversial Yasukuni (i.e. imperial war) shrine, Tokyo Sky Tree, Shinjuku (to finally meet my Japanese conversation partner in person!), Tokyo Tower, breakfast sushi at the Tsukiji fish market, the Kyu-Shiba-rikyu garden, and Ginza. Pictures will be available, as usual, on Facebook - when Joel gets around to posting them. We have four days in mid-August (which we haven't decided what to do with yet) and five days mid-September for Chuseok, when we are thinking about going to Ulleung-do. To be honest, I am re-thinking this, since the island (while lovely) is an absolute bitch to get to via public transportation.
We now have six months to go on our contracts, so I have really been starting to think about what comes next. I know that after we finish here, we will be traveling around the world to relax and see family for another six months or so, so it will really be about a year before we need to find jobs...I keep telling myself that it is plenty of time, but somehow I never seem to be able to convince myself. I started looking at jobs in my field again for the first time today, and it is at least a comfort to know that they are there. We have been discussing many options, which are (in no particular order):
1. Go back home, find jobs in DC, and settle in. Alternatively, Joel could go to school in DC while I work.
2. Come back to Korea, where we can get better jobs and Joel can pursue an online Masters degree. This furthers Joel's career ambitions, but not mine.
3. Look for teaching jobs in Japan. Joel could also pursue his Masters online with this option. Again, it doesn't further my career, but it would be a change of scenery at least - and I love Japan.
4. Apply to work for the foreign service. We are both planning to take the FSOT in October, so we will see if we pass and go from there. The drawback to this option is that the hiring process takes forever - if you pass all the stages, it takes 15 to 18 months to be invited to join an A-100 class and start getting paid, so we would be looking at starting sometime in the beginning of 2015.
5. Apply to work for the Peace Corps. This furthers both of our career ambitions, particularly mine, but it pays nothing and we can't have children during the 2+ year commitment.
6. Go back to school. I have been thinking more and more about getting my doctorate, but both of us being in school would put us into massive debt. Not cool.
On top of all of this uncertainty, the question of when, or if, to start a family still looms.
And I swear to God, if one more student asks me why I don't have a baby, I am going to set them on fire.
Wednesday, June 19, 2013
Blizzards and Monsoons/Nevascas e monções
The summer monsoon rains have begun. Actually, they started during our short June vacation, while we were on Jeju island. Very kind of them, really, although they didn't stop us from doing anything we wanted to do, except go to the beach. Go figure that neither time we have gone to an island for a summer vacation have I been able to sit on the beach.
Sigh.
Actually, the main goals of our trip this time around were to visit our old co-worker who moved back home to Jeju, and to climb Halla-san, a UNESCO site and the tallest peak in South Korea. (You will recall that our plan to do that last year was foiled by a typhoon.) We managed to do both, actually. Our co-worker was kind enough to pick us up at the ferry terminal when we arrived on Thursday night and take us out to dinner and then ice cream. On Friday, we slept in and relaxed, taking a few hours to hike another one of the Olleh courses and then making our way to the hotel in Seogwipo. On Saturday morning, we woke up early and caught the bus to the trail head at Halla-san. It was chilly and rainy, so we bought some cheap plastic ponchos and headed up the mountain.
Little did we know what lay ahead.
Most of the way up actually isn't too bad. We had read some other bloggers' accounts of climbing, and most people assessed the trail we took (Seongpanak) to be of moderate difficulty, but we actually found it to be surprisingly easy. It was raining, but not heavily, so the ponchos worked well to keep us dry and a little bit warm. The first third is a very gentle ascent, and while the second third is a little more steep, it is not really treacherous at all. The trail is laid with volcanic rock, which gives pretty good traction, and there are a lot of wooden walkways and staircases. Going up Seoraksan was much harder as far as exertion. Anyway, we stopped at the two shelters on the way up and got some hot ramen at the second one. Then, we headed up for the final stretch.
We hit the blizzard right when we broke through the treeline, with just 100 meters of elevation to go. You may not agree with my assessment that it was a blizzard. I don't give a whiz-bang what you think. It was sleeting, the winds were sustained at around 50 mph, and visibility was about five meters. The wind was so strong that it almost knocked me over. We both nearly lost our hats and our glasses. We struggled up the last kilometer, our ponchos cracking in the wind around our shoulders and necks, with me crying out in pain because my hands were so damn cold.
Finally, we made it to the summit. We crouched by the stone marker, snapped two blurry pictures as fast as we could, and then hauled ass back down the mountain.
We took a break in the higher shelter to thaw before stumbling down the mountain, eight hours and 19.6 kilometers after we started.
Aside from the mountaintop storm, the trip was lovely and relaxing. On Sunday, we went to Manjanggul, a lava tube just outside of Jeju City and another UNESCO site. I took lots of pictures in the cave, so you will have to go to Facebook for those once Joel uploads them. We made our way back to the ferry terminal and, after a choppy and seasickness-inducing ferry ride back to the mainland, we made it home for a late birthday dinner at a Japanese izakaya downtown.
Oh, yeah: Happy 26th birthday, Joel!
We are gearing up for some major changes around here. The weather is hot and muggy, but I finally made sure our AC unit was mold-free, so we can at least run it to keep the apartment from becoming unbearable (we went without last year because I was too lazy to take it apart and make sure it was clean). Along with the weather, summer brings major staff turnover: we have people leaving at the end of every month through September, so we will be training new teachers and saying goodbye to old ones for the next while. Our friend from Missouri leaves at the end of this month (only a week and a half to go!), then the couple that recently got engaged (congratulations, guys!), then the duo from Texas, and last the current senior-most teachers. Turnover (and middle school quarterly exams) mean a lot of change and stress, but it will be nice to meet some new people, too. Frankly, the job has been getting a little repetitive for me, so I won't mind the busy-ness.
As the end of our contract draws closer, we have been doing a lot of thinking about the next step. As of July, we have seven months (212 days, to be precise) left in country. We have talked about coming back to Korea - with the experience at a hagwon, Joel would be qualified for a public school job, and I can get a university job with my master's degree. I am not sure if I want to continue teaching English - I have been maintaining my extracurricular professional activities, but I really want to go back to working in my field. We are also planning to take the Foreign Service exam (FSOT) this October (yes, both of us this time), but that process can take up to a year and a half from start to finish, so I am not sure what we would do in the meantime. The Peace Corps is also an option, as is just going to DC and finding work (the original plan when we came here). It is a good problem to have so many options, but somewhat stressful nonetheless. I tend to fret over this kind of decision-making.
In the meantime, though, we are having a good time - we have been spending a lot of time with friends, and we have a very exciting trip to Tokyo planned for the end of July. I am so excited at the prospect of going back to Japan, but I need to brush up on my Japanese - it has been getting rusty lately.
Sigh.
Actually, the main goals of our trip this time around were to visit our old co-worker who moved back home to Jeju, and to climb Halla-san, a UNESCO site and the tallest peak in South Korea. (You will recall that our plan to do that last year was foiled by a typhoon.) We managed to do both, actually. Our co-worker was kind enough to pick us up at the ferry terminal when we arrived on Thursday night and take us out to dinner and then ice cream. On Friday, we slept in and relaxed, taking a few hours to hike another one of the Olleh courses and then making our way to the hotel in Seogwipo. On Saturday morning, we woke up early and caught the bus to the trail head at Halla-san. It was chilly and rainy, so we bought some cheap plastic ponchos and headed up the mountain.
Little did we know what lay ahead.
Most of the way up actually isn't too bad. We had read some other bloggers' accounts of climbing, and most people assessed the trail we took (Seongpanak) to be of moderate difficulty, but we actually found it to be surprisingly easy. It was raining, but not heavily, so the ponchos worked well to keep us dry and a little bit warm. The first third is a very gentle ascent, and while the second third is a little more steep, it is not really treacherous at all. The trail is laid with volcanic rock, which gives pretty good traction, and there are a lot of wooden walkways and staircases. Going up Seoraksan was much harder as far as exertion. Anyway, we stopped at the two shelters on the way up and got some hot ramen at the second one. Then, we headed up for the final stretch.
We hit the blizzard right when we broke through the treeline, with just 100 meters of elevation to go. You may not agree with my assessment that it was a blizzard. I don't give a whiz-bang what you think. It was sleeting, the winds were sustained at around 50 mph, and visibility was about five meters. The wind was so strong that it almost knocked me over. We both nearly lost our hats and our glasses. We struggled up the last kilometer, our ponchos cracking in the wind around our shoulders and necks, with me crying out in pain because my hands were so damn cold.
Finally, we made it to the summit. We crouched by the stone marker, snapped two blurry pictures as fast as we could, and then hauled ass back down the mountain.
 |
| The summit marker. |
 |
| Joel was in much better shape than I was by this point. |
 |
| Zero visibility. |
 |
| Me, looking (and feeling) like a drowned cat. |
 |
| Some people are more cold-tolerant than others. |
Oh, yeah: Happy 26th birthday, Joel!
We are gearing up for some major changes around here. The weather is hot and muggy, but I finally made sure our AC unit was mold-free, so we can at least run it to keep the apartment from becoming unbearable (we went without last year because I was too lazy to take it apart and make sure it was clean). Along with the weather, summer brings major staff turnover: we have people leaving at the end of every month through September, so we will be training new teachers and saying goodbye to old ones for the next while. Our friend from Missouri leaves at the end of this month (only a week and a half to go!), then the couple that recently got engaged (congratulations, guys!), then the duo from Texas, and last the current senior-most teachers. Turnover (and middle school quarterly exams) mean a lot of change and stress, but it will be nice to meet some new people, too. Frankly, the job has been getting a little repetitive for me, so I won't mind the busy-ness.
As the end of our contract draws closer, we have been doing a lot of thinking about the next step. As of July, we have seven months (212 days, to be precise) left in country. We have talked about coming back to Korea - with the experience at a hagwon, Joel would be qualified for a public school job, and I can get a university job with my master's degree. I am not sure if I want to continue teaching English - I have been maintaining my extracurricular professional activities, but I really want to go back to working in my field. We are also planning to take the Foreign Service exam (FSOT) this October (yes, both of us this time), but that process can take up to a year and a half from start to finish, so I am not sure what we would do in the meantime. The Peace Corps is also an option, as is just going to DC and finding work (the original plan when we came here). It is a good problem to have so many options, but somewhat stressful nonetheless. I tend to fret over this kind of decision-making.
In the meantime, though, we are having a good time - we have been spending a lot of time with friends, and we have a very exciting trip to Tokyo planned for the end of July. I am so excited at the prospect of going back to Japan, but I need to brush up on my Japanese - it has been getting rusty lately.
Thursday, May 23, 2013
One Year and Counting: Spring, Festivals, and HIking/Um Ano e Continuando: Primavera, Festivais, e Caminhadas
If you want to make God laugh, tell Him your plans. --Woody Allen
The weather has been absolutely gorgeous as it has been warming up (and greening up) for spring. I have really enjoyed watching the flowers bloom and everything come to life, especially after a winter that seemed so long. So. Damn. Long. We have been taking advantage of the changing seasons to go to a number of festivals in the area around Gwangju, including the Jindo Sea Parting Festival (at the end of April) and the Hampyeong Butterfly Festival (which we went to on May Day, since we had the day off). We've also been doing a lot more hiking around town - I finally got Joel to come with me to Mudeung, and we've been doing a lot of walking along the river, too. One Saturday, we even wandered into a tiny Buddhist temple, and the monk invited us in and served us tea.
Monday marked exactly one year that Joel and I have been here in South Korea. We had a four-day weekend last weekend, so Joel and I took the opportunity to go hiking on Seoraksan, a national park in the northeastern corner of the country (only about 10 miles south of the DMZ) which is often called the "sea of clouds." It has South Korea's third-highest peak, Daecheongbong. The whole park is generally just stunningly beautiful, and this time of year it is also incredibly green and lush. The weather was gorgeous: it was bright and sunny and not too hot. We took the bus from Gwangju at around 8 a.m. on Thursday morning and arrived in Sokcho, the port city just outside the park, at about 2:30 p.m. (Sokcho is pretty much the farthest city from us in the country). From there, we took a cab straight to the park entrance and began our ascent.
Daecheongbong is 1,708 meters tall. On Thursday afternoon, we hiked about halfway up (just over 1,000 meters) to Huiungak shelter and spent the night there. It was bare bones accommodation - essentially just a room with room for about 180 people to sleep on two levels of wooden floors, which made me really glad we brought blankets (even though they were pretty heavy to carry). We had dinner with some jovial (and very tipsy) middle-aged men who let us use their campstove. We traded stories about Korea and Texas (they were absolutely flabbergasted at how hot Texas summers can get), and then I had a sing-off with one of the more talented guys who knew a handful of John Denver songs. Korean hikers are generally very friendly and curious about foreigners on the mountain, so the first thing they asked Joel when I scurried off to the restroom was how he found such a beautiful and talented wife. (I know it sounds really weird to say that, but I am not joking).
Adjusshi: You are very lucky! Your wife is very beautiful - and so talented!
Joel: Yes, she sings very well.
Adjusshi: How can you find such beautiful wife? Even our Korean baseball players do not have beautiful women like that!
Joel: There are many beautiful women in Texas.
Adjusshi: Oh! I must go to Texas.
The next morning, we set off at about 8 a.m. and began the slow, grueling ascent to the peak. We quickly regretted having packed so much as we practically crawled up along the ridge. Still, the views were lovely, even if the top never seemed to get any closer as we trudged along. We made it up to the top just in time for lunch at noon. We sat, ate jerky and cashews, and proceeded to each get monstrously bad sunburns.
We took the opposite trail down the mountain and exited the park just outside of Osaek, a small hot springs resort. We bused back into Sokcho, spent the night in the "Youth Hostel" (which was really a budget family pension) and then spent Saturday wandering around Sokcho on our sore and suffering legs. On Saturday night we stayed at a little motel in Osaek and spent an hour in the local jimjilbang (public bathhouse) fed by the area's natural spring water. Sunday we got up early, hopped a bus to Seoul and then another one to Gwangju, and rolled into town just in time for a friend's birthday party.
All things considered, a pretty good weekend.
We have lots of vacation in the coming months, so we are really looking forward to doing some traveling: Jeju island in June, Tokyo in July, four unallocated days in August, and probably Ulleung island in September. We had relatively little time off in the winter and early spring, so it will be great to relax a bit more.
Hitting the one-year mark has also gotten us thinking a lot more about where to go from here. Joel is getting ready to begin applying to graduate schools back home, and we are both contemplating the Foreign Service exam. In the meantime, we are weighing our options for our next move and general life goals. There are still so many decisions to be made, but I suppose that's life, youth, and marriage.
The weather has been absolutely gorgeous as it has been warming up (and greening up) for spring. I have really enjoyed watching the flowers bloom and everything come to life, especially after a winter that seemed so long. So. Damn. Long. We have been taking advantage of the changing seasons to go to a number of festivals in the area around Gwangju, including the Jindo Sea Parting Festival (at the end of April) and the Hampyeong Butterfly Festival (which we went to on May Day, since we had the day off). We've also been doing a lot more hiking around town - I finally got Joel to come with me to Mudeung, and we've been doing a lot of walking along the river, too. One Saturday, we even wandered into a tiny Buddhist temple, and the monk invited us in and served us tea.
Monday marked exactly one year that Joel and I have been here in South Korea. We had a four-day weekend last weekend, so Joel and I took the opportunity to go hiking on Seoraksan, a national park in the northeastern corner of the country (only about 10 miles south of the DMZ) which is often called the "sea of clouds." It has South Korea's third-highest peak, Daecheongbong. The whole park is generally just stunningly beautiful, and this time of year it is also incredibly green and lush. The weather was gorgeous: it was bright and sunny and not too hot. We took the bus from Gwangju at around 8 a.m. on Thursday morning and arrived in Sokcho, the port city just outside the park, at about 2:30 p.m. (Sokcho is pretty much the farthest city from us in the country). From there, we took a cab straight to the park entrance and began our ascent.
Daecheongbong is 1,708 meters tall. On Thursday afternoon, we hiked about halfway up (just over 1,000 meters) to Huiungak shelter and spent the night there. It was bare bones accommodation - essentially just a room with room for about 180 people to sleep on two levels of wooden floors, which made me really glad we brought blankets (even though they were pretty heavy to carry). We had dinner with some jovial (and very tipsy) middle-aged men who let us use their campstove. We traded stories about Korea and Texas (they were absolutely flabbergasted at how hot Texas summers can get), and then I had a sing-off with one of the more talented guys who knew a handful of John Denver songs. Korean hikers are generally very friendly and curious about foreigners on the mountain, so the first thing they asked Joel when I scurried off to the restroom was how he found such a beautiful and talented wife. (I know it sounds really weird to say that, but I am not joking).
Adjusshi: You are very lucky! Your wife is very beautiful - and so talented!
Joel: Yes, she sings very well.
Adjusshi: How can you find such beautiful wife? Even our Korean baseball players do not have beautiful women like that!
Joel: There are many beautiful women in Texas.
Adjusshi: Oh! I must go to Texas.
The next morning, we set off at about 8 a.m. and began the slow, grueling ascent to the peak. We quickly regretted having packed so much as we practically crawled up along the ridge. Still, the views were lovely, even if the top never seemed to get any closer as we trudged along. We made it up to the top just in time for lunch at noon. We sat, ate jerky and cashews, and proceeded to each get monstrously bad sunburns.
 |
| Proof that we made it. |
All things considered, a pretty good weekend.
We have lots of vacation in the coming months, so we are really looking forward to doing some traveling: Jeju island in June, Tokyo in July, four unallocated days in August, and probably Ulleung island in September. We had relatively little time off in the winter and early spring, so it will be great to relax a bit more.
Hitting the one-year mark has also gotten us thinking a lot more about where to go from here. Joel is getting ready to begin applying to graduate schools back home, and we are both contemplating the Foreign Service exam. In the meantime, we are weighing our options for our next move and general life goals. There are still so many decisions to be made, but I suppose that's life, youth, and marriage.
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