Be cool about fire safety, among other things

Wednesday
About a week and a half ago my dad made the trip to Korea and arrived Wednesnight. He was the last of our overseas visitors, and it was great to see him. Incidentally, if you ever need a pick me up a great place to people watch is at the international arrivals gate. Everyone's all smiles and welcome homes and hugs and happy tears. Dad was detained by swine flu checking just long enough for Brian to meet us at the airport, and then we were off for great things - namely, sleep after Dad's 25 hour journey.
Thursday
My school had a 2 day 1 night field trip on Thursday and Friday, so there were no classes and they were wonderful enough to let me have the time off to spend with Dad. So Thursday poor Brian geared up for school while Dad and I took off in the rain to visit the UN cemetery and the Busan Museum for an indoor sort of day. Then Dad had his first Korean meal: spicy tiny octopi. It was a great success. But jet lag inevitably took it's toll and we went home for naps until Brian got off school. That night we made it out again to the pajeon and makulli whole in the wall that we've loved ever since we arrived.

Dad was looking skeptical when the plate of tofu arrived, but he did like the pajeon and makulli. We tucked in early that night for the day to come, but not before a stop over in the arcade. Dad fell for the drum games at first drum roll.

Friday
Friday I was off again, and Brian went off to school again as Dad and I got packed up for a trip to Gyeongju, the old Korean capital during the Shilla Dynasty. We hopped on a bus and rented some bikes on arrival for a biking tour of the city. We went first to the burial mounds park where kings' tombs are enclosed in large mounds of rock, soil, and grass.

Next up was the oldest astronomical observation tower in all of East Asia. It was there we met Paul, an English muffin who saved us from our terrible self portraits in front of the tower with a proper picture. I thought he might be an English teacher from Busan because he was on our bus, but it turned out that he's just a guy ramblin round the world for a few years. Sounds like just the right thing to do.

The two Pauls and I had lunch together before Dad-Paul and I began the trek home. Getting back to Pusan we visited a bath house. I wasn't sure how much Dad would like it, but I think he was thoroughly impressed.

It was after the bath house that we discovered the whale meat district of Seomyeon, and Dad discovered the scrumptiousness of Korean barbecue. We even got free soju from the soju promoters. Those pictures are somewhere further down in this post.
Saturday
Saturday we finally got to play with Brian too. We got up and out and on a bus to Taejongdae, the much recommended but previously unvisited seaside park. It was lovely, but it was a long ride. Besides all of the lush greenery and beautiful seaside cliffs, there were vats of bondegi (a silk worm larvae (or possibly pupae)) for sale. And we got Dad to try one. In fact, we found a can of them for him to take home to spread the delicacies your way. Here he is with his bug before he eats it.

After Taejongdae we went to Jagalchi, the largest seafood market in Korea. Imagine a marine invertebrate specialist in a market full of spineless maritime squiglers - like a kid in a squirmy candy shop. Here he is admiring the things he never thought you could eat before this trip. But Jagalchi doesn't only have live fish and friends for sale; there's also a large dried market. Here are heaps of dried fishes of all shapes and sizes.
And below, the street market scene. It's a little grimy, but not as smelly as you might imagine.
That night we dined in the market place and followed up with hodducks, a chinese derived snickerdoodle on butter steroids. Dad got hooked when we mainlined a couple when we got back to Busan's bus station the day before.

Sunday
Sunday it was chilly and threatening rain, so we went to the Busan Aquarium for more aquatic delights. There are more fish photos than necessary because I got excited about the aquarium setting on my camera. It made this seahorse look like it came straight out of The Life Aquatic.
We tooled around Haeundae Beach for a bit before catching another bus to a seaside temple we'd been wanting to visit. This temple is unique for a couple of reasons. 1. Most temples are built on the mountain sides, this one on seaside cliffs. 2. This temple is dedicated to Avalokitsvara, the Bodhisattva of compassion, or in more western terms, the goddess of mercy. She is often shown riding on a dragon, and thus there are many dragon images at this temple, which are absent at others. For some very good reason unknown to us, there were also these two plump, jolly pigs at the temple.

There was also a plump, jolly Buddha statue.
This dragon is a painting on the outer wall of one of the temple structures.
This dragon decorates the rafters of the main temple hall.

These cairns dotted the cliffs outside the temple walls.
And the rest of the aquarium and temple photos are in the following slide show.

Monday I finally had to report back to school. But I only had 3 classes and got to leave at 12, so Dad and I had time to take a short hike up Geumjeongsan, a nearby mountain with a fortress wall (much talked about in this blog). We had lunch and got some snacks to take with us and then cruised up to some perches with nice lookouts. It was the first time I'd been there during working hours on a weekday and it was phenomenally more tranquil without the crowds.

Tuesday was our volleyball semifinals at school, so though I didn't get to leave early, Sun Ja and I picked Dad up at the apartment and he got to come to the games. It was a double header and we won the first game and lost to the second team we played. But the first team had our old pal Sunny playing, and Kyung Mi my co teacher from the school I no longer teach at was there too. It was fun to see old friends and for Dad to get to meet the people I work with.

We went to dinner with the school after the game, but after that Brian came and met us and all of the young teachers for drinks and a night on the town. Unfortunately, I didn't take any pictures that night because the camera was dead. But it was fun to have all my favorite teachers meet Dad and Brian. They even taught us some new Korean drinking games, and of course, the night ended at the norebang (or kareoke room). Yes, Dad sang too.

Wednesday was Dad's last day in Korea, and he came to school with me to meet the kids. He even co taught with me a bit in a roll play we performed for the kids. It was 6th and 5th grade that day, and I wasn't sure how well they'd respond because they're just at the cusp of teenager hood. But they were all so excited to meet him and wanted to compare their hand sizes and arm hair. They all said "he's so handsome guy!". My co teacher got some photos of us in action which I'll try to get hold of to post later.

After school we got to leave early. We relaxed at home and had Korean style tea til Brian came home. Then we started our snacking tour of Korea. We had to fit in as many foods as possible in a short amount of time before going to see the night view of the bridge at Gwangan Li. We all performed admirably.

Once on the beach we found it chilly, so in we went to Russel Crowe bar to have a last night of talk before the departure. These are all the photos Dad took on his last day in Korea.

And these are all of the miscellaneous photos of food and drink and night scenes that didn't fit elsewhere.


I think this final photo of Dad really sums up how he felt about his entire Korean experience. Pretty fantastic.

He left Thursday morning, but Thursday afternoon at school was exciting enough to make it into this post. All of a sudden in the middle of my after school class fire alarms and sirens start going off (and didn't stop for an hour) and all the kids run to the windows. I can't understand the announcements being made, so I check out the window scene. Lo and behold, there's a fire in the middle of the school yard, but an intentional fire, an instructional fire. There's a fire truck and kids getting to use fire extinguishers to try to put out the flames (unsuccessfully; the fire hose was used in the end).

As you can see from these photos, these kids really know how to be cool about fire safety. I should know, as I consider myself a semi-expert on the subject of fire safety because I had to take a course at Furman for a dorm violation involving candles and string lights.

And speaking of fire safety, if you're reading this to waste time, I highly recommend this video. It's hilarious and informative. And if you enjoy it, you should really check out the second and third parts. The second part features Little Richard singing about crawling out of a fire with really awfully funny PowerPoint add ins.

This weekend we mostly rested after the flurry of activity with Dad, but we managed to make it to Haeundae for the sand festival going on there. This was my favorite sand sculpture. Anti-whaling, if you can believe it after all of the whale meat we found and showed on this post.

But there were many more to gawk at. Friday was actually a cultural education day for my teachers' team, meaning that we got to leave around 1:30 for a movie and dinner and coffee. That's where the graphic image of eel heads comes from in this next slide show.

And now we've only 7 weeks left including this one before our summer vacation. We're not sure how much time we've got off at this point, but depending on that crucial bit of information we may go to Mongolia or Indonesia. Either way, we will definitely go to Beijing for a few days. We've got 4 months left on our contracts, but it feels like our time here is already running out. We're trying to fit in any last experiences while we plan our next adventures. It's all so exciting!

The perfect rock ledge

This past Tuesday we went over to Dongnae to see David and Duck for the first time since Duck's birthday. It was high time, and we were on a mission. We would walk towards Guemjeongsan (mountain) from David and Duck's place til we found a trail, which we would hike up until we found the perfect rock ledge for our kimbap and soju picnic. This plan went swimmingly. It was a hike up the roads heading towards the mountain, but as soon as we hit dirt we knew we were in luck. These little guys guarded the way.

There was even a map that we puzzled over for a bit.

But we didn't much need it since the only way to go was up. And up we went. Along the way we found many offerings such as the one below. Soju for the ancestors or forest spirits, depending on whether the offerer believes in Confucianism or shamanism.

At some points we lost the trail and used the river bed.

Behind one rock we found this colorful figure on top of a tiger.

Part way up we came across a road and what looked like the entrance to a temple. A Korean couple on the road asked us where we had come from as we scrambled up out of the river bed. Then they pointed us on to the temple, Okbulsa.

At the base we found this waterwheel and pine.

Up some more to find some of the shrubs blooming already and more temple paraphernalia.

This temple turned out to have their own rock carving of Buddha.

But this wooden piece was my favorite sculpture there.

The view from Okbulsa was lovely.



Some of the buildings were an interesting mix of western and Korean architecture. But we still wanted to go higher and find that perfect rock ledge for our picnic (no soju on temple grounds). So we were off again. We found another site that seemed related to the temple, but there was an old woman there who ran us off and pointed out a trail going up up up. It wasn't well maintained, but it was empty. An empty trail is a rare and precious thing in Busan and probably all of Korea. Most trails are extremely wide and packed with technicolored Koreans in the trendiest new hiking gear, complete with two poles and packs for 1 hour, graded trail treks. It was a wonderful surprise to find a solitary hike. It was steep, but it wasn't far, and we managed to see a quail or pheasant and a hawk or falcon (not too familiar with Asia's birds). All this in a city of 4 million. And we did finally find that perfect ledge where we had our picnic after all.

When we finally tore ourselves away we found this guy on the way down. He's the Korean incarnation of Buddha. He's always portrayed as this sort of fierce, bearded protector who will ward of evil spirits. Not quite the Buddha I learned about in the States, but this was the first sculpture image we'd seen in that likeness. He's more common in prints and calendars.

Unrelated to the mountaineering, yesterday all 4 of us went to the Bexco conference center for a conference Brian's school had told him about. We knew it was for the opening of an English language radio station, but David heard there'd be a "famous buffet" from his coteacher, Brian's teacher said it would be "almost festival", and Duck's teacher just told her she should go. So we were excited but didn't know what to expect. It was an opening to the radio station, but it was a fancy affair and they gave us a gift bag (contained a portable radio) and the mayor of Busan was there and everyone assumed we were part of the radio organization. When they found out we weren't they all wanted to know what we were doing there. Oops. Our explanations worked, but everyone had that look in their eyes like you just came for the free radio didn't you. I'm glad about the radio station, but don't kid yourselves radio people, a portable radio the size of a walkman is not desirable even if it's free. Now, if their eyes had accused us of this famous buffet having brought us... but there was no buffet. It was a strange hour with dancers and a fog machine and firecracker confetti, but the fruit tray on each table was delicious and we got offers to contribute to the station. It's wonderful how speaking English has suddenly qualified us for jobs that we're absolutely unqualified for.

Another side note, Brian's been refurbishing the blog and he's moved the Appalachian Trail posts to a new blog you can find at http://www.atsummer08.blogspot.com/. He's added some new pictures and posts and will be adding for a while til we get all our favorites up. Also, he's made another at http://www.canyouenglish.com/ where David, Duck, Shannon, Ryan, Brian and I will be cataloging the great konglish signs and other printing that we find. There are links to both of these blogs on the left hand of this blog under the heading Our other blogs.

Soju 1000 and other Halloween characters

Friday was Halloween Day (as they call it here)! So all this week we had Halloween classes and we carved pumpkins and ate pumpkin seeds and dressed up and went to a costume party and showed Koreans what Halloween's all about. Korea loved it. The kids were crazy about the jack-o-lanterns, trick or treating, candy, and It's The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown. And even the grown ups, who are usually pretty serious, were excited to see authentic Halloween costumes roaming the streets with people inside.

Our budgets were small and our time limit short, but I think we came up with some great costumes. Brian was Soju 1000, the drinking robot. I was Graffiti with a green mohawk. David was Tiny Princess, which was both disgusting and hillarious. And Duck was Tiny Princess's Knight in Shining Armour (I prefer the Brittish spelling). Tiny Princess was undoubtedly the most popular with the locals, but they loved us all and even gave us free Soju for our troubles. David and Duck came to our area, and the four of us and Young Jae, the PE teacher at Brian's school, went out for dinner and then to a Soju Bar. At the Soju Bar we met some locals who were fans, and another teacher from Brian's school - Sunny- met up with us. Then we were off to belt out our vocal cords at a norebang (pronounced nor ray bong), which is a room where you sing Kareoke with your party. And then to Vinyl Underground dance club, and then to Ol 55 costume contest (grand prize trip to Thailand, keep your fingers crossed) , and then to Girl Fighter, and then to Ghetto Bar. It was a long night of big fun. Behold. Parents be assured, Soju is only 40% alcohol, so though there are many shots in these pictures, they only do half the damage.

This is Soju 1000 showing off some of his functions. The more soju you put in, the more functions you get out. This was in the middle of the street in a culture that does not know Halloween (but they secretly love it).

And that was Halloween Day in South Korea.

One busy weekend

This weekend we got around. Friday was our friend Shannon's birthday, so we had a night out in Kyungsung area. Unfortunately David had to work on Saturday, so he and Duck left early. That's why they're conspicously absent from this album. These are some pictures of our new friends.

Saturday we took our first Korean language lesson. These lessons cost 3,000 won a month (about 3 USD), and that's just for the coffee and snacks. It's an amazing service and our tutor was very helpful. She's been volunteering there for 6 years and drives over an hour each saturday to be there. Brian and I had our own tutor, and many people are 1 on 1. Then we had a fiasco at the bank. We wanted to check to see if we'd been paid, and eventually found out we had (we're rich!). But in the process I got my bank book stuck in the ATM because I couldn't read the menu. Here everyone has a bank book - about the size of a passport, which you can use just like an ATM card, but they have ATM cards too, but we don't have one yet because you have to have an alien registration card before you can get one and we're still waiting on that. So I stuck mine in and couldn't get it back and luckily some very kind Koreans called the service number for us. THe whole ordeal only lasted about 40 minutes, but it was a scary. We're really a bit dependent here given our current language abilities. But Koreans are so kind that it isn't so bad. After the incident we headed to Haeundae Beach, the most famous in Korea. Even though it was freezing it was still a busy scene. First we went to a casino, it was my first time in one. David and Duck said it was a bad representation though because it was very quiet and there were no free drinks. Not the typical casino experience. But David taught us about roulette and I found out slot machines aren't fun and then we went to drink our 3 dollar losses away on the beach. There was salsa music blasting from the "street lounge" - I think this is a summer event that'll close down soon, but people dance in this courtyard on the beach. There were people shooting off Roman candles from street vendors that shot about 100 feet into the air, there were sparklers and food vendors and groups drinking out on the beach. Keeping with the gambling spirit, we bet David couldn't chug a bottle of Soju without throwing up. I still can't believe he won this bet. With the Soju to keep us warm, it was a great introduction to the Haeundae district.

Sunday we finally got around to some hiking! We visited Guemjeongsanseong. San means mountain, and seong means fortress. This is the largest mountain fortress in all of Korea (there are lots of them). The ruins of the walls are still visible, and the entire mountain was gorgeous. It's hard to believe all of this lies within the city limits.
We went and soaked in the hot springs footbath again after the hike. It felt so good to soak in that hot water after such a cold windy hike. And we ended up carving pumpkins at David and Duck's house Sunday night. Anything for the kids. Today was my first Halloween class and the kids loved it. But they think that the burnt spot on the lid of my jack-o-lantern stinks. I think it's delicious.