adventure korea : camping and wilderness august 15th

In August I went on a packaged trip with adventurekorea.com.
I usually don't like packaged trips, but it ended up being a lot of fun. I went with my co-worker and a few other friends. The first leg of the trip was getting into Seoul for the pick up point scheduled for too early in the morning after a little night of soju cocktails at a friend's house in Seoul.

The first stop we made was to the 4th infiltration tunnel near Eulji. No pictures were allowed to be taken there.. so I don't have anything to show. It was really interesting though. The beginning of the tunnel was dug by South Koreans with a state of the art tunnel machine from Germany. This tunnel was huge and white, perfectly symmetrical in every way. The North Korean tunnel starts at the end of this. This tunnel was much different, it was smaller and imperfect, dank and had many holes for dynamite. It was still a really impressive hole that was dug by a country with no friends nor money. We took a little train ride for a couple meters through and then turned around about 100 meters from the border.










After the tunnel we went to observe the DMZ(demilitarized zone) at Eulji. It looked a lot like South Korea, except with miles and miles of barbed wire and probably millions of landmines.

Hi North Korea! (what a horrible trip to have lost my sunglasses right before)

After the observation of the North, we went to a small town called Yanggu for their summer "belly button" festival. But first we had a stop at a grocery store to stock up on soju, beer, and mix. The guides on the trip were quite serious about keeping us toasted and with taking many pictures.

First stop at the festival was next to one of the pools, where we got painted and painted our selves with white mud. Many of us got soju on our backs, the theme of the weekend.










Then we were going to go boating, but my group wasn't patient/didn't have enough people.. so we skipped out.
Made it back for getting out tents though.











Then there was a treasure hunt in a giant sand box. I found an awesome visor with built in shades, so much for missing my sunglasses! I also found some new friends :)










They had 2 pools and a giant thing that squirted up streams of water at the camp site. There was a wading pool for the kids and a 5ft deep pool. We spent most of our freetime before dinner doing dives and cannon balls into the pool.



Dinner was samgipsal(pork). By the time dinner came about, I was one of the few that could manage the grill. Barely. I burnt myself pretty badly and still have a nasty scar from it.

After dinner we went swimming in the wade pool. We did a bunch of "wacky races" where you could only go on your knees, wheel barrow style, or backwards. Then some Korean kids kept coming over, so we had a pushing over battle. I got 10 of them in 1 push, it was great. They were having such a good time.


At night, after much trial and error, a campfire was built. We sat around drinking and playing "I never" until everyone found their tents.


In the morning we went hiking through a valley. It was thankfully an easy hike. The scenery was beautiful and the water was crystal clear. They brought us to some rocks that we could jump off of. The water was icy cold but soothing to our hungover stomachs.












My friend said I take boring pictures, so I started posing like him.











It was such a super fun weekend, I met of ton of people and have continued having a friendship with most of them. Oh August... how I miss you. Summer is over in Korea. Its fall now. The leaves are just starting to change. Every now and then I see one fall and I want to yell at it to pull itself together and to not be a quitter. I'm not ready for fall! or winter for that matter!

This weekend is a 3day weekend here in Korea. Its for the holiday Chuseok, kind of like thanksgiving. I'm going on another adventure korea trip to the island Ulleungdo. I'm so excited!!!!

a magical vacation

I know I know. I haven't updated in forever. It gets so hard! I'm so busy all of the time. Work has been nuts. My schedule changes all the time. But starting next Monday things will be better. I'll finally have my own 10-2 kindergarten with 4 students(all boys!). I'm so happy and excited. That also means I won't have to tutor at night anymore.
Now that summer is over for the kids, I'm having a little more time because I'm not teaching so many extra classes. So here's an update about my summer vacation.

Ryan came to visit for the summer for two weeks. He came right after a quarantine scare. One of my friends went home for a week, she had swine flu when she came back and got a couple of other foreigners sick and a few of her students. I somehow got caught up in all of it and wasn't able to work for a week and a half... even though I had no symptoms. It was a real pain. I was told that I wasn't going to be able to see Ryan for a whole week when he was here. I fought it and eventually my boss gave in. So everything was alright.

Ryan's visit was really nice. It was like having a piece of home in Korea.
We did a lot of hiking, shopping, and had a visit to Seoul.

We went to Seorakssan. Its a really beautiful park.
We took two paths, the first one led to a little temple in a rock.




















The other one was a grueling climb up about a million steps to a tiny "cave" up on a mountain peek. At the top, there was a lady monk sitting around, talking on her phone, and a man peddling wears.

There was a man climbing on that peek, can you see him? crazy!









The cave was almost up in the clouds.



















Another hike we went on was to a place called Mureung Valley. Another really beautiful place. Unfortunately, Ryan lost his shoes while we were fording the river so we had to go back early.

They had a huge flat rock that many Korean families were picnicking on and swimming in the small pools.

There was also a pleasant little temple.

Another naturey thing we did was go to Hwanseongul, the biggest cave in Korea and one of the biggest in Asia. It was amazing. I've never seen anything like it. The hike to the cave was intense, like 45 minutes walk straight up and with about 500 stairs thrown in. We were also the only foreigners in the whole place, got a ton of stares and friendly hellos.































In Seoul we did waaaaaaaay too much shopping, I bought a ridiculous amount of shoes. We also went to the kimchi museum and learned so many delicious facts about the Korean pickled cabbage icon.

Silly photo -op.

Around Gangneung we mostly went out to eat and went to noraebang (karaoke) with my friends.
I also played my first open mic, I did my version of 'house of the rising sun' and 'waltzing to mongolia.' It was terrifying.
I'm glad I did it. I'm playing again tomorrow. I'm doing a goofy song about soju with one of my friends and I'm playing 'mad world.' Hoping I won't be as nervous this time.

Things with school are so-so. We had some trouble getting paid the past 2 paychecks, I think it was just because of having a slow summer enrollment. Its been straightened out. I also finally signed insurance papers, it took getting my agency involved to get them though.
One of the ladies at my school did my nails in a traditional Korea way called bung shu ah(?). Its done with a paste from the forget-me-not flower. Its applied to the nails then wrapped in plastic and left overnight. Or in my case, a full day of teaching. Boy was it hard to work with one hand wrapped up and leaking orange juice everywhere. My kids kept crying "teaachaah ugh guh" and pointed to stains on their books/papers. haha.









My fingers were stained orange for over a week. The color on my nails is supposed to stay till the first snow, if it does.. than it means that my "first love" will be forever. Its also supposed to be good for the nails and good luck. The kids and other Koreans really get a kick out of seeing a foreigner with it, so its also pretty fun and a good conversation starter.

The week before last I went on a trip through adventurekorea.com, so that's going to be the next big post.. stay tuned.

life's a beach

My days have started to blend together here. These past few weekends are all just blurry beachy memories of sunning, swimming, drinking, and BBQing. I love the beach here, it is so beautiful and the water is so clear and its getting warmer. Beach season is starting very soon, so I don't think it will be very peaceful for much longer.
On Sunday, the lifeguards started coming out and blowing whistles and anxiously running in Baywatch style to save people. Beach umbrellas and banana boat rides are also popping up everywhere.

Making it to the sunrise has become a real hobby for me on Fridays. My buddy Tim is always down. This was a special one. We made it and then hopped into a cab for a sunrise swim. The driver dropped us off in the middle of no where, so we had to walk a good ways before we got to the part of the beach that wasn't barb wired off. After taking the picture, we swam out to those rocks and watched the sun come out from behind the clouds.









I'm really surprised how different the water is now that its summer. The waves were really huge and violent the last time I went swimming at sunup about a month ago. I really love living so close to the beach, there is something special about staying up all night with friends until the sun comes up. We pile into a car or taxi and head to the beach, then jumpinto the water to celebrate life and being alive and another day in this beautiful country.



The 4th of July was really good. My friend Chris brought his grill and a bunch of food. His hamburgers are truly works of art. Other than eating, we mostly just sat around drinking American beer and periodically running into the water for a swim or a seaweed fight. At night we shot off fireworks and had roman candle fights.



I also ate a ton of watermelon, I think I've eaten more watermelon in Korea than I have in my entire life. We have it at school just about every other day. There are trucks loaded with watermelons that circle around and around the neighborhood with a loud speaker shouting "SUBAAAN! SUUUUUBAAAN!!" (watermelon! watermelon!) There are many more trucks that sell things like this... there are starfruit trucks, cabbage trucks, knife trucks(really), used clothing trucks (yes,really!), and gaudy hair barrette trucks- just to name a few.

On the Sunday after the 4th, I went with a friend to the beach for some quick swimming and sunning then we went to one of his adult student's house way out in the mountains in the woods.
The house was called "Love House"









It was so beautiful. I want a house like that when I retire. There was a little creek that ran under the patio, the sound of the water was so relaxing.


They had a nice garden, the women invited me in and showed me how to pick more types of lettuce than I ever knew existed.









I got a big bag of that I've been working on eating for dinner ever since. We were suppose to have dinner there, but we had to leave early because of an irrigation problem. I think we will go back again soon though.
The weekend before the 4th was spent entirely at the beach. I am super tan now, I feel like I'm a kid again during those summers when I would turn brown. Don't worry, I am the sunscreen nazi! I just tan easily.

School is going well, I still like being a teacher.
Last week we had a garage sale to benefit New Orleans, every year they do something for charity. I had to give a little talk about it, its still a strange and sensitive topic to bring up. Anyway, it went really well.. we raised 100,000 won for the New Orleans Musician Relief Fund. I'll be able to transfer it over once we take pictures with it and all that junk.









I'm used to my constant schedule changes. Every day its something different or new. At the beginning of July I was supposed to start my own kindergarten with these twin boys, but their mom is flaky so my director decided not to take them. So now I'm to doing whatever odd jobs pop up. Right now my schedule says on Monday and Tuesday I'll teach art to the 2 kindergartens. That's really fun, I like it. I was teaching science too on Wednesdays and Thursdays, a little silly but whatever. But now I'm tutoring the assistant director and the director's sister after lunch instead. Its fun, we laugh a lot and crack jokes. I'm going to have to get a "No Korean" jar that they'll have to deposit 100 won coins into every time they speak Korean though. I'm back to teaching the director's daughter again at night. On Mon and Wed I teach from 9:30-10:30 and Tue and Thur I teach from 8-9. In 2 weeks I'm starting an intensive program with a few of my worst youngest students that will focus on reading and writing. I made the plan all by myself, I'm really proud of it.. I hope it helps them. On that day I'll also start teaching my 3 most advanced students 2 hours in the morning. Phew! and all that will probably change again come August. Then I'll start teaching the director's sister, her daughter, and assistant director for 2 hours every morning, as well as the director's daughter at night for overtime money. Who knows what September will hold for me... I really do wish I had my own kindergartens..
Although, not having to roll into school until lunch time is pretty nice. I like having the mornings all to myself, I have a ton of time for practicing accordion. I'm getting a lot better. I've been working on stuff with other musicians here too as well as slowly writing my own songs. I'm really sticking to my goal of becoming a better musician while here.

On Wednesday night I had a new experience, I went with a girl friend to a jimjilbang. A jimjilbang is a public bathhouse, its divided into a man section, a female section, and a coed section. About $4 gets you in for 24 hours- you can even sleep on one of the floors upstairs if you wanted. You also get two towels to use while there. The first thing you do is put your shoes into a shoe locker, then you take the shoe locker key and bring it to another desk for an everything else locker key. You can also buy soaps, shampoos, and scrubbies for your body and feet at the desk as well as hard boiled eggs, drinks, ice cream, and other snacks. Once you got your key... its nekkid time! Leave one towel in the locker and bring the other with you to the bathhouse. Next you go to the sitting shower section, grab a seat and a fill up a bowl with water. You absolutely, positively must spend at least 15-20 minutes washing your body with soap before getting into the hot tubs and cold pools. The pools are really nice, there are several hot ones and some cooler ones, as well as 2 saunas. If you feel like dropping an extra $12, you can get a large, cross-eyed ajuma garbed in a sexy bra and panties to scrub you down all over your body, wash your hair, give you a facial, and rub you down with oil. $12? How could I resist. It felt amazing, I felt super relaxed afterward. My skin feels amazing, I could see hundreds of balls of dead skin all over while she was scrubbing. The place was really nice, and a total bargain for less than $20.. I most definitely will be back to take full advance of this and every jimjilbang I see for now on.


Only 10 more days until Ryan comes to visit! YAY!