Back to Seoraksan

Without a doubt, the most beautiful place that I have visited in Korea so far is Seoraksan National Park. This seems to be a view shared by most people that I meet here, Korean or foreigner. It's a unique place, formed mostly out of sandstone, that streams have worn down over the millenia until they run through deep ravines, while pine trees perch precariously on outcrops halfway up to where squared topped pillars of sandstone meet the sky. As I said last time, my description doesn't really do it justice. Fortunately I had my camera with me, so again I will let the pictures do the talking, though I will be wittering some form of commentary beneath each one.

It really is the perfect place to come if you have any interest in hiking. Nick and I both do, so when he came to visit it seemed like the perfect place to spend a couple of days pottering about.

Outer Seoraksan, the more touristy side of the park, is accessed from the small city of Sokcho on the East Coast, about an hour up from Gangneung. Being a seaside city, the seafood is excellent. This was a Hae-mul-guk-su, prawns, sea snails, a potato and noodles in a peppery broth. As with a lot of Korean food, it was simple but absolutely delicious, and at about 6 dollars, a bit of a bargain too.

On arriving at the park, we took the cable car up to a nearby peak to look around. The view out was pretty spectacular, unlike the muzak.

Nick made it up to the summit above the cable car, but then had trouble with the ol' farmer Giles.

But then he found solace...

The big man himself ... and Buddha. Ha ha ha!

The big man h... oh, err, never mind.

If caught in a rockfall, be sure to shield your child in the instant you are crushed to death. Especially if you are a cutesy little cartoon bear.

This is the hike up to Ulsan Bahui, which we did on the Thursday afternoon. Although short, it's pretty punishing. As you can see, for the most part it's just steep, steep staircases. It's really spectacular though, even if most of the time we couldn't see more than about 10m ahead. Occasionally though a Korean grandmother would appear out of the mist on her way down, making us all the more determined to get to the top.

Grev's life tips #54: Don't try climbing up several thousand stairs

six weeks after rupturing your appendix.

It's all worth it when you get to the top though. Shame there were no girls around to see me looking so sexy. Throat sweat is really in this year.

This is Ulsan Bahui - the rock we climbed for two hours to see. Korean legend has it that this rock was travelling from Ulsan to the construction of Mt. Geumgang (in what is now North Korea), one of the most beautiful spots on the peninsula apparently. Sadly, it was too late, possibly due to the problems of moving itself, being a large inanimate object. On the long trudge (or whatever rocks do) home, it came upon this spot and went to sleep, and has been here ever since. Korean legend rating: 7 (fun but improbable).

Tee-hee.

The view of Daechonbong (the highest peak in Seoraksan) from Ulsan Bahui.

Probably one of the better photos that I've ever taken, though not due to any skill on my part. I was just lucky to be up there at the precise moment the cloud lifted and exposed the top of this stegosaurus.

The following day we headed up towards, but by no means all the way to Daechonbong. I'm planning an assault on the peak one weekend, hopefully making it up and down in a day. This climb was a little lazier, allowing us to take in some stunning scenery.

Most of the trails through Seoraksan are actually built rather than found. While you'd think that it would spoil the atmosphere of the park, it actually makes it more pleasant in a lot of respects. The walkways blend in nicely with the background, and bridges like the one above rather add to the excitement of the hike. It's also reassuring to know that your hiking boots aren't wearing away at the sandstone of this unique place, and fun to imagine the sheer amount of work that must have gone into building them. The bears are back. The less said about this one the better I reckon. We overtook a man carrying a full barbecue up the mountain on his back. We were impressed by his dedication to outdoor eating, especially when upon passing him, he confidently predicted rain for the afternoon. Lo and behold, the heavens opened (and I mean it threw it down) just as we were getting down off the mountain. I hope he managed to eat his Sam Gyeop Sal before it happened. Korean legend has it that one day a beautiful nymph descended from the heavens and came to this pool. She had a nice day swimming around, and then at the end of the day went back up to heaven. Korean legend rating: 2. Boring. Most of the day we spent climbing up the sides of gorges, past waterfalls and pools. Probably one of the most beautiful days I've spent in Korea... ...though at the cost of some pretty horrific back and crack sweat. Waterfall, and pool, but no accompanying nymphic legends. Kimbap for lunch. "Yobbish Nature" Nick 5 strong continental lagers before the preceding picture. Finally, a couple more videos I took. One of a particularly beautiful waterfall. There's something slightly magical about the way that the water glides over the sandstone in Seoraksan. It seems almost more liquid than in other parts of the world.

And finally, some adorable little chipmunks sharing our snack. I really want one of these as a pet, but they can live for eight years in captivity, so it's a bit too much of a commitment. Someone kind did just buy me a toy one though, which takes a little less looking after.

Dogging*

* Animal lovers and/or my mother might want to give this post a miss.

"He was so mad he went home and kicked the dog, and then he ate him." - Jay Leno on Korean speed skater Kim Dong Sung, who was disqualified from the 2002 winter Olympics. Last year, while playing Trivial Pursuit with a couple of Korean students we got a question about the above quote. I was mortified, but the two Korean girls that were playing the game didn't seem bothered at all. What I thought was incredibly offensive they weren't the least bit bothered by.

If you asked someone who'd never visited Korea what they knew about the country, I'm pretty sure that the consumption of dog meat would be among the first things mentioned, even if only in jest. I wondered before I got here whether it might be a dying tradition unfairly used as a stick to beat Korea with, but it's definitely still very much alive here, as well as in other parts of East Asia, in particular China. While it's stigmatized by Western society, in Korea it's just another part of the cuisine, though considered a bit of a delicacy and traditionally eaten on certain holidays here.

Personally I don't have a problem with eating anything that isn't endangered. I think if you eat one animal, especially one that has been raised for the purpose of providing food, then you may as well eat them all. I'm also very curious to try different meats, so when my friend Nick came to visit and also expressed an interest in trying some dog meat, we set out on a mission to find some.

Not really knowing where to go to sample some, I asked my co-teacher. She didn't know, so asked a few of the other staff members for me. This caused a reasonable sized ripple of excitement in the staff room. Westerners going to eat dog meat is clearly not an everyday occurrence. I think all in all everyone was quietly impressed with our alimentary adventure, but it also shows that Koreans are not entirely unaware of the views of foreigners towards this practice.

We worked up a bit of an appetite with a bike ride to the Weoljongsa temple up in the national park, and then headed out to the restaurant. We'd been advised to go for a dish called "Jongol", which I committed to memory with the maxim "Jongol is massive" (apologies). The restaurateur looked a little unsure when I ordered it, pointing at the menu and saying "Dog-guh" while looking at me questioningly. I assured him I knew what I was ordering and he shrugged and went off to prepare it.

We sat down, and were soon presented with a large bowl of stock, with a pile of what looked to me like rib bones, meat, green onions and sesame leaves, covered in seasoning. We started up the burner, and gave it a stir. The waitress recommended a fine vintage soju to complement it and off we went.

"Wicked...Wicked..."

So what's it like? The most obvious point of comparison is lamb. It's similar coloured for one, and has almost identical shades of pink and brown according to how well cooked it is. The taste is very similar to lamb too, though I'd say a little less sweet and without the fatty richness than lamb has. In the stew it was also very tender, though I don't know if it would work so well grilled or barbecued on its own. All in all though, it got pretty positive reviews from both sides of our table.

Is that a guilty look Nick?

That definitely isn't.

It was only on the way to Seoraksan National Park the following day that I found the following passage in my Rough Guide: "However, any fears of Koreans chowing down on an alsation or border collie should be quelled, almost all dog meat comes from a scraggly mongrel breed colloquially known as the "shit-dog"...even so, the poor conditions that the animals are often kept in, and the continuing - and occasionally verified - stories of dogs being clubbed to death to tenderise the meat, are good reasons to avoid this kind of meat." I'm not sure quite what to make of this. I've seen dogs being kept by people for meat and they're not scraggly, and certainly not scrawny. They are usually kept in very small cages though. There's also some fairly unsavoury footage of dog farms on Youtube, but then I doubt there's much difference between them and farms for any other breed of animal here, or most other places in the world. If you've seen Food Inc., then. you should probably question where the meat in anything you eat comes from. Anyway, it's not quite enough to make me go running from this with my tail between my legs (so, so sorry).

In conclusion then, dog meat is pretty tasty, and was well worth trying, but on the basis of what I've seen and read since, I don't think I'll be eating it every week, at least not until they get some alsation on the menu anyway.

More holiday stories next time!

A

What am I up to right now?

So it's been a little while since I actually wrote anything about what I'm doing, as opposed to what I've done. Life's been pretty exciting of late, with lots of travelling and visitors, and so school life hasn't seemed very noteworthy, especially as the semester was winding down, classes were being cancelled and both my students and I were flagging a little, especially in the sweltering Korean summer.

Anyway, right now I'm sat on my bed relaxing and writing this, with half an eye on The Hills Have Eyes 2 (You take what you can get in English on Korean TV). It's been a productive day, in a productive week. I spent the morning lesson planning at school, had lunch out with the teachers, did some more planning before going home and studying Korean for an hour. Then I popped out for a two hour bike ride, and found perhaps the greatest cycling road in Korea, a beautiful tight twisting descent down which one can do a passable impression of Valentino Rossi. It's a bit of a pain that you have to cycle up it first, but it's well worth the effort. I came back past Jinbu's new coffee shop and then cooked myself a pretty tasty bibimbap in my new dolsot, then did another hour of Korean study before winding up where I am now, and still managing to be vaguely productive.

At the moment the school is on summer break, which in Korea is not exactly what you might expect. I'd say at least a third of the students come in every day for supplementary classes, and study for pretty much the entire day. As for the teachers, the ones who don't have to come in are all off on residential training courses for the summer. Part of being a native-speaker English teacher here is "desk-warming" (as it's referred to by the pond-life that frequents the forums at Dave's ESL cafe), being obliged to come to school even though you don't have classes. Personally I don't see what the problem is - it's pretty much the same in any job in the UK or the US (except, ironically, teaching) and if you put it to use you can make your life a lot easier. It helps that my school is pretty great and let's me go home after lunch, but that still leaves plenty of time in the mornings to get set up for the next semester. Compared to my poor Korean colleagues, I have it pretty easy.

I find working in this kind of environment quite inspiring, and I'm feeling pretty good about teaching at the moment (perhaps as I'm not actually doing it). Having some time off has given me a chance to review what I did last semester, and I've come to the conclusion that while I did OK last semester, I can do a lot better this one. Motivating the students is never easy here (my class is worth nothing in terms of grades or exam preparation, which is the only currency for a Korean high school student) so it has to be 제미 ("jaemi" - the Korean word which means fun and interesting at the same time). I surveyed my students to find out what they wanted to learn, and they overwhelmingly said music and movies, so next semester is going to kick off with music week which will hopefully leave my students able to understand the second conditional with Beyonce's help, rap like Will Smith and tell the difference between rock and alternative music (I'm not sure I can do this myself, but ho hum). I'm also starting to think about ESL teaching long term, and investigating weekend CELTA courses and maybe even a masters. I've also joined the ranks of KOTESOL, the association for English teachers here in the hope of learning a little more about teaching English, and maybe making a few useful contacts while I'm at it.

So really, life is pretty good in Korea at the moment. Aside from a bruised big toe which has kept me out of football this week, everything's going really well. Let's hope it continues that way. For anyone who's wondering, I'm almost certainly staying here for two years now, but if this semester goes as fast as the last one did, I'll be back for my winter break in England in no time.

Anyway, bedtime I think. Please excuse the slightly self-indulgent post, but we'll be back to the holiday snaps pretty soon.

Until then,

A