News & Photos

Hi all. I've managed to find a spare hour in my weekend to write a blog post. I'm fine, in case you were wondering. This semester is now well underway, and things seem much less stressful and rushed than last semester, mostly because I simply have less classes, but also because the second semester is a couple of weeks shorter, and contains the Korean thanksgiving holiday, and so compares favourably to the relentless drudgery of the spring semester.

I'm currently mulling over a fairly difficult decision with regards to next year. I'm (almost) definitely staying in Korea, but I am considering changing jobs. I'd really like to work at a university if I can, but the big problem is that that requires not renewing my contract, and then searching for a university position. Obviously, were I not to get one, that would leave me in the proverbial. There's also the problem that I'd have to take a sizeable pay cut to go and work at a university. However, university work would be a lot more satisfying, I'd get to see my students more often, and teach at a bit of a higher level. On the other hand, I know I have a really good job here, with a school that is great, and good friends in my town and staying wouldn't be a bad thing at all. As you can see from this paragraph, it's not an easy decision. I'll let you know how it goes.

One pleasing bit of news is that I received a distinction for the first module of my MA course. It's always worrying waiting for work back, especially as my project was a little out there, and so carried the risk of being completely wrong. Thankfully, it wasn't, and I'm glad the hours of transcribing my conversations with students weren't in vain.

Anyway, that's pretty much all my news. I haven't been up to much since my last post, so below is a collection of photos from stuff I've done this year that I haven't had time to post about.

Before the summer break I had to say goodbye to my third grade classes. This made me really sad, as a nicer, more enthusiastic bunch of students you couldn't hope to meet. Really. Even the naughty kids were great. I already miss these guys an awful lot. One advantage of getting a uni job would be getting to teach some of them again!

LG Twins vs Samsung Lions baseball game in Seoul

Linda and an upside-down seal at COEX acquarium.

Zip-lining in Jumunjin.

What the Koreans really think of us.

The alchemy of dakkgalbi: a magical transformation of cabbage, chicken and pepper paste into the greatest dish in Korea. This was taken at the Chuncheon Dakkgalbi festival, where it was so good we ate it twice.

Making and eating spicy cold noodles (way, way better than it sounds), also at the Dakkgalbi festival.

That's it for another post. More news when I have time, but with my next MA module starting, it might be a couple of weeks.

A

Chuseok Diary Part 3

We left the Jjimjilbang just before 9 on Friday morning, on the second and final leg of our cycling mini-odyssey. As you'll see from the photos, we could barely have chosen a better day for it. The sun was out and there was barely a cloud in the sky, and fall had drained most of the humidity out of the days by now. We immediately headed South down the coast from Gyeongpo beach, past Anmok. We went slowly, looking for somewhere to have a bit of breakfast, but found most of the towns to consist solely of closed raw fish restaurants. Finally, as we headed over the quite spectacular bridge below Anmok and towards the military base, we finally found a restaurant open, and headed in.

As far as I can tell, Korean breakfast doesn't vary greatly from any other meal in Korea. I always get slightly strange looks from people when I tell them that I just had toast for breakfast. The idea of having what is really just a light snack to most Koreans seems to be alien, and people struggle to believe I can get through a whole morning on just bread and a bit of fruit. In the restaurant we go to, there's certainly no breakfast menu, so we opt for Seaweed soup (Emily, definitely not me) and Galbi Tang (Tom and I), which is pretty much beef stew. As usual, this is accompanied by an array of spicy side dishes. I'm actually pretty good with stomaching kimchi in the mornings these days, but really I don't think I'd want to do it every day.

With appetites satiated we set off once more, turning away from the coast to work our way around Gangneung's Fighter Wing base. The jets are flying, so we're treated to almost constant flypasts of jets coming and going from the base. Without really knowing where we're going, we actually manage to work our way out of Gangneung with not too much fuss and even work our way back onto the coast road to escape the major highways. Today's journey is a lot more up and down that yesterday's, which was simply just up and then down. Still, before too long we've sailed past the warship and submarine anf arrived in Jeongdongjin, where we brake for Powerade, shade and cereal bars.

Getting to the beach can sometimes be tricky here.

After Jeongdongjin we make our first mistake. Looking to follow the coast road we instead take a turn into the hills. We realise this after it's too late to turn back, and so face a gruelling climb up a steep hillside in the hottest part of the day. Still, at least going up hills qualifies you to come back down them again, which is always fun. We detour briefly to the beach to see if there's a quiet coast road to follow, but find our path blocked by the large cement factory below. Getting back on the road does eventually afford us a nice view of Korea's sandy shores though.

By this time we're getting more than a little saddle sore, having been at it for 4 or 5 hours already. We power on for one more hour and reach the outskirts of Donghae, the next major city down the coast. We grab some lunch, Manduguk, which is basically dumpling stew and is very, very good. Then we make another big mistake (due to none of us having anything more than a tourist map) and proceed to take the main highway out of Donghae down to Samcheok. This proves to be a terrifying experience, with huge intersections to negotiate, including one expressway interchange, and enormous earth-moving trucks flying past us about every 30 seconds. Not really what you need after spending a full day in the saddle. It's mercifully short, though seemed longer at the time, and we soon pass a sign that tells us 4km to Samcheok. It's at this point we pick up a proper pavement, and so can get ourselves out of the road finally (Korean cycling laws being somewhat more lax).

We get to Samcheok and are treated to an excellent beach barbecue by our host Huy. His Vietnamese chicken recipe is a superb end to a very, very long day. Everyone's pleased to have made it, and made it in one piece. We stay Friday night, and then haul our bikes onto the bus a head back to Jinbu the easy way.

Chuseok Diary Part 2

Thursday

The weather took a huge turn for the better on Thursday, which was good as this was to be the day I abandoned over-eating and boozing early in the afternoon, and set off on a 120km bike ride. My friend Emily and I had been planning a multi-day bike ride since the beginning of summer, and had only just got around to doing it by the middle of autumn. We were also joined by Tom, a new addition to the Jinbu teachers union.

The day got off to an inauspicious start as I sheered off the valve on Tom's bike tyre trying to pump it up. I had a spare inner-tube, but then we couldn't undo the front wheel nut, and one of my cheap tools died in the attempt to undo it. This meant an emergency call to my friend Ui Chal and his heavy duty adjustable spanner (ooh-err). Finally we got the tube changed and disappeared upstairs to meet Emily and get ready to set off. Five minutes later my phone rings and it's Tom saying that the bike has been stolen. We spend a while trying to find the security guy to no avail, so sadly Emily and I set off without Tom. A mile up the road my phone rings. It's Tom, saying the thief was in fact Caitlyn, the other new teacher who knows the code for the bike lock. She'd borrowed it to go to the bank. We stopped to let Tom catch up, and finally set off on the first leg of our trip, which would take us out to the coastal town of Jumunjin and then down to Gangeung, over one of the higher passes in Korea. If you're interested in our route, look here:

http://www.walkjogrun.net/routes/current_route.cfm?rid=511EDCA1-92F2-1001-13A5F230AD3B4342

Today we got all of the hard work done early. Almost immediately out of Jinbu the road sets out on a 5 mile long, 300m high climb to the top of the Sogeumgang valley. It's a pretty tough ask, especially when your bike's gears aren't too co-operative (Tom). Still, with some puffing and panting we all made it up to the top, where we stopped at a service area for (appropriately enough) mountain vegetable bibimbap.

Having done all of the up for the day, the next part of the ride promised to be a lot more fun. Plunging down almost 1000m to the coast on twisting roads is a much, much better idea than hauling yourself up the hill in hot sunshine. We launched ourselves down the hill, Emily and I in the lead, respectively singing and impersonating Valentino Rossi, and Tom of the one brake bicycle proceeding more steadily behind. The road was amazing - a series of tight U-bends on a steep slope. I'd love to show you photos but I was too busy going too fast and doing things I was taught never to do on my cycling proficiency test. At least I was confident of going faster than any car tackling the hill, so didn't have to look over my shoulder too often.

The only other incident of note was once the road had flattened out and we were cruising along towards Jumunjin. It being Chuseok, drink was still being taken at lunchtime, and we came upon this old fella on his motor scooter. Sadly, I missed the best bit when he was weaving all over the road and holding up a line of ten cars, but still, when you're wobbling home at 3pm on a 50cc scooter being overtaken by crazy foreigners on bikes, maybe it's time to ask yourself if you have a drinking problem.

We were going along too nicely to get my camera out again after that, until we hit the coast and turned south towards Gangneung. We stopped at Sacheonjin beach for a quick Powerade and a clamber on the rocks, before setting off down the network of excellent cyclepaths towards our final destination of Gyeongpo beach.

We got to Gyeongpo Beach as the shadows from the pines were beginning to stretch across the sand. Not an unpleasant sight to greet you at the end of a long day in the saddle. We dismounted, shackled the bikes to a tree and bought ourselves a bottle of Cass. This proved to be a mistake, as despite it being the very sound of vitality, it also becomes pretty much undrinkable halfway through a large bottle. We abandoned it and headed off for Nakji Bokkeum (hot stir-fried octopus tentacles) for dinner, and then for my first ever Jjimjilbang experience.

The Jjimjilbang is a pretty much essential Korean experience. Despite that I'd been avoiding it for a while. It's basically a public baths and sleeping room. They're frighteningly cheap, and, much like the Divine Comedy's National Express, all human life is here. 7,000won (about 4 quid, or $6) gets you a sauna and selection of pools to use for almost as long as you like. The pools range in temperature (though the one we went to only had three, I'm assured that most have more) so you can sweat everything out in the sauna, before jumping into the plunge pool for a few minutes, then climbing into the hot pool, which leaves a strange feeling of wearing your skin like a coat, or at least it did to me. Anyway, this part I really liked, and it soothed the pains built up from several hours on my bike. As long as you can put up with naked Korean men massaging each other you should be fine.

The second part is the one I'm not quite so keen on. After putting on a pair of standard-issue grey pyjamas, which are actually really comfortable, you go into the sleeping room. There's a TV to watch here, but mostly you're just here to pull out a sleeping mat (two if it's quiet) and a horrible, horrible plastic pillow and bed down for the night wherever you can find a space. Now, my experience was actually not too bad. I crawled off into the men-only (ooh-err again) space, which was completely deserted, and managed to catch about 4 hours. I was still woken up by the ceaseless snoring, and interminable comings and goings from the main room, and this was on a quiet night. I also woke up with all of my former aches and pains fully restored from sleeping more or less on the floor. Still, these were eased somewhat by another dip in the hot and cold pools, and left me ready for another hard day on the roads of Korea. I'll tell you all about that next time.

A

Chuseok Diary Part 1

Last week, after four very hectic weeks of football, studying Korean and extensive lesson planning, I made it to the big week off. The rest was very much appreciated as it felt like I'd been busy from 7am to 11pm every weekday.

Chuseok is usually translated to me as the Korean thanksgiving, though I think it's more like a harvest festival. For one thing, Koreans aren't celebrating giving the indigenous people smallpox. Anyway, it's a big festival of drinking and eating, and seems to be the most important time of the year for Korean families to get together. It's probably more akin to Christmas in the UK than anything else, if you replace the last mince pie that you force down your throat knowing that you really shouldn't, with songpyeong - a kind of sweet rice-cake filled with sesame and syrup or chestnut. Anyway, here's what I got up to over the week.

Monday

Monday was actually a school day, but all of my classes were cancelled for "physical testing day". I popped out occasionally to laugh at my students running around the school track in the rain, but mostly I sat at my desk and groaned. This was due to spending the entire weekend drinking with my new friend Jae Yeong, and particularly the fault of a couple of bottles of mushroom spirit the night before. Probably not the best start to the week.

Tuesday

I got my first taste of a proper Korean Chuseok today. Having spent the morning working (it never stops entirely, even during holidays) I went to spend the evening with my friend Stacy's family in a small town close to here. This is where I developed the idea that Chuseok here is a lot like Christmas back home. We stuffed ourselves full of delicious food (home made bibimbab and seafood patties) and then sat down in front of the TV for an entire Lord of the rings movie, all the while chugging magkoli and munching songpyeon in a vain attempt to find the chestnut ones that Stacy had made.

Anyway, I had an awesome evening. Stacy's family were lovely to me, despite a fairly significant language barrier. In Korea, food often seems to take the place of speaking anyway, and an appreciation of Korean food, particularly someone's home cooking is often enough to seal good relations with people. Anyway, thanks Stacy and your family for a great evening.

Wednesday

Wednesday was another morning of lesson planning (I'm working on a series of lesson based on the movie Up!) before I had lunch at another Korean friend's house. Once again, the entire family was there, including, to her obvious dismay, one of my students, who is my friend's niece.

Once again, the food was excellent. The entire table was covered in various kinds of food, including galbi ribs, steamed pork, battered shrimp, mushrooms and many different mountain vegetables, which are particularly prevalent around here. At the same time, the honey licqeur, berry wine and good old soju began to flow. I left for the slowest game of futsal I've played in a while, with every player severly encumbered by food and alcohol. There was still time for beer and snacks during and after the game, before I came home for a long nap. See now why this seems a lot like Christmas?

I'm going to post at this point, so that this post gets broken up. Part 2 covers my cycling adventures and will be up very soon.