I'm back

Finally, a post! Christmas break rather messed up my schedule, and knocked me out of my regular blogging routine. This is not to say I didn't have time, I did in fact have more time than usual, but never quite the time to post.

Anyhow, I've now been back in Jinbu for two days, which has been my first chance to pause and catch my breath for some time. Since my last post I've been through Christmas, New Year, three weeks of English Camp and then four weeks in the UK. It seems like a lot, and it was. It's been nice to get back to some stunning, and relatively warm weather, given that when I left the thermometer was holding steady around the -10C mark. This winter was by all accounts exceptionally cold. Too cold sadly for my boiler, which froze up during my absence and spat water all over the floor. Fortunately it's back in some kind of working order, though nowhere near what it used to be. What wasn't good was getting back feeling terrible, and having to retreat to bed for a while. I'm not sure whether it was readjusting to Korean germs, or the collected effects of jetlag and hangover, but whatever it was I didn't feel particularly well. I'm almost back to top form now though. Here's a nice shot of round where I live, seeing this always makes me feel better.

I'm going to try to put up a few posts over the next few days covering my period of absence. In truth they'll probably be photo heavy and text light, but that's probably no bad thing.

I'll start with Christmas. It's not quite the same festival in Korea as it is in the Western world, with just a single holiday falling on the day itself, and even on the 25th a lot of shops seemed to be open anyway. It certainly wasn't much of a holiday "season" as it is in the UK; in fact I had probably my busiest week of the year starting the 27th December. All in all it didn't feel much like Christmas at all.

Linda's birthday falls on Christmas Eve, so we went out until very late and didn't get up until about midday on the 25th. We popped out for a wander around Incheon's Chinatown, and then (having failed to secure a traditional Christmas dinner) attempted to take down an entire duck between two of us. This noble mission was sadly halted when we realised we could get a doggy bag. We did manage about 2/3 of it though, and it was delicious. For those that don't know about Korean duck, it comes part garlic steamed and then you finish it off over hot charcoals in front of you at your table. Then you wrap it in a lettuce leaf with some bean paste, garlic and pickled onions, and eat. Delicious.

After that it was back home for a Skype call with my family (this is the first Christmas I've not been at home) and then bed. Perhaps not a normal Christmas, but a good one all the same.

Linda's colleague Cindy and her husband, whose name escapes me.

Birthday breakfast (well, lunch by the time we got up)

Incheon Chinatown's Mural Street

Me and Incheon

Not sure what this was.

Nor this. I realise that this is not the finest captioning ever.

Cabbage art.

Cool, isn't it?

Douglas MacArthur, whose daring landing at Incheon changed the direction of the Korean War, and thus nearly 60 years later the direction of my career. Cheers Doug.

Confucius. And you wonder why he preached respect for the elderly.

Duckfest: Two people and one duck will enter. Two will emerge feeling bloated, one will emerge in a doggy bag. BUT WHO WILL IT BE?

Grillin'

New Year here is similarly low key, partly because Korea has two calendars and so has two New Years celebrations, with the lunar calendar festival (the Chinese New Year) being the bigger deal. Still, this doesn't stop thousands of Korean's heading to the East coast to catch the first glimpse of the sun on New Year's day, usually after drinking heavily on the beach all night.

We decided that we'd go and try to do similar, braving some freezing temperatures to get to Jeongdongjin, where we'd also been in the summer. The key attraction was the turning of the giant hourglass on the beach there. We were told that the festival was cancelled, but headed down nonetheless. When we got there we saw a suspiciously large amount of sand left in the glass, and having stood for a while in the crowd, realised it was already two minutes past twelve. Happy New Year.

Still, we got some sparklers, and then retired to the warmth of a chicken restaurant. Neither of us fancied staying up all night on a freezing beach in the end, so we caught a taxi back to Gangneung just as everyone seemed to be flooding in to Jeongdongjin. A bit of an anticlimax, but we did get free doughnuts and persimmon from our taxi driver.

All aboard... the night train!

The hourglass.

Jeongdongjin by night.

Annoyed by the hourglass not turning, Alex decided to effect a terrorist attack on it instead.

I'll try to post some more winter activities over the next few days before school starts again. Until then...

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.

Visitors Part Deux

The continuing adventures of Alex and Linda in Korea (see here for the first instalment).

Hassla Art Park & Hotel

Down the coast from Gangneung lies Jeongdongjin, home of Tongil Park and the Sun Cruise Hotel. It's a pretty mad place all in all, so your hotel has to be at least a little distinctive to compete with the Sun Cruise. One that tries (but really gets nowhere near the concept of plonking a bloody massive cruise ship on a cliff) is the Hassla Art Park and Hotel. It's an impressive building constructed of steel and coloured glass, and looks rather like where Paul Klee might stay were he to come here.

The Art Park in the grounds is actually a little disappointing, with the artwork being somewhat sparse, but it does afford some great views of the east coast of Korea, and there are at least some fun pieces of art there. Here's what we managed to see:

The hotel itself.

"Ooooooh puppy puppy puppy!"

"Art"

Actually not the gayest photo ever taken of me, but close.

Tree seemingly constructed of decommissioned tinsel.

I was really struggling to hold this up...

...but this guy did it with the power of his mind.

"This artwork is sh*t."

Tunnels

Tree

This was pretty cool, though I think it would have been better with matching bikes.

I honestly tried so hard not to.

A weird, handlebar-less, painted bicycle, just leaning up on a bench (and Linda).

Giant headless chicken.

Smaller chicken (with head).

After the park we went for lunch at the hotel restaurant. This was a slightly disappointing affair, for me at least, when my steak appeared to be pieces of reconstituted beef tied together with a piece of bacon. The fact that it was all covered in a fairly nasty brown sauce didn't help either. So, poor marks for the food, but top marks for the service, as having failed to find us a taxi, the guy at the hotel desk took it upon himself to drive us down to Jeongdongjin in his own car. Top stuff. The hotel also scores bonus points for having the coolest toilet I have ever used. The outside looked like a giant silver rocket ship, and the inside looked somewhat like I imagine the VIP area of the viper rooms might look like. Here are a couple of photos:

I could have spent a lot of time in here.

Jeondongjin Beach and Hourglass Park

After the hotel we popped down for a bit of beach time. It was a beautiful day but the sea was still foot-numbingly cold. We settled for just paddling (or wading if you're weird). There's not much to write about here, so I'll just leave you with some cutesy photos.

Hi there.

Ew.

Eugh.

Oh goodness.

Then we wandered down the beach to what is supposedly one of the most romantic locations in Korea. The (somewhat inevitably named) Samsung Hourglass Park is exactly what it says - a giant hourglass through which the sand takes exactly a year to pour. It's always popular due to being used in one of the Korean dramas popular both here and in Japan. New Year's Eve here is supposed to be amazing. I might even go this year.

We probably should have got someone to take one of us together. Ho hum.

In the interests of keeping everything manageable I'm going to have another break here. I hope you're enjoying it so far. Part 3 will feature sheep-feeding and the most amazing dress I have ever seen.

A