Throughout my year in Korea, I have had many experiences that have left me scratching my head in confusion. I thought I'd share a few examples from the last couple days.
Hospital patients wandering around outside. Any time you pass a hospital in Korea, there will be patients hanging around outside in their hospital gowns. Just seeing them outside seemed strange when I first got here. Now, I'm used to seeing them out for a walk while pulling along their IV, going for coffee, or just having a cigarette. I even had a friend tell me that she saw a guy with crutches hobble down to the beach, remove his hospital gown, go for a swim in his underwear, then get back in the gown and hobble back to the hospital. Really?? Doesn't it seem strange for a person to be staying in the hospital if they're well enough to go for walks, go out for coffee or go swimming? I don't get it. Most of the time I'm not able to catch this on film, but I did see these guys at a coffee shop last week. Menu Items. Reading a menu can be a challenge. Whether it's written in Korean or translated to English, some things are never quite clear. In the same coffee shop mentioned above, there was an interesting menu item. I'm hoping that "dog pretzel" means a hot-dog wrapped in a pretzel and not Fido. Needless to say, I stuck with the original pretzel. Medical Treatment for Trees. Tonight I took an evening walk around the Ulsan Sports Complex. The complex is just down the street and has a nice walking/biking path along the perimeter. Though I'm there just about every week, something unusual caught my attention today. After doing a double-take, I saw that there were a few trees that had IV bags hanging from them. At first I thought that one of the hospital people must have dumped it there, but upon further examination, I saw that the needles were actually inserted into the trees. Why would a tree need an IV bag? They look healthy, and they shouldn't need water as it IS the rainy season right now. Why would only a few of the trees need these? Is this some kind of science experiment or something? I may never know. Once again I must apply Rule #1: Never question anything that happens in Korea...there are some things we will never understand.
Another nice weekend: visited a residential facility for persons with disabilities, game night, swan-shaped peddle boat ride, ice cream, and an evening walk. Good people, good laughs, good times.
This week I had the opportunity to visit a few new places...a public elementary school, a traditional market and a very unique cafe.
Since I work at the Foreign Language Institute, all students come to our facility after school hours. I have never actually seen a public school during my time in Korea. On Monday, my former supervisor picked up a couple of us and took us to see her school. This school is a large one, I believe she said there were 6 or 7 classes at each grade level. I was most impressed by the variety of classrooms. There was an entire wing dedicated to English education. In addition, there were 2 science labs, a gym, a swimming pool, a parents room, and a variety of other spaces. When students are not using the pool, the public can pay a fee to use the facility. Also interesting, the school library is open for the community to use as well. Here are a few pictures from the school...
On Tuesday the 10th, we got to take a cultural outing with work. We went to the 5 day traditional market. This market is only in the area on days that are in multiples of 5. There was tons of produce, fish, meat, snacks, and a variety of clothing items as well. It was a great experience.
Sunday took us to the Penis Cafe. Yes, you read that correctly. The entire cafe is decorated with genitalia...from the napkin holders, to the bathroom door handles, to the lights, to the clock. It was certainly an interesting experience. Sorry folks, no pictures will be posted as this is a G-rated blog. If you're really curious, send me an email.
This weekend I went to watch a friend take her Taekwondo black belt test. When we got to the gym, I was surprised to see so many people. It was certainly a bigger event than I had anticipated. It was mostly children testing, but there was a fair share of adults too. Many families and friends came to watch. The event started at 9:00 with the kids. First the participants said some type of pledge, then it was followed by their forms, and lastly a sparring session. This continued for a couple hours as different groups of participants took the test. At 11:00 or so, the adults got to take their tests. We cheered for our friend and then it was over. Well, at least this session was...there would be another big group of people after lunch. Here are some pictures from the event.
A short clip showing some of the forms.
Thanks to Buddha's Birthday, we had a three day weekend. My friends and I joined Adventure Korea for another fun-filled trip. Since we had to meet the group on Saturday morning in Daejeon, we left on Friday night and stayed in one of Korea's many "love motels". These places are always hilarious.
 A typical love motel. In addition to the lovely decor, they usually have an all-in-one remote (to control the lights, AC, and TV) and random personal care items. Interesting that mosquito repellent was included. On Saturday, we met the bus and headed to Namhae. We spent the first day in Darangee Village where the locals opened their homes to us. After dropping our bags off in our rooms at the home-stay, we set out for a rice farming experience then hit the beach. That evening, one of the host families prepared a traditional Korean dinner for us. Delicious! We ended the day at an abandoned school where we had relay races then a bonfire in the field. Interesting location.
On Sunday, we started the day with a traditional Korean breakfast which included fish, soup, rice and kimchi. We then hopped on the bus to Mt. Geumsan. Here, we were able to take a short hike to the peak of the mountain for a great view. Just below the peak was the beautiful Boriam Temple that was decorated for Buddha's birthday. We then went to Doomo Village where we would stay the night. We had a traditional Korean lunch then hit the ocean for some sea kayaking and some relaxation. After the beach, it was on to dinner where we had Korean BBQ. Again, delicious, but I must say that rice 3 times a day is a bit much for me. We returned to the beach for a bonfire after dinner.
On our last day of the adventure, we returned to the ocean for some deep sea fishing. The fish that we caught would be served as sashimi for lunch. Our boat caught about 20 fish, but sadly my line came up empty every time. Oh well, no fish for me...shucks! After lunch, it was time to head back to Ulsan.
This was the first year that I have truly been able to experience seasons. Though I wouldn't say that I loved the winter, it was nice to experience something different. And, now that it's spring, I am absolutely loving all the beautiful flowers that are in bloom. We certainly miss out in SoCal. The video below has pictures from early April to the present. Enjoy!
This weekend we joined Adventure Korea for a trip to Mt. Jiri and a green tea festival. These places are a bit of a challenge to get to from Ulsan, so we stayed Friday night in Daegu. Saturday morning we took a 2 hour bus ride to Namwon, where we met the tour bus and joined the trip. From there, it was about 1.5 hours to Jirisan National Park. In 1967, Jirisan was the first area to be designated as a national park. Once in the park, we walked about 3 miles to Nogodan, one of the summits of the Jiri Mountain range. The scenery was beautiful. After the hike, we went to the hotel. Sunday took us to the Hadong Green Tea Festival. Hadong is regarded as the birthplace of Koreas tea culture. Some of the activities included picking green tea, making green tea, green tea ceremonies, green tea ice cream, green tea museum, alcohol made from green tea, a mask ceremony, and several venders. The only thing missing was a green tea frappacino. The weather was gorgeous, so it was nice to be outside.
This weekend, I went to Japan with a couple of my friends. We left Busan on Saturday morning and returned on Sunday night. Although the stay was short, we packed in a lot.
We left Busan at 9:15 am and landed in Fukuoka at 10:05. (It seems so strange that I can get to another country in less than an hour.) After a bus, a subway, and a 2 hour high-speed train ride, we made it to our destination...Beppu - the hot spring capital of Japan! First stop...sand baths!! For this experience, we visited the oldest onsen (bathhouse) in the area - Takegawara Onsen. In a nutshell, take off your clothes, put on a robe, let the ladies bury you in the sand, cook for about 15 minutes, wash off the sand, then take a bath. It was great!
Next, we checked into the hostel. This was a nice place that was centrally located in Beppu.
The rest of the evening included some shopping, dinner, and playing pachiko. I'm not exactly sure what we had for dinner as we were at some-type of traditional Japanese restaurant. I didn't care for the phlegm-looking appetizer and one of the kabobs, but the rest of it was pretty good. After dinner, and a couple drinks, we went to the casino to play pachinko. Basically, you try to get the balls to hit some type of a target and you can earn more balls. When you're finished, turn in the balls for cash. Though given an instruction sheet in "English", I still have no idea what I was doing. I lost my marbles quickly (LOL), but Ellen made about $40!! Woohoo!!
Day number 2 took us to "The Hells", sushi for lunch, and one last trip to the onsen. The Hells are the 9 hot springs that Beppu is famous for. We only had time to visit 6 of them.
We hopped back on the train to Fukuoka, then back to Korea. Here are a few other pictures from the trip.
I decided to take advantage of this beautiful spring day by taking a walk through Ulsan Grand Park. The park covers 900 acres of land and provides opportunities for hiking, biking, walking, golfing, family outings, learning and cultural experiences. It's pretty amazing. Here are some pictures from the day.
This weekend we joined Adventure Korea for a trip to Gyeongju. On day one, we rented bicycles and rode all over the city. The plan was to ride among all the beautiful cherry blossoms, but unfortunately they weren’t quite ready to bloom. During the day, we saw Bomun Lake, enjoyed a delicious Korean lunch, saw several tombs, and visited the famous Gyeongju Observatory. At the observatory, there was some type of festival going on, so we were able to participate in a tea ceremony. After looking around, we were back on the bikes to get to our meeting spot. Just one flat tire to deal with on the way. :-P
After 7 hours of biking and touring, we returned to the hostel before dinner. The outside was absolutely beautiful as it resembled a palace. The inside was traditional Korean style which means you were given a mat and you slept on the floor. Not my favorite. We walked to a local place for dinner. We enjoyed some Korean food and had some dongdongju-korean rice wine…okay, so it was 3 troughs of dongdongju. We laughed our way back to the hostel, stopping to play in a playground, and then headed to bed.
On Sunday, the day started with an attempt to find a coffee shop. No luck. :-( I don’t understand why coffee places open so late in Korea. Seems to be a trend anywhere we go. Anyways, after breakfast, my friends headed to Seokgulam Grotto. I skipped the short hike as I had been there before and I’m still nursing a sprained ankle. After the grotto, we all went to Bulguksa Temple. I had come here in the fall but it had a different look in the spring. Although the cherry blossoms were not in full bloom, there were a few here & there and several other flowers. Very nice. After the temple, we had lunch at an all-you-can-eat Korean buffet then headed for home. As we went back to the bus station in the downtown area, we saw that many of the trees had bloomed since yesterday…doh…one day late. Oh well.
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