Over a month since the last post, which was just after Lunar New Year in February. Not much has changed since then, I had hoped it would be getting a bit warmer by now but as of yet there hasn't been much of a shift, we had one or two mild days a couple of weeks ago but other than that the thermometer has struggled to get above 5C most days. Chilly. I think this winter has definitely been the coldest out of the three I have had in Korea.
After my last blog post, my next activity worthy of a mention was Lisa and I's road trip at the end of last month. We had a long weekend as March 1st is a national holiday here (in remembrance of an uprising against the Japanese occupation back in the day) so we decided to hire a car and head over to the East Coast and down to Gyeongju.
We picked up the car from Avis bright and early on Saturday morning near Juan station in Incheon. Our ride was a Hyundai Avanate 1.6, in White. Automatic of course, a nice little car.
We managed to get onto the Seoul Ring Road and headed towards Gangchon, where we were going to ski for the afternoon before heading East. Thankfully the traffic was quite quiet, and we made it to Gangchon in about 3 hours. After stopping off at the 'Superman' rental shop to hire skis and gear, we headed up to the slopes. It was the final weekend of skiing, and with the temp well above freezing, the snow quality had suffered quite a lot, it was pretty slushy. Still, the slopes were pretty deserted. I was a bit more adventurous this time and attempted a few more of the Intermediate slopes. On one in particular I bit off a bit more than I could chew and ended up coming out of my skis half way down, and couldn't get back into them, so rather humiliatingly had to walk the rest of the way down. Here's a couple of photos from the slopes and a link to the FB album.
Superman ski rental. They gave us free socks too!
Looking down from the top. Notice the absence of snow on the surrounding hills.
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=392933&id=777495416&l=e09b3b16c2
After our afternoon skiing we got back in the car and headed East. I did most of the driving over, Lisa was pretty tired after the skiing and morning driving. Now, some of you may know that I don't actually have a license, so in retrospect it was probably a silly thing to be doing, if we had got into an accident things could have gotten very tricky, but hopefully I will pass my test this summer back home so the situation will never have to happen again. As I will explain later, I still have a bit to learn about driving!
We got over to the coast quite late, and decided to try and find somewhere to stay in a small town called Jeongdongjin. After enquiring at a few places in town, we ended up going for the aptly name Jeongdongjin Hotel which was a bit out from the centre, but cheaper.
We were up reasonably early the next morning, and headed to the nearby Unification Park. There are two parts to the park, and we only visited the section right by the sea, which has two main attractions. The first is a Ex-US Navy warship, perched right next to the water, and the second is a captured North Korean spy submarine.
The warship. It was a destroyer I think. Served 1st with US Navy, then with the Korean Navy.
View from the bow of the warship looking over to the NK submarine.
Looking aft from the bridge. Note how close the sea is! Apparently it is the only warship of this size on display on land in the world.
Lisa and I with our hard hats on.
Then, it was back in the car to head down the coast. The next stop was the 'Penis Park.' Lisa and I had already experienced Koreans fascination with penises on Jeju when we visited Love Land, but this took it to another level. Perched on a rocky part of the coast South of Samcheok, the park was literally full of penis. Wooden penises, stone penises, metal penises, statues of men with penises, they were all there. Some of the sculptures were quite clever, but I wouldn't go as far as to call it pretty. After a while we were both a bit penised-out, so we took a little walk down to the beach, the water looked very clean, although the omnipresent Anti-NK barbwire fence was a bit of a blight on the landscape. Here's a couple of pics from the park. If you're not a fan of penises, you might want to skip through this bit.
This is what greets you when you enter.........
Lisa holding a big penis.
So many things wrong with this photo. These fishermen are supposedly ejaculating into the sea, which according to Korean legend was supposed to bring good fishing. What I find even more disturbing is that there are several children posing for photos in the background.
Slightly overawed by the amount of penis we'd just experienced, we got back in the car and continued South. We took a rest stop at Uljin, and it was there that I had my mishap. I was reversing out of a parking space and started turning too early, with the result that our front bumper scraped along the side of another parked car. There was a bit of paint missing, but thankfully no-one was about so we carried on our way, me feeling very stupid and Lisa not the least bit pleased. Thankfully, we had taken out the maximum insurance possible, so when we returned the car we only had to pay £25 excess.
We arrived in Gyeongju that evening. Gyeongju used to be the capital of the ancient Shilla kingdom, and is known as the 'museum without walls' due to the large number of historical sites within the city. Upon arrival we checked out the burial tombs in Tumuli park. They are similar in idea to the pyramids of Egypt, but not quite as grand in scale. Still, it was an strange sight to see all these big mounds in the middle of a city.
One of the tombs. For scale, you can see a person at the foot of the mound on the left.
We walked around for a bit, and went inside one of the tombs, which was pretty boring. As it was getting late, we found a motel for the night, wandered around for ages trying to find a Bossam restaurant (we failed, and ending up going to Pizza Hut!) and then went to bed, exhausted after a long day.
The next day, we woke up to the sound of rain outside. It was wet. Undeterred, we drove a bit out of town to Bulguksa temple, reputedly the crowning glory in Shilla temple architecture (not that I would know!) It was quite impressive, if a bit soggy.
The steps to the temple. There are 33, representing the 33 stages to enlightenment.
One of the temple buildings. There were quite a few Buddhist monks praying inside.
After Bulguksa it was back in the car and up a very windy road to Seokguram Grotto, where it was even wetter and windier! The grotto itself was a bit disappointing, one large seated Buddha which we weren't allowed to take photos of, and a walk through the trees and back that destroyed Lisa's umbrella.
The grotto. Wet.
Me fighting to save the umbrella. I lost. I miss oilskins!
Seokguram Grotto proved to be the final attraction we visited on our road trip, as we had agreed to drop the car off in Incheon at 6pm. We left Gyeongju at 12pm, and started heading North on Route 1 (Gyeongju-Seoul is about 400km). The driving conditions were terrible for the 1st half, but the road was reasonably quiet. After a stop at Daejon, the rain disappeared but was replaced with cars, lots of cars. From Daejon to somewhere outside Suwon, we rarely (if ever) got over 40mph. Soul-destroying. I called Avis and explained the situation, they were understanding and said we could return the car the next morning at no extra cost, so that took the pressure off a bit. Still, we just wanted to get home. Eventually (around 8pm!), we got to Bupyeong in time to see Mairead, Jo and Marie who were leaving the next day, and finally, after dropping the car off at Avis (I went and handed in the keys the next morning) we got back to Yeonsu, tired but happy after a good trip. For me, it was the final piece in the jigsaw with regards to where I still wanted to visit in Korea, I now feel I have been everywhere here I really want to go.
Since the road trip, nothing much has happened. I went to an Incheon FC game a couple of weekends ago with Neil and few other folk, here's a link to the album on FB, the photos of the game are on page 3:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=366191&id=777495416&l=3996f5a50a
Sadly, Dragan no longer plays for Incheon, but he has been replaced by another Balkan boy, Koroman. He played for Portsmouth for a while, and scored for Incheon in the dying minutes of the game. Overall, the attendance was one of the lowest I've seen and the standard of football was not much better. Still, it's a game, I think I will go to one more before I go, Incheon play local rivals FC Seoul on May 9th, it will be a bit warmer by then which will help too.
Neil with the ball he caught (taking out several Korean children in the process!)
What other news before I finish? Well, one of the foreign teachers that I worked with, Toni, did a runner last month. She left during the night and left behind a note saying 'I was sad. So I have left.' Fair enough, but maybe give some notice. Korea isn't for everyone, but leaving like that is very selfish as it puts other people in the shit. Luckily, a guy called Chris was able to fill in until a permanent replacement could be found, so the classes weren't affected that much. The new teacher, an English girl called Sally, arrived last week and seems to be settling in well.
I am forging ahead with my SE Asia plans, I booked another domestic flight from Hue-Ho Chi Minh in Vietnam, but still haven't decided on a route after that. I really want to go to Laos but it is proving tricky (and expensive) to go from Cambodia to Laos, which would be my ideal route.
I'm still trying to get out running in the mornings, although the frequency has dropped a bit recently, although I have played football a couple of times, which left me very stiff afterwards (getting old!) I am also nearing the end of my Lent diet, this year I have given up junk food, chocolate, sweets and fizzy drinks. I am allowed cereal bars and coffee, but everything else is off-limits. So far I've stuck to it pretty well, I had some ramyeon (instant noodles) tonight but I'm not sure if you can strictly call it junk food as it was part of my dinner. I see Lisa most weeknights, and on Saturdays I have been meeting up with the boys to watch football and have a few beers.
I am really saving the best news to last here, because on Tuesday Lisa got her unconditional offer to the University of The Sunshine Coast in Australia. She will start a 9 month course there in February next year, and it is my plan to join her over there too. I am very happy for her as she was worrying about whether she'd get in, and it means she (and I) can move ahead with planning a bit more for later this year and next. It is a while away yet, but there is a lot to sort out. So, well done Lisa!X
The next few weeks are looking pretty quiet, and I am happy to keep it that way. I'll update sometime in April, by which time I'll only have a month or so of work left. Quite a thought!
Until then, cheerio.
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