Mokpo; Chuseok Backpacking Part I

For the Chuseok five day weekend Ric and I went on a mini-tour of South-West Korea.
First stop: Mokpo. 2 hours and 45 minutes away from Cheonan on the high speed KTX train.

Yudal Beach
Don't go. It's tiny, barely big enough to build a sandcastle on! The trip to the beach wasn't entirely wasted however, as it did lead us to getting slightly kidnapped by an over friendly Korean man named Leon. He offered us a lift to one of the islands and, keen to seize the moment and save bus fare, we accepted. Unfortunately, Leon had other plans and tried to take us across the country to some place 6 hours away. When we tried to make our excuses and escape he begged us not to leave him alone and forcefully invited himself to join us camping in our tiny tent! Slightly creeped out, we left Leon looking heartbroken and set off up Yudal mountain.

Naff beach, but there is a bar...

Yudal Mountain
The mountain has two peaks, we climbed both with all our backpacks and camping equipment on our backs because we are that badass. From the highest peak you get a 360 degree view of Mokpo and all the islands that sprawl out towards the horizon. Be warned though, the summit is nothing but a couple of rocks and it's windy up there! Unlike the Koreans who hiked to the top, took a photo and then hurried down, Ric and I stayed there for ages, hogging the small space, drinking gin 'n' tonic and playing cards - may as well make the most of the view!

Stopping for a rest half way up the mountain.
Nuff baggage.

View from the smaller peak

View from the highest peak

Sunset from our camp

Mokpo's famous bridge impressively illuminated

Mokpo

 Camping
Just 100m down from the summit of the mountain we found a cave that made a perfect camp for the evening. We assembled our crumby tent, made an awesome camp fire and watched the sunset with a beer and a picnic. The cave made a perfect place to camp, so much so that we slept for almost 12 hours!

Koreans sharing their lunch with the sweaty Westerner

Tent, fire, picnic, gin, beer.

Sunrise over Mokpo

Old vs. New
Around the train station and mountain is known as Mokpo old town, most of the buildings are traditional one-storey shops, homes and restaurants. On the other side of town, a 10-15 minute taxi ride away, is new Mokpo. This is where all the cool bars and trendy restaurants are. It's really worth visiting both just to get an idea of how different the two areas are. The new part has the "Ocean Dancing Fountain", a water display with music and lights.

Mokpo Ocean Dancing Fountain

Mokpo was great, camping was serene and getting kidnapped... well it's funny in hindsight. Don't talk to strangers kids!!

• Sleeping: we stayed two nights, the first we camped and the second we stayed at F1 Hotel. It's in a rather seedy yet excellently located area behind the train station and is gorgeous inside: 42 inch plasma TV, huge shower, remote controlled mood lighting. All for 50,000won (about £27) - bargain!!
• Transport: the number one bus conveniently served all our needs: bus station ~ train station ~ beach. 

Mt. Taejo Hike

Another day, another mountain...

Up behind the big Gakwonsa temple and Gakwonsa temple you'll find a spider's web of hiking trails frequented by Cheonan's large population of middle aged hiking enthusiasts. Me and Ric decided to give it a go one sunny Saturday at the end of September.

Just what you need half way up a mountain, exercise machines and a hut complete with toilet roll!

Chair shaped tree: like.

After an intense but mercifully brief 25 minute climb we reached the starting point of four or five hiking trails which sprawled out in every direction. Deciding the right was as good a direction as any we headed off into the trees.

The path continued for around 3km, up and down the ridge of the mountain until we reached a clearing in the tree and a stunning view over Cheonan. I particularly enjoyed Mt. Taejo due to the lack of steep inclines (much kinder on the thighs!). It was a beautiful walk and it smelt of pine trees and autumn.

At the top of Mt Taejo

Deciding once again to descend down the other side of the mountain (we'll never learn), we discovered a whole new part of Cheonan that we didn't know existed. First we came across the main offices for Kyobo life insurance! Half way up a mountain seemed a pretty random place to build your head offices but I must admit the view was great! Further down and yet more random Korean attractions: Taejosan park, a park exhibiting war planes, tanks, a sculpture park, pond, football pitch, badminton court and even a derelict artificial ski slope!

Random Taejosan Park

How to get there?
To Gakwonsa and the start of our Mt. Taejo hike: take to 24 bus from opposite Shinsegae, get off at the last stop and walk up the hill.
To Taejosan Park: Take the number 15 from outside Shinsegae or the number 51 from Cheonan station and get off at the last stop.

Happy Chuseok

This weekend marks the start of Chuseok festival and a wonderful five day weekend! Chuseok is a Korean holiday where people honour their ancestors and give thanks for the harvest. Korean families will get together and eat songpyeon, a special rice cake. They have a ceremonial dinner lead by the eldest son of the eldest son of the family and they will pay their respects to their ancestors. As Ric and I don't have any Korean ancestors we're going camping!

On Wednesday this week we had Chuseok day with the kids at school and we learnt some traditional Korean games.

First of all, we made rice cakes. They're surprisingly easy to make; mix flour and warm water until its a sticky dough, mould into a bowl shape, add filling (sugar, sesame or red bean paste), seal and steam.

Then for the games. First we played yut. Traditionally played on the first day of the lunar new year, yut is a type of board game where you throw four sticks to determine how many spaces around the board you move. Next was Tuho. A very simple game of throwing arrows (or decorative sticks) into a container.

Tuho

We then played Jaegi; the children had to do keepy-uppies with a weight adorened with feathers and coloured paper.

Kicking the Jaegi

Finally, my personal favourite, the one-legged chicken fight. I loved this game simply because schools in England would never ever allow it to happen. The game comprises standing on one leg and holding your other leg bent at the knee, and bumping into your opponent until they fall over. Health and safety crazy Britain would never encourage such a "violent" game. After all the kids had had a one-legged match me and Ric took to the floor and tried to out-hop one another, with all the girls cheering for me and all the boys cheering for Ric. It was fun.

Mine and Ric's kindergarten classes demonstrating the one-legged chicken pose.

Preparing for battle.

The heart warming post-fight celebrations! <3

Gwangdeok Mountain Hike

Sunday 24th September

Lately the weather has changed a lot. It's no longer unbearably humid and sticky; it's warm and sunny yet cool in the shade. The sky is clear and cloudless and there's a slight breeze. I love autumn in Korea.

Gwangdeok temple (just before the funeral!)

Sunday was yet another gorgeous day and me and Ric decided to make the most of it and go for a hike. We headed south of Cheonan to Gwangdeok Mountain. It took just over an hour to get there on the bus.

Gwangdeok temple

At the base of the mountain there is a temple (Gwangdeok temple). Cue yet another culturally awkward moment. We were admiring the temple when the courtyard suddenly filled with sombre looking men and women wearing long black robes... carrying a framed picture of a monk. We'd only gate crashed a Buddhist funeral!! Oops! The temple is home to that famous walnut tree I mentioned in a previous blog, only we were too ashamed of ourselves to go and check it out and so we just headed straight for the mountain.

As Ric and I aren't exactly budding fitness fanatics we chose the shortest route up the mountain. Unfortunately, we quickly learned that the shortest route up a mountain is usually also the steepest, and we had to drag ourselves up for 3km, first up man-made steps, then up a dirt path, until finally we were clambering up over jagged rocks. We did get some impressed looks off other hikers who had gone up the long route and were descending the steep route.

Pure stairs: the first part of the hike.

Finally at the top the view was stunning: a 360 degree view of mountains rolling into the distance, Cheonan just a tiny square of concrete rising up in the middle. It was well worth the burning thighs and the back sweat. Whilst catching our breath at the summit we befriended a middle-aged Korean man by sharing our snacks with him, in exchange he offered us his bottle of wine! The wine was surprisingly delicious and I got to practice my Korean skills by attempting to make small talk with him.

Stunning views from the top of Mt. Gwangdeok

Cheonan in the distance

Tired and sweaty at the summit

Going down the mountain was when the adventure really started. We planned to take the alternative, longer, less steep route down the mountain back to the temple where we could take the bus home. However, somewhere we took a wrong path and got ourselves lost. When we realised we were lost Ric suggested we turn around and climb back up to the summit so that we could take the same route down as we'd taken up. Cue me sitting down on a rock and crying that I couldn't make it back to the top. Too much lactic acid burn. Although in hindsight Ric had a sensible idea.

Instead we just carried walking down the mountain, at that point anything was better than up! After about 45 minutes of walking the sun was beginning to set and we realised that if we didn't increase our pace there was a real possibility that we'd have to descend the rest of the mountain in the dark! Half jogging we made it to the village of Gangdang and although we still had no idea where we were, we felt relieved to see a couple of houses.

Gangdang, a quirky village 

Being stubborn, we continued to walk along a deserted road in an unknown direction until finally, a car approached.  Impulsively I stuck my thumb out and the car stopped. We were saved. The couple in the car were lovely, they spoke English and laughed at us when we told them we were trying to get to Cheonan. They seemed shocked that we'd managed to find our way to such a remote mountain village. We gratefully accepted their offer to take us to the nearest train station and were soon resting our aching muscles inside their car.


Finally we made it home having learnt a valuable lesson: if you're lost up a mountain in Korea in the dark, just keep walking and get into cars with strangers... it'll all be OK in the end!

Logistics
You can take the 600 or 601 bus from outside Shinsegae in downtown Cheonan and get off at the last stop. The bus took approx 1hour 10minutes (in Sunday traffic).

FC Seoul

Saturday 22nd August

Deoksu Gung palace

Last Saturday I made my second trip to Korea's capital in order to pursue Ric's insatiable love for football; we were going to watch FC Seoul vs. Pohang Steelers and somehow the voyage had attracted the interest of three Americans: Claire, Alex and Jared.

We arrived in Seoul a little after midday and decided to fit in a palace visit before the main event. Deoksu Gung palace is in the center of Seoul, nestled nicely between sky scrapers and Seoul's city hall. The palace looks fairly modern, as with many palaces in Seoul it was repeatedly destroyed and rebuilt during the years of Japanese occupation. It was pleasant to walk around and entrance cost only 1000won (50p)!

The Expo in central Seoul

Across from Deoksu Gung there was an exposition of tradition medicines and general health products that offered a pleasing amount of free samples! Everything from fried duck to fermented
fungus!

We stocked up on samples and had a picnic on the grass in the middle of the stalls.

Teacher's picnic; my colleagues Claire and Alex to the right.

Finally it was time to go watch the football, and even I was a little excited. The subway to the World Cup Stadium was packed with red and black striped shirts and everybody rushed out of the underground to be first in line to buy tickets.

Ric outside the World Cup Stadium

At the ticket booth the attendant asked me a question in Korean which I didn't understand, she then waved her arms at me and made a "wooooo" noise. I told her yes, we do want to be in the stand with the crazy fans.

The following 90 minutes were more of a work out than I've ever done in the gym! Constant jumping, clapping, singing and chanting. There were fireworks at kick-off and every time Seoul scored and there were dozens of flags being waved. Seoul won 3-2 and although Ric wasn't at all impressed with the quality of the football, the fans didn't half put on a cracking show.

After the match had finished all the hardcore fans gathered behind the stands and starting singing and dancing. Right in the middle of the chaos was of course, my boyfriend. As if to prove the adaptability of football chants, FC Seoul's songs were to the same tune as any generic UK football song, so we could even sing along!

The fans.

World Cup Stadium, attendance 17,000. Capacity 66,000.

Americans LOVE "soccer", it's so cultural!!

Ric's souvenir of the day

When the excitement finally fizzled out we ended to Itaewon for some dinner. Itaewon is the most westernised part of Seoul and this was reflected in the prices! We had Mexican food and an expensive cocktail before heading home on Korea's bullet train, the KTX (which was nothing compared to the Chinese bullet trains that went over 300km/hr).

Itaewon at sunset

You're So Vain, You Probably Think This Blog is About You...

Korea is the most image-obsessed country in the world and for me, Korean vanity is probably the biggest thing I've had to come to terms with regarding cultural differences.

In order to really understand the scale of the problem you must first understand the socio-economic background of the country. I'm no expert but to put it simply... Until around 60 years ago Korea was brutally ruled by Japan. The country was poor, people were starving, there was almost no western influence and Korea had little contact with the rest of the world. Since then, the country has undergone probably the fastest economic growth in history and today Korea is a leading world power that continues to develop and surpass its western counterparts. In terms of social effects this means that the Korean people are now richer than ever and this new-found wealth needs to be expressed and showcased.

Korea is country where mums wear designer dresses and 9 inch stilettos to take their children to school; where there's a queue of people waiting to preen themselves in the mirror in the men's bathroom; where make-up must be meticulously applied and re-applied at every spare moment, even in between teaching kindergarten; where bathrooms in bars and restaurants have a special 'make-up' area complete with sofas and soft lighting; where 6 year olds where Marc Jabocs and Ralph Lauren to play on the playground; where people bleach their skin in order to distinguish themselves from the manual labourers; and where lanky western girls with frizzy hair and baggy hippy pants get the odd discerning look.

Contrary to appearances however, Korean people are far from shallow. They're welcoming, friendly and unbelievably intelligent. Yet I can't shake the feeling that all these people are all dressed up with nowhere to go. As for me, I'll stick with my flipflops and my "natural" approach to make-up!

Wonderful Wonderland and Korea Co-teachers

"Everybody Smile At Wonderland"-My School's [grammatically inaccurate] Slogan

My school is a franchise called Wonderland. And yes, sometimes being 6ft tall, I do feel a little like Alice when she drinks the magic potion, grows into a giant and can't fit through the doors!

The franchise has a really bad reputation, so bad in fact that when our agent, the mysterious "Doyle", told us we had an interview with Wonderland we immediately wrote it off and decided that we'd do the interview only for practice.

Wonderland

Our minds were changed however, during the interview. The friendly laid-back manner of Ian, our supervisor, put us at ease and when we found out that the two teachers we were replacing had been there 2 and 7 years we figured it was worth re-considering.

The fact that the school is a franchise means that it's run like a business. There's no government funding, and the only income comes from the [extremely high] fees the parents pay. This also means that while my school is considerably well run, another Wonderland school just down the road could be completely different.

The bad reputation of Wonderland stems mainly from blog entries and sites such as "the hagwon blacklist", that claim "the school didn't pay me on time", "the school tried to dock my pay when I was off sick" and other such petty complaints. Having been employed at Wonderland for 3 months now I feel strangely protective of it, and of the wonderful people who work there.

My desk

Stereotypically a large majority of the people that come to Korea to teach English are American or Canadian, they've just graduated from university, they've left mummy and daddy behind and they have no frickin' clue about what life is like outside of their North American bubble.

The school didn't pay you on time?? Poor baby. Welcome to the real world. I've don't think I've ever had a job that did consistently pay me on time!

(I think this explains why my closest friends here are those who already have some considerable experience travelling.)

I want to set the record straight about Wonderland. It's not perfect, it's a business, it's a job. Deal with it.

Clockwise: me, Soomi, Claire, Haley,
Michelle (who Ric replaced), and Daisy

At my school there are four native English teachers (myself and Ric and two Americans), and six Korean teachers all of whom are young, funny and WONDERful!

On Tuesday this week all the teachers went out for dinner together to a traditional Korean restaurant whose theme was seemingly a Korea harbour 80 years ago. The decoration was cool, the smell was bad.

The Restaurant

We ate pajeon, Korean pancake made with spring onions, carrots and squid tentacles! And Korean stew (sausages and kimchi), and a variety of traditional Korean snacks (silkworm larvae included). It was surprisingly tasty.

Haley, Daisy and the pajeon

Wonder-teachers

Silk worm larvae, everyone's favourite snack.

Graffitti to mark the occasion, the Korea bit says "teachers"
in case you didn't know.

Cheonan Walnut Cookie Festival

Cheonan is "famous" for being home to Korea's first ever walnut tree [wow!]

 According to legend, a buddhist monk brought the tree to Cheonan from China over 400 years ago and it still stands today at Gwangdeoksa Temple (on my to-visit list).

One of the typical traditional snacks from Cheonan is walnut cake, and there specialised shops that have these crazy industrial revolution style machines that mass produce the cakes. The cakes themselves are little balls filled with walnut cream and walnut pieces. They're pretty tasty.

This weekend (15th-16th Sept) was the First Cheonan Walnut Cookie Festival. [Koreans use the term "cookie" very loosely, it can refer to biscuits, cakes, or even crisps. Basically anything snack-like.] The festival comprised a small stage, a dozen stalls, and some plastic chairs, and it took place outside the train station (pretty clever way of getting visitors, I wouldn't even have known about it if I hadn't have been going to the station anyway.) I think it would have been a massive disappoint for anyone who purposely came to Cheonan to attend the festival, although Ric was particularly impressed by the Korean belly dancers!

I'll have a Donner Kebab Please

Half three on a Saturday morning, you've had a great night out, met some cool new people, tried a strawberry soju cocktail, and you want some late-night munchies. Kebab? Pizza? 

Not in Korea!

What you do is you go to this lady and she will deep-fat fry some random things and put them on a stick. 

It's a bit like a Scottish chip shop, only her deep-fat frier lives under a tarpaulin next to a park, and instead of sausages and Mars bars she fries up prawns, octopus tentacles and suspicious looking vegetables....

Midnight snack, Korean style.

Fish curd broth, spicy glutinous rice cakes, unidentifiable offal... there's something for everyone! 

Ddukbokki; rice cake, seaweed, fish curd, lots of red spicy stuff.

Fish curd - on a stick! Yummy.