Get The Ball Rolling

For anyone who doesn't know, me and Ric are going to India! We've got 7 weeks to go before we fly off again and as with every trip, we have lots to sort out before we go. 

I've just got back from a lovely and very productive trip to Huddersfield to be reunited with my Ric. It was a long four days without him after living joined at the hip for a year! 

We set up camp on his couch and got lots of things done:

• We started our visa applications for India. You can do it all online, even the payment, which is great, especially after all the trouble we had getting our visas arranged for Korea.
• We booked a hostel in Delhi and an airport transfer for when we arrive. Usually I'm happy to just turn up to a place with nowhere to stay, but not at 2am after an 8 hour flight.
• We plotted out some places we wanted to visit. I think we're quite unique in how we go about planning our trips (and by unique I mean weird). Rather than reading guide books and studying maps, Ric and I just look for photos of places that look nice, copy them into Paint, and then join them up like a dot-to-dot to make our own map. 
• We booked flights from Manchester to London as we have to fly out of Heathrow. I've never done an internal flight in England before, we're going to be sat there in our hippy pants and sandals among all the business men!
• We booked round trip flights to Nepal for our Everest trip. We've decided not to book the trek in advance as you end up paying twice as much as you'd pay through an agent inside the country (a lesson I learned on my Machu Picchu trek!) Treks to Base Camp are about £600-800 if you book online, so we'll have to see what the prices are like in Nepal. Of course it could be that all the treks are fully booked when we get there and we won't even be able to do it, which would be a shame but we've decided it's a risk we're happy to take. If we don't get to climb Mt. Everest, I'll be happy just to see it. 

After we'd done all that, we were feeling so productive that we decided we needed a rest, and went boating along the canals with Ric's parents. Here are some snaps from our first week home:

Wedding of the Year! 

One of the main reasons I came home, my beautiful friends Lauren and Paul got married after 8 years together. 

 Congratulations Mr and Mrs Chambers!!!

 It's great to see my glamorous friends again.

 Ric took me on a walk to Hardcastle Crags. 

We went for a summer evening drive up to Huddersfield's Castle Hill.

 Hebden Bridge, where we had high tea by the side of the canal.

 Canal boating.

 Ric and his Dad working the locks.

Me and Ric on the canal into Sheffield.

South Korea Video

I wanted to share this very cool video that Ric's brother made when he came to visit us in May. The places shown (in order) are: Manchester airport departures lounge, Gyeongbokgung Palace Seoul, Namsan Tower cable car, the base of Namsan Tower, Hongdae, Hongdae again, Seoul's Hyundai Residence Hotel overlooking Namsan Tower, Anapji Pond Gyeongju, outside Busan Train Station (x3), Busan Harbour from Busan Tower, Taejongdae Busan, Gwangalli beach, Gwangan Bridge. Enjoy!

By Jeremy Stopher

Home Sweet Home

Well, I'm back home in Swinton. I got back on Monday afternoon, 30 hours after leaving the apartment in Cheonan.

I was surprised at how upset I was to leave; a couple of months ago I was counting down the days until I got home, but as the departure date drew closer it became more and more difficult for me to think about saying goodbye, and I shed tears several times between leaving Cheonan and arriving back in Manchester. 

I was sad to leave my students; they were so loving and affectionate towards me that it is hard to imagine never seeing them again. I'm sure they've already moved on and forgotten me now, but I really will miss my kids. Who's going to tell me I'm a princess every morning? Who's going to line up just to sit on my knee?

My babies!

I was sad to say goodbye to the friends and co-workers who had become like a second family to me in Cheonan. Sitting on my couch now watching daytime TV seems like a dream, I keeping expecting to wake up in the Teachers' Room at school and have to go to class!

Team Wonderland

Our last meal with the teachers *snif snif*

Ric, Me, Soomi, Claire, Mr Daisy, Daisy

I was beyond sad to leave our apartment. It was mine and Ric's first home together, and we made so many memories there. We've only been together two years, and 50% of that time was spent in Korea, so it was hard to leave and go back to our respective towns on either side of the Pennines. 

We've left our first home, steady jobs and a substantial income to go off into the unknown again and live like poor backpackers- that's a pretty daunting prospect, even for me!

Getting home was rather anti-climatic; Manchester is grey and rainy, my parents are in Spain, my friends are all at work and my boyfriend has gone back to his home town. Really, if it weren't for this little man and bacon butties, my days would be pretty dull.

The best part of being home? My nephew Jake telling me to "do one". 

But... I'm not home for good. I have less than eight weeks in England before Ric and I go off into the wild again, to India. My future currently stands about as unplanned and unforeseen as it has ever been, and that is quite exciting actually.  

I'm planning to enjoy the next eights weeks in Europe, visit as many friends as possible, spending lots of time with my beautiful nephew, and trying not to spend all of my savings!

The Scrub

It's midnight, I lock eyes with my friend Sydney, lying naked on the plastic bed in front of me, our skin floating in brown, slimy clumps around us. We share a sympathetic look as our two charges yank our limbs apart and scrub our most private places with industrial strength Brillo pads. 

Is it a prison camp? A torture chamber? No. In fact, we were paying good money for the privileged of having our bodies publicly scrubbed. We were in a jjimjilbang (a Korean bath house), enjoying Korean cleansing at its finest.

In an earlier post about jjimjilbangs I described everything apart from the Korean rub, which I hadn't quite been brave enough to try, but now I've done it a couple of times and on Thursday I went along with Sydney to 'share' her first scrubbing experience.

The scrub takes place inside the bathing area of the jjimjilbang, more or less in full view of everybody in there. The 'scrubbers' are usually middle-aged women wearing lacy underwear and diamante jewelry. 

You lie on the plastic-covered massage table, where your 'scrubber' throws a bucket of warm water over you and then begins to scrub away at your dead skin cells.

It isn't a relaxing experience and it certainly doesn't deserve the title 'massage' (맛사지). During the scrub the Korean lady slapped my ass to signal when it was time for me to change position, she handled me roughly, like a piece of meat, yanking my lanky limbs around and dropping them carelessly when she was done, and she made no effort to conceal her discontent at my inadequate Korean language skills. 

Getting covered in baby oil and being rubbed, scrubbed and man-handled by an old Korean lady gave me the feeling of being a child, being bathed by a stern, dour Grandmother, like those you see in Victorian films. Pretty weird to say the least, but it's certainly a unique experience.

Thoughts that crossed my mind mid scrub...

I wonder if she's talking about me in Korean. What's going to happen next?!?! Jesus! That's a mole stop trying to scrub it off! Not the nipples... arrrrgh! This is so unflattering. I wonder how much weight in skin I will lose...

Strange as it was for me, as an English woman, I would earnestly recommend everybody try it at least once. Korean women do it on a weekly basis and it does leave your skin feeling baby soft. 

If you are interested in reading a slightly less dramatic account of our scrub experience, click here to go to Sydney's blog.

Dog Soup and Chicken Poo House

So... I ate dog.

It was actually quite nice. Far better than I'd expected at least. The flavour was a little like lamb, but with a much softer texture, like that of corned beef. It's served as a soup, with spring onions and spices.

I don't feel bad about eating dog, meat is meat after all , and if you chose to be a meat eater I believe you should be willing to eat any type of meat. You can't be morally opposed to eating dog and then happily eat a cow; they're both animals that feel pain. 

That said, I won't go out of my way to eat one again.

Korean dog soup.

After our dog dinner we decided to get all the weird Korean foods out of the way in one evening and headed for a chicken restaurant for dessert. Korean menus have something that translates literally as "chicken poo house" (닭 (chicken) 똥 (poo) 집 (house)). For the most part I think this is an unfortunate translation of the word "gizzard", although when you're eating it with the term "poo house" in mind, you can't help but wonder. 

It does look like bumholes...

The poo house was not to my liking, very chewy, and the name put me off! 

Something not even Ric likes to eat!!

Hopefully that's it for exotic dinners now, and I can serve the rest of my time in Korea eating pizza and McDonalds!!

Should you wish to try the dog soup, or the chicken butt...
Dog Restaurant: Go to Doojeongdong Lotte Mart, find the corner with Lotteria inside and go out onto the street. Cross the major road directly in front of Lotte mart and continue straight away from Lotte Mart. Take the first street on the left. The restaurant is on the right.
Chicken butt: most chicken restaurants have this on offer, we went to Chicken Boy in Doojeongdong, opposite the Hanjeon, close to the traditional medicine hospital and McDonalds.

One Last Korean Weekend

Our last full weekend in Korean land is over! Tonight is our last Sunday evening in our wonderful apartment in Cheonan and tomorrow the final 7-day count down begins. It's come around so fast.

After the spending the past few weekends cramming in everything we wanted to see, Ric and I finally decided to spend this weekend in Cheonan, enjoying the city we know so well, and spending time with the people we care about here. Accidentally, it turned out to be a very Korean weekend (by our standards at least).

On Friday we had arranged to meet our friend Ripul for dinner and chats about our future travel plans. Turns out we're kinda popular (or Ripul is at least), and our party of three soon turned into a party of 16! We had dinner followed by beer and soju outside a mart, then went to a Korean club in Doojeongdong. It was our first experience of a "nightclub" in Cheonan, and one of very few experiences in Korea (because we're kinda past it you know?) Smokey, sweaty, and obnoxiously loud; Weed House was like clubs all over the world. The music wasn't exactly to our taste but we did enjoy watching our non-drinking, American colleague Alex bump and grind like a crazy person for a couple of hours. Exhausted from just watching him (!!) we slipped away at the respectable hour of 2am and went home to our hot chocolate and tartan slippers. 

Alex, John, Alisha, Ripul,Me, Ric and Claire in Doojeong Vegas

Sweaty nasty people inside Weed House

On Saturday, nursing our soj-overs, we met Sydney and Michael, who's visiting from the states, for an afternoon in Shinbudong, the 'down-town' area of Cheonan. As we innocently ate ice creams in the park we became the centre of attention as a drunk elderly Korean man began to lap dance for us, and immediately behind us two guys in army fatigues humped statues in an effort to advertise a sushi restaurant. The crowd of young Koreans in the park soon turned their attention from the concert taking place, to the four waygooks sitting slap bang in the middle of a freak show. How quintessentially Korean.

....???

 We hastily retreated to a restaurant and fumbled through an order for the two vegetarians and the girl who doesn't eat seafood (both unheard of ideologies in Korea.) After lunch we went to a dog cafe; yes, a cafe where you drink coffee and play with dogs. This is obviously an odd choice for the girl who doesn't particularly dogs, or animals in general, but it's a popular Korean pastime that sounded like a good idea at the time. In the cafe groups of young women in their Sunday finest gathered around these small fluffy things whilst they sipped their iced lattes. A Korean couple were snuggled in the corner nursing a little dachshund as if it were a baby. I, on the other hand, was much less forthcoming in my doggy affections. For starters the place stank! The dogs were encouraged to do their business on the floor, and I actually witnessed one girl get bitten by a disgruntled pooch! It was a novelty, but it was not an enjoyable one (for me, at least). Any readers wanting to enjoy their expresso with a shot of dog poo can find Play Dog by taking the road next to Baskin Robbins, opposite Shinsegae, heading back three blocks and turning left. 

Begrudgingly I shared my ice latte with one over zealous pooch.

 Following that we spent an unhealthy about of time and money in the sticker booth shop, taking "cute" photos together and testing our boys' patience.

Say "kimchi"

We ended the day in a Korean bar eating kimchi stew; the red, fermented, spicy soup that we all love to hate. Or in my case, just hate.

Today I put aside my doggy animosity as our awesome foursome became five, with Sydney's dog, Sigma, joining us for a hike. We went to Gakwonsa, the local temple, headed up to the ridge and down the other side to Yuwanggol (유왕골). From there we walked through the valley and had a picnic by the stream. It was really pleasant. The first time we did this hike was in the depths of winter, minus ten degrees outside with a thick snow on the ground, so it was quite nice to go again in the summer and see everything in full bloom, we were even able to splash around in the river. Ironically, the first time we went I forgot to take the memory card for our camera, and the second time we didn't even have a camera because it broke! But fortunately this time round we had our sassy friends to take photos, and to kindly give me free reign over their camera.

Hiking up Taejosan

Sydney and Michael getting amorous over the picnic.

Sigma eyeing up her next stick.

As it turns out, we willingly made the exact mistake today as we did in January; we walked all the way to Yongyeon Reservoir (횽연저수지), aka the middle of  nowhere. With it being summer, today there were at least buses running more than twice a day, but unfortunately they refused to let us on with our canine friend. Once again we were stranded in the middle of nowhere, too tired to go back the way we came. Hitch hiking wasn't going to work this time round; not with four foreigners and a big dog. So we walked on, past the reservoir and further into the back-water-burner village of Mokcheon. 

Our hiking squadron.

Yeongyeon Reservoir.

Me and Ric by the reservoir.

When we eventually found people, some five hours after setting off, we had them call us a taxi to take us back to Cheonan, but even the taxi driver couldn't find us! He called us twice, asking where we were, but given that we were lost in the middle of nowhere we couldn't even tell him! Thank Buddha for kind Korean people! I flagged down a car, that pull over and the driver got out to help us. When those directions turned out insufficient, I found a lady who came over to wait with us whilst directing the driver on the phone. Finally we were safely on our way back to civilisation!

It was a good decision to stay in Cheonan this weekend; taking it easy and doing things we know are easily navigable in the confusing world of Korean! It was also nice to spend time with friends, for I am genuinely going to miss certain people.

Same same, but... different

After a year in Korea, without seeing most of my friends of family, indeed, barely speaking to some of them thanks to the time difference and busy schedules, I often wonder if everyone at home has changed, or if I’ve changed. I secretly worry that I’ll go back and my friends won’t like who I am now, or that I won’t like them! So here’s a forewarning to my friends and family, and some personal reflection on the effects of a year in Kimchi land:

My English is terrible

Being surrounded by English learners and people whose first language is not English certainly affects the way I speak. I find myself saying “that’s OK” as an answer to everything, and using “why” far more often than necessary, even when I’m speaking to Ric or my American friends. Trying to make my young students understand me also means that I use strange sentence constructions that are terrible English, but I know they will understand. That’s bad of me, as a teacher, but sometimes getting them to follow an instruction is more important than exposing them to the English grammar in its full complexity. What’s more, having American friends, and having to speak “American English” at school, means that words like trash, movie, and sidewalk not pepper my speech.

I know more, yet I know nothing

I heard a quote once that “the more you travel, the less you know”, and it really does ring true for me. Here [in Korea] I’ve learnt so much: a new language, a new culture, and a history that I was never taught in school. And yet, this only serves to make me more aware of how little I actually know about the world, particularly the world outside of Europe.

I’m more submissive

Naturally, I am an assertive person who likes to be in control (read: bossy), but Korea’s patriarchy has inadvertently taught to me to be more laid back, thanks patriarchy.

Living in one of the most sexist countries in the world has seen me take a back seat and let Ric do the talking more than usual. So many times have I been ignored, whilst males spoke to Ric. I find this amusing, as my Korean is better then Ric’s, so while he wants me to do the talking for the two of us, the Koreans force him to blunder through the language. When I pay for something out of my money from my purse, the change gets handed to Ric. Important questions about our future are put to Ric, not to the both of us. In fact, I was never asked by my boss whether I wanted to renew my contract at the school, or whether I wanted to go home to England. All of those questions were addressed to Ric, in private conversations which I was not invited to partake in. Of course this isn’t to Ric’s taste; it makes him feel uncomfortable when I get ignored.

I find I let Ric give directions to taxi drivers, I let him order for me in restaurants and I let him take my change (as long as he gives it back!) As a feminist, I am outraged and appalled by the way men treat me in Korea, but as a person I think I’m better now I’m more laid back. Ric and I still have a very equal relationship, and it’s nice to let somebody else take the reigns… sometimes.

Exploring the North-East

Our second weekend in Gangwondo province was a long one, thanks to a public holiday for Buddha's Birthday that fell on the Friday. Funny how the biggest religion in Korea is now Christianity, yet Easter went by unnoticed and we get a public holiday for Buddha's Birthday...

Anyway, with our friend Alex kindly covering Ric's late Thursday class, we were able to catch the last bus up to Gangneung and be checked into a motel by the bus station by 10.15. Perfect. To celebrate we sat in a mart drinking beer from paper cups and eating fried chicken warmed up in a mircowave - living the highlife, Korea!

Early the next day we caught the local bus to Odaesan National Park where we set up our flimsy pink tent and ate a late breakfast of greasy pajeon in a restaurant by the river. Although the park has a camp site, it wasn't yet open for the season. For us that simply meant we hopped over the barrier and got to camp there for free. Hurrah.

We hiked up the valley following the river. It was beautiful. The trees are so thick and green, and the clear water of the river was deep enough to swim in. We stopped off frequently to paddle, admire waterfalls, and lie out on the sun-warmed rocks. There was even a temple nestled up in the valley, so we were able to go wish the big man a Happy Birthday.

We walked 8.2km, failed to find nice food in the tiny village and the settled around our camp fire for the evening with a pack of cards and [another] bottle of beer. I LOVE making camp fires, I would definitely have survived natural selection.

Ric chilling at our camp at dusk

The next day didn't go quite as smoothly as the previously one. For starters we didn't sleep well in the tent, possibly because it cost £8 and ripped holes in it after the first use. We got to our next destination, Samcheok, and realised that the infrequent buses meant we wouldn't be able to see everything we wanted to see in one day, so we'd have to stay the night there. It was forecast rain too. 

Whilst waiting for our first local bus to take us on our way sightseeing, we took a taxi to Samcheok beach. The beach was golden and the waters were clear and beautiful, but the buildings along the beach were in various stages of decay and we quickly decided we wouldn't spend the night in one of the shabby motels there. 

It was about 3 o'clock before we got to where we planned to visit: Daegeugul and Hwanseongul Caves. Hwanseongul is the biggest cave in the country and one of the biggest in Asia, appoximately 8km in length!

Caves aren't really my thing, Ric was the one who wanted to go, but I was so impressed once we got inside. The size is just unbelievable and the weird rock formations inside are spectacular. The photos don't do it justice but they give you an idea of how big it is.

After the caves we took a bus along the coast to the small fishing village of S(h)inan. The next stop on our trip was located in Sinan so we thought we were being clever by taking a late bus down there, staying over, and being the first through the gates in the morning. I assumed that because Sinan was by the beach, there would be at least some neon-embellished love motels that we could stay in...

Wrong, wrong, wrong. 

By the time we got off the bus it was dark, the village had probably 100 little houses, only a few with lights on, and the cries, songs and screams of drunk fishermen echoed against the mountains behind us. It was scary, like the beginning to a bad horror film. The further we headed down from the road into the village, the more likely it seemed that we'd be sleeping in our crappy tent in the rain. The few minbaks (traditional accodommation) in the village were closed. Luckily, we found one old lady sweeping her shop and she said her minbak was open. 

Eating was another problem. It was after 9, we hadn't eaten and there didn't appear to be any restaurants in the village. Once again our ajuma came to the rescue and lead us to a restaurant... in the fish market!! 

Those of you who know me know of my aversion to fish or any type of seafood, so you can imagine the look on my face when I found myself starving hungry, in a fish market looking at a menu with fish as the only option. She offered us raw fish rice or fish stew. After my experience of raw fish in Busan, I chose the cooked option. The stew came, red and fiery hot like most things in Korea, and floating in it were 3 fish heads and one tail. I'm not sure what type of fish it was but I'm guessing it must be some exotic Asian fish... most fish in Europe only have one head.

Anyway, I ate it; cringing at the tiny, lethal fish bones and the judging me from within the broth.  I ate enough to get me through the evening and avoid offending another Korean person.

The three-headed fish dinner.

Look, I ate it!

 As forecast, it rained, a lot, and I was grateful for a roof over my head, even if it didn't have curtains and was overlooked by the entire harbour. When we woke up the clouds were so low over the mountains that we could barely see across the bay. So much for my beach weekend. It did make the small, creepy village look even more eerie though, it looked like the scary island in the film Shutter Island. 

Luckily the village shop sold rain coats and we were able to carry on to the main attraction that drew us to Sinan in the first place... A PENIS PARK!!!

Korea, conservative as it is, has a thing for penises. There a couple of penis parks around the country and I really wanted to visit one before we left (forget rocks and and caves, head to the beach for cocks and waves!!!)

The story goes (in my own words):

A young virgin drowned at sea,

After her death the fishermen were unable to catch any fish,

They realised the girl's ghost must be haunting the ocean, 

So what could they do?

How to please a young female ghost who drowned at sea?

...

With dicks of course!

Lots and lots of huge penises looking out to sea.

What else would a virgin ghost want?

So the park was erected and the fish came back. Now it's a tourist attraction. I have to admit, I loved it, it was hilarious. I've never seen anything like it before, it's SO WEIRD. The views along the coast were beautiful from the park and the diverse array of shlongs of varying degrees of offensiveness were highly entertaining. It's certainly representative of the misogyny in Korea.

There she is, the dead girl. Behind her, the 12 signs of the zodiac carved into giant granite penises.

 The rain may have spoilt my plans for a beach day, but it did bring out loads of these little guys all over the penis park. They weren't camera shy either!

After the penis park we went to jjimjilbang (Korean sauna) to wait out the remaining time before our bus home. We jokingly said this blog title should be Ric's Day of Dick as it started with a park full of penis statues and ended in a bath tub full of naked Korean dudes.

The north-east is really beautiful; the beaches, the mountains and the phallic-centric parks. I would highly recommend it. 

Consumerism Gone Mad

The month of May in Korea is every parents worst nightmare. There's Children's Day on May 5th, Parents' Day on May 8th and Teacher's Day on May 15th.

And every day is as big as Christmas, maybe bigger. Just look at the load I got from Teacher's Day: 

This isn't even in the same league as the presents I used to give my teachers when I was at junior school. Box of chocolates? No. Designer make up and clothes. Cute mug? No. Top range kitchen ware and bath products.

The kids here don't just have one teacher either. There's elementary school teachers, English hagwon teachers, math hagwon teachers, piano teachers... and what about families with more than one child?! 

Fortunately for me though, I'm not a Korean parent, and for once, having more students than any of my colleagues really paid off!!! 

Jeongdongjin

With our departure from Korea fast approaching, Ric and I spent two consecutive weekends in the north-east province of Gangwon-do, one part of the country that we'd barely explored.

On the first weekend in the region we spent a relaxing two days on Jeongdongjin beach with our favourite Cheonan person, Sydney!

We found the place rather by accident whilst browsing Google images one day and decided it looked cool with the iconic ship-on-a-cliff resort hotel, beach-front train station and North Korean submarine. It didn't disappoint.

Happy threesome.

Jeongdongjin beach and the Sun Cruise hotel behind us.

We spent most of the weekend drinking beer, playing cards, reading books and eating junk food on the beach. We trekked up to the Sun Cruise Resort Hotel (the ship-on-a-cliff) and watched a stunning sunset over the mountains. The hotel is really beautiful, albeit in need of a lick of paint. It has a swimming pool, and huge gardens full of sculptures and the view from up there really is worth the 5,000won you have to pay just to enter the grounds!!!

Sun Cruise

Sunset

Sunset

We ever managed to get up at 5am to watch the sunrise over the East Sea. Too bad it was overcast...

Sunrise, not worth getting out of bed for at 5am.

Jeongdongjin is also home to one of Korea's many "Unification Parks", set up to teach about North and South relations and to promote the peaceful reunification. The park has a North Korean submarine that was recovered in 1996 when it crashed onto the rocks off the Jeongdongjin coast. Inside the sub were "26 armed guerrillas" that abandoned their sinking submarine and entered South Korea, where they were at large for several weeks before they were eventually captured/killed by South Korean forces. In addition there's a wooden boat, that brought North Korean defectors to the South in search of asylum and smart phones, and a naval ship, all of which you can nosy around in.

Unification Park

Not sure why a naval ship has this...

View from our hotel, overlooking the train station on the beach.

Ric and Sydney took a speed boat ride along the coast.
I didn't think it was 'relaxing' enough for my schedule.

And my favourite photo of all...

We made friends with this couple when we decided to photo bomb their wedding snaps.

Photos courtesy of Sydney and her smart phone, as we broke our camera :(

How to get to...
Jeongdongjin: we took a direct bus from Cheonan to Gangneung (3hrs30min) and then a local city bus (#106) straight to the beach. The bus took about 30 minutes but you can get the train from Gangneung station to Jeongdongjin station and it only takes 15 mins.

We stayed at...
A motel. There are plenty of motels, pensions and min baks to chose from along the beach, most motels cost around 40,000~60,000 won. Ours was the Full House Motel, and it was 60,000 for a room with a sea view.