Spoiled by More Fantastic Weekends

As I mentioned in my previous post, the weekends have been full of adventures, and things haven't slowed down since my last entry. Recently, I made another rock climbing trip on a mountain outside of Ulsan. Three friends and I woke up early and drove our motorcycles/scooters 2 hours south to the top of a scenic mountain which contained a rock face with over 100 climbing routes. We had a blast of course, and conversed with some Korean climbers who shared their food with us and invited us to join them on future climbing expeditions. I am thrilled to be able to climb real rocks after a year of climbing in gyms!

We also continue to have incredible beach days. Recently, a volleyball net has been installed on the beach, and the foreigner community can't get enough of it! We had a news crew filming us playing a couple weekends ago, and the city business bureau asked my friend to organize a city-sponsored volleyball tournament to promote beach activity! So on Saturday June 9, three friends and I will be competing, and winning, the volleyball tournament!

Last weekend was a 3-day weekend to celebrate Buddha's birthday. A friend of mine coordinated a trip down to Yeosu, on the southern coast of Korea, to visit the World Expo and surrounding areas. 7 friends and I took a bus first to Busan, where we had about 5 hours to kill before catching our next bus to Yeosu. So I got to explore Busan for the first time. We took cabs up to an old fortress on a mountain and walked around for most of that time. We got to see some old buildings that looked like old mansions or small palaces. It was such a treat seeing old buildings that weren't temples, because frankly, the temples all kind of look the same. (I'll post pictures below)

We arrived into Yeosu in the late afternoon. We found a small island close to the Expo and walked a bridge to get there. We ended up spending most of the evening on that island, walking the paths and sitting on the rocky cliffs by the shore, toasting the world with any positive thought that came to our minds.

Around 10pm, we headed back into town to find a place to sleep. We knew it would be hard to find a motel with the Expo going on, so we hoped to sleep at a jimjilbong (a large bathhouse that is a common place for people to sleep). Unfortunately, the one jimjilbong in town filled up while we were trying to get in, so we split up to look for a motel. We found one motel room, and tried to fit all 8 of us. We were woken up around midnight to the hotel manager knocking on the door, who realized we had a lot more than 2 people sleeping in there. At first we were worried he would kick us out, without refunding our money, and we'd really struggle to find a place to sleep. But because the people of Yeosu are apparently the kindest people in Korea, the man let us stay for a minimal additional fee, and then brought us extra blankets, toothbrushes, and a large bottle of water! This was just one of several examples of the people of Yeosu being incredibly kind towards us.

The next morning, we ventured to the World Expo. This year's theme was conservation of the oceans, and every country present provided information about their roles with the ocean. Most countries did a great job of making me want to visit, and some countries like Cambodia, Vietnam, and Angola had highly entertaining musical performances, but only one country (United Arab Emirates) mentioned anything about their roles with conserving their marine habitats. All the other countries just seemed to brag about how much fish they catch and trade with the world. All in all, I had a lot of fun with my friends there, but the event itself was slightly underwhelming.

We caught a bus to the nearby town of Suncheon that night to avoid the madness of finding a motel again. This time, we were successful in finding a jimjilbong to stay in. This was my first time in a jimjilbong, which I'm glad I finally had, since it's such a staple of Korean culture. It was a large building with a men's bathing room, women's bathing room, and a large co-ed common room where people sleep on floor pads. My guy friends and I were commenting, as we were soaking naked together in a pool, that a bathhouse would probably never work in America, since our society is so uncomfortable with showing our naked bodies to strangers, and even to our close friends. In Korea, however, this is nothing embarrassing or awkward.

Monday morning, we took a bus to the Sucheon Bay Ecological Park, which was located at a marshland. We walked along wooden walkways, winding through the tall grass of the marshes. It was a pleasant and peaceful experience. We then took a path up to the top of a mountain where we enjoyed hazy views of the marshes and nearby rice fields. While on the top of that mountain, we noticed a sign that said "Beach 4km", so like a moth to a flame we were drawn to the beach. We didn't realize that the trail became somewhat vague, and that the beach would not be sandy but muddy. On the way, I ended up sticking my whole foot into the mud, and then my friend Mary fell thigh-deep into the mud. We proceeded to wipe mud on our faces like tribal folks, and continue on our trek to the beach. Because of the mud, we realized we REALLY needed to find this beach to be able to wash off before catching a bus back home.

After walking along a very muddy coastline, we finally found a pier that we walked to the end of and jumped into the water. It was pretty mucky water, and several Koreans tried telling us not to get in the water, but we needed that mud washed off our bodies! I would normally listen to words of caution by locals, but since most Koreans don't know how to swim, I figured I could take their warnings with a grain of salt.

From there, we returned to the bus station and headed home. It was a long weekend of a lot of hiking, riding in buses, bonding with great friends, and sleeping communally. As I write this 24 hours later, I still feel completely wiped out and ready for a good, full night's sleep!

And in a few more days, the next adventure begins: The Busan Sand Festival, camping, and climbing on the coast!

The Fortress in Busan

The Island in Yeosu

The World Expo

Ukrainian Jugglers on Stilts at the Expo

Cambodian Musicians at the Expo

The Marshes in Sucheon

Rock Climbing in Ulsan

My Great Friend and Co-Worker Mike

My Great Friend and Usual Climbing Buddy Courtney

My Great Friend Usual Climbing Buddy Mary

With the arrival of spring, the possession of a scooter, and the blessing of great friends, my last few weekends have been blissful and memorable, to say the least. As I have mentioned previously, winter was just dreary. Despite the almost constant blue skies we had, the sub-freezing temperatures kept everyone in the comforts of their home or in the comforts of their favorite smoke-filled bars where everyone knows their name. I've not been one to normally suffer from seasonal affective disorder (or SAD), but winter was just a drag!

Luckily seasonal affective disorder goes both ways, and now that the previously dead landscape has undergone a major facelift with the most vibrant shades of green, complimented with the whites and pinks of cherry blossoms, nothing seems as bad as it did a few months ago. Top that off with friends willing to adventure around Korea, and I've got fantastic weekends! It's like in the Brady Bunch, how nothing seemed to get that family down, probably because the kids had 5 other fun-loving siblings to live with and a kick-ass maid who saved them from any responsibility around the house. That's how I feel in the current season. It's like spring is my Alice, and my friends are my rad Brady siblings. Oh, and I have a scooter, too!

Gyeongju, which is the next major town from Pohang, and the former capital of Korea, holds a cherry blossom festival every year when the beautiful trees are in bloom. My friends and I had heard so much hype about this festival that we absolutely had to experience it! So a few weeks ago, two good friends and I decided it'd be fun to drive out to Gyeongju on a Saturday afternoon, camp for the night, and visit the cherry blossom festival the next day. We had never camped in Korea, but were told that we could set up camp on any open plot of land. So we loaded up our scooters with a tent, stove, and other camping supplies, and drove in the direction of Gyeongju. I figured finding an open plot of land would be easy as pie, since there is so much countryside surrounding the region. What I hadn't anticipated was the fact that most of the countryside is occupied by farms. None of us felt comfortable setting up camp on someone's property, so we spent a good amount of time exploring and searching for a nice, unoccupied plot. We found a trail that we took our scooters down, and ended up in a nice, grassy field full of grass mounds. And these grass mounds had headstones on them. And we realized we were in an old graveyard. We were afraid it might be a bit insensitive of us to set up camp where other people's loved ones have been laid to rest, but the sun was setting, and we were growing impatient, and getting cold. So after a quick inspection of the grounds and finding that we were quite alone out there, we decided to just pitch the tent and hope we don't get in trouble (and hope for no zombie apocalypse). It ended up being a terribly cold and uncomfortable night with the three of us crammed inside a tent clearly made for two, but it was a worthwhile experience, and now I can say I have spent a night in a graveyard.

The next morning, we packed up our scooters and headed into town for the cherry blossom festival. What we came to realize was that it wasn't so much a festival as it was a bunch of people coming from all over Korea to gaze at the glory of Gyeongju's countless cherry blossom trees. (I will now refer to it as a "festival", due to the fact that it was only a festival by title and nothing else). There was a fairgrounds-type location, where most people were gathered, but no festivities or food tents or entertainers were present. So we strolled around the "festival", eating occasional greasy foods and enjoying the beauty surrounding us. We quickly grew tired of the crowds and decided it'd be better to enjoy the cherry blossoms from the road on our drive home. We took a long way home through the mountains where the wind blew cherry blossom petals like it was snowing with clear blue skies.

Last weekend was one that never stopped being happy. It began Friday night with a gathering of great friends at the beach in Pohang which is right in the heart of the city. A man had set up a mobile karaoke trailer at the beach, and many middle-aged Koreans were dancing and singing on the boardwalk where we were gathered. A few friends and I started dancing to the music off to the side, and the other dancers quickly grabbed us and pulled us into the center of their musical party. I ended up dancing with some ladies at least 30 years my senior, and I had a blast. I was then asked to sing a song, so I sang "My Girl" and busted out what few motown dance moves I knew. When the song ended, the karaoke host played "Dancing Queen" and asked me to sing it. I hardly knew that song, so luckily a friend joined me and sang the parts that were unfamiliar to me. My group of friends ended up singing at least a half-dozen songs and stayed there on the boardwalk until about 3:30am.

The next day, a good friend and I drove out to a very small town 40km NW of Pohang for some rock climbing and camping. We found out about a rock out there that has several climbing routes for us to enjoy, along with a good camping spot right next to it. So we loaded up our scooters once again with all our camping gear and found the rock. Though I have been frequently climbing in rock gyms, I hadn't climbed real rocks since I was in high school. And a whole new set of challenges and fears overcame me while climbing this rock. On real rocks, you have to search for where to place your hands and feet, it's not perfectly clear where to go. And what's hard is trusting that you can grip the small ledges available to you. Having always struggled with a fear of heights, my biggest challenge was not having the strength or skill to climb these rocks but finding the strength to push through my fear. Luckily my friend was very patient with me and guided me through it all.

On Sunday, after camping and doing some morning climbing, we packed up our gear and headed back into Pohang. Some friends of ours were heading to a nice beach north of the city, so we met up with them there for a relaxed afternoon in the sand. After a delicious thai dinner, four of us went to a fancy coffee shop for some cheesecake and a round of our favorite board game Settlers of Catan (when I say favorite, I mean it's our sick addiction). No weekend, no matter how fun and adventurous, can feel complete without a round of Settlers.

More wonderful activities have filled other recent weekends, such as beach parties, hiking around waterfalls, and paintball. But I feel I've written enough for now. I only have 2 and a half months left here. Though I'll be happy to be back home in Portland with my family and friends (and dog!), I still have a lot I want to do here in Korea with my friends who I am not eager to say goodbye to.