Short Stop at Seosan

Re: 2013/11/2-11/4

We flew from Jeju to Gimpo International Airport in Seoul. The next plan was to catch the bus to Seosan, Steven’s town. We were going to spend the weekend with him before we took off back to the US. We looked for the bus to Seosan at the stops in front of the airport, but we didn’t spot it. So, we stopped by the information booth to ask. Although they didn’t really speak English, they were able to help us find the correct bus. When the bus showed up, though, it was completely full. There were only 2 seats available, and we weren’t in the front of the line. It would be another hour and a half before the next bus, so we decided to go to the Nambu bus terminal, despite warnings from Steven. We actually didn’t find it to be too bad, and the bus was departing nearly immediately after we arrived. We rushed through the station and got on the bus. It must have been rush hour, though, as it took forever to get through the traffic and out of town. Other than that, it really wasn’t a bad drive.

It went almost directly to Seosan. At some point, it got off the main highway and stopped at a convenience store at a small town. We didn’t think this was our stop (we were expecting a bus station), but when I pulled out my offline map, it something about Seosan, and I was concerned we missed our stop. When the driver stopped for gas, I went up and asked him, and he told us we weren’t there yet. So, we went and sat back down. The next stop was in a big city, which was the Seosan for which we were looking. It stopped in a shopping district, but we didn’t get off (our previous experience told us to not get off until we were at an official station). However, as the bus took off again, it made a turn and went right through the bus station there and didn’t stop. Thinking they would stop again in town, we just stayed on. They didn’t, though. So we had to stay on until the next town and the end of the line, Taean. Once there (at a bus station, btw), we had to purchase another ticket back to Seosan. This time we got off at the shopping center, which was the front of the bus station.

They had cute manhole covers in Seosan.

Steven met us there and took us to a coffee shop to get some food. At this point, I had developed a sore on the tip of my tongue that made it difficult to talk or eat. So, we had a bread bowl of soup. Then, we went to Steven’s place. He had several friends there preparing for a Día de los Muertos party. I ended up helping to paint several people, including Steven. Then they all left to meet up with other people at a bar, then eventually go to a norae-bbahng (karaoke). Jonathan decided to join them for a bit, while I stayed at Steven’s and went to sleep. He later regretted it, mostly because there was too much smoke. It really aggravated his wind pipe, and he spoke huskily all the next day.



The next day, Jonathan and I left before anyone else was awake to get breakfast. We just grabbed a bite at the Dunkin Donuts. We wandered around a bit, then wound up back at Steven’s. Since everyone was still asleep, we just read for a while. We went for lunch next, at Pizza Hut. We got the BBQ Chicken Pizza, which was done differently than expected. They used normal pizza sauce under the cheese, then swirled the BBQ sauce over the cheese. It looked pretty. When the server left us after taking our order, she did a little jig as she walked. I interpreted it as she was excited that she figured out what the Americans wanted. Afterwards, we wandered around again and got a hotel for the night.

The menu is always interesting at American chains in other countries.

By then, Steven and May were awake and hungry. So they went out to eat and we joined them (not eating, though). We went to a park and met up with a few more people, before walking to the street where persimmon trees grew along it. We soon developed a method to catch the ripe persimmons without bruising or missing them.

At the park.

Catching persimmons. We didn’t want to bruise or drop them, hence the scarf. Plus, some of them were overripe and would explode.

After harvesting persimmons, we walked back to the hotel and Jonathan and I went shopping while Steven and May went back to his house to cut up the persimmons. I did manage to find an acceptable purse right before the shops shut down. No more off-centered, heavy, barely-hanging-on purse. Then, it was back to Steven’s to try the persimmons. Neither Jonathan nor I had eaten one before. I liked them. Kinda hard to describe, but maybe a mix between an apple (with its crispiness) and a mango or peach in flavor. Apparently there was one bad one that Jonathan managed to try. Next, it was time for dinner. This was a chicken meal, which is normally very spicy. We asked for the mild version, but it was still too spicy for me. So, afterwards, we went to a Mom’s Touch restaurant. Their chicken sandwich was spicy as well, but not nearly as much, so I could eat it. We finished the night off at a coffee shop, but by then, I was pretty tired, so we retired to our hotel.

Dinner with our new friends.

Monday morning was the day we were flying out. However, our plane would not depart until 5:50pm, giving us plenty of time to get to the airport. We were uncertain of which bus we would need to take (I saw 3 different Incheon locations with completely different time schedules). So we got dressed and packed up in the morning to see Steven off. We took all of our gear with us and left the key in the room with the door unlocked, so that we could come back or get on the bus, whichever was needed. However, the landlady saw us leave and locked up the room after we left. At the bus station, Steven pointed out the bus and its timetable to us. We decided we would take the 11:30am bus. Now, we just had 2 hours to kill. We went to a coffee shop with internet and spent time. We figured we should grab a lunch to go with us, so we went to the nearby Mom’s Touch. Unfortunately, we had all kinds of mixups with them. They misunderstood that we only wanted 1 Combo #2. And instead gave us 2. I only caught it as I started signing for the purchase. I guess that meant that they couldn’t cancel it. They tried and tried and tried. So, I asked them to give us cash and only give us one combo. But then, I thought, what would we do with the cash? We were trying to get rid of all cash. Finally, I just let them charge me for two of them and give me both. However, we were short on time by now. They worked quickly to get them to us quickly, but by they time we got to the station, there was only 1 seat left. Defeated, we bought tickets for the next bus at 1pm, which would still get us there in time.

I thought there weren’t enough pictures in this section, so here is a picture of my pretty new fan that I got in Seoul.

We went back to Mom’s Touch to eat our meal. When we opened them up, we discovered that they had put mayo on them despite the request to nix it. I took them back and they corrected the issue. By this point, I felt like it was already quite the disappointing and tiring day, but at least it went pretty well after that. We did get on the next bus and it took us directly to the airport. We made it inside. We hadn’t had a chance to print our tickets yet, so we had to stand in the very long line at the ticket counter, but we were given seats. We made it through customs without contestation. Then, at the gate, we were awarded first-class seats (not just business).

First class is especially nice, as every seat has aisle access and fully-flat beds. They even have a guest seat. Again, dinner was fantastic, with a glorious carrot soup. I managed to watch two movies before falling soundly asleep for 2 hours. Missed several meals and snacks. By the time I woke up, I didn’t even have enough time to finish watching my next movie. Oh well, that sleep helped a lot. We landed in DFW and our exotic trip to the East was over.

Jeju

Re: 2013/10/29-2013/11/2

On Tuesday we arrived in Jeju City (in Korean city is spelled as –si at the end of the name, e.g. Jeju-si) in the early afternoon. We used our transportation app (NaverMap) to figure out how to get to our hostel. For the first day, we decided to stay at B&B Pan, which had the cheapest rates we could find and was recommended by Leslie. After we finally found the entrance and were let in, we got settled in. They offered to provide us dinner, but they were already in the process of cooking, almost done actually, and I told Jonathan they might not have enough to include us. We declined, which was probably just as well, they didn’t look like they had much that we would eat.

My first impressions of Jeju-si was that it was smelly. Between the rotting, fishy smells of the ocean and the poorly-vented sewers, I was not impressed. B&B Pan was particularly smelly, even if they were friendly. For dinner, we decided to go find a restaurant. The owners of B&B Pan suggested a restaurant in the Black Pork street (Jeju-si has sections/streets where similar types of restaurants congregate. Near our hostel was Black Pork street, elsewhere there was a Noodle Street). So, we walked over. We went in, but shortly found out that they only serve pork and that you must order at least 2 servings, which was 400g (0.88 lbs). Jonathan didn’t think he would be able to consume all that, even with leftovers, so we left. After wandering around the blocks near our hostel twice, we decided on another restaurant. Jonathan got another pork cutlet, and I got a bibimbap (a rice dish with various vegetables on top). Trying to communicate with restaurant people is interesting. When your offline dictionary isn’t working, it is especially difficult to do custom orders. For example, I didn’t want egg. Apparently my Korean is just slightly off and she couldn’t understand my pronunciation of the word. Eventually, Jonathan’s phone worked, and I was able to show her the word. Later, this struggle caused me to come up with a chart for determining ingredients.

You can see the traditional Korean bibimbap rice dish in the foreground. Interestingly, in Korea, they always serve a pickled dish with your meal. PIckled radish is popular.

For our first adventure in Jeju Island (Jeju-do), we decided to check out Manjanggul Lava Tube. It is a very large cave formed by lava flows solidifying on the outside while the interior still flowed. It created many interesting geographical designs in the tunnel. We took a bus from Jeju-si city bus terminal to the bus stop nearest the cave. From there we took a taxi, but it was pretty expensive for the distance; definitely tourist extortion. The length of cave we traveled through was 1km long one-way; one of the top 10 longest lave tubes in the world, especially so accessible.

There was a formation that is considered to look similar to the shape of the island.

This flow is a result of lava flowing through a hole in an upper tunnel into the tunnel below. The height of the lower tunnel is over 20 feet here.

Afterwards we grabbed a small meal of steamed manju (dumplings). Whenever I don’t think about it much, I was getting pretty good at chopsticks.

After the cave, we went on to Seongsan-ri to find a hostel. Our first effort was unsuccessful, apparently it had been shut down for repairs. Tired, we decided to try a hotel that was on the road. It was as cheap as anything listed on the internet, so we went for it. The plan was to go to bed early and climb up Seongsan (Sunrise Peak) before sunrise to catch the view at daybreak. So early to bed and early rise. We made it up the hill in plenty of time, unfortunately, it was pretty cloudy.

The fishing ships were still out. They use bright lights to attract the fish. This practice is actually a big concern, as it is extremely effective, greatly reducing fish populations, and it produces mucho light pollution.

The view from the top.

The sun just barely peaked through the clouds for a second.

The view on the way down.

The twisty-windy high climb up the mountain.

After our early morning journey, we went back to the hotel for a nap. Then we used the bus system to return to Jeju-si. Since I couldn’t stand the smell at B&B Pan, we decided to try another location. This time we settled at Backpackers in Jeju Hostel. It smelled a lot better and was conveniently located. To finish off the day, we figured we would make a trip out to the Jeju Love Land with a possible stop at the Arboretum. We took a taxi, since it was getting late in the day.

Jeju Love Land was very entertaining. This was one of the tamest scenes.

Afterwards, we were going to take the bus, but as far as I could tell from the timetables, the bus wasn’t going to show for an hour. We didn’t want to wait, so we walked back to the Love Land parking lot and picked up a taxi to the arboretum. The arboretum was scenic.

Learning to read these was a self-teaching experience. The top row designates the stops and I had to figure out the spellings. The left-hand column is the number of times the bus runs and the times are when it stops at the locations.  The yellow-boxed number represents the bus number.

I love maples.

The next day we decided to devote to hiking Hallasan, the highest mountain in South Korea. We were told the paths on the west side of the mountain were more beautiful at this time of year. I didn’t get to compare it to the east side, but it was definitely beautiful. I found the southwest path even more beautiful than the northwest. We got a bit of a late start, but we were there before they stopped letting people go up the trail (after a specific time, they stop letting people up so they won’t be on the trails after dark). We just wanted to make sure we made it to the next bus stop before the last bus at about 4:30. But we hustled, and we made it with 5 minutes to spare before the 2nd to last bus.

The colors were beautiful by now.

This was the scene as we flattened out at the top of the trail.

You can see why weren’t allowed to go to the peak from this side of the mountain—just straight cliffs.

As we crossed over from the northwest trail to the southwest trail, the clouds started rolling in, making it difficult to see past 20 feet in front of us.

At the view of the 500 Followers of Buddha, we were just looking out into a drop-off of cloudy nothingness.

These beauties decorated the southwestern trail.

Again, the color! Just beautiful.

After that very tiring climb, we got the very last available seats on the second-to-last bus. We arrived back at our hostel. I was craving American-style pasta; and fortunately, on the way back to our hostel, we spotted a restaurant that served just that. We had tasty pasta for dinner with real parmesan. Then the next morning we caught a flight out of town with Air Busan, a budget airline.

Colorful Daegu

Re: 2013/10/04-2013/10/07

After Seoul, we traveled to Daegu via bus. Now if any of you are familiar with South Korea, you may be asking why would we go to Daegu? Well, I have a good college friend, Colleen, who settled there, teaching English as a second language. The tourist theme for Daegu is Colorful Daegu, which seems apt after visiting. So on Friday, we arrived at Daegu’s bus terminal. After lunch at a pizza place, we called up several hostels. No one had a room for us, so we went with a love motel that was listed online. Unfortunately it was all the way across town and about a mile from the subway. It took us a while to get there. Fortunately, prices were cheaper than they had been listed online. For 30000 won ($30), we got a room with a queen-sized bed, TV with cable, internet, a couch, and a private bathroom with tub (tubs are a big deal in Korea—they mostly just have showers in apartments). Plus they normally had white bread and jam available for snacks (or breakfast). It was quite reasonable, especially if you can put up with the gaudiness, but $30+/day for housing only really starts to add up. We really missed having our van.







Colleen wasn’t able to meet us on Friday, but she arranged to meet us on Saturday to go to a Korean wedding she had to attend—she was chosen to catch the bouquet. At this point, I had run out of clothes, especially nice ones. We looked for a laundromat and asked around, but we couldn’t find one. So, out of desperation, I threw my clothes in the bathtub with some shampoo and turned on the jets and agitated the clothes. If not clean, at least they smelled better. I hung up the clothes on the various hooks around the room, but didn’t have time to get my nice clothes dry. So Jonathan pulled out the room-supplied hair dryer and got them mostly dry for me.

It has been two years since I have seen Colleen. She looked really good. And I got to give her several hugs.



Then we went to the Korean wedding. It was interesting. Korean weddings have evolved to reflect Western weddings a bit, but with a strong Korean twist. For example, they have big, fancy weddings, but they are at designated wedding halls. The one we went to was the Renaissance Wedding Hall. Then, instead of a reception, before the wedding, they have the groom stand at a table to greet guests and receive gifts (which are only cash offerings—probably a result of the shopping therapy they do combined with small homes). The bride gets to sit in a salon and take pictures with guests. Then when it is time for the wedding, everyone files into the designated hall (there are several there with many other weddings going on at the same time). Wedding-hall attendants escort the mothers to light candles and to their seats in the front, then the groom walks down the aisle. Then the music changes and the bride gets to walk down the aisle. For the bride, they had these hanging decorations rise up and down as she walked, really a bit overdramatic or corny. After the bride and groom are at the front, the guests are welcome to leave and eat their meal and return as they see fit. As this was a Christian wedding, they had a pastor say a few (actually a lot of) words followed by a trio of guys (groomsmen, I guess) singing karaoke to the bride. When the groom chimed in at his part, the trio started popping up at cues during the music. Very hilarious. Then of course, the bride and her gals had to do their song. At the end, the most emotional part for those involved, is the thanking of the parents, when the couple bows down and thanks each of their parents. Then everyone files out, only to return immediately for pictures. This is when the bride “throws” the bouquet. They only do the toss as a picture opportunity, and a woman is designated to catch it. Colleen was the lucky choice, as she has a wedding coming up. Those who stayed for the whole wedding now get to go eat lunch at a cafeteria in the hall serving multitudes of foods in a buffet line.

The mothers are in traditional Korean garb, bowing to each other, after they have lit the candles and before taking their seats. You can also see the wedding-hall attendants in the orange scarves.

They put a spotlight on the couple. Those hanging decorations along the aisle will raise up and down at dramatic points, like the bride walking down the aisle.

The groom singing while his groomsmen jump up and down. 

Thanking the parents.

Oh, and the hanging decorations also “popped” and sent forth shiny streamers.

Posing and catching the bouquet.

After the wedding lunch, we (Colleen and her fiancé and Jonathan and I) went into downtown Daegu to watch a 4D movie. Ended up that they were sold out, so we decided to try another Korean experience: DVD-bbahng. These are places that you basically rent a DVD and a room to watch it in. They have big couches and project the DVD onto the wall. It was a cool experience. Then we went for dinner and had more gogigui. That is where we found that young man passed out from alcohol. After that, we went home to bed, but as we were walking back to the subway, we passed a sock vendor. I was able to pick up some cute lacy socks that go perfectly with my ballet shoes.

In South Korea, many towns, especially Daegu, look like Las Vegas at night with their bright lights and signs.

On Sunday, we met Colleen and Leslie and went to their church, where Colleen and her fiancé lead worship for the English services. I guess Christian services are pretty much universal, so nothing to report there. Colleen had told me that I needed to try honey bread, so after the service, we went in search of some. It took us two or three coffee shops, but eventually we found one that had it. Pretty much glorious. They take a loaf of white bread and slice it into 9 cubes and warm it; then cover with honey or caramel and whipped cream. Pretty tasty and highly recommended.

  
After that, Colleen had to back to church for the second service. So Jonathan and I went back to our place to get ready for a hike. We had been considering to go to Apsan or the mountain with the giant buddha, but since it was starting to get late, we decided to go to the Arboretum. However, the buses took a while, and I missed the correct stop (phone froze), and Jonathan had misread the schedule of the arboretum. When we were finally on the street walking to the entrance, there was a stream of people leaving the area. Jonathan checked the schedule again and realized it had just closed. About that time, my purse finally decided to give way. The last clip that held on the strap completely gave out an broke off (the other had done that a year ago). Jonathan used the wrist strap on my camera to connect the strap to the purse again. And, to add to the trouble, when my purse fell to the ground, it lost my sunglasses holder. I didn’t notice it in the scramble and the darkness. So we returned to our room.

Since I wanted use of my camera strap for my camera, we eventually just connected both strap ends to the carabineer on one side.

Monday, Colleen was already back working. On our own, we decided to go to Palgongsan (a mountain on the outskirts of Daegu) and hike to the Gatbawi Buddha. It is a 17m (55ft) stone statue of Buddha with a flat rock hat. The trail was classified as easy, but man was it tiring. It was a 2km (1.2mi) trail of stairs, directly up the mountain (not very many switchbacks). But it was a pretty trip.

Hand-carved stone bridge.

A bell at the Buddhist temple there.

There were hundreds of people praying here.

After we finally made it back down the mountain and back into town, we were pretty hungry and tired. We grabbed a bite to eat and thought we might try to catch the 4D movie were had planned on catching Saturday. They had seats available, and we dished out the cash. It normally costs 36000 won ($35), but kind Leslie (Colleen’s graduate college friend and my acquaintance) had given us some gift certificates she said she would never use. (Thanks, Leslie!) That dropped the price down to something just like going to the movies in States, much more reasonable. The experience was interesting. The 4th “D” is sensory feeds. The seats move in coordination with the movement on the screen occasionally send jets of air at you. It is a bit distracting; but it was a good experience. I think my favorite way to watch movies is still 2D.



By that time, it was time to return home. We spent the evening trying to arrange flight plans to get to Jeju Island. Over various talks with Leslie, she had convinced us to visit Jeju Island while we there. The island is the top honeymoon and vacation spot in South Korea. It is largest South Korean island, and has a mild climate, warm enough to grow citrus trees. After many calculations and discussions, we decided to fly out of Daegu on Asiana Airlines. I believe that Asiana has the worst airline website ever. I never was able to get it to work. We had to go and buy our tickets at the airport on Tuesday morning. So we left Daegu on an Airbus 320, the first one on which we had ever been. Asiana had filled it completely with economy seating, but I felt like there was more space both left-to-right in the seat and seat-to-seat knee space than typical US carriers.

Notice the “sharklets” instead of “winglets” on the wings. That is an easy way to tell the difference between Airbus and Boeing.