Halloween at Avalon & Naejangsan

(The beautiful leaves on the way out of Naejangsan)

This week has been quick and fun. Monday and Tuesday at work were term tests, so I spend my first two days of the week proctoring tests. It was great, because I was able to get all of my essays marked in a timely fashion. Wednesday was newspaper day, and on Thursday and Friday, we had event days. For the foreign teachers, event day means Halloween Day. We basically created Halloween themed lesson plan, played games with the kids, and ate lots of candy. I urged all of the kids to wear costumes; I told them that if they wore costumes, I would give them 2 stamps (incentives for being good students: they can be used to get out of detention and other things). I was lucky enough to have about 8 or 9 students dress up. I don't have much to tell about this day, but I figured it would be fun to put up some photographs.

(I know they're not wearing costumes, but this was a fun Halloween Day class. -Rianna, Alice, & Amy)

(Jenny)

(Luna)

(Yep, I'm wearing Lewis's hat and holding his strange cat paw wand.)

My Little Nokjiwan class is too cool for costumes, but the three of them are some of my favorite students, so I snapped some photos of them playing Pictionary.

(Sam)

(Sarah)

(Sam & Jim)

My last class of the week was fantastic. There are only nine students, but five of them dressed up. Four of the girls coordinated as a group of witches and Sebastian was some sort of wizard. We had a lot of fun playing games.

(Eric is being slightly inappropriate, and Jonathan was pretending to have a costume)

(The witches were trying to look mean)

(Rachel drawing a vampire)

(Sebastian with witch fingers)

(Johnathan, Eric, & Rebecca)

(Rebecca, Jenny, Rachel, & Emily / The Witches)

As soon as class was finished on Friday night, I went out for a five minute beer with Jen & the guys, because it was her birthday. I drank the beer very fast and cycled Ciaran's bike home as fast I could. I changed, did some last minute packing, and hopped a bus to head into Seoul to meet up with the hikers at Sinsa Station. Chelsea beat me there. By the way, it seems like I may have passed the hiking bug to her. This was two weekends in a row that Chelsea came out to hike with SHITY. This trip was sort of strange. The SHITY hikers were going out to Naejansan on Sunday, so I was planning on missing it for Mindy's wedding, but due to some of the super hardcore hikers that wanted to hike Naejangsan on Saturday and Backyangsan on Sunday, everything became possible. The super hikers let myself, Chelsea, and a few others tag along with them. Jin-young organized for us to ride out with a middle-aged singles hiking group, called Sunshine. After the hike, the Saturday only hikers just went back with them, while to others hitch hiked out to Backyansan.

Blah blah blah, everything worked out, and I was able to have one hell of a hike. We were on a bus from midnight to about five and began hiking in the dark, once again. It really is something else to hike in the dark, and all of the sudden, see the sunrise in the mountains. It feels good to be up that early, doing something that feels so epic. We hiked for about eight hours, and during those eight hours, we hiked over eight different peaks. It really makes the journey fly by, because as soon as you hit a peak, you know that just around the corner, you'll find another one. Because it was a circle of peaks, we did most of our hiking along ridges, which were gorgeous. There were a lot of stretches of this hike, where you were just walking on rocks, and you could look down huge drop offs on both sides.

Another nice thing about this hike was getting to know a few of the hikers a lot better. The group of us that was hiking together was quite small, and we pretty much stuck together for the whole hike. They really are incredible people, and I can't wait to get back into the mountains with them. I never thought that I could get this into an outdoor activity. Seriously, who would have guess that this would be my new favorite type of weekend outings? Not me.

(One of the many ridges)

(Chelsea)

(Julian)

(Chris, Meg, Jin-young, & Andrea)

(Myself at one of the many peaks)

(Andrea, Jin-young, & the orange suit guy [똥팬티])

Yongsan, Namdaemun, & Dobongsan

(One of the temples on Dobongsan)

This weekend was something else. I would have never expected Saturday night to turn out the way it did in a million years.

To begin the weekend, JC and I decided to do some camera hunting in Yongsan. There is a massive electronics mart right by the subway station. We both had come prepared with information on our desired products. JC couldn't seem to find what he was looking for, but every single vendor had the camera I was seeking (Canon T1i). Each shop had a very different price they were quoting me for the camera kit. This price ranged anywhere from 700,000 - 970,000 won. Eventually, I found a mildly sketchy guy that took me behind his display and let me mess around with the camera I wanted to buy. We settled on a price of 650,000 won, which was better than anything I'd seen at any other store. I've never really been in a position where it was acceptable to haggle, but it really make the shopping experience completely different. I liked it. Right before leaving, we stopped by another electronics store that looked slightly more legitimate. I thought that this browsing location was going to turn out to be pretty pointless, but boy, was I wrong. I asked a few vendors for prices, and finally I came across one man that didn't just tell me a price. He pulled out his calculator to type in the price, like all of the shop merchants do, but instead of typing, he asked, "Best price?" I figured what the hell, and told him 600,000. He seemed very hesitant, but eventually said, "Okay! 600,000 won." I felt very accomplished at that moment, but I didn't actually have any money, so I plan to go back and make the purchase once I get paid.

While JC was contemplating his possible purchase, we took a step outside to find that there was a snowboard hill constructed on the sidewalk outside Yongsan Station. It was so random, but we sat down on the steps and watched snowboarders for at least an hour. It was very entertaining, even though 4 out of every 5 runs down the slope were pretty pathetic. I say this as though I am some sort of snowboard god or something; I'm not. There were just a number of disappointing attempts.

(Snowboard park at Yongsan)

After this, we decided to take the subway out to Namdaemun, because I had read about some grey market shops that sold canons extra cheap: illegally imported from Japan. We went searching for camera, which turned out to be considerably more expensive than my haggled canon in Yongsan, but found so much more. Who would have guessed that Namdaemun Market on a Saturday night could be so much fun? Not me. We learned that Koreans are baffled by white guys walking around with Mokguli (Korean rice wine). They just ask in a surprised voice, "Mokguli?!" This happened at least ten times. I was pretty hungry, so we settled in to a little street food vender and met these three great people: an older woman, and to men in their thirties. We sat down, drank, and talked with them for at least an hour and a half. They were feeding us all sorts of food and teaching us about Korean people and their "one heart." Apparently people from China and Japan have two hearts. They will be nice to your face and walk away saying that they don't like you, but in Korea, they have only one heart. The talk to you and if they like you, they really like you. When they walk away, they feel the same way they did before. Interesting point of view. I like it. Eventually, we made our way home, because I had to be up for a hike pretty early in the morning.

(JC at the entrance to Namdaemun Market)

(Refill on Mokguli)

(JC and our new friend, Ham)

(Myself and Do-ming)

The next morning started off a little rocky. Let's just say that I woke up way too late. I was supposed to meet up with Chelsea at Pyeongchon Station at 8:15. I didn't arrive until 8:45. Just to be safe, I still got off the subway and waited to make sure that she wasn't late like me. She wasn't. I got on the subways and was supposed to meet the SHITY group at 10:00am at Dobongsan Station. I arrived at 10:30ish and couldn't find Chelsea or the SHITY group. At this point, I had submitted to a solo hike. After purchasing a kimbap and two apples, I departed on my hike, alone. This turned out to be pretty nice, except for the fact that there were a billion people on the mountain yesterday. Because this trail is so close to Seoul, everybody goes out there.

(The first 1.5 hours was spent walking in a line like this.)

Shortly after this photo was taken, I happened to find Chelsea on the mountain. This was a pleasant surprise. I then had company for the remainder of the hike. Once we started really hiking up into the mountain, towards the peak, the crowds thinned out, and it was very fun. We actually ran into the SHITY hikers about an hour after our meet up. In the end, I saw everybody I was planning on seeing. SUCCESS! They also talked me into hiking next weekend. I think I'll be able to make it back for Mindy's, one of our Korean teacher's, wedding on Sunday. The hike took about 6 hours or so. I'm far less sore after this one. When we reached the base, we ordered up a big pan full of Kimchi Chigae and a bottle of mokguli: a well-deserved treat. After the meal, we headed home. This weekend was definitely one to remember. I feel like I've been making the most of things recently.

(Posing at the peak)

(Statues at one of the temples on the mountain)

(Victory Chigae)

(A video from the peak)

[Directions]

Yongsan Electronics Mart: Yongsan Station, Line 1 / Jungang. When you exit the subway, you will find yourself in a building housing a subway station, train station, and a mall. After walking up the subway stairs, walk away from the train station. Take your first right through the card scanners. You will find yourself in an area that is sort of outside and sort of inside, then turn right and walk all the way down to the HUGE glass windows. Turn right down a sketchy looking hallway, and about 20 meters down, you will find an even sketchier looking skywalk to crosses over a train yard into the Electronics Mart.

Namdaemun Market: Hoehyeon Station, Line 4

Dobongsan: Exit 1 Dobongsan Station, Line 1 / Line 7. After you exit, follow the side walk to a bridge that takes you out to the road. Cross the road and walk up the stairs; you will find yourself in a very busy area with lots of food and hiking shops. Simply follow the sea of people, and you will find yourself at the entrance to the hiking trails.

Seoraksan (설악산) with SHITY

(My victory pose at the peak)

This will be my first blog post. This is something I've been meaning to do for quite some time. I've now been in Korea for three and a half months. This blog has existed the entire time, but has been completely blank the entire time. I've gotten into Journaling, I suppose, and this has just fallen by the wayside.

I spent this past weekend in Seoraksan with a hiking group known as S.H.I.T.Y. (Sunday Hikers Interested in Trekking Yet - again) It really was a good time. Aside from going to Japan, I had yet to leave the Suwon / Seoul area. I've been itching to get out of the city and do something different. This was exactly what I needed. My legs are still pretty much worthless, after an 11 hour hike. Let it also be known that this was pretty much the first time I've ever been hiking.

I went with three of my coworkers, JC, Justin, and Matt. We got off work at 10pm and walked very quickly home to change into hiking clothes and grab our hiking necessities. Then we walked quite quickly again to make sure that we could catch one of the last buses into Seoul. It turns out we were very early, but we arrived at Seoul National University of Education (not to be confused with Seoul National University - very different places) around 11:30. We waited around and met some new faces, then we eventually departed for Seoraksan around 1am.

After a four hour bus ride and only a couple hours of sleep, we began our ascent to the peak around 5am. The first few hours of the hike were in the dark and very difficult, but once the sun came up, I fell in love with the scenery. The first half of the hike was taken at my own pace. I was alone for the first 3 hours or so of the hike, and it was marvelous. JC gave me lots of pointers for my first hike, the best of which was "Hike your own hike." I listened to music, took a few breaks on the way up, and reaching the peak felt amazing.

For the second half of the hike, JC and I buddied up and had a lot of life conversation. It was the kind of talk that just isn't had every single day. And to top it off, the second half of the hike was down into the valley. It was by far my favorite part of the hike. Every five minutes, there was another beautiful view.

We eventually finished up around 4pm. After waiting for some of the more experienced hikers to finish up with the more difficult hike up Dinosaur Ridge, we had a few beers and Korean pancakes. Delicious. We then took a bus to the bus, because the lazy-ass driver didn't want to drive through traffic to come pick us up. I was beat, and fell asleep and the bus to the bus, and the bus to the beach.

When we arrived at the beach, I got a second wind after taking a shower. The thirty of us gathered around 3 big tables and 4 portable gas ranges and proceeded to have a feast. It was the biggest mess of a meal, but I loved every minute of it. We used this time to get to know everybody else in the SHITY group. After a great deal of Mokgali and beer, my name turned into Idaho, and JC's turned into Jesus. Pretty fantastic.

After eating, we kept drinking, but we had moved from the pension to the beach, where we set off fireworks, and JC and another guy stripped down to their underwear and went for a swim in the freezing water. That was another one of the many highlights.

The next day, we were up at 9am eating breakfast with the others who decided to pass up the second hike. I opted to hang out on the beach and have a relaxing second day. This was the best idea. I hadn't sat on a beach in ages. I look forward to another SHITY hike soon. I'm considering going out to Dobongsan with the group on sunday for a Halloween Hike. We'll see. I'll keep you updated.

(Lunch time at the peak with some of the SHITY hikers. That is Jin Soo, one of the organizers. He sure is a character.)

(A Nice bridge view in the valley)

(Pit stop with many Koreans. The trails were packed)

(Another victory pose. This is the highest point in Seoraksan National park)

(A view of the descent into the valley. I'm pretty glad that we were going up this way.)

(One of the many waterfalls)

(Another view from inside the valley)