A Quick Layover

An Afternoon with Old Friends
11/03/2012 @ 홍대 [Hongdae]

JC & Katrina have completed there journey throughout SE Asia. Before heading back to the States, they had a few hours to hang out in Seoul while waiting for their connecting flight. Josh & I met them at the airport with their luggage that has been sitting around my apartment for a couple months. We went out to Hongdae for dinner and drinks. After 5 or 6 hours, we sadly had to say goodbye once more. I was still more than happy to see them for a few more hours.

( Katrina & Josh on the subway )

( JC )

( Their last true Korean food for awhile )

( Katrina )

( JC )

( Josh )

( After our friends departed, Josh & I went out to 녹사평 [Noksapyeong] for food )

( 녹사평 lies in the shadow of 남산 [Namsan] Tower )

For more on my life in Korea, check out my tumblr account: Public Intox in Korea

For Blog posts from around the work, check out the collaboration blog: Folding Maps

Feel free to comment or email me with questions or comments: spenser.r.ford@gmail.com

설악산 [Seoraksan] Trip Two

[ trying out a new pose ]

Yeah Yeah, I know that I'm doing repeat posts lately. I have just enjoyed so many of the things that I've done in Korea that I'm doing some of them again. Now that fall is in full swing, I figured it was time to defeat 서락산 once again. This was my first hike ever, and it was about time for me to return for take two. I will say that it was considerably less intimidating this time around, having hiked it once before. I was less discouraged by the great length of time it takes to hike this beast. The thirteen hours came and went, and I was just as sore as last time. I can't take so much time between big hikes in the future. I may have defeated it once again, but I left with an equal number pains. I think that if I go back again, I'll have to conquer the more difficult, Dinosaur Ridge hike.


Day 1
( 10/15/2011 - 설악산 )

Like last time, we departed from Seoul around midnight, but this time we began hiking around 3am. Being the foolish person that I am, I managed to drop my flashlight off a bridge about 15 minutes in. This made the first few hours of my hike considerably more interesting than last time. The ascent was pretty difficult; 45+ degree rock faces without a flashlight, but 은경 and I reached the peak about an hour or so behind JC and Katrina. Because of the ridiculous number of people on the hike up, we were considering taking the cable car down to chill out, eat & drink while everyone else finished the hike. This wasn't actually an option; when we asked people about this path down, we realized that we would have to hike 5 hours to another peak in order to catch a ride. It's alright. I'm glad it wasn't there; the valley portion of the hike is too beautiful to miss. We finished up hiking around 4pm and immediately order some 전 and beer. It was a well deserved treat.

[ an example of the lines we were waiting on ]

[ the foggy mountains ]

[은경 at the peak ]

[ me and my AWESOME hair at the peak ]

[ that was one hell of a decent from the peak down to the shelter ]

[ a beautiful view ]

[ the leaves are beautiful this time of year ]

[ a view from in the valley ]

[ look where I am!!! ]

[ Jinsoo & David ]

[ Jinsoo on his tiny chair ]

[ Giant Buddha at the base ]

Day 2
( 10/16/2011 - 낙산 [Naksan] )

The second day of the trip was much more relaxing. We woke up pretty early and headed down to the beach in 낙산. On the way, we stopped for some batting cage fun. After this, 은경 and I decided to pay 10,000원 to ride little electric motorcycles for 30 minutes. It was pretty fun; we also got to try out these silly three-wheeled vehicles. Then, we went down to the beach for a few drinks. Shortly after, 은경's sister, brother-in-law & nephew came for lunch and hanging. This was really pleasant. We departed for 서울 [Seoul] shortly after this for a very sleepy bus ride back home.

[ JC hitting ]

[ me ]

[ Katrina taking some swings ]

[ 은경 hitting some balls ]

[ 은경 getting ready for some riding ]

[ pretty badass, i know ]

[ the sweet three-wheeler ]

[ JC's ready for some drinkin' ]

[ 은경 & Katrina ]

[ 은경 & Honey ]

[ Katrina & Honey ]

[ JC & Honey ]

[형님 & Honey ]

[ Honey & 은정 ]

[ Katrina ]

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])