This pic just in from Crooks and Liars, which is having a little photo caption contest to provide us with a laugh. Thought I would repost it on my blog, though you can see the C&L posting here. The suggested captions from random people are pretty weak, though. Any other suggestions?
As promised, I'm posting some pictures of our trip with our co-teacher James to Soraksan National Park, in the northeastern part of South Korea. After a leisurely 4 hour drive, we arrived at Odae-san National Park, where we took a short hike up to a waterfall. Keep in mind, hiking is essentially a Korean national pastime, so we weren't taking a quiet walk alone. There were hundreds of people hiking up and down the trail, so it was more like a North Face fashion parade than a nature walk. And, as we got to the trail late, we were hiking against the flow of traffic (yes, definitely call it "traffic"). Still, the hike was fun and it was great being outdoors and out of the city.
After a nice meal of bibimbap with mountain veggies, we spent an overnight in a "pension"- sort of a converted apartment building- run by a nice retired couple. The pension had a view of the ocean and nice mats to drink wine on and to sleep on the linoleum floor.
The next morning we took a scenic drive along the East Coast of Korea, stopping at the 38th parallel (which is now a rest stop, not a historic site), and an expansive Buddhist temple on a cliff overlooking the water. The temple was in the process of being rebuilt after a large forest fire half-destroyed it a few years ago. Then on to Sorak-san for another leisurely hike with the masses to another scenic waterfall/boulder path. We also bought tickets and rode the cable car which goes from the bottom of the park up to a great peak for an amazing view in about 5 minutes. Muuuuuuch easier than the whole "hike-up-a-mountain-and-sweat-a-lot" approach... I'm posting a few videos of this too.
All in all, it was great getting out of the city and experiencing the traditional method of Korean hiking (i.e. elbowing through a crowd). I've posted the first half of pictures from the trip, as the blogger loading is extremely slow. Also annoying-- I can't rotate some of the pics that are mysteriously turning up sideways. More to follow soon--enjoy!
Above is a persimmon tree-- very cool without the leaves!
Some random hikers we met up with who wanted to take a pic with us... yeah.
Dried squid for sale close to beach. :(
Jon 'enjoying' a rice gum and potato snack...
A very cute Buddhist bathroom
More pictures to come. I may also post the full lot on facebook or picassa... we'll see. Have a great weekend!
This has got to be one of the cutest and awesomest websites around. I think I will pull a Leona Helmsley and donate my millions to these birds when I die. My big question is: why haven't I seen them yet???? And will they be touring so I can see them in Seoul? Birdies like this always make a borough better! Thanks to Sunisa for the inadvertent blog submission! Check out some sweet photos on this link.
...why I can barely read the news these days without having to vomit in the bathroom sink. And one of a thousand reasons why (A) the Iraq war is completely out of control, corrupt, and horrifying, and (B) why I should become a permanent expat (?). I think I need to make a weekly post of some articles that get me pissed just so I can vent a little. Anyway, more Korea updates to come, with pictures (!)
Hello everyone! Thanks for being so patient with my sporadic blogging. I've been working full time with not too many stories or pictures to show for it. Teaching is going well, if not a bit slowly, and my classes are really enjoyable. The kids are adorable and have lots of interesting stories and things to tell me. They also seem pretty interested in what I'm doing teaching them, where I come from, do I have a girlfriend, how tall am I, etc. I just got back from a lovely, crazy trip to the East Coast of Korea, visiting a national park and the 'other' side of the Pacific. I'll post some pictures and stories soon, when I have a bit more time to grapple with Blogger's hideous layout and interface. For now, I thought I would leave you with this article from CNN that just about made my year. Yes, I had a giant grin on my face all last night after reading it. But, how many of you saw it coming (I didn't...)? Hope all is well around the world... miss you all!
We just reached the 3 week mark here in Seoul yesterday. Seems like we've been here a week and time is definitely going by pretty quick. Certain milestones include our first load of laundry, hung to dry in our screened-in foyer, and the location of a new vegetarian buffet about a 15 min walk from our house. Very nice to have some veggie options within subway walking distance. This one has somem pretty interesting options, including japchae (stir-fried sweet potato glass noodles with veggies) and dotorimuk (acorn jelly, with the consistency of jello). We've become friends with one of our Korean co-workers who speaks very good English and has been really helpful in taking us around our neighborhood, buying us Asian pears and insisting on giving us bottles and bottles of water for our drinking water supply. At work, people are constantly bringing in snacks and mini bottles of vitamin C drink. It's pretty easy to get sick working with lots of little sick kids and breathing some pretty funky Seoul air, as I found out when I had a nasty fever/achy body that came and went in 24 hours.
We've been mainly doing some food exploration, in combination with setting up the kitchen in our apartment. I cooked a nice Italian meal, which was like a little taste of home (Prego does make a good sauce even if it doesn't pass Marcella Cucina muster). We've also been eating lots of ice cream, mainly from the local convenience store, including the swimmingly good "waffle bean fish" (see earlier post) and loads of green tea ice cream. In fact, we're really expanding our green tea horizons, an easy task when EVERYTHING here has a green tea variety. We've recently bought green tea ice cream, green tea dunkin doughnuts (see pix below), and green tea paper towels. We're building up for green tea corn flakes, which are, in fact, a nice appetizing olive green flavor.
The fabled waffle fish
A chewy and strange green tea dunkin
Dunkinz is EVERYWHERE!
Va bene!
Jon enjoying some (baskin robbins) green tea ice cream
This was a kid's art show in the park outside of our apartment complex. I was hoping the stuff would be for sale because our walls are pretty bare...
Some Seoul Stream Scenes
This pic probably deserves a longer story... the kid in the middle approached us on the street, asked us if we were 'comos' (homos?), if Jon was my 'sexy boyfriend', showed us straight porn on his cel phone, offered to take a picture of us, threatened (jokingly) to throw my camera over the bridge if we didn't speak English with him, refused to let us leave, then asked us to meet him again the next day at the same place. Yeah.
Me out front of the veggie buffet restaurant (price = $5.00)
The veggie buffet. Soooo good.
A pumpkin, rice, and red bean porridge for dessert.
