Yudalsan

Today was quite an adventure. After hearing that the typhoon had diverted to hit Japan and not Mokpo, Chris and I decided to head out to Yudalsan Mountain and check out the rock climbing opportunities. I don't think Chris properly estimated my ability to wander around.

We left our apartment at about 1030 A.M. and hopped in a cab. The cab driver was a rather talkative person (in Korean) and from what I could understand and Chris later filled in was that he has been a world traveler his whole life. He went to places like Cambodia, Thailand, Vietnam, and the Phillipines, heck, he's even been to Europe. His one regret he said was that he never made it to America or Canada once (the plane ticket was too expensive for a cab driver). He was also nice enough to drop us off at the uphill end of Yudalsan (so an easy ascent and a long downhill off it). We thanked him and started our hike. Well, I guess it's called a hike... mostly paved with stairs and stores and restaurants at either end...

First thing we passed was the enormous statue of General Lee Sun-Sin, watching over Korea's naval academy and the port of Mokpo, one of Korea's most venerated heroes. His naval accomplishments earned him honor in all of Asia, and most of the western world, as one of the greatest naval commanders of all time. During his entire career he remained undefeated during 23 naval campaigns, one of which included a victory against a Japanese Armada in which he was outnumbered 133 ships to his own 13.

We then passed concession stands (I bought an overpriced bandanna with the map of the mountain printed on it) and then headed up the historical path. Passing beautiful pagodas and shrines established to the Japanese invasion as well as the North Korean invasion (both of which occurred in Mokpo), we finally made it to the top area. From up there, the view was startling. In three directions the ocean spanned forever, only interrupted by the hundreds of tropical islands poking through the low clouds and marine layer. And behind, thousands of small, green peaks and valleys as far as the landscape would allow sight. There were also large numbers of Japanese maple trees planted at the top, I will be sure to return in fall when the crest of Yudalsan is said to burst into shades of red and yellow.

As we walked we noticed a few bolted routes along the more featured rock faces and in our search we stumbled upon two rather large carvings of the Buddha. They were at least 10 feet tall and carved rather high up on large cliff faces. One of them was even painted. On our descent (which I lead, as I had been all day, wandering on every non-paved and deserted-looking path I could find) Chris and I stumbled into an amazing sight. A Buddhist temple amidst the trees. It was quite small, only having three buildings, but it was exquisitely built. All three buildings were hand carved with intricate weaving patterns. The three tiered roof was built in interlocking patterns of large logs connected at their ends and carved in the shape of dragons. Every inch of the building painted in detail with flowers, dragons, prayers, and depictions of the Buddha. We had just walked around the main entrance when a tiny figure appeared from within a small side building. She walked out of her door and immediately it was obvious that she was a nun in charge of living in and caring for the facility. She was incredibly nice, forcing us into her tiny stools on the porch of the temple (we weren't allowed inside) while she sat on the dirty steps. Chris talked to her for a bit and then she disappeared into her house to bring us back cold instant coffee. As we sat and sipped our coffee while chatting with her, she asked if either of us were Buddhist. Chris replied that he was so she disappeared inside her house again and returned with a string of prayer beads. She blessed the beads and put them around Chris's neck and then gave us large handfuls of candy (yes, in Korea it's ok to take candy from strangers). After what seemed a short while (actually closer to an hour) of us sitting and enjoying the massive tree in the middle of the courtyard (which is one of the biggest trees around, meaning that it survived the bombings by both the Japanese and the North Koreans which is NOT common at all around here) we decided that we would be on our way. We thanked the kind lady and donated money to the temple on our way out. This wasn't expected of us in any way, but it is the only way that beautiful pieces of art like this temple remain in the care of Buddhists.

On our way off the hill we quickly walked through a sculpture garden. The pieces there ranged from "yeah that's neat" to "dafuq is that?!?" eventually we wandered into Old Mokpo and made our way to the avenue of lights (not too great in broad daylight) to do some window shopping and explore what the city bustle is really like (since we live on the outskirts in New Mokpo). After a bit of wandering around we made it to a taxi and headed home.

Oh, and here's a picture of my Korean roommate Seung-Man who was shy of my camera as he was getting ready for a date. He is by far the coolest person I have met in Korea so far and I'm glad he helps Chris and I out

This was his pose after I told him I was gonna use his picture to get him a date in America.

Beginning of typhoon season!!!

So today I got a glimpse of what typhoon season is going to be like. As I'm writing this, it's pouring outside, there's AMAZING lightning and thunder, pretty high winds, and some relative flooding of the city; And I'm told that this is a tiny storm. Chris showed me pictures today of the typhoon season last year. People were walking around in waist deep water when Mokpo flooded. The torrential downpours were too much for the city gutters to hold, which seems easy as tonight we got over three inches in an hour and already they are backed up. It's going to be a strange season to say the least!


Oh, and I found a bunch of candles so now I'm spending my evenings in candlelight like a classy M*#&$%# F&^$%#*

Touch your elbow... dumbass

So, two weeks in and I'm starting to learn more and more about the culture. Things like nodding and saying annyeonghaseyo ("how do you do?") whenever I pass people in the street that make eye contact with me or whenever I walk into a store, especially a small store with only a few people. Also, I didn't know it until yesterday but there is even a polite way to pay for things that make Koreans happy to see foreigners do: you hand them the money with your right hand while the left one touches the inside of your right elbow; and make sure that you get your change with both hands together. It seems small, but it really does improve our image here and that is a huge deal. The more polite, mature, and accepting of the culture, the more people are inclined to help you, deal with you, and give you something extra. This is especially true in restaurants. Smaller restaurants like people who are polite, follow custom, and order a lot. If you do this you are greeted warmly, given GREAT food and very often are given something extra as a sign that they want you to return (free beer, soda, rice, extra meat).

Now comes the tough part: the language. I have been studying and can almost read without stuttering too much, but actually trying to put together a sentence is insanely hard. Even basic ones, there's just so many damn syllables and honorific conjugations that it's going to be quite a while before I'm able to say more than a few words with a horrible accent. So for now I've taken to what most foreigners do here when they don't speak the language: mutter some incomprehensible jibberish under your breath followed by "haseyo" (an honorific). This seems to work well as the locals take it that you are trying and just have horrible pronunciation (to which they politely giggle and then try to help you in an extremely kind way). To be honest, so far Korea has been the most peaceful and polite place that I have ever seen. I have yet to see anybody fight, shout, or even look angry (besides my principal, she lays the law down on our students). Even when a foreigner makes an idiot mistake (like beckoning a child with their finger, the equivalent of calling a dog, always tell them to come to you with your palm down and all fingers moving towards you) they just politely smile at your uncultured mistakes and later they politely and discreetly tell you what you did wrong. So far the harshest people on mistakes has been the other foreigners. Like I said: we take our image seriously around here. We work for private schools with parents paying small fortunes to have their kids learn from us. We can't afford to look like idiots in our day to day lives.

But anyways, today I was lazy and decided to make fried tofu and spam for dinner... worst mistake of my life...

Rainy day walkin', taxi cab hailin',California dressin', Moe's tavern drinkin'.... UFC fightin?

So yesterday Superman, Chris and I had planned on hiking some new areas to show me some bouldering areas around Mokpo. Unfortunately it was raining so we decided to hit the rock gym for some good fitness time. Andrew walked to our apartments in the pouring rain and was just soaked by the time he got here. So we thought it'd be a good idea to get a taxi for the two mile walk to the gym. As luck would have it, as soon as we walked outside it began to pour on us so that by the time we got into a taxi we were soaked anyways... it didn't help that the gym was so hot and humid that we never really dried off. It was like a perma-soak for our clothes, just muggy and clammy the whole workout...During the workout we met one of the guys who runs the gym, Chris told him that I was a good climber and the man looked at me and said I was way too heavy to be a good climber (I'M A DELICATE FLOWER DAMN IT!!!!!!!), he then went and nailed what was probably a 5.13+ sport route, but what does he know about climbers.... After about an hour we called a taxi and headed home.

Changed, dried, and warm Chris and I left our apartments and headed to the fish market to do some grocery shopping for lunch. I got another look at the buckets of squid and octopus swimming around all weird like. Filling up their balloon heads and then expelling the water out to jet around the tank until they hit a wall, only to turn around and do it again. Pretty neat creatures. Once we got home (once again wet from the rain) Chris made up a huge pot of ramen with eggs, tofu, squash, and rice. It was phenomenal, really makes regular ramen look like garbage when compared. So a good lunch with a rather terrible movie (percy jackson and the lightning thief). I mean, seriously, the "son of poseidon" is that much of a b*^#& that he can barely do anything right? How much of a screw-up could a demi-god actually be?!? Anyways, that's just maybe 8.63% of the rant that I threw while watching this movie, which for some ridiculously stupid reason Chris likes....

So, it being Saturday night here, at 9:30 we left our apartment, looking all snazzy ( and by snazzy I mean being dressed the way I always do, cause I'm just that damn snazzy) in my khaki shorts, long black socks, black T-shirt, and my trusty black Dropkick Murphy's hat (thanks mom and dad!). Chris thought the California style on T.V. was just stereotyped, but no, we ALL dress exactly like this... So, heading outside we snagged a taxi (again, it was raining) and headed down to Moe's Tavern! (It's an expat bar that two Korean girls run with the help of their boyfriends) Not a bad place, but lots of really weird westerners here... It was Open Mic night, so of course, there were two really good acts and a couple just terrible ones (Including a super tall dude who sucked at dancing and dancing to terrible dubstep, and a stand up comic who only told jokes about Canada which only 3 people in the bar found funny.) So most of the night was spent meeting new people to distract myself from the circus show on stage. I met all of Chris's friends and then went off on my own. Met a couple of dudes from Wisconsin, one of whom told some great stories about when he worked for a construction company up in Fairbanks, Alaska. Then a (severely) drunken Australian walked up to me and started shouting "I've found Chris Camozzi!!!!" to all his friends (apparently I look like a UFC fighter...) but he was wearing a Queenstown Rugby shirt so we started up a pretty decent conversation until he spotted a new girl at the bar he hadn't hit on yet and excused himself to go do so.  After a few more random and awkward encounters I ran into Chris and an older Korean lady talking and joined in the conversation. She turned out to be a nice lady and we talked about Seoul (her hometown) for quite a bit and then talked about stuff to do in Mokpo (by her Metropolitan standards, she thought Mokpo was boring and tiny).

Around 1am we left Moe's and headed to Texas Bar! An American themed bar with no Americans in it! We watched some premiership football on the big screen and then decided it was time for some late night McDonalds and headed home. Now, McDonalds is about three blocks away from our apartments, and it was barely drizzling, so we decided to walk home even though neither of us had umbrellas or rain coats... That was just stupid because we got no farther than fifteen feet before it began to just POUR on us, but we were just too cheap to pay for a taxi to take us three blocks... So, just imagine the sight of two big white dudes, with no rainjackets or umbrellas, laughing hysterically at their own stupidity, walking down the street at almost 3 in the morning, in the pouring rain.... We passed a hospital care center and the old Korean guys sitting in their gowns and wheelchairs out front looked so amused at the sight that I couldn't help but laugh more. All in all a good night.

But, today is sunday and the climbing gym is closed... what to do? what to do?...

Free bouldering and cheese cake bread with a bit of humiliation

So Chris and I made plans to go to the Mokpo International Sport Climbing Gym this morning. Unfortunately, last night I decided to watch a little T.V. before bed. I figured I'd watch one episode and then call it a night. Well, I didn't realize that the episode was on repeat. So after repeatedly dozing and not realizing that an hour or more was passing between me opening my eyes, and not the thirty seconds like I thought, I didn't fall asleep until past 4 A.M. So yeah, I was rather tired when I got up this morning to get ready.

I got my gear together and Chris and I walked out of our refrigerated AC rooms down to what felt like a steamer outside. Immediately we started sweating, but today we were biking across town, not walking. Chris jumped onto his incredibly nice mountain bike and I.... slowly and cautiously sat onto the (20 years? 30 years?) old, lady-framed, tiny, rusty beach cruiser that Kim was nice enough to let me borrow while she's out of the country. Now this bike only had one gear so getting around town wasn't bad. But near the gym it's incredibly steep so the last few hills I had to get off and push the damn thing. But oh, was it worth it. As we rounded the last downhill corner I got my first glimpse of it. A tiny square of red next to two cold-shuts bolted into a wall floated between tree tops off in the distance, the backs of stadium bleachers and awnings flashed between branches. Chris had brought me to a dream-like area within our metropolitan city.

Now what I saw from afar was actually only one route of 7 on an outside sport-competition wall put up for the international sport climbing competition held here in Mokpo a few years ago. The real treasure was the free indoor climbing walls and bouldering area. Once inside the three story gym, you are confronted with a square room with bouldering routes going around it in a circle as well as sport routes ranging from verticle to over-vert to overhanging slabs. Everything was shiny and well maintained and there were even free weights to use in a connected weight room! All of this was free to use provided you signed in at the front desk. Once we started climbing, a married couple and their daughter showed up to climb, they immediately came over and handed us a package of cheesecake bread from a chain cafe called Paris Baguette (equivalent of starbucks here, one on every corner). I was glad that even here the activity of climbing could press through barriers. When we did a difficult bouldering problem they were happy and when the dad put up a particularly impressive dihedral sport route he was happy to see us watching and clapping. I think I'll be spending a lot of time here. Chris took a TON of pictures and some time lapse shots too, so as soon as those are ready I'll put them up.

On the way back, Chris's pedal broke off his bike, the second time since I've been here. When he pulled off the new pedal, the inside of the arm was just stripped bare. We took it back to the same bike place as last time but the dude wanted to charge Chris for labor and the arms he tried to sell were over $200! So we said f^%* it and left, I think Chris is gonna buy a replacement part online (already saw a few for less than $40) and get it put on at a different bike shop.

On an unrelated note, after four days of horrible constipation I got my first experience with foreign-exposure diarrhea... not a pleasant part of my morning...

nudeu kimbap

Alright, so last night I was feeling adventurous for work and I took a huge trip (across the street) ON MY OWN!!!! Shocked? Awed? You should be ;) I went to this Kimbap restaurant that Kim and Chris recommended to me saying that it was cheap, good, and the employees are incredibly nice. And they were right! I was greeted at the door by two older korean ladies who smiled at me and said hello. They even went to the menu with me to help me order. I did my best korean and they laughed loudly when they heard me speaking korean! (I was there a few days ago with Chris and our roommate and I couldn't say anything or read or even know what anything was that they set in front of me. So last night I ordered nudeu kimbap, a delicious type of sushi with crab meat, carrots, kimchi, and mayo wrapped in seaweed and rice! It was phenomenal and only cost me $2.30 for an entire roll (about 10 slices)!

Oh, and I also got a drink called Sunny 10 Blast that tasted kind of like a fizzy lemon water. It was pretty good. But all in all, I got a delicious and filling meal for about $3.20!!!

Found my new hiking grounds!

So I got up at 4:30 this morning for some ungodly reason and could barely go back to sleep. Finally it was light enough to wake up properly outside at 6 so I ate my bowl of knock-off frosted flakes (No Tony the Tiger here, un-uh, I got that Flion the Lion) and watched a dvd of Django Unchained (Thanks Matt) and waited until 11 when Chris and I planned to go hiking.

Got suited up and left at 11, walked to the local 7-11 and got a donut (only 80 calories!) and a "Hot 6!" energy drink and headed down the street to the trailhead. OK, so, a few things you need to know about koreans and hiking: 1) They're F*%^$*ng insanely good hikers. I'm talking 80 year old ladies powering up hills that would make most regular people stop wheezing, especially in the 90 degree and 100% humidity. 2) They take this stuff seriously. I'm talking manicured trails, solar powered lights, pagodas to rest in, wooden recliners and dais set-ups for public use. Also, free fitness equipment along all the trails!

So I can't really explain the wildlife around here. It's almost like the tropical greenhouses at the zoo. It's muggy, hot, there's butterflies and giant moths EVERYWHERE and the tree growth is so thick and so GREEN that it's impossible to fathom the fact that it's not pristine. All of this growth is new since the Korean war almost devastated this city and since then the locals have manicured all the wilderness around here.

The hiking trails are a bit strange as they have a lot of steps in them (I assume to stop land erosion of the trails during monsoon and typhoon season, not to mention winter) but they are so well maintained that it almost makes up for it.

I have promised Chris I wouldn't blow this spot up, so all I can say about it is that it's in Mokpo, and it has an amazing view of Mokpo city from the top.

And you can see my house from the top of the mountain!

So yeah, all in all a great day for my first hike! There's even plans of a backpacking trip to beautiful Wolchulsan when the weather starts letting up! Can't wait! Also, I plan on taking a taxi next week to the local mountain Yudalsan to check out the local climbing crag! I've heard it's mostly sport bolted, but if it's good enough I might buy a rope and get climbing. From what I've been told, it won't be hard to find a partner (looking at you Chris, get over that height fear!)

Later in the day we went to the fish market and checked out all the local sea fares. There's a lot of crazy stuff you don't normally see in the states. Like clams the size of you forearm, baby octopus, huge squid, sea urchins, TONS of fresh fish, and all sorts of vegetables all in the same place. I think I might buy a stew-turtle and make it my pet... feed it cabbage or something... maybe just return it to the wild... I don't know yet.

Oh, and I got saluted by six teenage boys on my way to eMart (like walmart, only better).