Episode 62: In Which DFM Falls 25 Feet And Has A Party Thrown For Him

Today I was planning to meet Choi, Ji-Hyeun, and the rest of Ace for a trip to one of Seoul's many large outdoor climbing walls.  Unfortunately, Choi and Ji-Hyeun had worked so hard over the last five days completely stripping the climbing wall of holds and rearranging them that they were too tired to go climbing today.  Coincidentally and fortuitously, Perry had told me that he was planning on going to an outdoor climbing wall today too, and so just like our first hiking trip I asked if I could tag along and off I went on another adventure.

Before I met Perry I had to catch up on some e-mails and unwritten blog posts that were piling up because of my trip.  While I was working in my room the fire alarm started screaming in my building.  I didn't really feel like leaving though, so I just hung around and kept typing.  Everything turned out to be fine though, and ten minutes later the alarm was turned off.

The climbing wall to which Perry and I went was located in Boramae Park.  Boramae Park used to be an air force base from 1958 until 1985, when it was converted into a 420 000 square meter park.

Today (Tuesday, May 5) was Children's Day in Korea, a national holiday.  That meant the park (and probably every other park) was packed with children and their parents.  In some places I saw people sitting on the pathway to eat their lunch because there was no room on the grass.

There were many activities going on in the park, the most impressive of which was put on by the emergency rescue service which gave helicopter rescue demonstrations and tours of their fire trucks.  Unlike Canada though, the question "what's the number for 9-1-1?" isn't so stupid in Korea (look at the fire truck).

The Boramae Park climbing wall is 15 meters high and is overhung everywhere, even the easiest section.  I'm not sure if it was used for any X-Games climbing, but I know that some facilities in the area were used for an X-Games competition and have ample signage to remind visitors of that fact.

The Boramae Park climbing wall is managed by the woman in the yellow shirt, who also happens to be the number one climber in Korea for her age group.  Perry said she sometimes climbs in the evening when it is cooler, and once climbed up and down the wall 20 times in a row without stopping.  Perry was belaying for her at the time and said his arm pumped out from belaying before she even started to get tired.

Luckily Perry had brought some grapes and break along for lunch, because I had forgot to pack one for myself.  Actually, I did not forget, I just did not have any food at home.

After "warming up" (or was that tiring ourselves out?) on the medium difficulty wall, Perry and I tried repeatedly and unsuccessfully to climb to the top of the most difficult section of the wall in the middle.

Later, one of the top climbers at Ace Climbing Center came to the outdoor wall and easily climbed up the most difficult wall... twice.  He told me that I had the strength to get up the wall, but I did not have the confidence.  That information didn't really help me that much though, as I still fell off in the same spot the next two times.

By mid-afternoon a large number of visitors to the park had gathered to watch all the climbers.  Anyone who made it to the top of the wall received a round of applause.  Although I was not able to make it to the top while the crowd was there, I did take a spectacularly large fall of roughly 25 feet which garnered quite a few "oohs" and "ahhs," not to mention a good number of gasps as well (I was only 35 feet up, so I came relatively close to the ground).

After climbing, Perry invited me back to his place for a "party" in honour of my last week in Korea.  His wife only arrived home from her hiking trip five minutes after we walked in the door, but she is the fastest cook in the world and had a delicious feast on the table in under ten minutes.

After the party Perry showed me back to the subway station, but not before we said good-bye to his friend from the health food store.  Upon being told that it was my last week in Korea, his friend frantically looked around the shop for something to give me before finding a box of Korean ginseng tea (this was the item he was holding in the picture I took of him the first time I met him).  It was a touching gesture, and indicative of how much Koreans care for people they consider their friends.  I once again felt that I would miss Korea very much when I left.

Episode 61: In Which DFM Has His Camera Stolen And Takes The Long Way Home

I woke up early again, but this time the sky was a bright clear blue.

The amazing view from my balcony this morning.  The sky may look white instead of blue to you, but that is only because the sun was so bright.  Plus, in the view from the third picture I could see the sea from my balcony.  It's hard to see it in the picture, but if you look closely you can just make it out at the top of the shot.

Today was the last day of my amazing tour of Korea with April.  So, before I had to head back to Seoul we all went out for one last lunch.  This time it was halibut, so I was happy to finally have a meal I half-recognized (we have halibut in Canada, right?).

I just had to get some good shots of the beach with the clear sky, so Jee-seon and I ran off for a bit while her mother and April sat and waited for us in front of a table full of food (sorry Sun Hee and April, I forgot how much quicker Korean service is than Canadian service).

The second picture is probably the best picture of a sky I have been able to take in the two months I have spent here.

Before Jee-seon and I headed back to the restaurant, I noticed that my camera was missing.  I had put my camera in its case, and placed it on the rocks (which were the same colour as the case) while I used Jee-seon's DSLR for a while.  When I went to get my camera again I could not find it anywhere.  I started to get quite scared that I had lost all the pictures I had taken on the trip, but eventually Jee-seon "magically" found my camera.  It turned out it that it had been hiding behind her back the whole time!  I still have not forgotten about that Jee-seon, and I'm still going to get you back the next time I'm in Korea.  Ha!

This is one of my favourite pictures I have taken in the last two months.  Would you believe I took this picture out of the opposite window of a moving vehicle, with a point-and-shoot low-end digital camera?  I still can't believe it myself either.

For my trip back to Seoul I got to experience the Saemaul train.  This train is the only plane, train or bus in which I have ridden where the foot rests were adjustable - classy.

The trip back to Seoul from Ulsan was much more scenic than my trip to Busan from Seoul for my shark diving trip.  The KTX tracks always seemed to run through the industrial areas of whatever towns/cities they passed, so I was rarely able to get a nice view when I rode the KTX train.  However, the Saemaul tracks took me on a slow journey through the Korean countryside where I was able to see a part of Korea I never knew existed.  So, even though the trip may have taken over five hours I enjoyed every second of it.

Episode 59: In Which DFM Visits A Museum Without Walls And Plays With His Food At The Dinner Table

Day 3 of my trip called for another early morning rise and a train trip to Gyeongju.  Before I left I said my good-byes to Mr. and Mrs. Kim and Mr. Kim's parents.  I also try out my new Korean phrase, "I will miss you," which prompted Mr. Kim's mother to call me "sweet."

Today (Saturday, May 2) is Buddha's Birthday in Korea.  When I ordered the tickets last week there was only one spot left on the KTX train for this day and it was in First Class.  What a pity.

I was excited to see what a first class train ride would be like, but unfortunately it was a bit disappointing.  There was so much leg room that my feet could not reach the foot rests no matter how far I stretched, which was rather uncomfortable.  Furthermore, the seat in front of me was so far away that the fold down tray was out of my reach and so I had to bend over awkwardly to use it.  This was not the most comfortable position either.  

On the plus side, I could get out of the seat without putting the tray up and, with the combination of an a/c unit that actually worked and 25% less people in the car (only three seats per row instead of 4), I made it all the way to my destination without feeling like I had been sitting in a pool of sweat the whole way.

Part way through the trip, I had to switch from the KTX train to the much less glamorous, or speedy, Mugungwha train (astute readers will remember that Mugungwha is also the name of Korea's national flower).  

At least the scenery at the platform where I disembarked was nice.

Eventually April and I got to Gyeongju.  I originally took this picture because I thought it looked pretty, but upon reviewing my pictures later I realized that I had actually learned the meaning of the sign on the left during my trip (in an unrelated incident).  The writing in the red circles on the pillar reads "hwan-yong," which means "welcome!"

After trying to find a reliable form of transport (the buses we needed were not coming around at an acceptable interval for two impatient Seoulites), April and I took a cab to meet her friend, Sun-hee and her friend's daughter, Jee-seon.

The four of us went to a traditional Korean restaurant, at which to enter we had to squeeze through a door only five feet high.  We tried not to bump our heads ("try" being the operative term), and were rewarded for our troubles with a delicious meal of spicy barbecued chicken and ddeok in a some sort of hot sauce.  Actually, now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure that this is the same meal I ate with my boss on Thursday before I got paid and left for this trip.

After lunch we all drove over to Bulguksa.  Bulguksa is a Buddhist temple ("sa" means temple) built in the wooded foothills of beautiful Tohamsan ("san" means mountain in Korean, so Tohamsan translates to Toham Mountain).  Many invading countries liked to arrest Buddhist monks, so the monks often built their temples in the mountains to hide from enemy armies.

Bulguksa was built roughly 1480 years ago in AD 528, during the Shila dynasty.  Unfortunately, the Japanese appear to like burning down temples more than the monks like hiding them up in the mountains, and so Bulguksa also had to be rebuilt after the 1592 Invasion of Korea by Japan (the second temple this trip).

In 1995 UNESCO (a branch of the United Nations) declared Bulguksa a World Cultural Heritage site.  Bulguksa contains no less than seven National Treasures, and it is also located in the most beautiful place I've ever seen, and is reached by Korea's best driving road (that's the most important thing though, isn't it?)  Bulguksa is often referred to as "a museum without walls."

Before you can reach the temple, you must walk over this bridge (behind the trees).  The bridge is called Haetalgyo, and it represents the crossing from the sin filled world to the realm of bliss - Nirvana.

Every reader has seen the giant rock piles from my hiking trip with Perry, right?  Here we have hundreds of tiny rock piles built by visitors behind one of the temple buildings.  There must have been a lot of praying here.

Of the seven National Treasures, these were my two favourite.  The first is Seokgatap, a classic Korean pagoda of superior quality.  The second is Cheongungyo and Baegungyo, which combine to make a massive 33-step stone staircase that represents the 33 heavens and hells of Buddhism.

After a wonderful exploration of Bulguksa, we all went out for yet more spicy Korean food.  This time the meal was a spicy bowl of soup containing a number of vegetables and a whole fish, merely gutted, but not deboned or beheaded.  Lucky me, I got the fish head again.  It had received a debraining, but I was still able to play with its mouth.  In hindsight, I think perhaps playing with one's fish head at the dinner table is not something that Korean dining etiquette encourages.

Episode 58: In Which DFM Has Dinner For Breakfast And Beats A 10 Year Old At Parcheesi... Twice!

Day 2 of my journey called for an early rise.  Mr. Kim's parents were up and a traditional Korean breakfast had been prepared, so I thought it was polite to come join them.

Korean breakfasts look exactly like Korean lunches and Korean suppers.  There's rice, kimchi, and a large collection of side dishes.  In fact there was more food at this breakfast than there was for dinner last night.  I was served another bowl of samgyetang, and I had an opportunity to show off my new kimbab eating skills.  

Rather than using my hand to hold my kim (dried seaweed) and then filling it with a spoonful of rice, I would take a spoonful of rice and then place the bottom of my spoon on the top piece of kim.  The seaweed would stick to the spoon and I would shove the whole conglomeration in my mouth.  Mr. and Mrs. Kim were impressed, because apparently Mr. Kim's father is the only person they had seen eat kimbab that way.  For the record, I had learned the technique from Yoo Sung Bok's father when I had dinner with Sung Bok's family.

After breakfast, April and I left with her sister Julie, and brother-in-law Kenny.  We were planning to see a famous temple nearby, but first we stopped in at an incredible tea house.

The tea house was hand built by the owner and is located  on the side of a beautiful mountain.  I can't remember the name of the place, but I'll never forget the stunning front yard.

It was hard for me to believe, but the inside of the tea house was even more beautiful than the outside.  It felt like stepping back in time a few centuries, because the floor was made of dirt, and you removed your shoes and stepped up onto the raised wood platform to find your table. (Note:  I have no idea what Korea houses were like a few hundred years ago, so ignore my earlier statement about stepping back in time).

I had something called 5 Flavours Tea, served cold, and it was fantastic.  While we drank and talked I was stuffed full of delicious traditional Korean cookies made from fried rice , and some sort of candy-coated traditional Korean peanut treat.  After tea I was given yet more tea, this time a special plum flower tea with the plum flower in my cup.

After tea we travelled a bit further to see the 1 370 year old temple, Gwangduksa.  The temple once housed 9 Bell Houses and 8 Castles, but was burned down by the Japanese in 1592 and had to be rebuilt.  I didn't bother to count how many buildings there are today.

Incredibly, there was one historical item still left standing.  This walnut tree is over 400 years old and is the first and oldest walnut tree in Korea.  It was brought to Korea by a monk and subsequently the Cheonan region has become famous for its walnut cookies.  I found this out later, otherwise I would have asked to have some.

After seeing the temple, April had to visit a high school student she used to tutor.  The student now attends an advanced language learning institute for grade 10 and 11 students.  The students can learn any of four languages, including Spanish and English, and April's student told me in near perfect English that she was at the bottom of her class.  April even got me an interview with the head recruiter who told me to send my CV to him in case there were future openings for teaching positions. 

The school had some young ducks outside in a pen.  Kenny and Julie's kindergarten aged son, Jun, came along with April and I (his parents went home), and he kept trying to get the ducks to come near him so that he could pet them.  Of course every time he moved closer to the ducks they moved away from him, and he started to become quite upset.  A few times I had to come and prevent him from lashing out at the cage in frustration.  Jun was a favourite of all the high school girls on their class break, and they would come to look at the ducks, but most him.

The school is located right next to an expensive apartment complex, built by Samsung for housing its employees.  Kenny is a Electrochemical Engineer and works for Samsung, building laptop batteries.  He told me he dreams of one day becoming the head of his division and expanding the business.

As if the pond/fountain weren't pretty enough, the apartment complex also had this large Teletubbies style rubber hill for the children and numerous other playground areas (all coated in rubber matting).

April left to go visit even more former students and I stayed with her sister at their new place.  Kenny told me that I was the first guest in his new apartment, so I felt honoured.

Julie slaved for well over an hour on this feast, which made me feel kind of bad.  Not bad enough to not scarf it all down, though.

Kenny/Julie's other son, Matthew, has a friend named Whi-seol (sounds like "whistle").  Whi-seol is twelve and very clever.  After dinner we played an intense game of Parcheesi.  Matthew loves this game and I had beaten him twice earlier, so he was happy to finally get his revenge this time.  Jun is only five and he soon got bored and started trying to steal my pieces.  Matthew got upset and started stomping on him repeatedly.  It reminded me and my brother at that age.

When I got home, another former student of April's was over at Mr. and Mrs. Kim's house.  We talked for a bit and then Mr. Kim took us all out for dinner.  By this time I was pretty full, but I had a reputation to uphold, so I finished my portion and more.  Mr. Kim ordered me some makgeolli, but no one else had any.  I didn't know that there was another option, so after I finished my makgeolli I finished off two giant bowls of tea, one each from Mrs. Kim and the student in the white shirt who had both ordered but not finished theirs.  Mr. Kim said, "he eats good and he drinks good too!"

Finally 1 O'clock AM rolled around and we finally went back home.  Tomorrow I will rise at 7 AM to catch another train for Gyeongju.

Episode 23: In Which DFM Becomes The "Big Tiger" And Receives "Very Many Thankfullness"

Today I tried to set off early and make it to Lee's office so that he could help me do some on-line shopping, Korean style.  I knew it was supposed to be a straight walk from Itaewon to Hannam, but that didn't stop me from making an incorrect turn and getting lost on a bridge over the Han River (I'm still not sure how since there were no turns to make).  Eventually I combined some basic orienteering skills with some more good luck and found my way accidentally back onto the street I had been last night when I had the meal and sang karaoke with Lee, Hyeun A and Arie (and after only an hour of walking around too).  I tried to phone Lee, but it was 1:00 PM and apparently he was still sleeping so I went back home.

I decided to not make the trip a total waste and picked up a pack of tteok I had read about for less than $2.00 on my way back.  These are balls of pressed rice that are then covered with sesame seeds or some sort of desweetened sugar.  Whatever they are, they taste pretty good and really fill you up.  I'd say it's pretty hard to find a denser food than tteok.

I sat down on the edge of a flower bed to eat my tteok, but a homeless woman came and told me I shouldn't sit on the edge of the flower bed or else the hospital to which it belongs will think I'm a drunk and call the police.  Or at least I think that's what she was trying to tell me, I couldn't understand a thing she was saying but it didn't sound like "I hope you have a good time," and she was making a lot of "drinky-drinky" motions too.

The afternoon was still young at this point so I moved on to Plan B.

Seoul was a co-host of the 2002 World Cup of Soccer along with Japan.  Seoul was one of the main sites and now has a brand new football stadium that probably cost millions of dollars.  The problem is, apart from the World Cup, no one in Seoul really cares about soccer.  None of the football teams in Korea are very good, and the only team anyone really follows is Manchester United since the captain of the Korean National Soccer team, Pak Ji-Sung, plays for that team.  

To recoup some of the costs of this giant waste some enterprising Korean turned the stadium into a giant Wal-Mart type shopping mall underneath, with anything you could imagine from bikes to electronics to clothes to food and so much more.  There's a food court and a giant movie theatre and a wedding/banquet hall too.  There's also a World Cup Museum, which is what I came for.

The Museum was kind of sparse, but there were some neat artifacts like shoes and jerseys worn by actual players, and this ball used in the 1960s.

Inside the museum I met Jari, from Finland.  Jari is visiting Korea with his girlfriend from Taiwan, but she won't be here for another week still so in the mean time he's getting acquainted with the city.  We walked around sharing stories of our respective journeys, and eventually figured out that you could actually go on the World Cup field itself and get your picture taken.  That's Jari in the picture.  (I also figured out the hard way that if you try and walk up to the top of the stadium by yourself you get yelled at by the security guards).

The picture would have been better if I had gotten to the field earlier and had some better light, but it took me an hour to actually find my way inside.  The outside was entirely enclosed in a big metal gate, and even though there were many booths with the English word "Information" written on the side around the building, the employees inside never spoke any English so it was impossible to get any help from them.

Some other interesting facts about the Stadium include the five parks that were built around it and the fact that it is built on a giant mound of garbage.  Apparently the land the World Cup Stadium is built on was an old landfill, and I found that it still smells like it if you go down by one of the streams running through the parks.  From the Stadium I headed over to Summit Climbing Center to keep my promise of a return to Jenny and "the gang."

Hyun-Dai wasn't there, but Jenny was, and so were Yu-Suk and a new friend, Sun-Young (Yu-Suk and Sun-Young are in the picture).  Sun-Young is actually an English teacher here in Seoul, which I thought was notable since usually only white people get those jobs (unless she teaches the grammar parts).  I expressed to Sun-Young that I thought it was unfair that when Koreans come to Canada they get English names along with their Korean names, but over here I still only have one.  She gave me a Korean name, Dae-Ho, which means "Big Tiger."  Mr. Chang thought it was fitting.

I gave a gift to Mr. Chang to thank him for the book he gave me on my first visit.  Mr. Chang made me sign the gift and then said "very many thankfullness" to me before placing it on his gift stand in the entrance to the climbing area.  In this picture is a cat from Japan, some sort of trophy from Switzerland, some carved figures from Thailand (or maybe Taiwan, I can't remember) and my totem pole from Canada.  Later, Mr. Chang said that he some times takes members of the gym out to the mountains to climb and he invited me along.  

On an unrelated note, I mentioned to Mr. Chang that I was going to Busan the next day to dive with sharks.  I found out that Mr. Chang is also a certified scuba diving instructor and that one of the instructors at the Busan Aquarium was a student of his.

I also mentioned that I wanted to try a marathon while I was here, and Mr. Chang and Jenny found a mountain half-marathon on the 25 of April for me.  The race is very special because the course runs through a part of the mountain park that is normally closed to hikers/tourists/Koreans in general.  Since I can do a marathon anywhere, and the one I was going to do isn't anything major (not to mention I'm definitely not in shape for a marathon yet), I think I might try this race instead.  Mountain races are my favourite kind, and it would be a perfect cap on the wonderful hiking experience I've had here so far and am sure to have between now and the race.

While I was climbing at Summit, Tae Young (from Hexa gym) phoned me up and said he was in Itaewon for the day and wanted to know if I would like to get something to eat.  I hustled home as fast as I could after I finished and we went to Don Valley Korean Barbecue House.

I had some sort of very hot and spicy beef soup that has a name Tae Young told to me and I forgot.  Tae Young also told me that many Koreans eat the hot, spicy soup to combat the blazing heat of the summer.  He agreed with me that this custom did not make any sense.  Tae Young had bibimbap, which is a famous Korean dish and tastes quite good too.  I should have taken a picture of the meal, but I was too busy stuffing my face and so I had to settle for this make-up shot on the way out.  Note:  The hangul in the sign is pronounced "Doan Balley," I think.

After the meal Tae Young came back to my shoe box of a room and helped me find out the schedule of the train to Busan the next morning.  I could not get the schedule before, because the English version of the site has not been working properly since as long as I've been trying to find out the schedule (over a year), so Tae Young went on the Korean site and in about 5 hours from now I'll be up and on my way to Busan.

Episode 22: In Which DFM Gets On The Wrong Bus And Tries To Sing Karaoke In Korean

Today the plan was to go to O2 World Climbing Gym.  O2 World Climbing Gym is the biggest climbing gym in Seoul, and probably all of Korea.  Without a doubt it has the biggest indoor ice climbing gym in Korea, if not Asia.

You can see from the side of the building that it's kind of hard to miss, except for that it's nowhere near anything else in Seoul and this makes it hard to find.

I had directions but for some reason I decided not to review them before I left.  Instead I combined information from three different sources and got all of it wrong.  Long story short I got on the wrong bus, rode it all the way around, switched buses and then got on the right bus but going to wrong direction, then finally realized I was going the wrong direction and finally got on the right bus.  All together the subway trip plus bus rides took over two hours.  It was an absolute nightmare.  Not to mention my bus driver the first time was a maniac and actually hit another bus that was picking up passengers.

Speaking of maniacs... scooter couriers.  I've talked about them before but the other day I saw a female scooter courier.  She must have been out of her mind though, because was driving on the road, in her proper lane, going the speed limit.  She'll never last.

To make matters worse this day, the gym was quite a bit of a disappointment.  It's definitely the tallest indoor gym in Seoul that I've seen so far, but it still pales in comparison to the average Canadian climbing gym.  Furthermore, there were very few people climbing today.   I also tried to look at the ice climbing wall, but the observatory deck was closed today.

I had limited time after the transportation debacle, but luckily there was this steep overhung bouldering wall that enabled me to tire myself out in about an hour-and-a-half.  There were only two other climbers there, and they spoke no English, but they would point out hard routes for me and then cheer wildly if I could do them.

Afterwards I was invited out by Hyeun A for dinner.  I was under the impression that we were meeting in Itaewon, but apparently that was too far away, so I was supposed to go there.  I took the subway, which took half an hour, but later found out I was a fifteen minute walk away (I went the long way round on the subway, with two transfers).

Lee Young San and Hyeun A's supervisor, Aeri (don't ask because I couldn't figure it out either, in the white coat), came along too.  We had some spicy beef dish and a spicy tuna/kimchi soup.  As usual I couldn't stop stuffing myself full.

After dinner (Aeri was the boss, so in keeping with Korean tradition she had to pay, woo hoo!) we all went out for karaoke.  Lee did not understand how I knew what karaoke was until I told him that in Canada we imported it over from Japan.

Lee also gave me many more tips for getting along in Korea.  His number one tip was "never pay for a Korean girl, because then she'll always expect you to pay.  Always go dutch."  I asked how this fit into Korean culture.  Lee explained that in the past men were considered more powerful than women, but modern women don't want to get hit by men anymore, so they have to pay.  Makes sense to me.

Tomorrow I plan to check out the World Cup Stadium and visit Mr. Chang back at Summit Climbing Center.