Ann's Visit: Seosan and Seoul.

Here we go again ye happy campers of my blog. Well probably not so happy considering my posts have been seriously anemic lately. Avast, I am here to write today about my first official visitor here in Korea. For those of you who don't know already, or haven't guessed already My Aunt Ann came to visit East Asia during her summer vacation from Los Coches Creek Middle School (yes, it is shortened to LCC). After a spending some time in Japan Ann took a quick hop flight to Busan, South Korea. I met Ann at the airport and embarked upon an exceptionally fast tour of Korea.

Yet, first I must tell you about the airport experience here in Korea. I haven't had to deal with it first hand, but I have it from good sources that it can be quite the experience. When you first roll off the airplane here in Korea, you are not greeted by people giving you leis. You're greeted by the KCDC. Yupp, the Korean CDC who are busy swabbing and testing you to make sure you're not carrying the Swine Flu. Korean are notorious when it comes to overreacting about germs and honestly are rather ill informed about the way diseases work. I have actually been told several times that SARS and the Avian Flu have not hit Korea because of Kimchi. Anyways, enough of this.

After Ann cleared through immigration, which is a funny story, we headed off to Seosan. Wait, wait what happened at Immigration you're wondering. Well, as normal it turns out that when you are visiting a country, or even returning to your home country you need to give an address for where you will be. It turns out that I had forgot about this until I was at the airport waiting for Ann. With no way to contact her, I only had to hope that she had written down my cell phone number so that Korean Immigration could call me. Luckily, she did have my number written down and I received a call from Immigration. That in itself was another experience because I was trying to tell someone who spoke little to no English my apartment address. Now to be honest I don't even know my address. If anyone needs it I just pull out my Alien Resident Card and give it to them that way. Well after reading the address several times in my jilted Korean we finally reached an acceptable address. It was a harrowing experience, well no it wasn't harrowing but it was rather annoying. My mistake. Next time someone comes to visit me I will give them my address ahead of time.

With Ann cleared through customs we headed up to Seosan. I asked Ann if she would like to come to my school for part of a day and experience Korean ESL. When she arrived at my school it didn't take long for news to spread across the entire 6th and 5th grades that there was a new foreigner at the school who was visiting. The were more students standing outside my office door and jumping to try and see through the window then when the students find out that the teachers are eating ice cream in my office. We visited one 5th grade class and two of my better 6th grade classes. The students really liked it when Ann partook in the game that we had the students playing. Here is the picture.

After a quick lunch we headed up to Seoul in some of the worst weather I have seen in Korea. We were having a serious series of thunderstorms rolling through Korea. The rain was quite intense, but the wind was the worst part. It was gusting in multiple directions that made it impossible to use an umbrella. Along the way to Seoul the Korean CDC decided it would be nice to scare the hell out of me. They decided to call and check up on Ann, to make sure she wasn't sick. However, when they called and identified themselves as the KCDC I thought they were going to say Ann had the flu. We arrived in Seoul we headed off to Dongdaemun market. this is a great place to wander around and find your fill of trinkets, goodies, and all around things Korean. After the market we wandered into Myeongdong to show Ann the higher class and scale of Korean shopping. If I have never said this before, Koreans love to go shopping for name brand things, and are willing to pay exorbitant prices for them. A pair of Levi's retails for around 100 dollars. Myeongdong is filled with high rises, neon signs, and shops. It is a great place to go visit to get a feeling for Seoul.

With our first day ending in Seoul we headed back to our hotel to prepare for the long grind of the next two days. Our second day in Seoul was filled with Museums and Korean History. Our first stop was the National Museum of Korea. This museum provided an excellent display of art and artifacts from Korean history. In fact it was one of the best National History museums I have been to. It combined art, history, and culture all under one roof. There was not an over abundance of one type of thing, and the stuff switched quite often so you felt like you were seeing different things. After the National Museum we headed off to the War Memorial Museum. This museum is an homage to all the wars fought on Korean soil. It's most important function however is to serve as an educator to the youth of Korea about possibly the most important, and least taught part of Korean history. Having studied the subject of the Korean war lightly, I am surprised to find out that I often know more about the seminal moment of Korean history then most Koreans. In America I am probably already in the top 15% of people who know anything about Korea, and I barely know anything. Most people only know M.A.S.H. and assume that Hawkeye and Hot Lips were all the Korean War was about.

After wandering around the museum for a few hours we headed outside the museum to every boys dream. Military equipment you could climb around on, and in. Pictured here is me on an Anti-Aircraft gun. There was also a Korean Tank that you could put 50 cents into a machine and it would move the turret and pretend to fire. Needless to say the little boy and history geek in me were loving every minute of it. I even got to stare up the bomb bay of a B-52. We headed out after this to Tapgol Park near Insadong. Tapgol Park is the site of the March 1st movement. The March 1st Movement refers to the Korean Declaration of Independence from Japan in 1919. Things did not go so well for the Koreans, as the Japanese did not leave until 1945. The park was where the Declaration was first read to a large gathering in Public. As a result of the March 1st movement over 7,000 Koreans were killed in the resulting protests, riots, and crackdowns. There are a series of panels in the park where are dedicated to the martyrs of this movement.

With Tapgol completed we headed into Insadong. Insadong is an arts and crafts neighborhood which is one of my favorite places in Seoul. There are tons of shops and interesting sights in this neighborhood. At the other end of Insadong is Jogyesa Temple. This temple is quite unique for the fact that it is a Buddhist Temple in the middle of a major metropolitan center. Buddhists tend to place their temples on the top of mountains and down dirt paths. The other very unique thing about this temple is that they are very welcoming to foreigners, and will even allow them to enter into the main prayer hall. With the day ending we headed back to our hotel to get some much needed rest. The next day would be filled with the DMZ, and it started at 7 in the morning.

The DMZ tour started at the Camp Kim USO in downtown Seoul. After checking in we boarded a bus and headed off to the JSA or Joint Security Area at Camp Bonifas. After a quick briefing we headed up to stand as close as possible to North Korea, or in our case, actually stand in North Korea for a moment or two. The JSA is where North and South Korean Soldiers stand a few feet apart from each other. There is no fence, no big wall, only a small slab of concrete to mark the line between the two Koreas. One of the places that you visit while on the tour is the armistice room. This is not where the actual armistice was signed, but is the room where nations meet to discuss the armistice and its terms. It is possible while in this room to walk across the border and stand in North Korean territory. The border runs directly through the middle of the building. While we were there no North Korean guards came down to look at the tour group, but sometimes you can see stuff like this.

After the tour went through the JSA we headed off to the 3rd infiltration tunnel for a little bit of underground hiking. This tunnel was built by the North Koreans into South Korea, and if it had ever been used to it's full potential the North Koreans could have put 30,000 troops into South Korea an hour through this one tunnel. The Koreans have found 4 tunnels, and they guess that there are at least another 10 tunnels that they have never found. The North Koreans claim that this was a coal mine that just happened to end up in South Korea. To help with this ridiculous claim the North Koreans actually painted the walls black. The thing is, nobody has ever found coal anywhere in the region, and from what I've read, it's nearly impossible to find coal in granite. Now, normally when hiking 80 meters underground it's safe to assume that those that are tall will have some issues. Yet, this tunnel was so short that you would bang your head constantly if you were 5'3" and trying to stand up right while walking. Yeah, it's small.

We made it back from the DMZ at about 3 PM. Ann and I decided to take a quick nap before meeting my friend Da Young for some Mexican food at On The Border. Da Young had never had Mexican food before, and I was jonesing for some decent Mexican that I didn't have to cook. I have to admit that I'm starting to go to Seoul just to be able to go get some Mexican food. After I had drank my margarita and eaten my fill we headed out. Da Young and I stayed out for a few hours to catch up, and Ann headed back to the Hotel to get some sleep. The next day we would head off to Busan to continue our trip.

4th of July

This past Saturday was the 4th of July. Really, not a big surprise for anyone back in the States, but here in Korea, the 4th of July was just another Saturday. That was until a group of people, all Americans, except for one adopted Canadian and a few Koreans, decided to head down to Mailpo beach and celebrate in an essentially Californian way. We rang in the 4th of July as best we could given our limited options.

The planning for this essentially started from the day that I arrived in Korea. I realized quickly that going to Seoul and celebrating there would not truly be the 4th of July. Fireworks had to be involved in some way shape or form. Another option would be to find my way down to a military base and enjoy the fireworks show put on by the United State Army. Yet, this option would severely limit the amount of people we could bring with us. I, therefore, started to think locally. It wasn't until my first overnight beach trip that I realized that it is legal here in Korea to shoot off simple fireworks at the beach. We are talking you're very basic things. Roman Candles, sparklers, dazzlers, and other assorted small fireworks. There is nothing too big or dangerous allowed, no m-80's or cherry bombs. With this realization I finally had the idea for how to celebrate perhaps the greatest act of treason of all time.

In, my mind the plan took shape, and as all the pieces fell into place the only thing that could rain on our patriotic parade was, well rain. As had happened with the past three or four attempts at a beach excursion, mother nature attempted to ruin our well laid plans. Luckily, this time the weather reports were wrong and the day was epic. We arrived at Malipo beach at 2 in the afternoon. Loaded down with supplies we quickly found a beach motel to use as a base of operations for the night. After offloading the copious amounts of food, alcohol, and entertainment (which honestly was just a football) we headed down to the beach to spend some time in the sun. The beaches here on the West Coast are notoriously shallow affairs with no waves at all. The difference between high tide and low tide is over 200 yards (seriously). No I'm actually being serious here. It's ridiculous. What during mid tide was 12-15 feet deep water was reduced to knee deep water at the lowest tide.

After a nice swim in which I swam a farther distance then I have in well, the past five years combined, we relaxed on the beach for a little while before I headed up to the motel to start cooking. The meal for the day was a 4th of July special for us here in Korea. The first course revolved around Jose's epic homemade Salsa, which I have to steal the recipe for because it's seriously ranking up there with mom's salsa, and might be better in some facets. The main course was an excellent cross sample of typical BBQ foods you would find at a BBQ. It started with a 12 pack of smoked Johnsville Brauts (thank you costco) cooked in a bottle of beer. Beer brauts, I'm not sure those have even been had off of a military installation here in Korea. The second round was red and yellow bell peppers grilled with olive oil, onions and garlic on the grill. This was followed by fish cooked till it was falling apart with a little bit of olive oil and blackened grill seasonings on top. The third movement was a package of grilled Andouille sausage. My mouth is watering right now thinking about the food we had on Saturday. The last thing we had for our meal were potatoes wrapped in foil and thrown into the coals of the charcoal at the start of my BBQing. The potatoes were not alone in the foil, they contained several slices of garlic, a dash of Cajun seasoning, and of some olive oil.

After thoroughly stuffing ourselves at the motel David and I walked contentedly into town to purchase fireworks. In Korea there are no open container laws, so while stopping at a convenience store to use the ATM David purchased both of us an ice cold bottle of beer. As we stopped at a store that had a nice selection of fireworks I heard the most dreaded words a buzzed foreign teacher holding a bottle of beer can ever hear, "Will teacher!!!!" That's right, I'd been spotted. Not only by one of my students, but quite possibly the one student I have in complete need of Ritalin. I swear you can see this boy shaking as he talks because his mind is moving a mile a minute. Needless to say, word will have spread all around school by tomorrow that I was at Malipo drinking and buying fireworks. Great. After purchasing a nice supply of things that go bang in the sky David and I headed back down to the beach to join our compatriots.

As the sun set I decided to go for another swim. After about twenty minutes of swimming, and dumping TC off of his floating tube we walked the 200 yards back to where everything was. We then began to set up for our little fireworks celebration. We set up for one large grand finale, well basically that was the entire show. We had 20 packs of Roman Candles and several other things that lit up the night sky on the beach. It was a glorious few minutes where all of us were allowed to celebrate those thing we hold so dearly to. We looked up in small wonderment and celebrated our love for America on foreign soil. Our show may or may not have looked something like this, I'll leave it up to you the readers to vote.

After the glorious pyrotechnics on the beach, we meandered up to our motel for a little rest, some relaxation, and some marshmallows. We did not have a bonfire to roast them over, but we did the next best thing. We cooked them over the BBQ. I had brought an extra thing of charcoal just for this occasion. After roasting our marshmallows on wooden chopsticks, yes you heard correctly, we decided to wander into town. There we won 6 more things of roman candles via carny games. My best is the dart game. It is here where David and co went on a few of the carnival style rides that I chose not to partake in. They were perfectly safe, but looked like they hadn't been oiled since 1965. With the town taken care of we found our way back to our motel to shut in for the night well, not to go directly to bed but soon enough. After two late night strolls along the beach when the tide was up which included my sinking knee deep in sand at one point we fell asleep and awoke on the morning of the 5th.

Our patriotic duty accomplished we cleaned our motel room and headed back to Seosan.

안녕

I think I will take this opportunity to say goodbye to two of my very good friends. Brenden and Carissa you guys will be seriously missed here in Korea. I hope that you guys had a great time and I will look forward to seeing you guys in Vancouver if I ever make it up that way. In memory of your departure I figure instead of getting all weepy I'll just post some pictures of our better moments here in Korea. You guys will be really missed.