Last few days

My last few days:

Friday - Today it was mostly dull. This, and the threat of rain, combined to thwart my plan to go on the Shamanist shrine walk today – I will instead do this on Monday, having now completed my souvenir shopping and had my fill of Insadong (full of craft shops, art shops, souvenir shops, tea shops and coffee shops – your parents would love it [this is patently a lie given that, to my knowledge, most of 'my readers' are my parents and other family, and I'm not convinced it is the case that my grandparents would love it...the general point stands though...it's certainly true of my sister]. Small city that Seoul is (10 million) while in Insadong I bumped into the Korean and the American girls I met in Busan which made me smile.

Not much more to say about that really...check the Seoul album on picasa for updated pictures. This is funny [but only if you've paid any attention to the Ross/Brand rubbish]:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/cartoon/2008/oct/31/cartoon-credit-crunch-crisis


This is trying:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_7697000/7697762.stm


Saturday – Today I went to help at Chi-He's school for a haloween/English day. Deciding not to go out except to the local bar (literally over the road from the apartment) the night before was definitely appreciated with the 8.30am start. The first job was to stamp each of the children's 'passports', asking them a few 'passport control' questions they arrived - ½ in the morning, and then again in the afternoon. The highlight of this task was the competitive element – who would get rid of all their name badges first...this tells you how dull it was. It was also cold. The children are aged 4-6...they have limited English.

I had been placed in the 'cooking class' for the day. In this class the children were learning to make a healthy (and YUMMY!) sandwich with their parents. So that's a ratio of 1 to 1 kids to adults anyway, plus some had more than one parent with them. Add to that the 6 other adults in the room and I felt somewhat surplus to requirements. After the 20 minute sandwich making sess' I went to the next room to 'sell' the children a juice carton, with scripted question-answer style. This was a perfectly nice job and some of the children clearly have alright English and can go outside the script...some struggled a lot though. Being asked to speak up by a Korean teacher did not amuse me given her sole reason was because she couldn't hear me – but she was stood 3 meters away and didn't NEED to hear me; never mind. Much to my surprise I was paid for the day – about $90 or so which is not an inconsiderable amount of money which was very nice and as I say, much appreciated. Following this very dull day (8*sandwich making class is not my idea of fun no matter how cute the children are), we had a bit of a shopping session (by which I mean Chi-Hé bought some stuff), got icecream and went to a cafe to have our feet nibbled at by Dr fish (the one's that eat the dead skin from your feet – I believe I've mentioned them before), before heading back home to the local BBQ place for dinner.

Sunday – Today we decided to relax and do very little. We had icecream for breakfast. We took a walk in the woods near by and watched films...yup. If you ever think about watching 'The Oxford Murders' - rethink, watch something else, anything else really.

Monday – Today I decided I'd go on the Shamanist walk in Seoul. My arrival coincided with that of two other Westerners, so I followed them (while trying to avoid actually meeting them) up the hill to a few nice temple buildings, and interestingly shapped rocks. All in all, the buildings were not particularly interesting – nor indeed the rocks, but the area itself was quite attractive and the views of the mountains in Seoul, and the fortress wall were very pleasant. Unfortunately the prison near there, built under Japanese rule, is not open on Mondays...never mind. Jumping on a subway for 5 stops down the line to an area with nothing in it, I jumped off crossed the platform and went 10 stops towards the shopping district I'd intended to go to – oops, my first subway mishap. Walking around this commercial area full of coffee shops, eateries and shops – including but not limited to international chains such as Gap – was quite pleasant, and I managed to replace my very sorry looking shoes...I think the girl in the store was somewhat confused when I kept the new shoes on and just left the old ones behind...but I really couldn't work out how to explain it to her and she seemed OK with it if a bit bemused :D. Heading to one of the many coffee shops I realised I may have an addiction when I ordered a double espresso and an iced caramel latte...whatev's.


Tuesday – Today. Another move, another goodbye, hohum...this might well be the last blog post...unless I think of some things I've forgotten, or I start it up again for another travel or something of that nature...will keep you posted.

Dobongsan hike

On Tuesday I spent most of the day in Buyeo. Leaving my motel at 9ish I walked the 30 or so meters to the temple site of Jeongnimsaji. Arriving on the opposite side of the site to the entrance, I walked around and looked over the wall to see excavation work going on, and a fairly uninteresting looking temple with a brick pagoda next to it. Although I completed the circuit to the entrance, I decided not to bother going in and instead headed up to the other attraction of Buyeo – the Busosan park and fort. This area was even nicer than the fort in Gongju and I spent a very pleasant 90 minutes or so just strolling around the perimeter, checking out the restored buildings, enjoying the views and the autumnal colours. With a minimum number of school trip children crossing my path, this was a very enjoyable morning. From there I decided to head back to Seoul, and then slowly back to Dobong (Chi-Hé's stop).

Yesterday, I did pretty well nothing. In the morning I tidied and sorted my bag out a bit, and in the afternoon I drank coffee, read my book and watched two couples break up (I assume that's what they were doing...there were certainly tears). That was pretty much it.

Today I went on a hike. Despite the fact Chi-Hé lives spitting distance away from Dobongsan – even drooling distance away in fact – she has never set foot on this mountain. I thought that, I having more time than she, it might be nice for one of us to attempt this feat, and we could share the pictures. To give some indication of where Chi-Hé lives in Seoul, and what type of city Seoul is, this part of Seoul is not on the lonely planet Seoul map, only on the Bukhansan National Park map, a National Park which is mostly within the area of the city of 10.4 million that is Seoul. So I set out to walk to the next subway stop and the entrance to this particular hike this morning, picking up a pizza baguette at the local Paris Bakery, making sure I had some layers and lots of water, and that my (holey) shoes were tied securely on.

Starting at the bottom of the mountain, I had my usual 'why are all of these people wearing all this hi-tech crap? What the hell do you need climbing poles for? Are those hiking boots really necessary? Gloves?! He has climbing gloves?! Oh give me a break!' reaction. Having got a fair way up, I stopped briefly to check out the view and munch on the fruit (this: http://www.travelblog.org/Photos/1623710.html) a friendly Korean had thrown to me (after I'd politely declined his offer of Makgeoll [막걸리 ], which is unrefined rice wine...often with bits of rice still in. Chi-Hé – presumably in a fit of madness, or thinking of something else - recommended it once...we left it at the motel, I also had some in Busan...as much as I thought was necessary to be polite). From there it was all up hill. I mean, it had been all up hill anyway...but this was real knees to your chin, grab hold of that handhold and pull yourself up, up hill walking.

The last stretch (about 10 meters) up to the very peak was up a 70 degree angle piece of rock, with a very conveniently placed fence to one side, and the odd hand hold – quite fun, but a touch tiring. The view from the top was beautiful if hazy. Walking back was fairly uneventful aside from a couple of 'almost flat on my ass' slip ups which I largely blame on my shoes and the sandy soil in some areas, and some slightly sore hands from gripping trees and ropes. The route I took takes you via a fairly uninteresting temple – but it was nice to stop for a minute and take a look at the art on the outside of the building, and then continue down the last stretch back towards the subway – which I walked alongside for 2 stops to get back here. All in all I think I walked about 14km (8.5 miles) on my 5 hour hike, which is not bad going...although I may be going on another walk tomorrow...and then dancing in the evening, so we'll see how I feel then.

I'm now approaching my last days at Chi-Hé's, in Seoul, in Korea, and indeed on holiday which is somewhat daunting particularly as I was hoping I'd know more about what I'm doing for the next 12 months by now...but I'll still be waiting to hear about those things when I get back. Anyway, the plan for the next few days is – go on a Shamnist walk around some shrines (apparently Korea has a history of Shamanism and presumably some of this is still active), go to Chi-Hé's school to help out with some Haloween activities on Saturday, and then to Suwon to go to the Folk Village on Sunday. Monday will be my last day of souvenir shopping and coffee drinking, and then I fly home via somewhere on Tuesday night, arriving Wednesday.

Seoul

In keeping with the theme of making rash judgments on other cultures with very experience of them (tautology?) I'll make some comments on S. Korea:
1)People wear crap suits. I'm no suit expert, but I can see when a suit doesn't fit, or when it's made out of VERY shiny material. In fact I've seen a silver suit on more than one occasion. I assume that not all of these people are pimps.
2)There are lots of coffee places – I approve of this greatly
3)Subway trains have 'old age person' seats. These seats are never sat in by young people – indeed I was told off for sitting on one. However, middle aged people will sit on these, people who you'd not want to offer the seat to in the UK for fear of offending them. Often these don't offer their seat to the older person.
4)At cafes when you order, you are given a buzzer which will flash and vibrate when your order is ready to be picked up at the collection counter. I am not convinced this is particularly efficient, but it is quite novel.

On the train back from Insadong today (nice area) I gave up my seat to an oldish woman – I really can't abide being stood over by a woman talking to someone sat next to me who is struggling to reach the hand holds which were clearly not designed for Asian women (although they do also bang me in the face so they're not that high up). She proceeded to talk to me, and sign either that I had a big heart or big breasts – it wasn't clear which. Before I knew it I had about 5 oldish women talking to me and trying to help me to where I was going, and one young Korean who spoke English and translated a bit which was very nice of her and saved me just shrugging and smiling embarassed afterwards. I was told I had to get off before my stop, so while vowing never to do another good deed again, at least not in a confined unescapbable space I checked the map to see if I was in the right line (pretty certain I was) and indeed I was but this train was terminating so I had to swap to the next one. I could probably have worked that out myself – although I did see one guy walking down the empty train after it left its terminus – but it was very nice of them to tell me anyway.

On the train from there up to Dobong (my stop) I was very happy to see the standard peddlers of 'crap you don't want'. This was – as I'm sure you may imagine – even more the case when an old and non-too clean woman approached me with a bag full of gum packs. She proceeded to stand over me, attempt to place the gum into my hand (in such a manner as to force me to create a fist), and then try to place the gum on my leg and ask for money. After a minute of this she sodded off. I hope I told that story properly – I'm told it was funny the first time :p.

On Friday we left Seoul for Chuncheon, a town/small city not far from Seoul (2 hours on a slow train as I remember). The main draws to this place were a pretty town near by with a waterfall, and the presence of an island in a lake at this town. More on that in the next post.