Happy Cinco de Mayo

It's been an interesting time since my last update. I've hit extreme highs and extreme lows with the job, but it seems to come with the territory. I've gotten into hiking a lot on the weekends, and I've started going to a rock climbing gym pretty close to where I live. I've reached yellow belt in Hapkido, though I'm still looking for a place to practice Taekwondo.
I've put up a bunch of new picture albums to document all the most noteworthy adventures I've had recently. To start with is a nice little selection of photos from St. Patrick's Day here in Seoul. Yeah, I know it was a while ago, but some of the pictures were just too good not to put up. Plus, it was pretty surreal to see so many Koreans celebrating an Irish holiday with such gusto. They really love Guinness here, I can tell you that much.
I've also got an album up from a hike on one of the local mountains, Gwanaksan. It was a fun time and got me addicted to hiking around here. Of course, Korea is mostly mountains, so hiking is huge here. It's hard to describe the feeling of sweating up a thousand meter peak, only to watch people two or three times my age gleefully smoke me up the trail, flashing big smiles as they hustle their fully-outfitted-for-mountain-climbing selves right up the mountains. Koreans are strong people.
Then there is an album I've put up from a recent field trip we took the pre-schoolers on. In the morning I teach wee little ones (7 years old in Korean counting, which generally means 6 in American counting,) and this month's field trip was to the zoo.
Also, last weekend I took a trip to Wonju, about an hour and a half outside of Seoul, with Justin and Nate, two friends from work. We climbed a 1288 meter peak in Chiaksan national park, but that's only part of the story.
For starters, we weren't supposed to be in Wonju at all. Justin screwed up when we were getting our tickets, having read our guide book wrong. We were apparently supposed to go to an entirely different place called Muju. Go figure. We figured this out about 30 seconds before the bus for Wonju headed out of Seoul, with us on it. Luckily Chiaksan is right outside of Wonju(sorta) so we just rolled with it, and everything ended up working out.
We left on a friday night, and got a room at a place that would probably be described here in Korea as a "love motel." The room is basically designed for people to have sex, with lots of mood lighting, porn on the TV, etc etc. There was even a vending machine in the hallway that sold dildos, fake vaginas, and various other tools/toys. We stayed there two nights, actually, since the enormous bed was big enough for two, and there was a couch as well. The funny part was, the second night they supplied us guys with 3 condoms instead of the standard one... thanks, I guess?
Saturday morning we rolled out of the motel/hotel/whateveritis only to realize that our guidebook was incredibly vague on how to get from Wonju to the national park. After poking around for an hour, and getting lots of crappy directions, we finally stumbled across a police station. Being completely lost, we went in to ask for directions. The amusement we were able to provide for those local yokel Korean cops was something to see. They whipped out every phrase in English they knew, and after a few minutes of language practice, one of them finally said, "follow me." Figuring he was going to tell us how to get to the bus terminal we were looking for, we went along. Imagine our surprise when the officer loaded us into one of the cop cars and drove us directly to the stop where we could catch a bus up to the mountain. Koreans really are that nice.
The mountain was incredible, and was the longest hike I've done to date, at 1288 meters. In the foothills there is also a very old Buddhist temple, where we were accosted by a very old man who seemed pretty drunk for eleven in the morning. He proceeded to tell us a long, rambling, nonsensical, entirely charming (seriously) story about a big rock that looks like the moon with some clouds around it. I'm not making this up. He even gave us a business card with a picture of said rock on it.
The last part of the hike was so steep that there were wooden stairways built into the sides of the mountain. Imagine our surprise when, as we three struggled to the summit, it was already crowded with middle aged folks and middle school field trip groups. Definitely an educational experience, and very humbling.
After coming down the mountain and catching the bus back to Wonju proper, we decided on a galbi restaurant for dinner. In Korea, galbi is basically BBQ cooked right at your table, on a cooker built into the table top. It's delicious, and in true Korean fashion, the table is covered with little dishes containing all manner of little sides, garnishes, and various kinds of kimchi. In the bathroom I noticed a pretty old guy sneezing his head off approximately every 5 seconds. I can't say I was too excited when he rolled up to our table and invited himself to join us. "Great," I thought, in a typically American reaction, "this weird old homeless guy wants to make friends and eat our food." Not so! The gentleman made as much chit chat as he could with the English he had, bought us a round of beers, and wished us a good night, as he hustled his grandkids on home. According to Justin, he sees that kind of incredible hospitality and friendliness at least once on every hiking trip outside of Seoul.
Well of course we ended up making a bit of a night of it, and got up very late the next day, precluding any more hiking that weekend. Still, it was time very well spent.
Lastly, I threw up a smattering of pictures I took just before I came to Korea. There were a couple good ones I just couldn't keep to myself, like the shots from the anti-escalation/war march that I went to in DC, and the picture I got someone to take of myself meeting Ralph Nader. And of course, shots of me and and my brand spankin' new (at the time) black belt, posing with my TKD masters.
You'll notice in many of the pictures I've put up, by the way, that I'm sporting quite a gross little mustache. Myself and a bunch of guys at the office were having a sort of a competition, although Ryan and his 1/4 pure Italian blood whipped all of us, with an incredible Super Mario-esque 'stache.
It's getting warm here. Stay tuned for reports of island hopping and beach parties. Also, I'm in training for a Taekwondo championship that Master Yang (my TKD master from back in the states) has asked me to compete in. So there's a lot going on. I'll do my best to keep the site as updated as possible. If you want to leave a comment, please do - just click the link at the bottom of the post that says "comments." I hope that anyone who's reading this is having a wonderful day, and ate something delicious recently.