Korea is really far from America.

Seoul Grand Park

2008-09-19T09:36:00.002-07:00

We took the long subway ride to Seoul Grand Park one sunny afternoon. We didn't really know what was there...we had heard a lot of different things. We ended up being both disappointed and happily surprised.

The entrance of the park had a lot of beautiful flowers and a very fierce-looking tiger. His growl was much worse than his bite!

We were overwhelmed by how natural the park was and also by its' size, but we were a little sad that it was more of a zoo than a park.

One of the good views of this enormous park. The hills in the distance are where many people go to do a little hiking.

In the far distance, you can see the amusement park....which we were both too scared of to go anywhere near!

This is the gondola that we rode up through the park. We thought that we were going to be able to see lots of animals from here but we could only see the lions. We were thankful though not to have to walk both to and from the zoo! It would have been quite the hike.

The gondola gave us a good chance to checkout the spectacular arial view of the park! The triangular shaped object in the center is the bird habitat (more pictures of that to come).

The lazy lions: shot from the gondola.

This little guy and a couple of his friends were putting on a great little show for us, swimming in circles and coming up just in time to take a peek at us! Maybe it was their fist time seeing pasty people too!

You can't really tell from this picture, but this guy was huge! Perhaps the largest sea lion that California had to offer. Anyways, he was massive and everytime he came out, water poured over the sides of the tank!

Yes, that's an elephant's butt! And..who knew that pheasants came in colors...the golden pheasant is especially radiant!

Some kind of goose and a herin, I think, hanging out in their cool home (shown below).

This place was soo cool that normal everyday birds, that didn't belong in a zoo, would sneak in to fly around and eat some free food!

Pelicans are hands down the best bird that there is. Pelicans sure look like the birds that deliver babies, are we sure that it was storks?!

And here you can see that even muir cats have jobs. Clearly the one at the top left is a soldier and maybe the bottom one is a disinterested massage therapist?!

There were a ton of giraffes and they were pretty close to the fence, so good for close up pics but bad for personal giraffe space:(

Sadly, in this picture, you can't tell, but we learned that when these pretty pink birds are running around frantically, they have to move their wings up and down for balance. So, it looks like they are going to take off but they can't. Maybe you had to be there but when a bunch of them do it at the same time, they look really funny.

Us taking our chances to get a close up with the very intimidating plastic tiger

with razor blade teeth.

Jirisan

2008-09-19T09:36:00.001-07:00

We have a friend named Shawn, who's from Newfoundland. He writes for a local magazine, but above all, he's a mountaineer. We've been able to go on hiking trips with him a few times now.

The three of us bright and early at the top of Jiri after sleeping in the very cold and dusty shelter all night with a bunch of drunk middle-aged Korean men.

Last spring, the three of us hopped on a train and headed to the southern end of the country. We ended up in a town nearby the mountain. Shawn got us a taxi and we payed the driver to take us about 30 minutes to a small restaurant at the foot of Jiri mountain. We had a cool traditional Korean meal of bipimbap, rice with fresh vegetables pulled from the mountain at this outdoorish restaurant. There was a small dog that was very interested in us and kept coming close to get a look at us and an occasional petting.

Once we got the little dog to stop following us, we answered a few trivia questions that were on the side of the trail and then we headed up a little valley with this river and its huge rocks.

As amazing as this mountain is, there was still garbage left behind from time to time. So we took some pictures of it for Shawn's website. He runs an organization that goes to the mountains of Korea and cleans up the garbage. Korean's aren't very big on garbage cans, so Shawn and his crew are very busy. Still, 99.9% of this mountain was absolutely gorgeous.

This sign pointed us in the direction to the shelter we were gonna stay at.

We'd stop to take a breather time-to-time. A lot more than we needed to, it was just too beautiful.

Shawn said the water was clean enough to drink. He drinks it whenever he hikes this mountain.

Ricky caught Tiff while she was getting lost in one of those moments when you forget that you live in a city with cars and fast food.

Seriously, with a view like this, being able to see all of this in one place, you all are lucky Ricky even wants to come home at all. Just kidding, he's counting the days.

We loved this pool and wanted to jump in so bad, but there were millions of little tadpoles swimming around. They told us to back off.

Then we got to the shelter. A man named Mr. Ham (pronounced like "mom") decided 40 years ago to live in the mountains. He's been living there ever since. He was really nice and funny, too. He wore a beret (Shawn said he always wears it) and he has a goatee. He was married when he decided to be a mountain man and he has stayed married the whole time. His wife was apparently cool with him being gone a lot.

He has stacked up rocks to bring his home closer to heaven. Visitors have contributed as well.

He has almost everything he needs at his shelter. 24 hour running water from the stream for drinking and washing. He has a small garden where he grows his dinner. There's even a bathroom. He only charges the equivalent of $10 to stay there. His goals are only to live a peaceful life in the mountains and to provide a shelter for fellow mountain lovers.

Here's a peek into the living quarters. He provides heavy, warm blankets. Nobody freezes there.

There was only one pair of house slippers, and Mr. Ham said, "Ladies first!" and gave them to Tiff, leaving Ricky and Shawn in their socks.

The next morning we got up and said goodbye to Mr. Ham. Then Shawn took us on a serious hike to the top of Jiri mountain. We love to hike, but hiking is what Shawn does, and he didn't take it easy on us at all. But this mountain was remarkable, so it was okay.

When we got to the top, we did some ridge hiking. It was nice, not so steep.

Shawn said one of his favorite things about this mountain is that, from the top, all of the ridges look like veins. He was right, it was awesome.

A creepy tree: Ricky took this.

Beautiful pink flowers: Tiff took this.

Our friend Shawn, the active environmentalist mountaineer from Newfoundland.

Jeju Island: the first attempt

2008-09-19T09:36:00.000-07:00

Ever since we got here, we've been told all about this beautiful island called Jeju that Korea is so proud of. So last spring, we decided to go check it out. We'd been told it was a small island, so we could see everything in a few days. We felt up to the challenge.

Our first big goal was to climb the great Halla mountain. It's apparently the highest mountain in Korea. It's also a volcano with a gigantic crater/lake in it. So we set out early on this epic hike. We looked at a map of the mountain and chose the best possible route for the time we had. There were some nice views and we even ran into some small mountain deer. We kept looking at the top, thinking about how worth it this looooong hike would be in the end. But alas, hours later, we came to a place where the trail we chose ended...

Ricky likes to look on the bright side, but today the trail to the bright side was closed.

(That's the top in the background)

Lucky for Ricky, Tiff was there with her sunshiny smile to lift his spirits and motivate him to not give up.

So we did press on. And somehow, we immediately found ourselves at the top of mount Halla. It was amazing. As you can see, we were able to take a breathtaking picture from above the massive crater. We were very proud.

Then we got bored and left.

Being a volcano, we saw a lot of volcanic rock. Bet you didn't see that coming.

There really were some great views along the way. The vertical picture here shows a part of a fun Korean legend. Some believe that these points along this ridge are soldiers from hundreds or thousands of years ago. We don't really remember the whole story, but basically there were hundreds of these men and they all had the same grandmother. Yada yada, a few things happened, and she ended up eating them. Not sure how, we think it was an accident.

Speak of the devil. Here's Tiff with said grandmother. She's kind of cute for a cannibal of soldier grandsons.

And this is the most famous and highly regarded of all traditional Korean figures. Dol-harubang, they call him. He is the grandfather of Korea and he watches over the people.

We were at a park that had a big waterfall. This wasn't it, but Tiff is really good at finding beautiful scenery.

After being asked dozens of times to have our picture taken with loud teenagers, we found the waterfall. A really nice security guard offered to take our picture with the waterfall.

Along the coast, we found another waterfall. This one falls right into the ocean.

That evening, we went to a place known as Sunrise Peak. It was enormous and amazing, but it was foggy, so we didn't get many good pictures. But fortunately for us, a very talented senior picture photographer was there to take our senior pictures. What do you think? We're no actors, but we did what he told us to do and we were pretty happy with the results.

After we paid the man, we hiked the steep path to the top of the Sunrise Peak, where we would see the natural beauty that lie inside of it's also famous crater. Clearly, mother nature was on our side and we walked away with the most amazing pictures. We can't show you any of them, they're too good.

More adventures on Jeju Island to come...

Suraksan

2008-08-27T10:38:00.001-07:00

We work with a girl named Sunny Cho, who is in a hiking group. On the weekends, this group goes all over the country to hike different mountains. They're basically nuts. After work on Friday night (around midnight), they'll get on a bus to drive 5 hours to a mountain. When they get there, they'll hike it, descend, find a place to eat (& drink lots and lots of rice wine), and then hop back on the bus to drive back home.

Sunny had tried to get us to go hiking with her for several weeks, so when she said that they were going to Surak, we figured that was the time to go. Suraksan is northeast of Seoul. It's actually really close to North Korea. They said that on a clear day, you can see North Korea from the top. But it wasn't clear enough when we went.

This was easily the most dangerous hike either of us have ever done. They said to bring gloves for the ropes. We kind of laughed and bought $7 gloves to make them happy. Turns out, we needed them. Turns out, the ropes were metal. And if you don't use the ropes, we think you just fall off the mountain.

You almost get a really good shot of what our butts look like when we hike, but they're being blocked by another guys butt. So that's what his butt looks like when he hikes. Sorry! And the picture below is of the peak that we were headed toward.

You can't see, but just past this picture, the mountain completely drops off.

Why do we look so happy?

Sean's bloody gloves.

He was very proud of these gloves. Everyone in the hiking group had expensive professional hiking gloves, but he bought his at a convenience store for less than a dollar. They are gardening gloves (also used in batting cages here), but Sean decided they would do. Only problem is that the palms are covered in red rubber, for traction. We asked him who's blood was on them, but he wouldn't tell us. He said he doesn't like telling people who he kills, or where he buries them. He said that if we asked too many questions, we'd have to be next. He's seriously the nicest guy we've met over here. He's extremely kind and generous, making the whole "bloody gloves" thing hilarious. We still give him a hard time about it at work, and he still hasn't killed us. Good, clean fun.

Oh, what!?! Did you say we're dangerously close to communist North Korea?... and they have guns?

Well so do we!

When we got to the bottom, they found a nice little restaurant to eat at. It was a typical after-hiking restaurant/watering hole. So we sat on the floor around the table with our new friends and they ordered us a traditional meal. The main dish was a hot stew. They were nice and ordered us a pot with less firey hotness. It was slightly less red than the other pots around the table, so we tried it, and it felt like actual flames of a fire burning our throats as it went down. At least we didn't get the really hot stuff.

These are the crazy hikers we spent the day with. That's Sunny, next to Ricky.

They were insane, over-prepared, and fun

...but they made us drink rice wine!

Bukhansan

2008-08-27T10:08:00.000-07:00

In late Spring, we went with some friends to the biggest mountain in the Seoul area. It was only a 30 minute subway ride and a 20 minute taxi drive away.

I guess we could have mentioned before that a name ending in "san" means mountain. So Songnisan, Bukhansan, Suraksan, Jilisan, Hallasan, and Seoraksan are all mountains that you will see about eventually.

On top: Ricky, Tiff, Sean from Korea, and Shawn from Newfoundland

Bottom: Sunny Cho and Russell Young

We stopped at a little pagoda to sit down for a bit and eat oranges and flavorless, crunchy rice chips. It was in the mountain, so we had a nice view.

Right next to the pagoda was a giant sitting Buddha. They do appreciate the Buddha in Korea. This one wasn't asking for money, though. He was praying

(to himself, maybe?!?).

It was a good day, outside of the city.

Shanghai

2008-08-17T05:43:00.000-07:00

China was madness! This was on one of our many cab rides in which Tiff thought we were going to die and Ricky and the cab driver laughed at her.

The insanity actually began with fireworks. We flew into Shanghai on the night of the Chinese New Year. As we were nearing ground in the plane, we started to notice that the fireworks had already begun and that they were flying dangerously close to the plane.

Once we reached the ground, we saw the real chaos! People were lighting off fireworks on their balconies, in alleys, and on bridges. The pictures above show a bridge that we were standing next to until, without any warning, someone lit the big boxes of fireworks on the bridge. We turned around and saw the crowd that we had been standing in had all run away. The exploding boxes of death on the bridge were getting closer and closer and shrapnel was raining from the sky and landing on us! We ran.

Clockwise: Some mischievious little Chinese children lighting fireworks in an alley; fireworks landing on everything from hotels to electric lines; us in the midst of it all.

Night views of the towers of Shanghai: The elegant Jin Mao with its slightly shorter neighbor. The slightly shorter neighbor has now taken over the ranking of tallest building in the world; the bulky design and enormity of the Pearl tower demonstrates just what a communist tower should look like. It is also 1,500 something feet high so that helps with the intimidating factor.

Great street views from the top of the Pearl. Ricky showing a little Korean spirit after finally getting to the top. This sense of pride could only have been brought on by severe fatigue, hunger, and communism.

On top is the Bund, a very popular shopping street. Also, the best place in Shanghai to be offered hashish every three minutes. Below that, the Yuyuan Bazaar. We spent quite a bit of time here, buying little souvenirs and pushing our way throught the crowd.

The Bazaar at night all lit up for the Chinese New Year.

Clockwise: One of the buildings containing dim sum restaurants and Mao paraphenalia. Beautiful animal lanterns representing the Chinese calendar. Check out the Chinese policemen. Ricky tried to beat them up, but he got pushed one time and fell down and scraped his knee.

A scary church that we found on our two hour search for food. In China, you should apparently eat before nine p.m. or you go hungry.

A bike stand on a busy street outside of the bazaar. Even the Chinese don't like bad coffee. Hey Nate, could you pain on this?!

All the fixings for a healthy dim sum meal. Ricky learned to love raw ginger here. We also got to know a Taiwonese man and his girlfriend or daughter who lived in China. We were seated at an awkward joint table as they were about to start eating.

Night pictures from the top of the Jin Mao tower. The purplish blue orb in the background is the Pearl Tower. We got free pearls straight out of the shell, just for going to the top. They made them into earrings for Tiff and they are beautiful. A much better deal than spending three hours in line at the Pearl tower and recieving nothing!

The enterance of the monsterous Yuyuan gardens.

One of many ornate guards in the garden. Everything in this place is built with rocks or built right into them.

Unique doorways-a-plenty.

It's a Chinese garden, you need at least one picture of bamboo, yeah?!

Ricky thought it was a petting zoo. It wasn't. Tiff finally got the guts to pose how Korean girls do while their boyfriends take pictures of them at the mall.

At this point, we had no idea where we were but it was still very picturesque.

China was weird.

Really weird!

Songnisan

2008-08-17T01:02:00.000-07:00

Songnisan was actually our first road trip in Korea (sorry about the order of things). It took us four hours by bus on windy mountain roads but when we finally got there, it was well worth it. Below you can see the 106 foot tall bronze Budda looking over the monk village.

On the walk to the monk village, rocks are stacked on top of one another in little pryamids to attract some kind of spiritual connection.

Ricky and Tiff posing in front of the Budda. We think he was asking us for money!

The top picture shows most of the buildings in the village along with the surrounding mountains. The picture below is the oldest original wooden pagoda in Korea. At the top of this building, you can see a beam that extends out of the middle, this is what is now holding the structure up.

After we left the village, we went for a grueling 6 mile hike to the top of Songnisan. As you can see from the stairs and ladders, it wasn't your average stroll in the park. We also left a little late in the day, so we were hustling to make sure that we got back before dark.

Rain clouds and darkness were coming, but we still had a hard time tearing ourselves away from the beautiful scenery.

A couple of short clips from the top of Songnisan

Maybe we were a little too happy to be out of the office and in nature again!

Gyeongju

2008-01-18T08:40:00.000-08:00

Gyeongju is called the outdoor museum of Korea. It is even one of the top ten ancient cultural cities of the world as chosen by UNESCO. It only takes a short walk to figure out why. Gyeongju is three-fourths of the way down the country close to the eastern coast. We rode the KTX fast train from Seoul to Gyeongju, which took three hours and ten minutes and they are very prompt! We learned this because we had to switch trains in the middle of the trip and we only had ten minutes to find the right train and be seated, so we were really hoping that our first train ran on time!

We were champs and made it to each train, and eventually Gyeongju, on time. After a deep conversation with the taxi drivers (they didn't understand us at all) at the station, we were on our way to Bulguk-sa. Up the hill, there is an amazing temple surrounded by a wall. The temple has 2 buildings, each with Buddha's inside. The one further up the hill comes with a small woman who (for no extra charge) will yell, "No pictures!" at you. It's nice.

One of two ancient granite pagodas inside the palace walls. The two are opposites. This is the female. The male counterpart, far superior of course, will one day be removed by the Indigo Girls.

This used to be a symbol of love and mercy, until men with neatly trimmed mustaches used it for evil... and this is Tiff sticking her tongue out at Ricky.

This guy's job was just to spank dragons.

From there, we took a bus up to the top of the mountain (the tallest one in the area) to see the Seokgurom Grotto. There is a shrine here inside of a cave (you can see it below), which you reach through a small building on the side of the mountain. It looks like a little house, but that is only the entrance. The house was put there to protect the statue. Once inside, you can see an amazing Buddha that was carved out of granite in the 8th century. It was amazing. It was being guarded by two big warriors carved into the walls of the cave. They were so old. We both got really quiet in there, out of respect, maybe. This was definitely a highlight. Trust us, you don't have to believe in the Buddha to think he's cool-looking.

Then we spent time on the other side of town. Bulguk-sa village and the Grotto were out in the country and on a mountain, but now we were in the city (small city, though it was). One of the main features of Gyeongju City is the large tombs in which the royalty of ancient times were buried. As you can see below, these tombs are massive and they come in various shapes and sizes depending on how important the royalty was. There were dozens of tombs in this town and you can walk through them just like a park. The town has sadly grown up to the very edges of the areas where these tombs reside, which I guess could be an advantage if the Kings and Queens ever get hungry or need to get some pictures developed. They were built between 57 B.C. and A.D. 935. Sorry about all the history.

Cheomseongdae (Star Observation Tower): This tower is thought to be the oldest observatory in East Asia, thought by whom, we don't know... but it could be. Thirty bricks high, one brick for each month, this monument was used to determine the agriculture cycles and to speculate the fortunes of the government.

"Why didn't I think of a mini skirt and high heels? It would have been the perfect outfit for hiking up a mountain on dirt roads and standing out in the blistering cold. "

Christmas in Korea

2008-01-06T07:47:00.000-08:00

Some people cut trees down......

Our work in progress

The roots, branches, and a forest canopy (where the birds live).

Ricky got into his stocking a little early this year.
He just wasn't as covert as he thought he was!

More presents than we've ever had in our lives!

Thank you for being a part of our Christmas,
it could have been very lonely.

Basic Info.

2007-12-10T07:28:00.000-08:00

We have been in Korea now for almost four months....I don't know where the time went. Sorry, this first blog post is long overdue! We are pretty much settled and used to it here but it sure isn't home! The picture to the right, is the building that our apartments are in.

We live in a large suburb called Pyoung Chon-Dong, which is just 30 minutes south of Seoul. Since it is not a small city, we are fortunate to have most of what we need pretty close, but it is no Seoul or Portland for that matter. We try to get into Seoul as often as possible. We stumbled upon a really great traditional street market and a very quaint-(Tiffany) tea house that has finches flying around inside.

We work for a very small branch of a large private English institute. Our afternoons and evenings are spent trying to teach English to children, most of which, are only learning English because their parents are making them. Our kids are anywhere from first to tenth grade and we see about fifty of them a day. For the most part, they are much better than American kids but there are still some kids that we would prefer to disappear, completely, I mean completely by accident!-(Ricky) To be fair, there are some really great and interesting kids if you can get them to open up.