Monday, March 1, 2010
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
Jeju in Spring
I had an incredible weekend visiting Jeju-do 제주도 again. It rained lightly and intermittantly the first day and the wind was strangely absent for Jeju. These photos are of the same, large and unique lava rock formation looming over the beach near Jeju Airport called 용두암 (Yongduam or "Dragon rock head").
Instead of just climbing a mountain, this time I visited the north, south, east and west of the island. I ate delicacies of Jeju and witnessed incredible vistas... jagged mountains rising from the sea, a very very large buddhist temple, a series of lava tube caves and gorgeous coast lined with lava rock. I met a horse decended from Mongolian invaders, a flock of ostrich who thought I was their long lost brother (they saw our resemblance), native pheasants and creatures picked from the sea for dinner. I got to taste the flagship oranges of jeju grown from volcanic soil.
This trip to Jeju happened more than one month ago and I've lost interest in maintaining this blog. I'm considering starting a new blog with a different format and migrating these posts there. I'm thinking about a new blog sorted into topics. If you care about this blog and want me to continue posting, let me know. Also, I have been recently posting on Youtube.com.
Sunday, March 9, 2008
More than 3 months in Korea
It's more than 3 months and I'm really appreciating Korea. I'm very happy I made the choice to move here and try something new for awhile. Language barrier is my ongoing struggle but I get by okay. I just wish there were more hours in the day!
I'm including an image of a one page article I wrote for the March-April IFEZ journal.
This past weekend I went to my first ever Korean wedding and first ever 100 day celebration for a baby girl. As with much of everything Koreans do, the wedding ceremony and dinner reception went fast compared to my expectations.
Today, Sunday March 9, I walked to the nearest mountain (문학산) to me in Incheon and then hiked it. There were lots of people on the mountain this gorgeous spring day!
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Trip to Jeju to Climb Halla-san
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Halla-san is the tallest peak in South Korea, approximately 2000m. These maps show the airflight pattern we took from Kimpo airport to Jeju-do and the climb to the peak of Halla San. They were created using a Magellan GPS and Google Earth.
Jeju-do, the island where Halla San sits is famous for the Dolharobang (stone grandfather), strong winds and Haenyu (women divers).
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Week 10
I am so disappointed about this event. Namdaemun survived the 35 year Japanese occupation and the Korean war only to be torched by some old man with a disposable lighter. And why? Because he feels the government shortchanged him on a land purchase.
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
Weeks 8 and 9
The week before Lunar New Year is also the two months abroad for me. This the week when the glow of excitement of being in Korea faded to a less comfortable reality. I had a very uncomfortable Korean language class at TalkHouse. I was totally lost and frustrated. The relentless cold has lost it's novelty and work is just plain hectic right now. When I feel like this it's a cue to come up with a new approach to somehow make it all happen. I just have to figure out what that approach is.
The trip to Beijing for Spring Festival came at a perfect time. Lunar new year is a holiday in many parts of Asia and 3 days of vacation in Korea!
I can learn so much about the world just wandering around Beijing. It is a very cosmopolitain city. I returned to some places I enjoyed last time.
Spring Festival, or lunar new year, is a time when the family reunites.
Air time from Incheon to Beijing was something like 1 hour 40 minutes. Security seemed light compared to US domestic standards. Maybe it's because China isn't at war with anyone. On the plane I sat next to a Korean import/exporter joining the rest of the family at her fathers' home in Beijing. Foreigners from around the world were here with their families enjoying the holidays in Beijing.
I arrived in Beijing on Saturday morning to excellent weather sunny, not windy and well above freezing. A week later and it's still cold, dry and sunny during the daytime. No strong wind. I made it without problem to Storm and Liyun's place in Chouyang District. Storm is a doctor of accupuncture, bluegrass musician and voice over professional I met last time I was here. Liyun is his wife from Hunen Province. For the next two days, they took the time to hang out with me at the ice skating park, shopping and eating. Then they left for Hunen Province to visit with the family. I stayed here to guard the fort.
Beijing is a city filled with people from around the world and especially from all over China and they all go home for the holiday. That means the city is the emptiest now than it is all year. Traffic is sparse and many shops and things to do are closed. But that's okay because many things are still open and there are special events for the holidays. The event that dominates is fireworks display. Fireworks were going off the day I arrived and they're still going off now almost a week later. Day and night. But Wednesday night, lunar new year's eve, the fireworks were on the verge of totally out of control.
Luckily, though it's dry as a bone here there isn't much to burn. The smell of gun powder and the smoke in the sky were incredible on new year's eve. Every block in the city had a display going. Many were quite elaborate. Here's a video I took from the apartment around midnight:
It was a bit scary to see the magnitude of the fireworks display and realize it is all amateurs. The Beijing government tried to ban the fireworks for awhile but have given up. I even saw some police officers setting off fireworks. This is proof that people have to agree to be controlled by the government and laws. Beijingers want their fireworks!
I had one of those big phosporescent fireworks go off about 12 feet off the ground across the street from me as I was walking by on new year's day. That was scary! It must have been a defect. People are using cigarettes to light the fireworks and smoking while they handle bags of munitions. Some are drunk. A drunken kid last year apparently got confused between his cigarette and the firecracker and put the wrong one in his mouth.
I visited the neighborhood where I stayed last time I was here and the nearby Olympic Park. I wasn't the only visitor walking
around in the subzero temperature snapping photos. There were lots of young Chinese tourists too. I took the photo of the blue swimming facility and the "birds nest" stadium from inside the construction site.
One of the young security guards at the entrance periodically hollars at someone as people wander around the construction site snapping phtotos in the dark subzero night.
If tourists want to gawk at the construction then they are allowed. I was going to climb a set of stairs on a construction trailer near the location I took the photo from for a better view only to discover the lower steps had all been smashed out to prevent me from doing just that. It was so cold my camera lense cover shutter was stuck shut breifly.
I have had incredible food. Ate at a Korean restaurant where I suspect the dishes are unavailable in South Korea. There was an absence of kochuchang and instead the meal was red chilli powder based. Hard to describe. The thing that surprised me the most about this restaurant are the conversations I had in Korean and English. My Korean comprehension feels better in Beijing. Maybe because they speak Korean slower here. Nothing like hearing a familiar language in a sea of Mandarain. I stayed after my meal and visited as the entire staff ate dumplings for good fortune before going home... their company holiday party. It was New Year's Eve and they made sure I ate dumplings too. The manager is 28 and speaks no English and she also runs a Norebang upstairs. Apparently, Korean Noreband is a big hit. The manager's younger sister is a biology student at the university and speaks some English. It was fun talking to them.
My favorite meal thus far from the culinary point of view was a West Chinese style restaurant. Incredibly good! Plus they had a dark beer from Western China too that was good too. The menu and walls were covered in sanskrit and I would assume they were muslim but they did serve beer. The dish I liked the most was kind of like my favorite jijiang mein I get back in the Bay Area but with beef and fresh red peppers.
As I was wandering around lost at night (I always get lost at night here) a muslim fellow from West China riding a cargo tricycle approached me to sell prepared food. I thought, "oh no, let me out of here". He was asking a lot of money, as is the custom here since you are supposed to haggle a fair price. He ended up selling me a kilo and I'm so glad he pressured me into buying this stuff... it is so good! It's a dried fruit and nut mixture kind of like baklava without the pastry shell. I has white raisins, apricots, peanuts, pistachios, sesame seeds and maybe other ground nuts. I have been devouring it and I may actually eat the entire kilo before I go back to Korea.
I ate at a Yunan province restaurant that served things like gingko nuts and tea tree buds. Yes, the tea tree flower buds taste like tea!
Wandering around Beijing, I ran into bird trainers having fun with their birds. I took this short movie of the action:
Note the pink plastic bead the bird catches mid-air and returns to the trainer for a treat. You can hear the sound of fireworks in the background.
The trip to Beijing for Spring Festival came at a perfect time. Lunar new year is a holiday in many parts of Asia and 3 days of vacation in Korea!
I can learn so much about the world just wandering around Beijing. It is a very cosmopolitain city. I returned to some places I enjoyed last time.
Spring Festival, or lunar new year, is a time when the family reunites.
Air time from Incheon to Beijing was something like 1 hour 40 minutes. Security seemed light compared to US domestic standards. Maybe it's because China isn't at war with anyone. On the plane I sat next to a Korean import/exporter joining the rest of the family at her fathers' home in Beijing. Foreigners from around the world were here with their families enjoying the holidays in Beijing.
I arrived in Beijing on Saturday morning to excellent weather sunny, not windy and well above freezing. A week later and it's still cold, dry and sunny during the daytime. No strong wind. I made it without problem to Storm and Liyun's place in Chouyang District. Storm is a doctor of accupuncture, bluegrass musician and voice over professional I met last time I was here. Liyun is his wife from Hunen Province. For the next two days, they took the time to hang out with me at the ice skating park, shopping and eating. Then they left for Hunen Province to visit with the family. I stayed here to guard the fort.
Beijing is a city filled with people from around the world and especially from all over China and they all go home for the holiday. That means the city is the emptiest now than it is all year. Traffic is sparse and many shops and things to do are closed. But that's okay because many things are still open and there are special events for the holidays. The event that dominates is fireworks display. Fireworks were going off the day I arrived and they're still going off now almost a week later. Day and night. But Wednesday night, lunar new year's eve, the fireworks were on the verge of totally out of control.
Luckily, though it's dry as a bone here there isn't much to burn. The smell of gun powder and the smoke in the sky were incredible on new year's eve. Every block in the city had a display going. Many were quite elaborate. Here's a video I took from the apartment around midnight:
It was a bit scary to see the magnitude of the fireworks display and realize it is all amateurs. The Beijing government tried to ban the fireworks for awhile but have given up. I even saw some police officers setting off fireworks. This is proof that people have to agree to be controlled by the government and laws. Beijingers want their fireworks!
I had one of those big phosporescent fireworks go off about 12 feet off the ground across the street from me as I was walking by on new year's day. That was scary! It must have been a defect. People are using cigarettes to light the fireworks and smoking while they handle bags of munitions. Some are drunk. A drunken kid last year apparently got confused between his cigarette and the firecracker and put the wrong one in his mouth.
I visited the neighborhood where I stayed last time I was here and the nearby Olympic Park. I wasn't the only visitor walking
around in the subzero temperature snapping photos. There were lots of young Chinese tourists too. I took the photo of the blue swimming facility and the "birds nest" stadium from inside the construction site.
One of the young security guards at the entrance periodically hollars at someone as people wander around the construction site snapping phtotos in the dark subzero night.
If tourists want to gawk at the construction then they are allowed. I was going to climb a set of stairs on a construction trailer near the location I took the photo from for a better view only to discover the lower steps had all been smashed out to prevent me from doing just that. It was so cold my camera lense cover shutter was stuck shut breifly.
I have had incredible food. Ate at a Korean restaurant where I suspect the dishes are unavailable in South Korea. There was an absence of kochuchang and instead the meal was red chilli powder based. Hard to describe. The thing that surprised me the most about this restaurant are the conversations I had in Korean and English. My Korean comprehension feels better in Beijing. Maybe because they speak Korean slower here. Nothing like hearing a familiar language in a sea of Mandarain. I stayed after my meal and visited as the entire staff ate dumplings for good fortune before going home... their company holiday party. It was New Year's Eve and they made sure I ate dumplings too. The manager is 28 and speaks no English and she also runs a Norebang upstairs. Apparently, Korean Noreband is a big hit. The manager's younger sister is a biology student at the university and speaks some English. It was fun talking to them.
My favorite meal thus far from the culinary point of view was a West Chinese style restaurant. Incredibly good! Plus they had a dark beer from Western China too that was good too. The menu and walls were covered in sanskrit and I would assume they were muslim but they did serve beer. The dish I liked the most was kind of like my favorite jijiang mein I get back in the Bay Area but with beef and fresh red peppers.
As I was wandering around lost at night (I always get lost at night here) a muslim fellow from West China riding a cargo tricycle approached me to sell prepared food. I thought, "oh no, let me out of here". He was asking a lot of money, as is the custom here since you are supposed to haggle a fair price. He ended up selling me a kilo and I'm so glad he pressured me into buying this stuff... it is so good! It's a dried fruit and nut mixture kind of like baklava without the pastry shell. I has white raisins, apricots, peanuts, pistachios, sesame seeds and maybe other ground nuts. I have been devouring it and I may actually eat the entire kilo before I go back to Korea.
I ate at a Yunan province restaurant that served things like gingko nuts and tea tree buds. Yes, the tea tree flower buds taste like tea!
Wandering around Beijing, I ran into bird trainers having fun with their birds. I took this short movie of the action:
Note the pink plastic bead the bird catches mid-air and returns to the trainer for a treat. You can hear the sound of fireworks in the background.
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