Mountains of Fire

The Korean countryside has burst into flames of reds, oranges, yellows, purples and every shade in between.

The pictures do the talking. Photo credit goes to Janis Severloh, not me.   

The peak. Windy, cold and foggy. A good place to camp out apparently.

Ronnieee. He was wimpin' out on this day, strangely enough.

Korea in the fall is something marvelous. The mountain was absolutely packed with hikers whose spirits were high. I won't know what to do with myself one day without a mountain nearby to play on.

Fall blows in

           

At Everland with my girls, bout to ride (what's considered) one of the best wooden rollercoasters in the world!

   
           Long time no blog. Things have settled into more of a routine now and selfie-sticks have become all the rage here. Are these popular back home guys? My creature comfort has become cooking a good meal and then eating it while watching Masterchef - skipping over the reality BS to go directly to the cooking sequences of course (nod to Jon for the rec). 

           Missing Mom's homemade cookies especially these days so I tried my hand at baking cookies (took the third batch to really nail it). It's not really that difficult in fact, but I gotta make them more moist somehow. Tonight I made japchae for the first time, which is glass noodles made of  sweet potato with sauteed carrot, onions, baby spinach, shitake mushrooms, black mushrooms (also called Jew's ears I've heard? haha) and pork all thinly sliced to compliment the noodles. It's all seasoned with sesame oil, soy sauce, sesame seeds and a couple table spoons of brown sugar. What you get is a colorful sweet and salty dish, and man did I nail it my first try. Not to pat myself on the back but it was the best japchae I've ever had! 

Most of my co-workers. Pic taken with a selfie-stick!

My perfect japchae!

          Also still been mountain biking a lot. I had to start doing 100 squats every morning to strengthen my legs enough so as to not get leg cramps on the rides. Now I've been cramp free! Winter is coming, but that doesn't stop this bike team I ride with. Apparently winter riding on snowy mountains is the most fun of the four seasons. Thinking I'll pass on that. 

Focus

About to eat shit

That's more like it

With Korean Sally and the fam on a  weekend trip

         
            Also bought a halloween costume. I'll be having to shave my head, shave the beard to a goatee, and acquire some glasses. Any guesses?
           
             (Item I'm currently most missing from home: dill seasoning)

Korea by Bike

I'm terrified on the inside  

Met up with Paul Park (my boss) and David Mahoney (a middle-aged American with a salt and pepper goatee) for a Saturday morning mountain bike trip. We set off down the road but quickly peeled off and down into this below-grade bike path with tall grass on both sides. Like many bike paths in Korea, it carries on for kilometres without intersecting the main roads above. We arrived at a bike shop where my boss introduced me to the others in our group: about 25 of us in all, most in there 30s, 40s and 50s, and 4 or 5 women, surprisingly.

      I followed the swarm as we began the mountain ascent. The trails we climbed that day were hard, even by their standards apparently. Quite often I was completely unmanned - walking my bike up paths too steep, or down others which looked too treacherous. Mahoney and Paul, seasoned riders, were far more daring and fearless and finessed trails with ease.

      But there were wipe outs. I witnessed one fellow go forward over his bars, chest first into the dirt as his bike flipped, back wheel over, and almost, almost landed smack on him. The aftermath of another crash left a guy with the back of his shirt ripped up and blood soaking through. Though I was playing it safe, I still managed to flip my bike once when I jammed on the front bikes too zealously; as my rear wheel came swooping up toward the back of my head, I simply dismounted and ran with the momentum - quite gracefully I was told.

      Later on, near the end of our ride I was less fortunate. This was my first serious ride since high school, and my body reminded me of it when, during a climb, both of my quads simultaneously locked up in excruciating cramps. Some of the group quickly came to my assistance and stretched and massaged my legs out; cramps are incredibly painful. And just as quickly, they go away after only a few minutes, but for the remainder of the ride I could feel them threatening to lock up again.

     After the ride we all went for a much-earned lunch of pork-bone stew (which was incredible) and some makgeoli (rice wine). All in all, this is looking like a promising new hobby!     

Just put a sweet new lightweight Schwalbe mountain tire on. Should climb nicely

Sorry not many photos. I'll try for a school-related post next up! 

       


     

My Own One Room

        Apartments are notoriously cozy in Korea - the bad kind of cozy. My new place is of that variety, a mere 710 square feet; tight by Canadian standards, but bigger than my previous place. And you find that you grow accustomed to it anyhow, and do as the Koreans do: spend much of your time away from home.

        But being in Songdo, this new apartment has some perks to go with it. I splurged and got a corner apartment, making for a killer view. It comes with an oven (that's a big deal), walk-in closet and a toilet with several bidet functions, including a dryer. The real draw is the neighbourhood. Korea builds vast apartment complexes, which are essentially several buildings encompassing one or several city blocks, with common grounds in the middle for tenants to gather and children to play. The common grounds in my complex are gorgeous, from the shallow stone ponds, to the cobble stone walk paths, fountains and badminton courts. Surrounding the complex are three magnificent parks, decked out with walking and bike paths, ponds with yet more fountains and even audible wildlife (weird in a Korean city). There are decorative gardens and playgrounds for kids that seem to belong in amusement parks. Paddle boats, canoes and kayaks can all be rented and taken around the canals, and there are these Flintstone-looking paddle cars you can rent to roam the park. The Koreans take full advantage.

        I keep hearing about trash that gets sucked through pipes which go directly to a sanitation centre, but I haven't seen it. Tenants are required to separate all their trash (just like back home) but we also must bag food waste separately, which needs to be dried out first. Under my sink is a food drying apparatus, but since I don't know how to use it, I've been freeze drying my waste in the freezer instead. This gets placed separate from the other trash, beneath a large manhole-tube looking thing. My guess is that this is the food waste pipe, which sends waste to the renewable energy plant. Where the other trash goes, I don't know, but I've yet to see any garbage trucks in Songdo. Stay tuned.

        Thus far, my decision to shun my school-provided housing (which is in a still undeveloped, empty area) is looking like a good one. The bars and pool halls are aplenty here and I can't tell you how many restaurants I'm dieing to try out. 

        Next up, my inaugural mountain biking trip and how I survived.

bike/walking paths

park pond

water playground in the park

gaping holes in my building. 

siesta

food pipe?

still rather empty, lots of Twister room

       

A Brave New City

      It's Saturday night, two days until my first day with a new class, at a new school, teaching a new grade (five). After an exhaustive search, utilizing no less than 4 real estate agents and visiting some 16 apartments, I settled on one. It's beginning to feel like a home now, and because of all my exploring and apartment hunting, I have a good mental map of my new city already. My three week impression of Songdo thus far is that this is how every city ought to be designed. I've heard of Japan's sleek cities, but Songdo must not be far off. Ugly power lines are buried underground, sidewalks and streets are wide and the bike paths are plentiful (there's even a neat divider fence protecting you from car traffic). My apartment is surrounded by three separate and quite large parks, with meandering walk/bike paths, exercise stations and jungle gyms, hedges that form garden mazes, and ponds with fountains and the sound of frogs ribbiting. The amount of greenery is awesome. 

            Songdo saves space for all those parks and wide boulevards and sidewalks by building high. 50-story office and apartment buildings are the norm, saving precious ground space. And the buildings are a site to behold. Aside from being impressively large, some also curve and bend as they rise (strange to the eye!), others have gaping rectangular holes in them, and still others have zig-zagging strips of LED lights from bottom to top, shooting twilight blasts of light up the building's side.

            And the city is clean as a whistle. The usual filthy trappings of city life are tough to find here. The city employs an army of cleaners, garbage sorters and  workers tending to the many landscaping needs of the city. I've yet to see an ugly part of the city.  Behold:

           That bottom picture would be even more impressive were the buildings to the left completed and lit up.

           Next up my new place!

Happy Chuseok

One of the most important holidays in Korea is Chuseok (chew-sock), which is commonly referred to as the "Korean Thanksgiving". This is because its a harvest festival, but also because its a time when Korean families come together under one roof and have a feast. Unlike our thanksgiving however, Chuseok's main emphasis is to "honor one's ancestors" and sees Koreans return to their ancestral hometowns for the holiday. Pictures of deceased family members are dug out and displayed so that thoughts, prayers and thanks can be with them. Food offerings are also given to each deceased family member's spirit. The celebration dates back long before Korea's "Christianization" and has survived this and its recent turn to Western-style modernity.

The closest I get to the celebration is at my school where a day of Chuseok activities is planned. The first is a simple game called tooho in which arrows are thrown by hand into a container a few feet away. Next, we made jegi, which is simply a coin wrapped in frayed tissue paper and played with the feet like a hackey sack. Then we had more exciting fare - Korean Wrestling. For this a long cloth is tied through the legs and around the waist tightly. Opponents start by grabbing hold of eachother's cloth and attempt to throw and knock the other off their feet. The kids are pretty competitive about it and the teachers secretly root for their kids as well, so its no surprise its very exciting.

The best part of Chuseok is the hanbok - traditional formal Korean wear. Every one of our kids came to school adorn in these beautiful, multi-layered, silk garments, each with distinctive patterns and styles. They're colourful, gaudy extravagent, clearly expensive, and a sight to behold when your inundated by so many. A fellow teacher noted its also probably a bit of a "pissing contest between parents to dress their kids the nicest."

OK the actual best part of Chuseok is the five-day weekend (you read right) that we get. I'm currently heading toward the second biggest city in Korea, Busan - Korea's premier beach town and the former capital of South Korea during the Korean War when the North, for a time, controlled Seoul and the rest of the Korean peninsula, save for this last stronghold. I'm on the bus as I write and one of the only empty seats on the bus is next to me. I haven't exactly figured out Koreans' disposition toward white foreigners, but I suspect its not entirely accepting. Anyway my goal on this trip is to eat a live octopus and find gifts for family back home - maybe both at the same place?  

Chuseok at CIS

My Polar Bear class in their Hanbok (traditional Korean clothes)

Kyle playing tooho.

Kay, taking his sweet time, as always.

Alex giving fist pumps after his victory in Korean Wrestling

Alex vs. Ryan from Beaver class.

Ryan was too strong on this day.

Melissa and SooAh. My Melissa won for the girls!

Tying on the belts.

Making songpyeon (Korean rice cakes)

Jennifer made...a flower or a rabbit, I can't remember.

The saying goes if you can make beautiful songpyeon you can make beautiful daughters too. How do mine look?

The ultra sweet, slightly maniacal,
jovial Amy. She delights in flaring
her nostrilsat me and laughing.

My BC1s: Nara and the always silly, ever funny, Scarlet.