Between the Acts

What with all the holiday updates we've been putting up recently you'd be forgiven for thinking we don't actually do anything but go on holiday! Of course that's not true, life has been going on much as normal in Gwangju its just we've been so behind with our holiday reports there has been no time to talk about it. So what have we been up to for the last month or so?

Sophie is now the proud owner of a new keyboard. She has decided that she wants to learn the piano and we'd heard from people at our Korean class that there is a massive musical instrument market called Nakwon in Insadong so we went and checked it out. The market is inside a massive old building and spread over three confusing floors that seem to extend forever in all directions. We spent a while browsing and eventually went home with a Yamaha E323 for 260 000 won. On our way home we were going to walk down Insadong-gil, the main shopping street running through Insadong and maybe try some of the delicious tea available around there. But as we got near the streets seemed to be filled with nervous looking riot police and given the Korean reputation for loving a good riot we decided to make ourselves scarce.

Police awaiting the rioters in Insadong, we never saw any rioters, but we didn't wait around for them.

We had a night out in Bundang for an American friend's last night in Korea. It was our first experience of a Korean night club and a pretty good night. We started out with a curry at the Bundang brach of the Agra Taj, it was pretty nice but not a patch on the curry we had in Jeju. After the curry we headed to Travellers bar, a foreigners bar in Bundang, and finally we headed to a club but I was far too drunk by then to remember what it was called.

Reach for the lasers! Me getting my funky thing on in the club in Bundang.

The day after our night out in Bundang we were feeling a little worse for wear so slept until pretty late in the day. Once we finally roused ourselves it was too late to go out anywhere far away so we decided to investigate the nearby fortress in Gwangju. We hopped on the number 15 bus from our local bus stop by the stadium and after a 20 minute scenic bus ride up the hill we found ourselves in a pleasant little tourist village with restaurants, tourist motels and lots of car parks. It was more like something you'd expect to find in the neighbouring province of Gangwon-do than in urbanised Gyeonggi-do. The fortress itself was pretty nice although we only had the chance to walk a little way round the outer wall before we had to go home, but we will definitely return to make a proper day of it before the winter sets in.

The fortress wall. A lot of it was destroyed during the Japanese occupation of Korea and has been rebuilt with rather inauthentic materials.

The east gate of the fortress.

This waterwheel with a little boy weeing on it was in the village just by the bus stop.

We took a trip to Chuncheon with Dean, it was a nice trip although very wet! Chuncheon is a popular place for weekend trips for the university students of Seoul and famous as the home of dak galbi (닭갈비). Dak galbi is a kind of stir fry dish composed of chicken, rice cakes, cabbage and sweet potato in chilli paste cooked in front of you on a big hot plate. It's such a big deal in Chuncheon that there is a whole street of dak galbi restaurants and a dak galbi festival every autumn.

It would be ridiculous to go to Chuncheon and not eat dak galbi so of course we gave it a try, and it was good.

Despite the rain we took a train ride to the adjacent town of Gwacheon where you can do a bit of quad bike/ATV riding and considering all the fun we had on Jeju we had to give it another go.

Sophie down by the river having fun despite having to wear a pink condom style disposable rain coat.

The train station at Gwacheon is one of the few places in Korea where I've seen graffiti. This being low crime Korea it was of course officially sanctioned graffiti.

We stayed the night in a love motel in Chuncheon which had a sex toy vending machine in the corridor!

So as the summer has drawn to an end it has finally stopped raining, the skies are clearer but the temperatures are starting to drop and it seems like that promised Siberian winter is just around the corner. The kids at school are getting crazier and crazier as the year goes on and according to our co-teachers they will just get worse until the new school year starts in March next year. Sophie has started teaching after school classes which she's mostly enjoying. My after school classes are on hold because not enough people signed up which is a shame. We've re-enrolled in Korean classes and it's getting tougher now we're covering some serious grammar. Our English neighbours downstairs are returning to the UK soon which is a shame but we're going to get a Canadian couple in their place so we'll have to see what they're like.

The next post will cover our exciting exploits in Japan where we went for our Chuseok holiday. Chuseok is a traditional Korean holiday, a kind of harvest moon festival, and it means a few days off for us teacher types. Our trip to Japan was only a five day flying visit but it was pretty cool so keep tuned in to read all about it.

Summer Vacation Day 15 -16: Jeju Island part 3

The weather was still looking very misty but this was our last chance to go to Udo (Cow Island), a small island just 3.5 km off the east coast of Jeju, so we jumped on a coastal bus to Seongsan-ri. We got off a few stops early by mistake so had to walk to the harbour. The weather was still looking distinctly unpromising and had started raining. A mini sandstorm was whipping our legs and we were really unsure about going to Udo but as the ferry only cost 5500 won return and they were very regular we decided to go for it. It stopped raining when we landed on the island and we immediately set off to hire ourselves some form of transport top explore the island. We had been told that you don't need a driving license to hire a scooter or ATV on Udo and this was actually one of our main reasons for going there as neither of us has a full driving license and riding a scooter sounded like fun. We got a bit scared of scooter riding and as it was still threatening rain scooters didn't seem like that uch fun. We briefly considered hiring golf buggy but in the end we settled on an ATV for the bargain price of 2500 won for 2 hours. All they required was for Rowan to leave his Alien Registration Card (ID card for foreigners) and they let us loose on the public roads of Udo with only the slightest nod towards safety equipment (helmets that didn't fasten and no arm of knee pads - pads were required to be worn when we went on the ATV course at Sanbangsan).

The gruesome twosome on their trusty ATV.

The view from the back of the quad bike we hired on Udo, much cheaper than taking the special course at Sanbangsan but not quite as many steep hills and banked corners to enjoy.

We set off on our trusty ATV and had a great time though it was a little terrifying on the public roads. We saw all the main sights of Udo including the Korea's only coral sand beach (Hongjodan-goe Haebin), some black lava cliffs and a lighthouse that was perched on a tiny little rocky island that was joined to the mainland by a (at the time somewhat flooded ) causeway. We didn't want to stop when we had to return the ATV 2hours later! I seriously started plotting to get my own ATV to ride to school through the rice paddies in Gwangju!

People wading across the rather flooded causeway to get out to the lighthouse.

View of Seongsan Ilchulbong from Udo island.

We climbed the large hill on Udo that gives way to the black lava cliffs. It was exciting riding the ATV up the narrow road to get there but we couldn't take it to the very top and had to leave it in the car park just like an ordinary vehicle.

We caught the ferry back to Seongsan-ri and on the way Rowan got a bit of a laugh as it was very windy and a young Korean woman stood in front of us had her dress blown up by the wind exposing her underwear to the whole boat. She looked very embarrassed and hurried down below decks unable to look at any of us. We were a bit unlucky with the buses again and ended up waiting around for a while for the next one so though we took a but straight to Jeju Waterworld in the hope of some water park action we were too late and it had turned into a Jjimjilbang (Korean sauna) for the night. So instead we caught a bus out to the Jungmun waterfalls and got in for free as there wasn't anyone manning the ticket booth. These waterfalls are set in a deep forested gully which was very beautiful though as we had come in the early evening it was alive with biting insects. We had to cross over a steep humped bridge that soared high above the gully. Getting to all 4 of the falls involved a lot of climbing up steps which was hard work in the incredible humidity that had descended on Jeju by this point.

This picture does not do this vertigo-inducing bridge justice - it was an incredibly steep humped bridge and the gully was a hell of a long way below it.

One of the waterfalls at Jungmun.

Some Dolharubang (grandfather) statues in Jungmun. These statues are the symbol of Jeju and are the protectors of Jeju's people. We saw these figures everywhere on the island.

We had a tasty dinner of dolsot bibimbap (rice and mixed vegetables with chilli paste served in a sizzling hot stone bowl) in E-Mart that night and ended up back down the Rose Marine bar where we bumped into two American girls that we had met at the ATV course the previous day. Needless to say we ended up staying out far too long and drinking far too much beer. The girls told us about a nearby restaurant they had been to that served horse that was really delicious. Rowan was pretty gutted we wouldn't have time to go there ourselves. We eventually got to bed about 4.30am.

We woke up late and pretty hungover the next day and had to pack our bags and make our way up to Jeju City in the North of the island as this was our last day on Jeju. We caught a bus to Jeju-si and found a reasonably priced motel called the Olympia that was right opposite the bus terminal. We got the 'special' room for 30,000 won (after first having been given the key to an occupied room) and found that it was pretty special - in a weird way! It was a really big room with a massive LCD TV on the wall, enough extra bedding to make up another bed on the floor, strange folding doors with magnetic seals and a kitchen area with no utensils or cooker, just a fridge! We dumped our bags and caught a taxi to Jeju Loveland, one of the world's strangest theme parks. It was basically a park filled with models of people having sex, sculptures of massive cocks and giants breasts. It really was a very odd place filled with shy, nervous looking Korean newly weds and groups of raucous, laughing ajummas (Korean older ladies) making their way among the obscene displays.

This photo really doesn't do justice to how massive the ejaculating cock sculpture that ran down the entire centre of the park really was.

Giant ecstatic woman sculpture -she must have incredible neck muscles to be able to hold that position.

Vag in a can - for those nights when a can of beer just isn't enough!

Jeju Loveland seemed to take a dim view of homosexuality...

His identity maybe shrouded in mystery but his gender certainly isn't...

All aboard the cock train!

There was a section of sex themed dioramas that included this one of a poor traditional Korean family who had to share one room for sleeping with the parents and kids altogether - note the look of horror on the little girl's face on the right while her parents get down to it on the left.

This dog seemed to be taking the 'lead' from his master...

This woman sure knows how to bed a man to her will. There were a whole series of sculptures like this one of a larger, stern looking woman forcing a puny, wimpy looking guy to do her bidding.

Rowan operating the automatic rubber dildo display.

We were forced to beat a hasty retreat from Jeju Loveland as the insects had started attacking again so we caught a taxi to the centre in the hope of finding a Mexican restaurant mentioned in the guide book. As usual the guidebook had let us down again and we couldn't find it so we ended up going to a fantastic Indian restaurant called Café Baghdad. The atmosphere was great and the food there was amazing - in fact it was so good that Rowan was threatening to make himself sick just so he could eat some more!

Tasty samosas from Cafe Baghdad - they were huge.

Afterwards, we made our way back to the motel and went to bed. The next day we flew back to Seoul from Jeju airport and our 16 day tour of South Korea was over. Phew!

Summer Vacation Day 12-14: Jeju Island part 2

Well, we woke up to ropey looking weather, so we decided to check out another sheltered attraction on Jeju- the lava tube caves. Jeju is home to the worlds longest lava tube cave, Manjanggul. Manjanggul is quite a distance from Seogwipo, right round on the east side of the island, so we eventually found the east coast bus and got on our way (navigating the buses is not that easy on Jeju, the stops are far from clear and lots of the buses have no number just a name in hangul). The bus journey took about 1 hour 45 mins and took us to the bottom of the road that led to the caves. Plenty of taxis wait at the bottom to take people up the road, its only about 3km but the road is narrow with no pavement and given the standard of Korean driving we didn't fancy walking, besides taxis are cheap here. By the time we arrived at the caves the weather was clearing up, shame we were about to go underground! The caves cost 2000 won each to get in and very, very wet, the rain had stopped above ground but it was still falling in the caves having been held up slightly by the rock.

Just by the entrance to the caves, you can clearly see just how soaking wet it was inside!

Lava stalactites created by molten lava dripping from the ceiling.

After a few photos we gave up trying to get any pictures of the inside of the cave, water was falling heavily and it was almost pitch dark, not great photography or sightseeing conditions! To be honest we weren't very impressed with the caves as they were dark, cold and miserable. The floor was very uneven and full of puddles and the lighting was almost non existent so it was hard to make much out, I was sure that the cave would look beautiful if only there was enough light to see it and that can be confirmed by pictures from tourist websites taken with much better lighting, so the next few pictures are not our own.

The lava pillar at the end of the cave, this had been formed by the floor of another lava tube above collapsing and the lava pouring down.

The straight lines on the sides of the cave indicate the height of the lava flowing through the tube at various times in the past.

Once we escaped from- sorry finished enjoying looking round the damp lava caves we walked a little way back down the access road to a large hedge maze and since the weather was now lovely got a couple of ice creams to walk round with. The first time we started out round the maze I tried to follow the technique of keeping my hand on one wall and it was a miserable failure, we ended up back at the entrance after ten minutes. We set out again and eventually found the bell in the centre and then made our escape via a bridge.

See the big arrow in the middle of the picture? We totally missed it when we were walking round, if we'd noticed it we might have made it to the middle a little quicker.

Finally made it to the middle to ring the victory bell!

View of the maze from the exit bridge, it looks so simple now.

After find our way out of the maze we caught the bus back towards Seogwipo but just as far as Seongsan ilchulbong which means sunrise peak in Korean. It is considered by Koreans that climbing the peak for sunrise is just one of those things you have to do at some point in your life. We're not early risers so we decided to do it for sunset instead and it was still awe inspiringly beautiful. Seongsan ilchulbong is a side vent of the main Jeju volcano that has formed a cone right on the edge of the island, it rises up steeply from the coast and has incredible views from the top.

The bus dropped us off right next to the bottom so the walk wasn't long.

The walk may not be long but it sure is steep! I was very glad that there were well maintained steps all the way up and that we didn't try to climb it in the heat of the day.

The view from the top was well worth the climb.

The view over the crater out towards the sea unfortunately the path going out across the crater was closed.

Rowan looking a little hot after the climb to the peak.

You can't see it in the photos but for a few brief seconds at the top the clouds parted and we got our only view of the peak of Hallasan the main volcano in the centre of the island and highest mountain in South Korea. We would have liked to climb Hallasan, but it takes about 8 hours to get right to the top and its a pretty tough climb even without the stifling heat and humidity. After Seongsan Ilchulbong we caught a bus back to Seogwipo, but it was pretty late by then so we found all the restaurants closed and had to have instant noodles for dinner again.

Day 14 and we woke up to discover that most of the island had disappeared! It was so misty you could barely see your hand in font of your face. We had planned to spend this day on Udo island which is supposed to have some of Korea's best beaches, but it didn't look like there was going to be much in the way of sun, so there was little point in that plan. Instead we decided to go and do our bit for global warming by riding quad bikes! So we picked up the west coast bus and headed towards Sangbangsan, the driver took us one stop too far but that meant we got to see a beautiful temple.

The temple was perched on the side of a mountain which you can just make out through the mist.

A display of hundreds of little Buddhist figurines, the temple also had a "gold" Buddha, unfortunately its was more like a spray painted yellow Buddah and looked just a bit cheap.

The temple was not an ancient one but had been finished in 1997, it was still very beautiful though.

Buddha converting and redeeming a cannibal in the forest.

After the temple we got back to what we'd come here for and did some quad bike/ATV riding which was awesome fun!

Me ready to go on the quad bike.

The course we rode around included mountain, forest and beach parts.

After quad bike riding we went on to check out the Yongmeori coast, just round the corner, this is one of the oldest parts of Jeju and home to some beautifully eroded volcanic cliffs, when the weather isn't too bad you can walk along the bottom of the cliffs right next to the crashing waves. It's beautiful but a bit scary, good thing the rough volcanic rock provides good grip, I don't think you'd have much chance if you fell in. All along the route there were ajummas sat gathering and cracking open shellfish which they were selling to tourists, none of them looked under 60 but they were fit as anything and laughing joking and having a great time! The cliffs were also home to the biggest sea lice I've ever seen some of them were well over an inch long (sea lice are like aquatic woodlice if you don't know what I mean).

Some of the cliffs of the Yongmeori coast.

The ajummas cracking and selling raw shellfish.

More beautifully eroded cliffs

Like I said the path at the bottom of the cliffs was right by the crashing waves.

The sea was still pretty rough when we visited because the typhoon had only just passed.

While we were there we got stopped by this Korean local TV crew who wanted to ask our thoughts about Jeju, famous at last!

Once we came to the end of the Youngmori coast we came out by a recreation of a 15th century Dutch trading ship which had been ship wreck on the island. After they had been wrecked the crew were held captive in Korea for 13 years before some of them escaped to Japan. One of the crew, a Dutchman called Hamel went on the write the first account of Korea by a westerner.

Hamel's ship, the Sperwer (or a recreation of it anyway).

Next to Hamel's ship is a museum/gift shop dedicated as far as I could work out to the friendship between Korea and the Netherlands, silly hats and dinosaurs an interesting combination to say the least! The Dutch part of the museum mainly featured displays about Korea's favourite Dutchman of recent years. Guus Hiddink, a former manager of their national football team who became wildly popular after leading them to finish in forth place in the 2002 world cup (which South Korea co-hosted with Japan). The Dutch displays also focused on the Dutch sex industry, something which they seemed very envious of! Outside the museum was a fibreglass model of Hiddink standing next to some fibreglass dinosaurs. And finally the museum as a collection of various random hats to try on which seemed to have no connection to anything else but were a lot of fun all the same!

Sophie posing in a Russian hat next to a cardboard Guus Hiddink.

No museum about the Netherlands would be complete without some windmills.

Or of course some clogs! Apparently they also became popular on Jeju after the shipwreck.

After the museum the mozzies were starting to bite so it was time to get back to civilisation in Seogwipo. We had another black pig dinner when we got back and went to bed hoping for better weather the next day.