Gyeongju and beyond

Last weekend I went to a city called Gyeongju. It's an hour north of Busan and much smaller. It was the capitol of the Shilla Dynasty which ruled for over 600 years. Needless to say the city is a living history museum full of burial mounds, temples, and plenty of boulders with carvings of Buddha and various mythological characters. I went with my good buddy Jen, her math teacher friend (Meekyung), and Meekyung's group of friends. Heading into the weekend Jen told me that this group of friends were a bunch of music enthusiasts who were either meeting up to play music or just talk about it. Also Saturday night was apparently going to be a heavy night of soju drinking. Live music or not it sounded good and I already liked these people. We took the bus which was cheap, a whole 4,000 won (less than $3). When we got there we quickly discovered that this 'group' was not meeting for the purpose of sharing their love of music at all. These guys were hardcore Korean history buffs in their spare time. One of them actually worked with historic preservation. They all met online on some hisory group website. They all live in different parts of Korea. Every once in a while they meet to geek out on Korean history as one big collective of history nerdiness that far surpasses my passion for history. Together they made a Voltron history nerd.

To you readers who don't know what Voltron is: An eighties cartoon based in the future where a group of five guys who fought evil in their large cat shaped space crafts. When they really needed an extra crime fighting boost they would join together as one really large human shaped robot that had amazing ass kicking abilities.

We spent a lot of time checking out historic sites that mainly consisted of eroded carved rocks and free standing statues. These guys took pictures of these carvings and statues like a photographer would a model in a Playboy photoshoot (I wouldn't know, I only read the articles). I didn't get it. These things aren't moving. Meekyung said that these guys had all been to Gyeongju a million times. Did they just then remember to bring their cameras? Somehow I doubt it. With each click of the shutter I became more and more perplexed. But I found their love of history endearing. I wish that I had a single passion for . . . anything really, like their passion for Korean history. I would like to add that it was about 25 degrees and really effing windy. I wore my Michelin man down jacket, a really warm hat, thick socks and still froze. It wasn't the "Oh its cold and I'll get used to it soon enough," kind of cold. This was some serious polar coldness. The wind wouldn't subside and cut through my jacket like I was wearing fishnet body suit (weird, why would I do that? but the metaphor works). A couple times Jen, Meekyung and I ran for shelter in the car while these guys clicked away making sure to get shots of various angles for their amassing collection. Man could you imagine being a child to one of these guys and sitting through a slide show of one of their trips?

"Here's photo 53 of the eroded pegasus at sight number 4A. I don't think you could see it very well in the last 52 shots but here you can almost make out his head. The sun was hitting it just right here and I managed to climb on this rock which gave me a fantastic . . . "

"Ah c'mon dad can't we eat dinner yet? I'm really hungry. We see the same things every year yet you insist these pictures are better than the last."

"Shut your hole son. These ARE better than the last! We only have 246 pictures to go. Eat some kimchi or some squid jerky. But don't spoil your appetite. Your mom's prepared your favorite kimchi soup. Now this is the first photo of the buddha to the left of the pegasus at sight number 4A . . . "

Yeah that would be a bad scene for sure.

NO THANKS!

So I was hoping that these history nerds had a wild side to them and we were still going to do the soju craziness. Nope. But they did make us a traditional chicken dish similar to my beloved Jjimdaak. This group had been together for a while. You could tell by their cooking chemistry. Meekyung was incharge of making rice. Two guys prepped vegies. One guy was in charge of preparing the chicken. They tenderized the chicken with Coca Cola! Makes sense I guess but I've never seen or heard of it before. One guy made sure there was enough dishes and set the table and cleaned up the kitchen and dining room as things got messy. There was no arguing over who did what as far as I could tell. They worked together, again like Voltron. This dish was stewy with bits of sweet potato, carrots, onions, lots of chicken, and was filled with these chewy rice sticks. You should have seen the size of the bag of kimchi they bought for the weekend. It was about the size of a football. How much kimchi CAN you eat in a weekend. I mean . . . really? We had barely put a dent in the bag when the icey weekend came to an end. One of the guys wrapped the bag up in a few plastic bags and took it home. I could only imagine his car stank to high heaven when he got home. One of the main ingredients for kimchi besides the cabbage itself and chiles is fermented anchovie sauce - I.E. the Nar Nar, which is also why its key to have your own kimchi fridge.

We had some wine with dinner and one of them just got back from North Korea. He brought a bottle of fermented Mushroom alcohol that was suprisingly not too bad. I was worried about trying it. To me the thought of mushroom alcohol sounded downright vile but it wasn't. It reminded me of a mx between brandy and vodka with a hint of mushroom. We all had a shot of this with dinner and that was about the extent of the night of crazy drinking. After dinner Jen and I retreated to the other room and played cards as Voltron cleaned and carried on in the next room. Jen made a comment that felt like we were like little kids. It was so true. Things ran smoothly and fast paced with these guys, aside from the long winded photoshoots. Only two of them could speak decent English so most all of the weekend was spent being clueless to any planning or conversation.

My vocabulary is steadily coming along but I'm not even close to conversation yet. I think that day will come when the world's slowest snail completes a super marathon in the middle of the Serengeti. Thats about how fast I feel like I'm learning. I'm trying, I really am, but without structure and tests its hard to motivate sometimes. The sounds you have to create to make these words are completely new as well and hard to master. Patience is key here.

We were just along for the ride. Which was fine. Its nice to do that everyonce in a while. Besides most of my weekends are spent hanging out with mostly foreigners while most of my Korean interaction is limited to storekeepers and coworkers. This was a welcome change of pace for a weekend. I also discovered that I do like being in control of my traveling time or at least have some say on the events of the travels. But this was only for a day and a half.

Sleeping as the Koreans do is only somewhat comfortable and done on the floor with a thin pad. To their credit they do have an amazing floor heating system called "ondol." I think its amazing and wish that America would wake up and smell the "ondol." It seems like it would be an efficient way of heating the home since heat does rise. It makes for walking around in your socks a warm, toasty affair. So they have no qualms about sleeping on the floor because of this. Yes its warm and cozy, but only cozy in a warm way. I'm not used to the 'firmness' of the thin-pad-on-floor routine. Its kind of rough, or hard if you will.

The next morning we had rice, kimchi, and Ramen for breakfast. That was hardcore, a far cry from my usual peanut butter and jelly on toast or banana with whole bran flake cereal. Never in my life would I have dreamed up such a menu for breakfast, nor will I attempt to repeat it if I can. Next trip like this I'm bringing emergency apples and a breakfast bar ( I did find some - not tasty like the Nature Valley bars but they do the trick). This was followed by more outside coldness and picture taking at burial mounds and other sacred sites. Some of them were hidden deep in the forest on big hills. We did manage to do a bunch of hiking this weekend.

Gyeongju is great. Its a small town compared to its neighboring big brothers, Busan and Ulsan. Its really open, mountainous, natural beauty everywere, and the traffic wasn't scary. I can't wait to go back when its not so darn cold and go for a hike and . . . rent a bicycle and go for a ride!! Its hard to develope a town thats mandated to preserve whats left of their Korean heritage. In the past Japan was a big jerk to Korea. They invaded, raped, pillaged, destroyed, burned and defaced much of Korea's historical anything. I keep comments about Japan or sushi to a minimum when I'm around Koreans. There is an underlying resentment for Japan I think equal to or possibly greater than Ireland's dislike of Britain. The past is set and stone and its hard to forget when the evidence of the bully is right in front of your face everytime you want to check out something historical. Most old temples have an informational sign that generally start out like this:

"This temple was rebuilt in 'x' year. The original was burned by Japan in the invasion of 'x' year during so and so's reign."

Man thats rough. A lot of sculptures at burial mounds are missing heads.

It wasn't the weekend I was expecting but it was informative and different. I would provide some more of the history but I have a hard time remembering Korean names of anything so my rants would sound vague, ambiguous, and would go nowhere fast. So I'll spare you the slide show and the kimchi breakfast.

I'll buy her for a dollar!

Um were to begin.  Its been far too long.  Things have happened, my mood in a more pleasant place.  I've been thinking that my ranting and raving on this blog has been a way for me to cope with living here.  Now that I finally feel like I'm settling in here (almost four months later) I don't have the crazy erge to rattle off nonesense on "Paddling along in Korea."

Oh by the way:  The title of this blog is a reference to stories from my good friend Sam.  I was on an epic rafting trip with Jason, Nathan, and Sam.  We put in at Warm Springs and floated down the Deschutes all the way to the Columbia in four days (100 river miles!).  It was amazing.  I think it was the previous summer that Sam led rafting trips down the Deschutes one time he had some Korean tourists in his raft.  He said that they were the worst paddlers ever.  For anyone who hasn't had the pleasure of rafting . . . When you are in a raft you must paddle when your guide tells you to.  Its kind of important to avoid being stuck on a rock, popping your raft, to position yourself in the rapids so you don't flip, things like that.  Now back to the epic trip with the buddies . . . This was my first rafting trip and I wasn't such a good paddler right out of the gate.  Sam said I paddled like one of his Korean tourists.  We had a huge cooler we kept in the middle of the raft where we kept our food and beer (mostly beer though).  After the first day into the trip the cooler had a name . . . Korea.  During the mellow parts of the river we would sit on top of the cooler where you couldn't really paddle effectively.  So when you wanted a break you went to Korea, hence the name.  Were we being bastards using Korea in this reference . . . yeah maybe.  But it sure was funny.  I wasn't sure how this teaching gig would go.  I knew things would be fine, but only after getting my paddling under control here.  I think I'm getting my stroke down and floating along fairly well now.  YES!

Boring blog update version:

During the weekdays I go to school have classes and spend loads of time on the computer reading the news, talking with people here and at home on gmail chat, and finding out information on how to be a better teacher.  I've even come to studying bits and pieces of grammar.  But don't expect to see any significant changes here though ;) Then I go home and head to the gym.  I miss my rigorous workout schedule I had at home and my bike the most.  So I've been spending loads of time at the gym lately and have been feeling increasingly more amazing and more like myself.  Exercise is my key to happiness I've found, no matter where I am.  Then I go home make dinner and chill out.  On Mondays I have my music meditation class, which is where the Tiger vision happened.  Some weeks I get together with some people from my building and watch a movie on Jen's huge ass flat screen hdtv (42 incher).  Not too exciting really but its nice to have a lot of down time.  I need to start painting again but most of the time I'm too bushed after school, the gym, and a full belly.  Soon - my famous last words.  Oh and I'm beginning to train for some runs coming up in the spring.  I think there are a handful of 10k's and a marathon or two.  My goal is to do two 10k's and get a PR in a half marathon . . . maybe even a marathon but that'll depend on if I can be fit enough before the weather gets unbearably hot and sticky.  We'll see.  

End of the boring part . . . hopefully.

I bought a date.  Huh?  "Bought a date," you ask.  Well its getting close to Christmas and a bunch of foreign teachers put together an auction to support an orphanage.  So I went with a few friends.  The entrance fee was about $8 and of course went towards the orphanage.  But it included some snacks and a 'free' drink.  I had a few drinks before showing up to the event . . . this will come in handy for my spontaneous behaviour later in the evening.  Guys and girls were being auctioned off as potential dates.  All the money goes to the orphanage.  The guys were a hot commodity selling for about 300,000 won (about $220) or just a little less, while the women were not so spendy ranging from 80,000 to 200,000 won.  All of the guys were Westerners while some of the women were Korean.  The dates were set up with donated dinners and activities from sponsors.  The bidding begins and is about to finish when the last 'date' gets up on stage.  Her name is Maggie.  She's friends with my group of cohorts who begin pushing me to bid on her.  I have to admit that I had no intention on bidding on anyone.  I was happy to give my $8 to charity and call that my menial good deed for the day.  But Dave, Scott, Jared, and Jen were all saying, "C'mon man do it! Do it! Do it!"  So I did it.  I was mistaken in thinking that they were going to help finance this decision.  There was no talk of it.  I just thought they would because they were pushing me so much.  I bid and I bid and I won.  Maggie and I are going either windsurfing or kayaking (possibly both? I don't recall) and dinner sometime this spring when it warms up.  It cost me 135,000 won (about$100).  Part of me feels silly for spending the money, but the bigger and better part of me says its going to charity.  After the auction was over I couldn't believe what I just did.  But then that feeling was quickly replaced with a warm fuzzy feeling like I helped a child or two with no parents for Christmas.  How was this money going to be used?  Are they getting a sweet Christmas gift?  Is it going to help pay the heating and electricity bill?  I don't know.  I'm not standing on top of a mountain thinking that I made such a huge difference.  But I've been working on becoming less selfish here for the last couple of years ever since a few of my friends blatantly pointed out that they felt I was a bit selfish.  I have been, but would never admit it to myself.  So since then I've been trying to work on it.  Its not easy to change part of your personality.  Its a slow process like losing hair which unfortunately I'm doing as well, probably with more success.  But I'm making progress . . . slowly.  Along these lines I tried to find cool gifts for people for this xmas.  I've been kinda bad about returning from my trips empty handed.  I go to people's places and they have this or that hanging on their wall or whatever.  

"Hey thats cool.  Where did you find that?"

"Oh my so and so got that for me when he/she went __x__ place."

"Oh wow.  Thats really cool."

But not me.  I've not really done that.  Sorry guys.  So I'm getting you close family members something nice from Korea.  

Back to the 'date.'  I'm not in it hoping that Maggie and I will hit it off.  I'm happy to have given some cash to the kiddies.  I'm sure we'll have a good time doing what ever it is that we end up doing but thats all.  This is a new feeling for me.  I kind of like it.