Where-san?, Why in ULSAN of course!

Over the Chinese New Year (Happy Rabbit Year to everyone) I took a trip a little closer to the coast, to Ulsan where good friends, Lauren and Andreya, reside. It is a big costal city with a small population. It had a bit of a PE or False Bay feel to it. I liked it. The day I arrived I met Cristy (Excuse the spelling if incorrect) (from The States) a friend of Lauren’s and Yepu – the Maltese puppy that the two ladies were looking after for a friend. Sweet dog, though I am still a big dog kind of guy. We went out for Korean Sushi which was fantasmagorical! Following that Lauren and I went back to her place where I dropped my stuff and we chilled until going to Namaskar (An awesome Indian restaurant) for supper with Andreya. While at Lauren’s I was introduced to a brain teaser puzzle that is used in Japan. The Idea is to get all 6 people across the river. The catches are: The robber can only be without the policeman when she is on her own, the 2 boys can not travel with the mother or be alone with the mother and the 2 girls cannot travel or be alone with the father. Give it a go:

http://freeweb.siol.net/danej/riverIQGame.swf

So Namaskar…It was here that I had my 1^st encounter with Lamb for 6 months and what a great dinner it way. Lamb kalla with Buttered Naan. Mmmmmm…

Let me stop you right there and state categorically – the 3 days I spent in Ulsan were very probably the greatest 3 food days I have had in Korea (from a “Food I miss” perspective)

Oh and I had a Mango Lassi to drink - *wipes the drool away from the side of his mouth*

Dinner was followed swiftly by an early night, as we were both dog tired, and that early night turned into a late morning as we rolled out of bed at around 10:30. This was the day that Lauren suggested taking me to Old Downtown Ulsan too see the market and we could go to the Cat Café (which I had hear about and Sandy went to one in Seoul, but I wanted to check it out for myself). With it being one of 2 major holiday in Korea, the place was pretty deserted, which all told, I quite liked as it gave me a feel for Ulsan without all the hustle and bustle. We had lunch a deliciously cute … urm… *drops voice an octave or two* cute, I-talian place where I had the seafood Risotto and Lauren some creamy chicken pasta. After wondering around the market for a while we eventually went to the Cat Café and hung out there for a couple of hours before we met up with Andreya for supper.

The Cat Café was interesting. About 10-15 cats just wondering around, sleeping, running crazy like from one end of the room to the other, and just sitting, staring as if trying to take control of your mind and make you there servants. All the cats were very well cared for and groomed. We were asked when we got out coffee and flap-jack to not feed the cats. This proved a challenge when they are all over you trying to get the cream off of the flap-jack. I had lifted a piece up to my mouth and suddenly *SWIPE* the cream was gone. It appeared that the cat had actually got the cream (I hand credit to the clever yet obvious pun, to Lauren). Overall it was nice to be among “domestic” animals for the 1^st time in 6 months, though as was pointed out to me, the cats are probably a little feral. This was evidenced by an incident where I was given some fish to give the cats several cats were literally walking all over me and one took it on themselves to leap and try and snatch the fish out of my hand, getting 2 of it’s claws hooked in my thumb in the process.


Some fun for Cat Lovers everywhere - enjoy this little animated short film that explains cats perfectly:

At some point during this day I was exposed to the 1^st of 3 enduring memories of my 1^st visit to Ulsan; that being: Lauren taking me up on my offer to tie her shoe laces because they were CONSTANTLY coming undone.

Supper on this night was meant to be Vietnamese and then Thai but both places were closed so we wondered the streets and eventually followed a few Koreans to what looked like a Japanese restaurant. “Bugger! It only opens at 19:00. What are we going to do for an hour?” What we did was head to Andreya’s home away from home – Starbucks – and had some coffee while we chatted about our Korean futures and waited for the place to open. When we did go and eat, boy did we eat! Between the 3 of us we ordered a giant bowl of flavoured 2minute kind of noodle, 8 croquettes, and a salmon dish for mains.

Normal fish, not prawns, shrimp, octi, squid or muscles, is something that I have not at all much of in Korea. In fact, it is a popular dish at one of my schools but I choose ot to eat it because I struggle with the amount of bones in the fish. When I saw Salmon on the menu of this place I got very excited because it was fish that I was more familiar with. Together, we 3, travelers of Asia, decided to share it and boy was it good! ZERO bones and superbly cooked! It was a great day.

Endearing memory number 2: When it was time for the bill for our meal, Andreya took over. Her attempt at asking for the bill brought 1^st smiles, then giggles and then laughter between the 3 of us. In Korea the students are know to say “finishee” when they have completed something. Andreya did the same when it came time to trying to tell our waitress we were “finishee” and wanted the bill.

Stocked up on food and ready to go, we went to one of those trick photo booths and this was the result – good fun :-D

Day 3 was a visit to the beach which was unimpressive and flat-DO NOT LET THE PICTURES FOOL YOU. Up high it was pretty to look at but not much from the ground. This beach – Ilsan Beach – was located in Andreya’s area and for the afternoon was walked around the point taking photo’s – it was a really nice day and a nice setting for photo’s. Here is what I mean:

Enduring memory number 3: Every family, couple, group of friends that was talking a photo, Andreya offered her services to take a photo of the whole group – no matter how big or small. She was Ilsan point’s unofficial photographer. Her reasoning was based on sound principles of Karma: “When I am in Spain and want photo’s with me in them, this will come back to me and people will offer their services to be my photographer”

That evening we went to a Duck barbecue place and again a picture speaks a thousand words or rather a thousand mouthfuls:

Great food + great wine + great friends = great fun

Food was followed by some festival games where I scored 814 where the top score was 874 on the Hammer machine. Andreya proved to have skills as an assassin with the target shooting and Lauren found a new friend in “Jin-Ho” following her dart throwing exploits. I also had a swing or 3 in the batting cages.

…and yet THE EVENING WAS NOT OVER!

Lauren and I went back to her place for a bit of a breather and then met Cristy and the very cheery and stereotypically gay man I have ever met – A Korean chap who asked me to call him Cherry. Really nice guy and we all tried to party it up until about 01:15 when we realized most places were just filled with drunk foreign and Korean guys just trying to pick up Korean girls, so we went home and I traveled back to Yeongcheon the next afternoon. It was a thoroughly enjoyable 3 and half odd days with some really god friends.

Stay tuned for my next installment on Geoff’s Asian Adventure

One of the reasons why I am travelling…

So, train ride back from Daegu after buying my cereal was a lot more enthralling than I originally planned.

I got to my seat and was listening to my music as I normally do when I was joined by a Korean gent who asked me to cal him Ray. He is a University Student in Deagu and was on the train home back to Gyeonju where he lives with his family. He is studying computers and management, hoping to revolutionise shopping malls. Or at least this is his end goal. We just chatted the entire 35min back to my stop in YC. He enjoys talking to foreigners as he wants to improve and practice his English. He learnt his English from the TV, Radio, Movies and going to private academies. He was a very nice guy. We talked about politics and Education in SA and Korea and he told me some of the history of Korea – the most interesting of which was the origins of the Mugunghwa (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hibiscus_syriacus) and Saemaul trains in Korea. The former is the national flower of Korea and the latter is a social movement that was started in the 1970’s (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saemaeul_Movement) meaning that you can only help yourself be prosperous but the community is there to help you so in working for yourself you should help each other. We talked about Why I came to Korea and that we both want to travel and where we want to travel to.

It was a really enjoyable train ride at the end of which we exchanged email addresses and have already exchanged an email or two between each other. VERY COOL!

This has been Geoff’s Asian Adventures – Adventures to come: My Trips to Ulsan and Gwangju to visit Lauren Andreya and Soekie, My Birthday Weekend, the arrival of new friends, and so so many more. Stay tuned folks :)

The Great Cereal Hunt of 2011

The date was 27 Jan and Sandy was on her way back from Vietnam with Ashli in Thailand. It was Colleen and I holding the fort in YC. But on this date Colleen was going to meet her parents in Seoul, who were coming to visit. I went through to Deagu with her in the morning with 2 goals: to Hang out and to find Home Plus a shop chain here in Korea.

Why did I want to find this place? Well, I was taken to it by Ashli at one point and it was there that I found British Brand TESCO – cereal of which I am now a dedicated fan. I wanted to find and know where Home Plus was so that I could buy cereal when I was in Daegu.

The 2^nd goal proved a little elusive while Colleen and I were looking but after she had gone, I approached tourist information at the train station and asked them to direct me, which worked perfectly and I not only bought 3 boxes of cereal but all 2 slabs of Chocolate. With 2^nd goal achieved, what was I to do? Well I decided to hang out in because I had to breathe during the 1hr 40min screening of the movie, I high tailed it out of the cinema and caught my train home. This was all in an effort to catch up to the two hours of my life that had escaped me while I put myself through that sorry excuse for an action superhero, comic book, based movie. That was Daegu and this is another enthralling train ride home…

Geoff’s Asian Adventure continues shortly…

A couple of Fridays ago was Graduation day at my main school – Gogyeong Middle School. This is the day one which the 3^rd graders are officially seen off to the wider world of High School. There is a giant prize giving of sorts and to me it was a bit strange. Let me explain why…

The class size of the 3^rd graders was a staggering NINE students, and yet there were something like 20 odd awards. Not much for competition, but I suppose it is good for ones confidence when every student gets at least one prize. It was a very subdued and respectful ceremony.

I was late in arriving for it.

Why was I late? Well…

When I asked Mrs Won (my head Co-teacher) what my schedule is for the day and asked if I can watch the ceremony, she told me to stay in the Teachers Lounge by my PC. I did this not knowing (which I have known, as she had displayed her hesitancy with e before) that she was incorrect in her instructions. Sitting at my desk the PE teacher came in and asked me what I was doing here and told me to join the presentation, which I am glad I did.

Grad ceremony

This is what the school grounds looked like on Grad day:

Before the students left I even got given a chocolate as a gift to say thank-you.

When all the pomp and ceremony had die down I joined the staff for a lunch of Galbi-sal (small, bite size cuts of pig meat, which you cook in front of you on a stove in the middle of the table and eat with a variety of sides). As with every meal, the now retired principle tried to correct the way I held my chopsticks and the Science teacher tried to get me hammered on Soju. I had a couple of beers instead.

Tanks full and dutch courage obtained – Nori-bang (Kareoke) time means P.A.R.T.Y time! We drove back to Yeongcheon and went to a Nori-bang room where all the staff (save Mrs Won) had a go. I sang Billy Joel’s classic - Piano Man (thinking it was old enough and well known enough for Koreans to know it. I was wrong). It was a slow mood-killer (despite the merits of the tune). All the rest of the teachers were singing fast songs or disco versions of slow songs (As I told you: Party time!). Despite getting a score of 92% for it I had to redeem myself and followed that up with Ricky Martins late 90’s primary school disco fav – Livin La Vida Loca.

Mood rescued I even scored 100% on my rendition which earned me a couple of hugs and a high 5 or 2. Songs that followed included: 500 miles (NOT by The Proclaimers, as I had thought, still go 99% for it though even though I had summarily killed the mood again!); Yesterday; Another One Bites The Dust; Hotel California and a dismal attempt at Call Me When You Are Sober – Evanescence (NOT MY FAULT – the Kareoke version was much slower than the normal version and I struggled for timing). Graduations over, now it is 2 weeks of desk-warming and the start to the new (and probably my last) semester in the Korean teaching system!

More adventures to follow soon ladies and gents so stay tuned! :)

The (Martial) Art of Zen Buddhism

The date was 29 Jan. The time was 11:30. The place was Yeongcheon train station where I was imminently to jump onto a train headed for Gyeonju to begin my trip to enlightenment.

flashback

Fade to black… 2 weeks previously… Fade into past time…

I had been wondering what to do with some of my time on winter holiday, seeing that I was not given sufficient time to head out of Korea, when I had a thought.

“Temple Stay.”

I had been wanting to do one and it was on my list of “Things to do while on an Asian adventure”

(along with: jump off a ledge attached to a giant rubber band; ride an elephant, pet a tiger, see an orangutan, run off a mountain with a cloth attached to my shoulders and a seat attached to my back; amongst other things – incidentally thus far I have accomplished the last in that list… NO, not the “amongst other things” bit … the “run off a mountain with a cloth attached to my shoulders and a seat attached to my back”)

So I began searching and after a couple of days trolling over google I found what I had been looking for. There was a picture of a guy doing the splits and touching his toes at the same time, and all this was about a 1-1.5m off the ground and below it was a picture of a monk in worship at a Buddha statue.

“That’s the place for me,” I thought. So I booked a spot for a night (as a trial stay for potential future stays) and took a walk down to the bridge over the local river to watch the sunset over the ice covered waters on the crisp winter horizon, to celebrate.

FAST-FORWARD TO PRESENT TIME…

My journey to Golguksa temple was fraught with peril of the terrifyingly dull kind. It took me 2.5 hours to get to the temple when it should have taken me 1 hour. Stupid language barrier. Anyway…

I registered my arrival with the main office where I met Kate – A Brit who is staying and training at the temple. I was later to find that a Frenchman, a Dutchman, a Norwegian and obviously a Korean or few, were training and staying at the temple. The Frenchman and the Norwegian (who is going for his 4^th Sunmudo Black-belt in August) were asked to baby-sit the waygooks (foreigners). Again I am getting ahead of myself…

After collecting one of the most comfortable yet insufficient pair of pants I have ever had to wear, and my vest (the getup we wear to let the monks and administrators know we are temple stayers) I went to investigate my pad for the night under the instruction that I would have the place to myself. There was not much (not that you need much) though there was a fridge if you brought food (which you were not permitted to eat on the grounds) and the infiltration of modern society and its demands dictated the presence of a LAN cable for internet connectivity. I was to sleep on Ondole, which is the heated floor. It was very warm, despite the temp outside being -18C. More description later.

16:30 ish and I had 1 hour until the start of my programme and supper so I did a speedy rush around the temple to take pics and for a walk. Absolutely breathtaking views though they were better the next day when the sun was not hiding behind the valley hills. Arriving back to my room the Admin lady told me I would actually have company for the night. This was when I met Shtef and Reinholdt. Two chaps from Gemany. The latter is a German teacher in Shanghai and the former (a psychologist in Germany) is his friend, who had come for a visit, and they had decided to come to Korea for an 8 day temple stay. Supper nice guys – Reinholdt was a real character, I can just imagine what sitting in his classes must be like. Sadly our association was not all bratwurst and beer, as I never got much sleep due to Shtef’s snoring, but I suppose when you are getting up at 04:00, nothing is enough sleep.

17:30 was dinner and this was what we had:

It was really nice. I was really hungry having not had much of a lunch so went back for a couple of helpings. There was a guideline at the temple that you do not leave any food or sauce on your tray as it means that you are living beyond your means, which is not what (to a small extent) Buddhism is about. You, also, were requested to be punctual and if you were not there was the threat of 3000 full body bows as punishment (which in discussions later I found out would take you about 9 hours if your body did not give way long before then)

After dinner was our “orientation” were we watched a video about the Sunmudo roots and how it links with Buddhism and it’s principles. This was followed by 2 hours Sunmudo training. 10min of breathing, 10min of scilent sitting meditation, 1 hour of warm-up exercises and light work and then 1 hour of training by the Norwegian triple black belt. Sunmudo is actually a beautiful martial art. It is about achieving balance between mind and body and it more about overcoming the limitation of the mind and the body, than it is about aggression and defense. The grading system revolves around a series of movement sequences that are graded from 1 – 10. You then write a 20page paper about a topic given to you about a week in advance about Buddhist teachings and your own thought and journey towards those the topic. Here is a video of what it looks like:

MY WORD – In the warm up I moved muscles I had not moved since my 2^nd year at Varsity. The epicenter of the punishment was in my shoulders. We did sequences of punches, rotations and flexes that would get faster the more you do and then slow down to change to the next movement. The total number of each movement you were required to do should add up to 100. when you were finished with the section of the warm-up you would have done in excess of 500 movements.

After warm-up the waygooks were taken aside and we were instructed by the Norwegian how to do the 2 movement sequences that you learn as you progress through your training. By this point my shoulders were shot so anything that needed me to lift my arms was done with a contorted face and locked jaw. In this practice each movement was supposed to be specific and localized i.e. if you were doing twists from side to side you had to only use your torso and abs. Your waist and hips were meant to stay rooted to the floor to act as your centre of gravity. What struck me most about the exercise part of the experience was the balance and muscle control. Remarkable – hence I remarked!

21:30 we got back to our room, showered and went to bed, to wake up at 04:00 to make sure we were at the main shrine for morning chanting and meditation, the total time of which went for 1.5 hours. My word was IT COLD!!! My roommates taught me on the walk up to the shrine that the crunch of the snow/ice under your shoes gives one an indication as to how cold it is outside. Were they messing with me? They were very genuine guys so I don’t think so. After the early wake-up we were to experience something unique, a traditional Buddhist breakfast – the process of which is very complicated and can be explained here, if you are interested.

After breakfast we got a bit of free time, which my German colleagues took to sleep and I tried to read but that lasted all of 15min before I too fell asleep. At 8’ish we were supposed to meet the monks of the temple for team and a chat but they never showed so we sat talking to 2 of the Martial Arts masters for about 2 hours. It was a very interesting chat, listening to their stories, opinions and choice behind coming to stay at the temple.

The last activity in our program was a demonstration of Sunmudo conducted by the masters of the art. There were also a couple of other cultural dances – the videos for which are below:

So ended my 1st but hopefully not my last temple stay. On the bus back to Gyeonju I got a chatting to Pol from Ireland, Yanna from Swellemdam and Brian from the States. So many interesting people on a very interesting if sleep deprived experience.

Stay tuned for the next Adventure…

Welcome back fellow travelers!

Much time has passed since my last post.

In this time I have made a patriotic bowl come mug (still trying to decide which object the size of it dictates it is)...

... and seen a couple of 4D movies (and 4D is not all it is cracked up to be - MegaMind is good fun even in 2D and The Green Hornet is crap no matter how many D’s you see it in).

I met a bloke on a train who is now a Korean pen pal of mine, contemplated the beauty of Africa while watching the sun set.

I have marveled at the living organism that is any modern day city and stayed at a Zen Martial Arts temple (where I met a couple of awesome Germans, an Irishman, a chap from The States and a young lady from Swellendam).

I have gone in search of a House and Home type store only to come back with Breakfast for the next Month; and finally visited some dear friends at a PICTUREsque (with picture/photo being the emphasis here) but far from costal’ly pretty/impressive, (when one compares the beaches at Cannon Rocks or Llandudno for example) city...

...,where I hung out at a Coffee Shop that was running wild with some real hip CATS.

I have also experienced a proper Snow Day such that I stayed home from work because the snow was too thick for me to get in and sung Kareoke with a couple of drunk Koreans.

Along the way I have taken many an artistic picture.

3 fisherman in a panoramic experiment

Varied of length documentation of these events may or may not occur, for that you will have to wait and see but soon to follow I will begin by telling you about my 2 days that I spent@the temple.

Keep your ears open and your eyes peeled...