Bungeeeeee!!!

To begin - I would like to dedicate this post to my mom, whose birthday it was a couple of weeks ago mom - I'll be home soon enough :)



Now...



Whenever I do something or set myself to do something, I aim to do it with integrity, honesty, respect and to do it to the best of my ability. This applies in all facets of my life, from the friendships that I hold so dearly and (arguably) too tightly, to my working environment and professional and intellectual goals. The whole point of me coming to Korea was to challenge myself and the notions that exist in my young mind and to do this with integrity, honesty, respect and to do it to the best of my ability. The end game for the past 10 months and for the coming 3 revolves around 3 things:

1. Travel

2. Putting myself outside of my comfort zone

3. Experiencing things that I would otherwise probably not try back in SA.

This post is particularly about numbers 2 and 3.

One of the things I have always wanted to do/ have looked intriguingly on at, was bungee jumping. It would normally be the 1st step in an individuals quest for a rush/flight. I started with a rather tame leap of a mountain back in November - So one could say I am kind of regressing :-P

However with warm weather set in here in the R.O.K more and more out doorsy things have become appealing to me. I hiked up a decent sized peak and then I saw a day tour available to go white water rafting and bungee jumping. This trip was made all the more interesting as I was travelling with my 4th and so far 2nd worst case of Tonsillitis in the past 1 and a half months.

(Please forgive me for the pun that is about to occur)

I had to leap at that opportunity, so I signed my name up for the day trip that took place a couple of weekends ago.

The adventure was set. I had my sun tan cream primed and was stocked with painkillers and meds from the Dr. I was not going to miss this opportunity. However, as always with these tours, 1st I needed to get myself to Seoul.

In an effort to save a bit of cash for impending expenditure I caught the 18:20 Mugunghwa (slow passenger train - refer to Transport) from Deagu to Seoul and settled in for the 4 hour ride. (You could ask - "Why didn't I take the bus? It is cheaper and only takes 3 hours". If you chose to ask that question to yourself then you have not been reading my blog carefully enough. TISK TISK! A reminder - I DO NOT enjoy bus rides and avoid them as best I can). The trip did give me the perfect amount of time to finish reading this book...

Which I borrowed from Sandy.

See I actually am reading!!!

I began the book by enjoying the detail in the descriptions. Then I got a little bored because the book stopped being about what I was enjoying about it but it brought me back in a lovely way through the courage of the main character and the love his family genuinely have for him. A recommended read if you are up for it.

As is always the case when I get to Seoul I had to find accommodation, so I travelled to my regular area where I have now stayed 4 times and grabbed a motel room.

Bright and early the next morning (7:00) I met up with other travellers going on the tour and we started our 2.5 hour bus ride to the Hangang river white water experience.

At the reststop

I got a little more acquainted with a few people (Dave, Laima and Julie)... 

Dave (Left), Julie (Back Right), Laima

...who were going to be in my raft and then we grabbed our gear and headed for the water. There were 9 of us in our raft plus two guide - here is one of them:

The journey on the river took about 2 hours and along the way I got to have my 1st swim in 10 months!!! Sadly due to the lack of rain in the 3 weeks preceding this trip, the water level of the river was very low, which meant a little less white water and a lot more getting stuck on rocks that we would normally glide over.

It was all great fun though except for one irritation I had. One of my team members DID NOT KNOW HOW TO PADDLE! It, for some reason was getting to me - I think because her lack of technique the other 4 of us on that side of the raft were paddling out of sync, which was causing some hassles with directionality.

"If it was bothering you so much, then why did you not suggest to her how to paddle?" Well I thought we were all there to have a blast and there was no need to be picky, so I left thing as was and stuck to my task. Sadly unless we had underwater camera we were prohibited from bringing our ones along so I have no pics of the actual rafting.

Lunch was spicy squid stir-fry with rice (of course) and the normal Korean side dishes and then it was off to the bridge for the big jump.

Dave mentioned to me that last time he was on the trip they only had 30 people jumping, we however had about 60 as almost everyone wanted to jump! I stayed at the back of the queue so that I could take some nice pics (and one video which you need to look at sideways if you want to see what I did eventually) of people jumping. For those of you who are interested I am going to tell you how it all went down (another pointless pun - do what you will to me when I get back to SA). If you have done bungee before and don't care on the process, then go and make yourself a cup of tea and maybe everyone else will be done reading this bit when you get back so that you can resume your goggle eyed enchantment at my tail of courage beyond measure.

You signed up and payed your fee and then your weight was taken. I was sitting at a light 58kg (though my ticket says 59). Based on your weight you were given a letter of the alphabet to let the operators know what kind of rope they should use for you. My letter was B. The height of the jump was 53m up from the river and the initial free fall would take you down about 35m and then you would bounce around gradually staying closer and closer to the river as your momentum slowed down losing about 5-10m of bounce each time. The initial pull as you reached the tension threshold of the rope was the oddest feeling - kind of like having all your organs in your torso squash against your rib-cage. As you were bounce around a guy in a row boat was to row into position to pick you up when you were not bouncing anymore and the operators had lowered the winch to which the rope was attached, such that you could be collected by the boatman and taken back to tera-firma.

I didn't quite have that last bit. The operators lowered my cable a little too much so for about 2 minutes while I was waiting for the boatman top get to me (as he had started late) my head was bobbing in and out of the water while I was hang upside down. I didn't exactly expect that. But hey, no harm done. It was an incredible rush and an even more incredible experience. I was lucky that Laima - with her good photography skills and incredible camera, as well as Julie (with my camera) got some shots of my jump for me. Here are a few of my "Jump Shots": 

Laima took this and the next (best) photo.

Due to the extended period of time it took for everyone to jump I got back to Deagu just after the last bus and train so I stayed the night there and headed back to Yeongchoen around 10am on the Sunday morning.

WHAT AN ADVENTURE!

To clue you all in - I have officially got my Bali trip with Deborah planned and I have also got flights confirmed for Thailand, Cambodia and Malaysia. Here is to a few more adventures ;)

And The Cultural...

At the start of June we had yet another long weekend in Korea. It was not the 6 day gem that we had in May but we did have 3 days. Saturday was taken to clean up our lives and apartments followed by a viewing of the movie “The Ghost Writer” All in all very relaxed. Sandy and I went for a walk into the forest to a spot I found on one of my running days. From here you can watch the sunset. We took a bottle of OJ and a bottle of wine and had sundowners watching the sunset. It was a really lovely evening. Here are some of the visuals can be seen in this post's video.

Sunday following a leisurely morning we went through to Daegu for 2 main reasons: One was so that I could buy some cereal and the second was so that Sandy could get a nice haircut. Sadly, the 1^st salon we looked at was closed and the 2^nd was booked until 19:00 so we obtained my cereal and headed back to YC.

It was here that Sandy thought: “Bugger it, Geoff you can cut my hair.” I tell you what – I was more than a little scared. I have learned through the years that hair is sacred to 2 kinds of people: Indian males and Women in general. After a lot of calming words from Sandy she placed the scissors in my trembling hands and said very calmly: “Just tie my hair into a pony and cut just below the band. It will be fine.” I was then assured that if things went horribly wrong but managed to avoid killing her by cutting something that I wasn’t supposed to, that if the hair cut was not to expectation she would go to a salon to get it fixed. Slowly I let my hands squeeze the scissors. And slowly strand by strand the hair separated away from Sandy’s head until... “That must be about 10 inches” says Sandy. I was worried thins looked a little skew. Upon telling Sandy she was non plused and has proceeded to tell me how much she like the cut as it looks edgy and her friends seem to like it too. Yay! 20 points for me. But please let it be 2 years before I cut someone’s hair again :-P

That night was another slow night that culminated in another 10-11hrs of much needed sleep. I have not been feeling all myself the last couple of weeks so it was great to get decent rest. Monday was a relatively early start as 3 of us (Colleen included as well) headed to Gyeonju. None of us had explored it properly yet and we were aiming to cycle around looking at historical sites. I wanted to visit one site in particular. As it turns out we never got around to doing either of those things this time. We did though go see a very full Bulguksa Temple and then stopped at a folk craft village and museum. It was there were I got Barry – my little gold Buddha. We resolved, following an exhausting and hot day of walking around and looking at stuff that we needed to come back to Gyeonju to do the cycling and also ride Quad Bikes! Here is a videographic summary of our visit to Gyeonju:

That just about does for now. Next up: Water, Rapids and the feeling of air against my face ;) Stay tuned to Geoff’s Asian Adventures for more exciting times :)

The Natural...

A few weekends ago, Sandy and I had booked a tour to take us to Seoraksan National Park in Gangwon province right up north in Korea. Not quite DMZ but not far off. The idea was to take a slow train ride on Friday night up to Seoul and stay overnight. That proved highly successful. We took along my laptop and watch a couple of Episodes of a show called “Dollhouse” (a very intriguing show that Sandy introduced me too)…

Synopsis:

A private drug company called “Rossum Pharmaceuticals” has developed a way to delete and replace all signs of memory and personality from the human brain. This company uses this new technology to create “Dolls” whereby the rich and they well to do of society pay money to have human beings (who voluntarily sign away periods of their life to have their minds completely wiped) imprinted with personalities and memories of other people and situations that were completely foreign to the “Dolls” human beings, such that the people who hire a doll can live out their fantacies. The show is about one particular “Doll” called “Echo” whose body slowly adapts to house all the personalities that she is given by this company. We are lead through her transition from “Doll” to humanities savior.

If you don't feel like reading the rest, here is the video summary of pics. I warn you - it is nearly 12 minutes long.

Arriving in Seoul we got a motel room for the night and awoke bright eyed and early on Saturday for our tour pick up at 7:30. Low and behold – despite strict instructions not to be late as we leave at 7:30, we only left Seoul at 8:05. Grrrrrrr! Sandy and I had to rush to find breakfast to try and be there on time (FYI – I had one chocolate and one blueberry muffin and Sandy had a chicken salad).

Half way to the park we step off the bus and realize – “flip, it is really bright”. I had left my sunnies at my flat by accident and Sandy didn’t have any to begin with. So we bought a pair each at the rest stop. After seeing Sandy’s (Bought with the express purpose of allowing them to fit over her seeing eye glasses) I liked what she got better then what I got :-P

Following a Bimbimbap lunch where we met Nick (New Zealand) Jennifer (US), a friend each of theirs, and the cutest Beagle pup, arrival at the National Park occurred at around 14:10. We then had a choice to make:

Climb the steepest climb on offer, with the POTENTIAL of an amazing view of the surrounding area and the ocean in the distance

OR

Take a medium toughness hike, pay money to get on a cable car for a good view and then take a stroll to see a waterfall.

After an inner conflict that lasted the 40min bus ride from lunch to the Park I managed to convince Sandy of our choice. What did we do?

THE STEEPEST CLIMB OF COURSE! My reasoning to Sandy: You have seen better waterfalls in Hawaii, I am sure, This is Korea – where what we hope is normally what we get and thus an anticlimax, thus the waterfall is probably not that good anyway AND when would we ever be able to see a view like the one that we can again. With the worry for her muscles, still in her eyes, Sandy bravely agreed to trek the peak called – Ulsan Bawi. At the time there was a bit of debate as to if we would actually be able to see anything because of a bit of cloud cover that arrived but we went anyway.

Water coming out of NOWHERE!!! Very cool trick of the eye.
There is a pipe running from ground up into the tap structure

All was fine and dandy until we got to the rock face. The Korean people have been nice enough to put steal steps that go up the rock face almost vertically, to allow us to get to the top. That was a little hazardous. If you slipped you could seriously injure yourself and the people walking behind you but we made eventually. The hike up was about 1hr 40min for me and about 1hr 55 for Sandy. The peak was 873m above sea level about 900m lower than the elevation of Johannesburg. There was a bit of cloud around but it was still a great view. The park itself was really impressive. Green as far as the eye could see with interesting shaped rocks everywhere, just a truly beautiful sight. It was great to be in the fresh air even if it was not as peaceful as there was still a lot of noise from everyone visiting the park.

After a short rest we slowly made our way down to meet back up at the tour bus where we were taken to our accommodation for the night. This, though, caused a little consternation for Sandy and I. On the Bus ride to the park – the tour manager asked for a list of names of couples who wanted their own rooms with bed (as everything else was Ondol (sleeping on heated floors-traditional in Korea). Sandy and I thought a bed would be great after the hike so we put our name down. When it came time to receive the room key for our room with our bed, any sense of order disappeared and people just grabbed keys. There was no reference to the list that had been compiled and we got shafted as the accommodation had run out of bed rooms when we tried to get a key. We got stuck with an Ondol room. We would not have mind but for the following:

1.       Why take a list of names when you were never going to refer to it?

2.       Why did they not ask the accommodation how many rooms they had with beds, when they called to tell them that we were running late?

3.       Why did they not just say to us “Listen there are not enough rooms, do you mind having Ondol?” ? (Had they said this we would have been completely cordial and said: “cool”.

These were the 1^st set of contentions – 2^nd set to follow.

That night it was suggested to us to go to dinner at a certain restaurant as the food was good and cheaper than other places (Dinner was not included in the tour). When we tried to see what other places there were we were not allowed to look around and forced to go to the place that was just recommended. After a long day’s hike and having our room taken from us we were less than amused. Food was nice enough though and I had something called “Wild Grape Wine” which tasted like Kosher wine (And thus, to me, very yummy). I maintain that what we paid was probably not the cheapest as this place had no revised menu of prices. They probably just had a verbal agreement with the tour people that their patrons would come there and I think they upped their prices a bit because of that.

That night was hot and uncomfortable and breakfast the next morning was worse.

Contention number 2.

I would love to know why Korean motel owners insist on having the under floor heating on even in the heat of summer?

1.       When we tried to find someone to ask if they can switch it off (we did not have control of it in the room) there was no one in site (on both occasions we looked).

2.       Why was there no way for us to turn on our air conditioning when clearly there is a unit in the room, for use by the patrons?

3.       We paid a lot of money for this tour package which included breakfast. Breakfast was 2 slices of toast with peanut butter and jam on. The Coffee had no milk/ sugar (we never had any). Orange Juice was warm. Everything was self serve (which is fine except when you only have 2 toasters making your tour breakfast for 75 people – the process is rather slow).

As I said – we paid a fair bit to do this trip. The least they could have done was:

Provide milk and sugar for the coffee (Which they could have gone and bought from the small shop outside the motel)

Provide enough toasters to do at least 10-15 people in one go rather than 2 people at a time. (Which would have been more time efficient – we ran late because of it)

We were paying for breakfast, not army rashes so they could have supplied cereal with small bowls and milk (Which would have been cost effective)

They could have had the cups with OJ poured and set out for us to take if we wanted instead of having 2 bottles open at a time and people having to pour for themselves (Would have been way more time efficient. Not to mention complementary to the guests who were paying good money for an enjoyable experience).

It may sound like I am complaining a lot – that may be, I do know that having already booked another overnight with this company, before I went on this trip sadly I will have to put up with their inadequate customer service again. They are great for day trips. I really enjoyed myself during the day.

Breakfast was 2 slices of toast and a small class of OJ

After breakfast we went on a nice 2 hour walk through the valley by our motel. Again the views were beautiful and it was the perfect hiking weather. On the way back to the buses (where we had lunch and made our way back to Seoul) I had an interesting chat for the whole 45min walk back with an Aussie chat. Well we didn’t so much as chat as he Quizzed me on SA and told me anecdotes. It was enjoyable none the less. Here are some more photos:

When you walked through that gate, you were to make a wish and one day it will come true

Look how clear and clean that water is!

Sadly the bus ride back was also fraught with annoyance – this though was not the fault of the tour company. Due to the weather that weekend a great number of people went out of Seoul and to the national park and surround to enjoy the sunshine. Thus, these same people all tried to get back into Seoul at the same time on Sunday. There are but so many roads that lead to Rome (or Seoul in this case), so a journey that was supposed to take 3hrs in the bus took us close on 6. Luckily Sandy and I had enough time to catch our 2 trains to get back to Yeongcheon.

So ends Nature. On to Culture!

A little bit of Yeongcheon

So most of you will not have seen much of the area in which I actually live. It is a small (in comparison) county city 50 odd minutes drive South East of Daegu.

This is my little piece of Korea from 20 stories up:

Here is a short tour over my running route (or one of them at least) around Yeongcheon I hope you enjoy it.



Welcome back to all of you (just by the way ;) )