So over the weekend I went to some deserted island off the coast of Incheon Island where the int'l airport resides. Now I heard its been quite rainy back at home in NYC. Well I had the same weather you guys did on the deserted island.
The island, Sa Seong Bong Do is not searchable through google. I checked already and few Koreans have ever heard of it. My meetup organizer William found out about this place b/c he was watching some Korean show. So its a private island is owned by a rich Korean woman, who owns a bunch of beauty salons. She decided to purchase the island to preserve the place and even though she's been approached by developers she's refused to allow anyone to build on the island, instead she got a caretaker and lets people camp there. There was a communications tower on the top of the hill and a house on the other side of island. That's it. Everything else was beach, rock, trees and water. There were 2 portapotties and there was no running water.
I went to the island on Saturday morning and it rained most of Saturday. There's a ferry to the island twice a day and we came on the 1st ferry. When we arrived the rain looked it was letting up. We pitched about 8 tents and there were about 35 people on this island other than the caretaker. The weather turned out to be high winds and heavy rain. For this trip I bought a hardcore hiking backpack with a rain cover and hiking boots. After walking about a mile in the rain my bag was soaked inside that's how rainy it was. My boots, however, lasted through the weekend. Two tents flew up (thankfully not mine). We pitched the tents on the beach b/c the island was essentially beach and some hilly forested area. My tent mates and I spent some time in our tents huddled up and listening to nature go crazy outside with no way out. Since we camped on the beach my tent was wet and there was sand all over the bottom honestly, we planned on not sleeping.
I don't know if you guys often go camping but I went and our main concern after the ferry left was starting a fire. I've never actually tried to start a fire myself but I know its not the easiest thing to do so this was our main challenge. We has Rob Cherry who was an army guy and a bottle of light fluid. All I have to say is thank god for lighter fluid. Rob and a few other people managed to start up the fire while everyone else was waiting out the rain in our wet tents. When they finally got the fire started there was a shout "We got the fire going!", there was a mass exodus of people out of their tents and we ran over to the fire like netharndals would have. I had never been so happy to see fire in my life.
The rain began to taper off about 3-4 but because it rained so hard and most of my stuff was wet, I ended up wearing just my bathing suit for a good amount of the afternoon. Though it was on the chiller side, we managed to have a pretty decent time on the beach. We sat by the campfire and sang songs. Some people were cool enough to bring guitars. There was plenty of soju and beer to go around that by the time dinner rolled along I was essentially the lone sober person around.
We made dinner and sat by the campfire until late in the night enjoying marshmallows and other camp treats. We told scary stories, explored the island and swam in the ocean. The next day the weather was slightly better. Although it was overcasted, the island was beautiful. There was a fog that rolled in and it made the island look almost magical. By the time we left the sun started coming out and we all managed to tan. A couple of the light skin people even burned. It was a huge change from the day before.
After the trip, I'm glad to say that I stuck it out. Though it was an awful start I made some awesome friends, had some decent food and found that I could probably entertain myself if I ever find my way on to a deserted island ever again.
Monday, June 22, 2009
War, Jeju and Ajosshis
It's been too long! I went to Jeju island over the weekend (June 13 and 14) which is the "Hawaii" of Korea. It's aight. The water was nice and blue but other than that it was just a small island and nothing compared to Hawaii.
So far Korea's Korea. They might be going to war. Yesterday an air siren went off for a minute or so and then there was a Korean announcement but none of my Korean teachers paid any attn to it. A friend of mine posted something about it on facebook and that's when I thought wow the s. Koreans really don't take the threat of war seriously. It's pretty interesting to be living and working in a place so different than America. They consistently stereotype westerners but as far as their country goes it's perfect. I guess I'm actually quite use to it and I've got a more laid back view about these things but my Irish friend James is completely confounded by this.
As Westerners here as a whole we're treated as both 2nd class and something really exotic at the same time. I'm a special case that continues to surprise the Koreans b/c I have the ability to blend in unlike my wayguk friends who get stared at a lot. When I'm with foreigners I get stared at b/c I'm a "Korean woman" hanging out with those dirty wayguks. The Korean thought is that women who "date" meaning anyone that is Korean talking to a foreign man is that their not good women.
In Korea, foreigners are wanted for our English speaking ability but they want us to conform to Korean society. An ajosshi (old man) actually exchanged words with me a few months back because of it. He said to me "why are you speaking English? You're in Korea, you're Korean you should be speaking Korean!" I told him, "I'm not Korean. I'm Chinese and we're all Americans so we don't know much Korean." He said, "Well you're in Korea, speak Korean!"
It's way easier for me b/c I don't bat an eye at most of the things I see b/c I'm Chinese and I know the way things work in Asia in terms of saving face and where women "belong" in society here. Example, women were not allowed to smoke in public until a few years ago and women still get looked at if you smoke in public.
Any female that looks remotely Russian gets a lot of unwanted attention from the men here. My South African friend gets "Russian? Russian?" asked all the time. It's b/c the men here associate Russian women as prostitutes here.
Even though I'm rant about Korea, I do really enjoy my time here. Walking to work this morning one of the students in my school got a bag stuck in a tree. I saw him trying to climb at tree that straight up and his friend was pushing him up further up in the tree. It was pretty funny b/c their was no way he was gonna get it. It was really cute. I tried to get the bag but it was too far up. I called over an ajosshi who was sweeping the street to get it. It was really funny.
So far Korea's Korea. They might be going to war. Yesterday an air siren went off for a minute or so and then there was a Korean announcement but none of my Korean teachers paid any attn to it. A friend of mine posted something about it on facebook and that's when I thought wow the s. Koreans really don't take the threat of war seriously. It's pretty interesting to be living and working in a place so different than America. They consistently stereotype westerners but as far as their country goes it's perfect. I guess I'm actually quite use to it and I've got a more laid back view about these things but my Irish friend James is completely confounded by this.
As Westerners here as a whole we're treated as both 2nd class and something really exotic at the same time. I'm a special case that continues to surprise the Koreans b/c I have the ability to blend in unlike my wayguk friends who get stared at a lot. When I'm with foreigners I get stared at b/c I'm a "Korean woman" hanging out with those dirty wayguks. The Korean thought is that women who "date" meaning anyone that is Korean talking to a foreign man is that their not good women.
In Korea, foreigners are wanted for our English speaking ability but they want us to conform to Korean society. An ajosshi (old man) actually exchanged words with me a few months back because of it. He said to me "why are you speaking English? You're in Korea, you're Korean you should be speaking Korean!" I told him, "I'm not Korean. I'm Chinese and we're all Americans so we don't know much Korean." He said, "Well you're in Korea, speak Korean!"
It's way easier for me b/c I don't bat an eye at most of the things I see b/c I'm Chinese and I know the way things work in Asia in terms of saving face and where women "belong" in society here. Example, women were not allowed to smoke in public until a few years ago and women still get looked at if you smoke in public.
Any female that looks remotely Russian gets a lot of unwanted attention from the men here. My South African friend gets "Russian? Russian?" asked all the time. It's b/c the men here associate Russian women as prostitutes here.
Even though I'm rant about Korea, I do really enjoy my time here. Walking to work this morning one of the students in my school got a bag stuck in a tree. I saw him trying to climb at tree that straight up and his friend was pushing him up further up in the tree. It was pretty funny b/c their was no way he was gonna get it. It was really cute. I tried to get the bag but it was too far up. I called over an ajosshi who was sweeping the street to get it. It was really funny.
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Hiking
So the hike was actually 1.4 miles which is a pretty short hike. We never made it to the top. We started at 4 and the teachers took 2 breaks. I went up with the IT girl and the secretary of the main office. It was a pretty difficult hike and appreantley a lot of the hikes in Korea go straight up unlike the hikes in the States which wind around the mountains a bit. I went on another hike on Saturday and I essentially wimped out. I've been sick lately but I decided I was ok to hike. I was so wrong. I didn't make it up. I think I maybe made it half way before having to stop.
Saturday, April 11, 2009
My School and Neigborhood
This is the walk from my school back to Munjeong. It's about 20 mins and there's a good amount of stuff there. It is more residential but there's a park with real trees which is incredibly rare in Seoul. There's also Garak Market which is a wholesale market for fruits, veggies and seafood.
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