Gapyeong Pension and an Uzbek Dinner

I post remarkable irregularly on this blog, and for that, I'd like to apologize. In my defense, I am working really hard on my Korean blog (markskoreandiary.blogspot.com), another Korean lifestyle blog, and grad school applications. When I get home from work, the last thing I want to do is write a poorly written blog post about my weekend. However, this blog does remind me of why I love Korea, and one day I'll look back at this drivel and smile.

This past weekend, I piggybacked on some friends' travel plans to go to the countryside for a night of solitude in the mountains of Gyeonggi-Do. Pensions (holiday house rental homes) are pretty popular in Korea and can be booked for a decently cheap price. You'll normally end up sleeping on the floor, but with sleeping pads and surrounded by friends, it is better than a noisy sauna full of snoring ajjusshis.

Saturday morning we grabbed the ITX from Yongsan station and got off at . We picked up some drinks, meat, and snacks at a grocery store (20,000 won per person) and the grocery store agreed to give us a ride to the pension in the back of a van. As there was a group of shoppers before us, we had to wait. The area was pretty, however, so we walked around a bit, found some abandon buildings, and threw some snowballs. Some of these snowballs may have broke windows of aforementioned buildings... Oops.

Cameron at the gates to creepy abandoned Korean concentration campesque buildings

 The pension was adorable. Two stories with sleeping space for 12 people. By sleeping space, I mean lots of floor space and two beds. Ladies were given the beds, and all the boys were going to sleep in the common room.

 We slurped down some ramen and then explored our surroundings. Korea is such a beautiful wilderness outside of Seoul. To think, we went from one of the largest cities in the world to this in an hour? Awesome.

 

Half of the group

Our pensions was called Lothlorien pension I believe. After Lord of the Rings? So I tried to look a bit elvish. (Did I end up just looking stoned?)

The sun was setting and we had some BBQ to prepare. We had 목살 (pork neck) and 갈매기살 (I think this is back), which we grilled up. Outside. And it was freezing. I think we had some 4 kilograms of meat, so it took a LONG time to cook. Even though my feet almost fell off, hanging outside in the freezing weather to deliver food to our warm-bodied friends inside was actually a great experience. Especially since Cameron had brought along makkeoli from around Korea. We had peanut, tangerine, pine, and a host of other flavors.

Awesome makkeoli model

By the time we finished cooking and eating, the makkeoli laughed at us, saying 'Hey, you know how drunk you'll get when you are drinking to stay warm when it is well below freezing? Pretty drunk.' Since we were in the middle of the mountains with no other people or buildings around, this ended up being the best thing to do, so we spent the rest of the evening with more makkeoli and dancing in the common room.

The best part? Waking up to see this gorgeous thing. C, you look great as a unicorn eating ramen.

To make my weekend even more memorable, I had a date when I got back to Seoul. We went out for Uzbek food in the Dongdaemun History and Culture Park area (near exit 5). Man, that food is great. A drunken Uzbek man decided to join our table, and rambled on about Central Asian politics to us in Korean. Do you know what the best sign was that this date was going well? He took it all in stride and enjoyed the evening, even though it wasn't exactly what we planned.

The samsa and the borscht were the best parts

Feeling like all was right with the world, I headed back home, only to find that our washing machine wasn't draining because the drain had frozen over... That was a bit of a mess, but perhaps better for a ranting post about Korea than this lovely weekend recap.

Journey to Jawol Island (자월도)

To celebrate fourth of July, M organized a trip to an island off of the coast of Incheon. Since we had been to Muuido back in May, we decided to try another island a bit further off. 10mag had an article with some options, so we wound up going to Jawoldo (자월도) because the beach looked mighty fine.

Too early to be friendly

We set out from Suyu at 6:45 (after a quick McDonalds breakfast). We transferred to line 1 and got off at at Dongincheon station (동인천). From Dongincheon, we walked into the underground shopping market, took exit 7, and then grabbed bus #12 toward Yeonan Ferry Terminal (연안부두). We just barely made the 9 AM ferry. (There are also ferries at 8 and 2 pm. I recommend reserving tickets)

The ferry was a quick one hour ride and brought us to the pier where our 자월짱 pension (kind of like a lodge) picked us up and brought us to our rooms.

We couldn't have asked for better weather. Combine the shining sun with the greenery of the island and the calming sea and it was a recipe for a pretty great weekend. 

Most of our time in Jawol was spent on the beach; I'm not the biggest beach person, but it was nice to spend some hours just relaxing in the sun. I was applying sunscreen about every hour, but I still managed to get burnt. C'est la vie. 

Digging holes

We wandered a bit and eventually made the mistake of trying to go swimming. Apparently, one side of the beach is fine. The part we swam in, however, was full of barnacles and sharp rocks that you couldn't see through the muddy water. If you go swimming here, I would recommend swimming in shoes or you'll be limping the next day. My feet are flayed right now. Awful.  

Beautiful view, but not for 11

After some mishaps finding a dinner place, including being refused at one place which had an amazing view because our party of 11 was too big, we finally settled for a kimchi jjigae place. There were some mishaps and too much food was ordered, but what we ate was good, even though the owners seemed more concerned with getting our money than  providing decent service. We did do a tiny bit of karaoke though:

The night finished with soju and fireworks and in the morning we had eggs and bacon. It was pretty good practice for next weekend, where we will be spending two nights at a pension in Boryeong for the mud festival. Hopefully the mud will protect me from sunburn. 

Muuido Island Weekend!

와! I finally had a chance to go to Muuido out near Incheon airport. My friends had gone back in 2009, but I never had the chance. Some of the Suyu crew had arranged an outing and I tagged along. What a weekend!

Here we come!

 The island was a blast, even if the beach was a bit dirty. There were a lot of foreigners staying in huts on the beach, which were pretty cheap (only 30,000 for the night in a room that could comfortably fit 3 or 4 people). Since there wasn't much swimming, it was more of a day of chatting with friends and laying in the sun. Sound good to me!

Catie and her beer buried in the sand

One of the best parts of the beach was how fast and how far the tide went out. We walked out a good 200 meters when the tide was low; there were lots of crabs and shells and other great things. Cameron was even able to walk on water.

Cameron is walking on water

The landscape of the island was beautiful. Cameron pointed out that if this island was two hours from New York, it would be full of time shares. I asked some of the teachers at my school if they had been to Muuido, and only a couple have made the trip.

Dried dogfish

The food, beach, and accommodation were all pretty cheap. The only problem was that it was quite a hike to get out there... first, you had to take the subway to Incheon airport, go up to the third floor bus station, take bus 222 to the ferry, the ferry to the island, and then a bus to the beach. We took bus 302 toward the ferry, which added a little bit of a walk. No problem, it was worth the two and a half hour trip.

MT (Memership Training)

I was invited to join my Korean class for membership training (NT) north of Seoul this past weekend. I was really confused about what this would entail, mostly because we don't have membership training in the states, and certainly don't call it MT. Konglish can be confusing sometimes...

The house we stayed at up in northern Gyeonggi Province

Apparently, it is just an excuse to get together, play games, and drink. I like all three of these things. Combine that with getting out of the big city and into some fresh air ... 나이스.  I was a little nervous since I didn't know anyone that well in the group, but it really was a good way to bond and meet new people (both foreigners and Koreans). We started out with some silly relay games and a scavenger hunt (I won a piggy bank) then continued with preparing dinner. It took WAY too long to cook dinner, but I guess it really made us appreciate the meal once we had finished it. We made some dumplings by hand and our group was in charge of the curry (Korean style).

Peeling a potato

Dinner gave us all bigger smiles

 The evening was then spent in a very Korean-style night of drinking and drinking games. I had played a few Korean drinking games before, but nothing to the extent of what was going on on Saturday night. One great thing about Korean drinking games is they always seem to have an opening song/dance, which you can see in this video.  If you look at our table, you can see how much beer and soju was being consumed...

We played may 20 different games that night, including the ever popular nunchi game and the fun, but infuriating, 3-6-9 game. My favorite game was definitely Bunny Bunny.

Note: That's not me or anyone I know... just random people playing the best game ever.

So after a night of drinking we all crashed on the floor of the pension. I'm sure I snored, but I got a pretty good night's sleep. I would love to do MT again or just rent a pension somewhere in the countryside and spend a weekend with some good friends, good food, and good games. ^^

Goodbye cute pension!

Yeoju: Where old kings go to be buried

Astronomical clock

When I got back to Korea I was told I was not going to have to suffer through endless hours of desk-warming, so I decided I had to spend at least a day visiting my good friend Rob. We grew up probably and twenty minute walk from each other in little old Lindstrom, Minnesota and now we were just an hour by bus! Even though this has been true for over a year now, this was the first time, and probably last time, I made the trip to this little town on the outskirts of Seoul.
Right on the border of Kangwon-Do, the county of Yeoju has some 100,000 people and is known for its rice, sweet potatoes, ceramics and the tomb of the most revered king of Korea: King Sejong the Great. Buses from both Express Bus Terminal and Dong Seoul head to Yeoju and since the city is quite central it is quite easy to get around the main town. To speed up our adventure, we jumped into a taxi and headed to Sejong's tomb.
King Sejong, if you didn't know already, invented the Korean alphabet (I'm sure with the help of shit tons of yongban , or scholars). He has also been credited with inventing tons of other things, from sundials and astronomy clocks to rain gauges and, as Katy and I like to joke, mutual masturbation. All the replicas of his inventions were pretty intricate with designs that are completely superfluous but so aesthetically pleasing.
The park devoted to him is pretty cool, and I'm surprised less Koreans talk about Yeoju as a destination. It would be quite easy to do in a day and with the level of reverence and respect given to Sejong I would have thought this place would be full of tourists. Maybe it gets that way in the summer. The tomb of Sejong itself was unremarkable, being that it looked like all the other tombs in Korea; nevertheless, there was a feeling of reverence in the air.

Entrance to the park

King Sejong's Mound

Three stairways going to the altar... the middle one is for spirit-use only

 The visit to Sejong's tomb was followed by a nice walk around Silleuksa temple on the other side of the town. Silleuksa temple is known as being the only temple built on a river rather than in the middle of a mountain (or the rare case of a seaside temple). Built 1500 years ago, it has burnt down and been rebuilt many times. This seems to be the unsurprising fate of all of these temples and monuments that are built with wood. Oftentimes, dragon statues and other figures are painted or built around temples to ward off fires but this isn't a fail-safe.The most impressive parts of the temple was a stone temple from the Goryeo dynasty. Definitely a lot older than its surroundings.

Another Goryeo monument

Old pagoda

The city itself wasn't that amazing, but still looked like a fine place to live. I'm from a town of 3000, so when there are multiple coffee shops and restaurants within a small walking distance I get pretty excited. Right down from Rob's apartment were a bunch of delicious dalk galbi restaurants, and there were some interesting looking bars as well. His crew was fun and we all, after maybe too much beer, went to noraebang and sang for quite a long time. God, Korea is fun.

Delicious dalk galbi

Main street