Damyang Bamboo Forest

The weekend after the Boryeong Mud Festival, I spent time with my other Korean friend, Hyun Ju (the one who lives down the hall in my apartment building). We visited the Damyang Bamboo Forest, also part of a tour group, though much more organized than Daegu Pockets. It was a Korean company, so I was the only foreigner. We left early in the morning, drove south-west and arrived in Damyang, in the province of Jeollanam-do, several hours later. It was a gorgeous drive - we were only on the highway for a bit, and then mostly on smaller roads going around and through beautiful green mountains. The cloudy weather and fog made it even better - just breath-taking. Hyun also packed a bag full of snacks and juice, which didn't hurt.

The bamboo forest was sweltering hot, but gorgeous. It's mostly bamboo of course, but there are also patches of pine trees, as well as a gift shop. I bought some coasters, and Hyun Ju got some more (bamboo-flavored) snacks. We also bought bamboo wine, packaged in an actual piece of bamboo! The forest, although beautiful, is totally typical of Korean tourist sites - as cheesy as possible. For example, there are eight paths going through the forest. They all intersect one another and are impossible to tell apart, but they're all named like they're different and special - the Way of Good Luck, the Way of Old Friend, the Way of Endless Love, the Byway of Recollection...I could write a book about sickeningly cute Korea tries to be!

Here's an abridged tour for you:

It's the Way of Endless Love! No, wait, it's the Way of the Scholar! No, no, it's the Go Up Way of Sengin Mountain!

We went down several paths, but the heat was really getting to us so we headed to a nearby restuarant for some lunch. There, in Damyang, we ate what was possibly the best Korean meal I've had this year. That's really saying something because I LOVE pretty much all Korean food. It was a traditional meal with lots of side dishes, but there were a few bamboo-themed twists: the rice, mixed with nuts, was served in a bamboo stem; we had bamboo in our soup; and there were two different bamboo-shoot sides. I can't describe how delicious it was and how Hyun Ju and I gorged ourselves...we were sitting on the floor and I could barely stand up when we were finished, because I had been so busy stuffing my face that I didn't move the entire time, and had been sitting with my legs crossed for the better part of 45 minutes. I'm seriously going to dream about Korean food, and especially that meal, when I'm back in Wisconsin.

As is so often the case with Korean meals, I couldn't fit it all in one picture. The black pot of soup is the half-way point.

After rolling ourselves back on the bus, we visited a nearby road. I can't remember the name of this road, but it's famous for being really pretty and scenic. There are lots of big trees on either side, and a scene from some movie was also filmed there. It's short enough to walk in twenty minutes, so Hyun Ju and I tried to work off our lunch, while I noticed (and laughed at) all the different ways that people were paying to get themselves down this tiny stretch - you could rent a bicycle, a carriage-thing, or even, apparently, a Big Wheels.

Peace!

Wow...this woman's somewhat excused because she's with a little kid, but I promise you I saw adults riding these things up and down this road ALONE.

Our last stop for the day was the only weak point of the tour. The original schedule had been to visit some other site, and the original tour price was 44,000 won. However, the government decided to subsidize the tour, cutting the cost down to 15,000 won, on the condition that we visit a traditional market instead. These markets are slowly going under as more Koreans visit stores like E-Mart and Home Plus, their answer to Wal-Mart. This market was similar to the one I visited in Seogwipo - like a huge warehouse with dozens of little stalls. You could probably find anything in these places but they're best for fresh seafood, fruits and vegetables. As you can probably imagine, the markets are generally dirty, crowded, and reek like fish and motorcycle exhaust (scooters and motorcycles can drive through them like normal roads). There were more cats than customers.

Sorry to end on a negative note, but I have to say it: the heat in this city is sapping my will to live. I honestly can't stand it. The sweltering humidity, stale air, and glaring sunlight day after day make me CRAZY. Even at night it doesn't cool down - the temperature just flat-lines at about 90 degrees for a solid six weeks every summer after the monsoon season. Luckily my school is more generous than others about using the AC, and they were also kind enough to install it in my apartment. Not all of my friends are so lucky! Anyway, ranting aside, I hope to keep the blog posts comin' as I approach the end of my time here. I have so much to say about this place, but most of it will probably be irrelevant after I leave, so I'm going to try hard to squeeze out a few more posts!

I have air-con AND bamboo wine in my apartment.

Boryeong Mud Festival!

July 17th and 18th was the opening weekend of the Boryeong Mud Festival. Several of my friends, including Diana and Bosun, and I joined a poorly-organized and over-priced Daegu Pockets tour that took us four hours west to Daecheon Beach.

There is nothing traditional, or even especially Korean, about the Boryeong Mud Festival (Korea seems to jump on any excuse for a festival!), and more than half of those in attendance are foreigners. So is should come as no surprise that the event is mostly an excuse for expats and GIs to binge-drink in the daytime. The mud itself is supposed to be very healthy and full of good stuff for your skin, but no one really cares about that when the festival comes around!

The crappy tour arrangements (over 3 hours of waiting on a bus over two days) and shady sleeping arrangements (drunks from our tour group trying to break into our room all night, even attemping a window entrance, to use the bathroom) aside, the festival itself was pretty fun! When else do mostly-responsible adults have an excuse to play in "therapeutic" mud, as well as climb through a muddy obstacle course, be painted with different colors of mud, go down a mud slide, and engage in a good old-fashioned mud fight?!

Mud slide. The line for this was always ridiculously long, so we never tried it.

You can see, from the left, Diana, Bosun, and I. We're smiling and having fun, but those smiles are just masking our fear.

Some people are VISCIOUS mud-fighters, and that stuff really stings when it hits you!

Daecheon Beach is also wonderful. The best thing was to get absolutely filthy, and then run into the sea to scrape it all off and jump around in the waves.

Diana and I, taken through the protective shield of Bosun's vinyl bag.

Bosun and I, through the muddy camera bag.

Most of these pictures are stolen - I had a plastic bag for my camera but I was usually too afraid to take it out and use it. The top picture is mine; the mud fight scene is from Diana's blog; and the rest belong to Bosun. They're pretty tame compared to what you can find if you search for this festival on Google Images! And I usually provide a link to my full album, but in order to protect the dignity of a few people I won't be making this one public!

Pat Bing Soo

Here's a blog post for my favorite Korean dessert: pat bing soo. It's Korea's response to the ice cream sundae, and much better in my opinion! I've had dozens of varieties of this stuff, and I think every place does it a little differently. The basics are shaved/crushed ice with milk and a scoop of ice cream; red beans are also pretty standard, and there's almost always at least one kind of fruit, usually more. I've also had tomatoes, corn flakes, nuts, different sauces, jelly candies, and rice cakes in my PBS.

The genius of PBS is that you can get it absolutely ANYWHERE in Korea - nice cafes, bakeries, ice cream shops, and even fast-food restuarants like Burger King, McDonalds, or KFC. My co-teacher, Carrie, recently took me a new (to me) cafe in Daegu with the best, fanciest, and most expensive PBS that I've yet to see. I don't think any of the four flavors are exactly traditional, but they're so damn good. I made it my mission to sample each one, and last week the mission was accomplished.

Strawberry

Sweetened azuki beans with 'four berries' sauce

Green tea...and a random piece of cake

Milk tea

The verdict: it's a toss-up between the strawberry and green tea. I feel disloyal saying that because green tea is my favorite flavor of anything in Korea, but the strawberry was just fantastic. I think that, besides a rice cooker, I may need to invest in an ice-shaver when I get back to the States (yes, that's a Christmas present hint!).

Can you blame me? picture from Google Images

Jeju Island Part II: It's Time to Ride

While my sleep-deprived students were pulling their hair out over final exams earlier this month, I was able to sneak back to Jeju Island for another four-day weekend! It was equally amazing the second time around, but quite a different experience.

The difference was mostly due to the weather and my chosen mode of transportation. First things first: I rented a scooter! A pink scooter! It was definitely illegal (I have neither a motorcycle license nor any kind of international license, which in turn mean that I coudn't get any insurance) but SO fun and liberating. No more hop-on, hop-off buses for this girl! It was definitely the best way to see Jeju - the roads are good; other drivers were (mostly) nice and let me have my own lane; and everything is well labeled so even with my crappy tourist map I found my way pretty easily. I saw lots of beautiful little spots just by pulling over for a break, and driving again after so many months felt great!

I had to feel bad for the guy who rented it to me - he was so nice and politely listened to my b.s. ("...no, I don't have a license....um, no, I've never driven one of THESE exactly") but I could tell he was worried. He must have warned me a dozen time to be careful and drive slowly, and he drove me to a parking lot so I could practice a bit before hitting the streets. I was a bit shaky at first and surely inspired no confidence, but got the hang of it quickly - it's like a cross between a bicycle as far as balance goes, and a snowmobile as far as acceleration and braking go.


As far as the weather goes, Korea is in the middle of the monsoon season, which means: constant and crushing humidity, a lot of rain, cloudy skies when it isn't raining, and little direct sunlight. I was VERY lucky with the weather though - it was cloudy and really really foggy almost the entire time, but it only rained twice in four days, and both times it was just a sprinkle for about a half hour! Somehow there was even enough sun to give me a weird scooter tan - on the back of my neck and tops of my arms and legs only!

So for four days I mostly just puttered around Seogwipo and the southern half of the island, did a little beach-hopping, and saw some new nooks and crannies that I missed last time when I was just out to see the major tourist attractions. Check out my pictures if you want to know exactly what I saw! http://picasaweb.google.com/kristin.laufenberg/JejuIslandPartII?feat=directlink

The Beginning of the End

The blog posts are sure to be few and far between for the next few weeks. I need to write about my most recent trip to Jeju, but other than that I don't know if there will be a chance to write down everything that I want to. Which is a shame because there's so many things about Korea that I want to share with everyone and remember for myself, too. I'll do my best but I don't think I'll be taking a breath between now and October, much less doing a lot of blogging.

This coming week is the last week of the semester! I'll have some first- and second-graders in my summer camp and summer classes, but there are so many students I'll never see again after next week! And one of my co-teachers is leaving on the 17th for some training in San Diego, and I won't see her again at all before I leave Korea. So depressing.

Another reason to be upset over the end of the semester: I'll be doing summer camp and classes for the next four weeks straight, with no more breaks until I leave Korea (which I can't complain about, because my school has been more than generous with my vacation). However, these classes will require...drumroll please...69 LESSON PLANS AND 159 WORKSHEETS. All made from SCRATCH. Starting in 8 days. And on top of that I'll be planning a major backpacking adventure, emptying / cleaning my apartment, stopping utilities, transferring money, looking for a job at home, saying goodbye to friends and the place that has been my home for the last year, etc.

I feel like I'm in college again and it's finals week; but in college I was always dying to get off campus, and now I tear up everytime I consider that I have to leave this place in five weeks. I STILL don't know whether leaving Korea now was the right decision or not. Everybody here is just so good to me. The English department from Jeil had dinner together the other night, and I got these gifts - the tea set is from my co-teachers (I had mentioned to Carrie that I wanted a Korean tea set as a souveneir) and the mirror is from my principal. And that same night Hyun Ju gave me a book that she had specially ordered for me, just because she thought I would enjoy it.

I must be an idiot to leave a place where I'm showered with gifts and free time off on a regular basis.

On a more cheerful note, I realized just in time that the U.S. government is jacking up the price to add extra pages to your passport. The service has always been free and I decided that it would be a good idea for my up-coming trip. I probably could have made it with the pages I had except for stupid Malaysia: some provinces there are semi-autonomous, which means they stamp your passport each time you exit or enter a new province! There's a crazy story in my guidebook about traveling overland from one Malaysian state to another through the country Brunei, and this half-day trip will add 10 stamps to your passport!

When I checked the Seoul embassy's website, I discovered that the price is jumping from $0 to $82 on Tuesday! $82 just to staple in some empty pages! I bundled off my passport to Seoul with a courier service and they added the FREE new pages overnight. Pretty ridiculous...if I have to get extra pages added AGAIN before my passport expires and pay for them I will not be happy.