Mud, mud, glorious mud

Mud Festival is a massive weeklong celebration of all things muddy at Daecheon Beach. The mud is apparently very good for your skin (unless you were one of the unlucky ones who had severe allergic reactions to it) and who doesn't like a day when you're actually ENCOURAGED to be as messy as possible!
These people are not my friends. I don't have a clue who they are. I stole this photo from Google Images because we failed to get any good muddy shots of us... so pretend these are people I know ok?!

Wow, me and my "friends" are having so much fun

being covered in mud - there's nothing quite like it

for cooling the blood.

It was a fun weekend, although I wasn't such a fan of the mud, as it really ended up everywhere, didn't taste or smell very nice and I was much more of a fan of just hanging at the beach instead.
So we got up way too early to catch the 6am train. Arrived before the fest had even began and tried to find food (this was about 9am), ended up having bulgogi beef and rice, surprisingly delicious for breakfast! Then we hit the beach, where we stayed for most of the day. Not that far along from the main activities but far enough that we didn't see a lot of mud and instead it seemed more of a beach weekend - which suited me just fun, lots of swims, and it was cloudy but I got a bit of tan from it (hurrah!). Lots of beers, and a good mellow bunch.
Eventually much later we headed down to check out the mud and promptly lost each other, Sara had eyeball problems after being pushed around in a big mud bath (I fell and cut my butt, it hurt so bad) so we tried to clean them up, and lost everyone in the process. But it was fun. Massive queues for all the slides n stuff though so flagged them (meanwhile our friends Carp, Thom and Ann queued for over an hour then gave up as they reckoned they'd still have another 30mins before being at the front)
And eventually found others back at our umbrella-ella-ella-eh-eh-eh (by this point it had started raining, and people were seriously feeling the chill, I wasn't (I had my inner radiator on full blast thanks to the sunshine earlier) but chose to stay swimming for I reckon over an hour to avoid sitting on the beach in wet clothes) - we hadn't found Carp et al, though, and noone had cells but were all so cold we decided they'd just have to find their way to where we were staying (prob a 20min walk from the main beach area)
Walked home, petted some elephants (freaked me out a bundle), saw a parade, then shower, wee nap and out for galbi (delish) - Aidian, Thom and Carp stayed home to sleep. Convinced Carp to come meet us, other two were lameos though and stayed sleeping. Saw some fab fireworks and ran around in the rain a lot (it was PISSING down by this point) with $4 sparkling wine that tasted like grape juice.

Pat and I singing and dancing in the rain.

Classic Singing In The Rain pose.


Janine, me, Ann and Sara being awkward
Koreans getting their photo taken - they never
just smile!

Then some genius had the brilliant idea of a 3-hour marathon Michael Jackson tribute noraebang (Korean karaoke) fest, lots of fun, a lot of MJ, I had a killer time!

Ann, Carp, me, Janine, Pat and Sara rocking
the noraebang.

Something I acquired somewhere

along the way...

Next day was HORRIBLE, the worst rain since I've been here, we had to walk in it for 20mins to get to where taxis left from, and all wanted crappy Korean fast food Lotteria, but had to queue for about 20mins for that because every westerner had the same idea! Was very glad to get home.

Dear Diary

Sorry for being such a terrible blogger. After weeks of exciting adventures, things calmed down a bit with more time spent around Suwon with a few trips into Seoul thrown in for good measure. But they have by no means been quiet weekends, with several big events.

We had a fabulous Canada Day barbecue in the park near our apartments. I really feel links between New Zealanders and Canadians, we seem to both be underdogs against the larger and brasher Australia and America, and seem to have a similar relaxed attitude to life in general. Hence, I was thrilled to help them celebrate their national birthday (plus, who would EVER turn down a barbecue!)

A game of "Beerball", involving baseball while constantly carrying

your beer in your hand. After hitting the ball or before running

between bases you must have some of your beer. Very fun game!

Janine and the amazing Canada Day cake she made,

complete with a plum Canada maple leaf flag.

My Canada trivia team, Ann from America and Carp,

my Canadian coworker. Despite the lack of Candian

nationals, we took out this quiz!

Another great weekend was going into Seoul to meet up with Nicci, a New Zealander living in Tokyo who was great friends with my old Tinakori Rd flatmates (Miss you guys!) and I met when she stayed with us earlier this year. She and some friends found cheap tickets to Seoul and we had a great weekend, it was nice to meet some new people as well as catch up with another New Zealander. Got my first delicious taste of New Zealand wine since I left the country - Tohu sav, you tasted like nectar.

Nicci and I with delicious NZ wine

Sara and I at a galbi restaurant which gave
us bibs to eat with - perhaps they knew
instinctively I can't eat neatly?!


Sara, Nicci and I before heading out for a big

night in Seoul.

I had to farewell my two closest friends here, Laura and Kathleen, which was very sad, I already really miss their presence, we always had such fun together and they were my constant weekend (and many weeknight) companions. Hopefully will get to see them again sooner rather than later, Laura's planning on coming back in January and going to convince Kathleen to come too.

Who would ever want to say goodbye to these

faces? Laura being a pirate (I think) and Kathleen's

"model face" (while I fail at the attempt)

Another very sad time has been the adoption and subsequent death of two tiny and lovely little kittens.

Harry (Potter)

Oliver (Twist)

My friend Janine discovered these two newborn orphaned darlings in her appartment after hearing what sounded like birds for two days. Apparently their mother was dead, and they were very weak and frightened. Because she already has two cats and was looking after a third, I offered to look after them until we could decide what to do with them.

We named them Oliver and Harry due to their orphaned status. I spent two days rushing home at every opportunity to force feed them milk. They were aged at about 7 - 10 days old, and were incapable of looking after themselves at all. But I totally fell in love with them and was happy to do all I could for them.

In that short time I watched them as their shaky legs got stronger and they began to walk (very delicately). However by Tuesday night Harry was clearly fading, it was worrying but I really knew nothing about orphaned cats so I fed him as much as I could and left them to sleep. Sadly, he got worse overnight and died the next morning. I felt horrible with guilt and sadness.

Oliver however, was clearly the stronger of the pair, but he was terribly frightened being alone and stopped letting me feed him. I still thought it would be ok, but he too died overnight on Wednesday.

It was very traumatic, but I have since read a lot about fading kitten syndrome, similar to SIDS in children, where for no apparent reason kittens will just fade away. They obviously needed their mothers and I couldn't give them any more care to prevent it happening.

But I did love them. Oliver was certainly the cuter of the two, with nicer markings, and his ears would shake back and forth when he was being fed - it was adorable.

That almost brings me up to date - except for Mudfest. I will try not to be such a tardy blogger in the future.

The 808 Steps

With much planning, my coworker Carp organised a weekend away on the Eastern coast in the Seoraksan National Park. It was an incredible place, and a very fun weekend!
It began with us feeling very Amazing Race-y with just 35 minutes to get from work to the bus terminal, a stretch at the best of times and harder with the Friday afterwork traffic. We all pretended to be kind and generous teachers and let our students leave 5 minutes early, but really we needed that little time up our sleeves. Unfortunately our boss chose that night to have a "quick word" with us, and despite our protests and strained faces, he was actually being lovely, having heard we were off to Seoraksan, and gave us some money to help support our weekend! Very kind and unexpected and helped start the weekend off on a good note. We got to the bus with four minutes to spare and travelled for two hours to Chuncheong, where we stayed the night, after some delicious dakgalbi (the chicken barbecue in front of you, totally delicious) - apparently it originated from there, and we weren't disappointed.
The following day we had another two hour bus ride through to Sokcho, a city on the coast and the gateway to the national park. Totally beautiful, the ride through almost reminded me of Fiordland, only it just had a different feel about it. We met up with others there and headed for the park.

Korea does nature: Neon welcome signs!

(l-r) Sara, Ann, Me, Laura and Carp

Carp had given us a little idea about where we were going, but then he pointed out THIS:

Ulsanbawi Rock

And told us we were going to climb it! I almost fell over. It's over 800m above sea level, and we were about to climb 808 steps straight up the side of it, about 400m straight.
It's hard for photos to do justice to just how major this was!

This totally reminds me of somewhere in

Fiordland - minus the tui, and pohutakawa

We walked for maybe 1 1/2 hours up through forest, it was relatively easy going, we passed an amazing HUGE statue of Buddha, a temple and a hermitage where monks still live. I saw my first ever squirrels, chipmunks and woodpeckers - I was LOVING it, while everyone I was with (being either Canadian or American) scoffed at my innocence, but it was so novel to see these wee critters!

And to hear birdsong, it was lovely. So nice to be free of the hum of neon (excluding the welcome sign) and the constant blarring of K-pop music (as much as I do love it) and the noise of the city. Silence! Peace! And because we'd got our a into g so late, most of the Korean hikers were heading down and out so by the time we got to the base of the rock, we were almost the only ones left there.

This isn't the rock we climbed.

We reached the hermitage where there's a teetering rock, which (with effort) you can make rock a little - we all failed, and then watched one single (and slight) Korean man do it almost effortlessly.

The most daunting part of all was looking up at this rock we had to scale, there was a rickety ladder bolted to the side of it and they pretty much just went right up. I'm sure at home you'd not be allowed to climb this without some kind of harness, it was perilous at the best of times. I had moments of horrible vertigo looking back over my shoulder (which I quit doing) at just how far down the ground was.

One of the many, many rest stops - it was

incredibly hot despite being so high up

The view from the peak over Sokcho,

the city we stayed in, and the Eastern coast of Korea -

pretty close to the border with the North

At one point we passed a group of Koreans heading down, and a man was carrying a beer, which he insisted we take - pretty bizarre he thought the need to pack that for this trek, but we were pretty happy to receive it - despite it being warm and flat.

There was also an ahjumma (which is the word for an older Korean woman, who are pretty notorious around the place, they say they run the country) tailing along behind us using her hands and feet to climb, and we were determined not to let her pass us, so were super pleased when we finally made it to the top!

Lazzarin and I on the top of the world!

The temple back down on flat land, most incredible,

beautiful setting for one.

Sara and I having some well-earned Galbi
back in Sokcho

The next day was spent on a hot stinky bus home, there were plans for bungy jumping on Sunday but noone was feeling much up for it. We're hoping to get back over this way in autumn, apparently the colours are incredible, and there are many more walks to do, it's an area definitely worth more exploration!

Some very jaded travellers

Trains, Ferries and Automobiles

How to: Get to the Beach in Korea.

First, take a 1/2 hour taxi to the subway station, then take two subways to Dongincheon. Perferably have some sunshine in your foreground, and ensure you pack your togs, sunblock and a very cheery mood - you're gonna need it!
Also helpful to have a loud and still semi-drunk Irishman along for the trip for entertainment value. Thank you Aidan.

Sunshine and we're going to the beach - hurrah!

From there it's a simple cab ride with a fabulous driver who plays you A-Ha 'Take On Me' and ABBA 'Honey Honey' on the way - this is his driving music. But do not, under any circumstances, over enthusiastically begin to sing in horrible non-melodic voices. He will tell you to shut up and threaten to kick you out.
Arrive at Woomuido (I can't spell Korean place names) and get on a boat. Sing the predictable "Never thought I'd be on a boat, it's a big blue watery road" lyrics - they are compulsory. Watch Korean families throw food at seagulls with gusto and enjoy hundreds of the scoundrels trailing along with your boat across to the island.

Poesidon - Look at me!

Next, wait 1/2 hour for a bus while reading your Korean phrasebook and being rather proud of being able to read the signs around you for the first time - EVER! Enjoy a Korean man squat down beside you, take said phrasebook and laugh hysterically to himself while pointing out particular words or phrases. I guess these must be in jokes, as I found it funny, but not as funny as he did.

After a 40min bus ride across Incheon (an island, where the Int'l airport is, where I flew in, funny to be back) enjoy a leisurely 15 min stroll across a causeway and around a road to another ferry.

Board ferry. Watch as ferry turns around, travels for two minutes (at most) and docks on the other side. Question need for ferry and the possibility of a bridge. Dismiss. You're on Muuido!

So now, pack yourself into another bus like cattle (or some very intensive bus ghosting - ghosting for beginners if you will) and enjoy another 15 min ride along very narrow but two-way roads through farm land. Be pleased you can only see your friends' armpits and not how close you come to running down SUVs, goats, and children.
And then, dear friends, you are AT THE BEACH!

Six hours of travelling was SO worth it for this!

How to: Have Fun at the Beach

1. Swim. Ignore the lack of other swimmers. Ignore the brown water from the silt pouring in to the China Sea from the Yellow River. Ignore the floating bandaid and itty bitty little dead crab. Put your head under for beachy hair. Rinse. Repeat.

2. Beer on the beach. Obviously.

3. As the tide receeds, follow it, and you'll end up walking for about an hour. On the return trip, splash annoyed friends and marvel at the weird and unique sealife dredged up in the mudflats and laugh at the Korean families wearing plastic yellow waders while digging for clams.


4. Watch the sunset. Pur-edy.

5. Eat galbi (Korean BBQ) on the beach front. Combine with soju.

We are very mini. But we are also having a

whole buncha fun with sparklers. Yippee!

6. Realise fireworks are sold alongside sunscreen and shampoo at the one and only store on the island. Buy a bundle. Write your name in the sky.

Laz's bike is so much cooler - it's pink and has a basket!

7. Borrow/steal childrens bikes and ride around on 'em until you tire of it/until you break them/until a Korean woman - likely the mother of the children who officially own the bikes - comes and scolds you and whacks you on the bum to get off (yes, this is from experience. Bad, bad Sophie!)


8. Steal/raid wood and make bonfire. Fall asleep in front of it. Bliss!

Next week: Seroaksan - The National Park of Wonder!

Map: Not To Scale

My first weekend out of Suwon to a rugby tournament in Gumi turned into quite the adventure- which began when we got our train tickets from Suwon station and hopped on what we thought was the train to Gumi before being told it was in fact the wrong train.
The conductor was very helpful and said we needed to get off two stations down and RUN from platform 6 to platform 2 - we had five minutes to do so. Adrenaline was pumping as we rushed up an Everest of stairs with legs, hearts, eyes burning and getting to the top,running in circles a little before finding the right platform and being told we'd missed the train by about 10 minutes. And by some small miracle the next was delayed by 7 so we had enough time to exchange our tickets (and get an upgrade to first class, yuss) before we were finally on our way to Gumi.
It was great to finally see some countryside outside Seoul and it looked just as I'd imagined Korea, verdant bushclad hills and sinuous riverbeds. At times it looked like New Zealand, a little like Fiordland, a little like the McKenzie Country, but there was an "air" of Asia about it. Pretty cool.
After about 2 hours on the train we made it to Gumi. We'd been given a map to get to the soccer fields where the rugby tournament was being held, and had been specifically told it was not to scale.
We were intending to get a cab but suddenly on the map we'd walked half the way to the field and as it was such a beautiful day, we decided it was totally reasonable for us to walk. And walk we did... merrily down highways, then streets, then dusty roads, until we had walked all the way out of the city and were still only barely further on the map.
It was an amazing walk, the countryside was beautiful, it was so nice to be surrounded by mountains and rice paddys and farmland. It wasn't until we realised we'd been walking for over an hour and had little to no idea where we were that we started wondering how much further the fields actually were.
We passed a dog farm (heartbreaking, sounded like the SPCA, but we knew these dogs were not going to loving homes) which was on the map and eventually turned onto a semi-main road, off this dusty track we'd been on.
And this amazing Korean farmer stopped and picked us up with his ute and gave us a lift to the fields! It was the best, and saved us much much more walking.
The rest of the day was spent soaking up the sun, watching rugby (I love that I lived in NZ for 24 years and never went to a rugby game, been in Korea 5 weeks and that's where I was) and bush whacking to find places to pee (I avoided the longdrop toilet all day after the descriptions of the smells)
Home to our motel for showers before heading to a westerner bar for the most delicious burgers known to man and a shoeless danceoff - my favourite kind!
Here's a photo essay which is- as always - out of order


Laz and Sanders and the Chicken Dance, naturally


Dancing barefoot in Korea - scandallous

Kathleen and her best friend Cass

Laz, Sanders, Sara and I in the pickup

"We're on the road to nowhere"

On the wrong train

At some point on our long long walk, having a wee rest

So turns out you CAN get burnt through smog and ozone - who knew. So I embraced my newfound Korean-ness and whipped out my umbrella (ella-ella, eh, eh, eh) to shelter from the sun.

Back on the ute, happiness personified.

Tomorrow, When the War Began

Feeling slightly uneasy all the time at the moment due to the rogue bullet of a leader not all that far north. I really hope it's all just a bluff but you never can tell and I have never been so close to possible war in all my life.
And almost the scariest bit is all the news here is in Korean and I didn't even know about the tests until I spoke to my sister back home - anything could happen here and I'd be none the wiser.
Since I arrived there have been massive loud speedy fighter jets flying around overhead, freaked me at first but got used to them but in the last two days I have seen an unbelievable increase in the number. Noone around me seems all that phased but I just feel slightly unsettled and really hope a resolution is met quickly and without bloodshed.
Apparently if the worst did happen the US army would round us up and get us out, which is reassuring but still think I would prefer to stay here happy and continue my lovely new pretend life (this is not the real world. It is some random parallel universe where everyone acts like hyperboles of themselves back home, everyone earns the same and does the same job and things are ridiculously cheap, the money is pretend and time moves in fast forward)

Anyway, today was our first field trip with the school, we went to an arboretum which was fun despite the fact the arboretum was pretty small and we walked around it twice in a very short space of time. We had a picnic - picnic food here is gimbap, Korean sushi, but they brought us foreigners some sammies, and the kids kept feeding us all their delicious treats - and played some games and despite the following photos, where most of the kids do not smile (as is the style of Korean photos in general I think) a good time was had by all.
This is Brandt - of the "I love your mouth" card - bless him but he is a weirdo, him and another kid spent so long trying to pick me up by my legs today until he declared I was "heavy teacher" - well yes, you're 7 and I obviously weigh more than two of you.

co-worker Carp using a child as a weightlifting machine, as you do

This is the prettiest photo I have ever seen of Abigail, who usually squints, winks and makes herself look very unusual in all photos.

My school - aren't they a happy looking bunch! But the cuteness, oh, the cuteness

Me with Kenny, who has a misshapen, slightly cone head.

Kai and Sam in full flight playing a game

LOVE this photo - William is midair! And I love how all the kids are running in across the fields, it's so the Sound of Music!

Sophie Teacher and her class enjoying some gimbap (which last week I started singing to the kids in the tune of "Mmmbop" and it seems to have stuck, they ask me to sing it a lot - despite it really being a song with one word)

Who's sick of photos of my classes yet?! I honestly can see why parents take so many of their kids, it's hard not to.

But the creepiest thing of the day were we must have been right by an airbase because the number of jets was phenomenal, they were constant, and low flying and unbearably loud (cue lots of squealing from the kiddies) and I had a moment where I felt like we were in a natural disaster/war movie, happy school playing in a field before being bombed to smithereens. Unsettling for sure.