Last Day of May

 

Holy smokes it's May 31st. We can't believe that we've already been here 3 months. We've been in Korea for about 3.5 months, but we've been in Buyeo for over 3 months now. The time has flown by and it's already June! I guess we're settled in now, and planning future travel within Korea and neighboring countries (though not to the North). Japan in August and Thailand in the winter. That said, we're loving life in Buyeo right now!

 

I've finally been getting out on my bike here in Korea and it's been absolutely incredible. The paths here are great, and today I did a 76km ride, mostly on roads and the roads are just as awesome. I was worried about riding in Korea, as I've heard that it's not great to ride on the roads, but from my experience today, I think that only applies to the cities. Out here in rural South Korea, the roads are great quality, the traffic is minimal and the drivers have been extremely courteous. Today’s ride was an adventure. I set out with the intention of riding all along the path towards Nonsan and then crossing the river at Nonsan as I did last week and then make my way home along the other side of the river. The only issue with this was that about 8 or 9k in, the path (a boardwalk section) was closed and I had to turn back. Instead of riding all the way back to Buyeo, I cut into a little neighborhood and rode along the main road past the rice fields and little homes. The road was better than I expected and the traffic was virtually non-existent. I check Google maps on my phone and found a route that would allow me to bypass the closed section and eventually make my way back to the river. It was a big loop around, but
I was excited to ride around and see some new sights. I rode through some small villages and even past one of Julia’s schools. It was absolutely gorgeous. I even managed to draft behind a tractor for 5 minutes or so, as he was going at a perfect speed. Once I got back on the path I was only about 5k from Nonsan. The path at this point is great, smooth riding. I crossed the bridge where I had intended to, but instead of getting on the path and coming back along the river I decided to follow the road I was on and see where it took me. It was a perfect little route. It took me past a middle school in Sedo, where I will likely teach next semester, and through Imcheon, where I visited with some other teachers. Did I mention that the roads were great and the traffic was light? I had a blast. There were a few long climbs that put a wee sting in the legs, but the descent on the other side was well worth it! Once back on familiar roads / paths, I calculated how much further I had to ride to hit my 75km goal for the day and just got it done. It was a glorious day for riding.

 While I was out riding, Julia went for a walk on Busosaeng Mountain. IT was a perfect morning for it, cool but sunny. Apparently there were many others out this morning as well! We both have some seasonal allergies that are making us seriously congested. I’m more or less over it, but she’s still feeling it big time. The yellow dust from China doesn’t help either. The air on the mountain is considerably better and so it was a nice reprieve for her.




After we both got home and cleaned up, we went out to get a cushion for our couch. We went to Jin’s (my main co-teacher at my main school, whom I don’t actually teach with, but that’s another story) mom’s store in downtown Buyeo to pick one up. We looked around and settled on one that looks like a hippo. Everything was going perfectly, until she wouldn’t let us pay! We were more than happy to pay, but she refused to accept our money. So kind! We will be giving her a small gift with a thank you card. J

 
 The rest of today will be laid back (totally counter intuitive) so that we’re ready and rockin’ for the week. No more holidays between now and the end of the school semester (7 weeks away) so it’s pretty full on from here on out! That said, classes are often cancelled and this week I don’t have any classes on Wednesday (I’m normally at my school in Oesan) and no teachers class (2 periods) on Friday! So 5 of my 22 classes this week were cancelled! This means more prep time for all of the others!
 

Lastly, while walking around town yesterday, some of Julia's students spotted us and ran up to say hi (and give out hugs). We snapped this photo with them.

 

Most of May

As has been the overarching theme with this blog lately, I'm going to open with a comment on how terrible I've been at consistently adding content. It makes the task even more daunting as I can't fully recall everything we've done in the past three weeks!

My last post was after exploring Gurye and Jirisan. We then headed to Busan for a couple of days.

Here's what I'll do. I'll just make bullet points for everything I want to cover, that way I can stay sane while trying to get this thing caught up.

Busan:
- The day we got into town, we met up with our friend Lindsey that we met in orientation. She's from North Carolina / Chicago and we did our practice lesson at orientation with her. She's also in Chungnam province. We had Indian food, which was extremely nice as we don't have options other than Korean or Pizza here in Buyeo. We love most Korean food, but it was nice to have some more options!

- Later in the day we met up with another couple from Tennessee that we met in orientation also. They're in Andong. We get along great with them and really enjoy their company. We had Mexican food and then a great evening of drinks and good conversation.

- The next day we explored Busan.

- We walked along a boardwalk by Heundae Beach.

- We went to Busan tower and had a great view of the city.

- We went to Jagalchi Fish Market and were absolutely blown away by the size of it. Everything you could possibly want (seafood wise) is there.

- We went to the top of a massive department store (12 or 13 floors) and had a coffee in a nice park that is on the roof.

- We had more Indian food.

- The next morning we spent the morning at the beach, skyped with Mom and Dad Lafleur AT the beach and then headed for the Subway station to make our way to the express bus terminal and eventually home. We took the bus to Daejeon and then to Buyeo. It was about 6 hours of total travel time.

Friday the 15th:

In the evening we went up the mountain for a couple drinks at a pavilion and a view of our city at night. We came across a little performance and watched for a bit. It was a lady in traditional clothing singing some songs that everyone but us seemed to know and were singing along. We made our way up to the pavilion and enjoyed the view and then Skyped with Andrea, John and Sierra. It was very cool as we were able to Skype from the Pavilion on the mountain, and then walk down, through downtown and back to our place WHILE Skyping them! So they got a bit of a tour of our area.

Bike to Gunsan

Last Sunday (the 17th) we biked to Gunsan. Gunsan is on the coast and is about 60 - 65km to cycle to along the river. It was our first time out on the bikes together. It was a perfect day. The route is great because there is no traffic (except the odd car that finds it's way onto the path) and decent quality path with great views. Halfway along the trip, we were riding through a bit of a forested area when we passed by a make-shift restaurant set up with a tarp and some picnic tables and rudimentary camping cooking equipment. We were summoned over and decided to take them up on the offer of free Makgeolli. They were extremely kind and we had some great laughs even though there absolutely zero understanding of each other's languages. One other cyclist was there also and was from Gunsan. He had cycled to this spot and was heading back and asked if we could cycle together. Of course we obliged! As we cycled, we had a tiny bit of back and forth, basic conversation and he stopped us a couple times for photo ops. He eventually took us to the bus station in Gunsan where we waited for 3 hours to take a 2 hour bus ride home. We ate two meals as we were very hungry by that point, so the wait wasn't all that bad!

Day In Seoul

This past Saturday (the 23rd) we spent the day in Seoul with our friend Jane (English Name). She lives in Incheon and goes to University in Seoul. She was a student teacher at one of Julia's schools and they became friends. She showed us around Seoul for the day and it was a ton of fun. She showed us Insadong, which is an artsy area, a street with all traditional houses, a bit of Gangnam and Namsam mountain, which had great views of Seoul! Fun day!

Day in Nonsan

Yesterday (Sunday) we went to Nonsan. Before leaving though, we did our workouts. Julia went for a run in the mountains and Brian went for a 60k ride around the river area. It was hot. We wandered around Nonsan a bit, went to a cafe and then made our way to Home Plus, which was our planned destination for the day. Home Plus is a department store that has a lot of things that we can't find in Buyeo. We spent $300 and loaded up some groceries that are difficult to find in Buyeo, and some cheap clothes. :)

Happy Birthday Buddha

Today was another busy day! First we started with our workouts. Julia did a workout on the roof of our building and Brian went for a 17km run along the river.

We then walked to the Boys middle school and met a teacher (Mrs Yun) from Brian's main school, and her daughter. Her daughter is moving to Ottawa in August to attend high school. Her English is fantastic, as she spent last year in Arkansas. She will stay in Ottawa at least through the end of High School and possibly go to university there as well.

We went to a temple in Oesan (where Brian also teaches at a school). It was busy with people visiting as it is Buddha's birthday, and so a National Holiday. We walked around the temples and learned a lot. We were then treated to a delicious lunch of Bibimbap, Acorn Jelly and Panjeon. We also ran into a student of Brian's who was excited to see him.

After lunch we headed to Boryeong and met up with a group of people that Mrs Yun plays badminton with. They were spending the day hanging out in a park along a river. Extremely beautiful and peaceful. They were nice people and offered us some drinks. One of Julia's students was there as well as she is a member of this badminton club and apparently a very good player! We will have to get lessons.

Leaving there, we went to a sculpture park (also in Boryeong) and looked at some art, sculptures and animals. There were sheep, a deer, a couple pony's, ducks, rabbits and more! It was a very neat little place. Very busy though, because of the holiday.

Now

We just got home and I felt compelled to write this, so I did.

We are about to head back out see what there is to see, maybe make our way to a temple that is on the backside of Busosan Mountain. Apparently they light the lanterns in the evening and it's beautiful!

Jirisan National Park and Hwaeomsa Temple

I'm writing this while sitting on an express bus from Gurye to Busan. It's Sunday morning (May 3rd) and we've just don't two days in Jirisan National Park. We weren't really sure what to expect from this place, other than it's popular for hiking and is the biggest and oldest national park in Korea. It lived up to every expectation.

After researching our options for getting from Buyeo to Gurye, we decided to take a taxi. A very expensive taxi. It ended up being about 200,000 WON ($210 CAD) and was about 1:45 in duration. If we bussed or took a combination of buses and taxis, it would have easily taken 6 hours or so and would have been pretty pricey also. In hindsight we should have fired out how to rent a car. Our current commute is not too bad though. It was an $8 taxi ride to the bus terminal and then $16 each for the bus. 

As soon as we got to our motel (it's called a pension, but I don't quite understand it, so I'll just call it a motel) we dropped our stuff off and headed for the national park and the mountains. We were situated quite close, only about a 5 minute walk to get to the National Park, which had an entrance fee of 3500 won. We walked up along a River and past a resort and eventually hit the temple. It's a pretty big temple with many building and is actually quite touristy, but monks still live there and go about their business. After some time wandering around we found the trail that led up the mountain. We took this for about an hour. It's quite steep hiking and the trail is mostly made up of rocks and boulders that you scramble along. We eventually came across a random cafe and stopped for iced Americanos, as you do. Leaving the cafe, the trail gets quite steep and it's 5km to the top. We made it a little over half way and decided to turn back. It was just taking too long and we had started too late in the day to make it worthwhile. We hung out beside the River for a short snack break and to cool down and then started making our way down. We were in shorts and t-shirts and sweating like mad, while Korean hikers were ALL wearing long sleeved shirts and pants, so had gloves and some had warm hats. It just doesn't add up!!

We made our way back to the temple and then down and out of the park to some nearby restaurants. We had a meal at a restaurant and went back to our motel to clean up. We decided to head into Gurye and check it out. We caught a cab along the road while walking as we wouldn't be able to walk on some of the roads that take you into town. The kind taxi driver dropped us off in the middle of the town and refused to take our money! He called it 'service'. We wandered around the town, looking for another restaurant to eventually have dinner at. While walking, we saw a couple foreigners step out of a building and so we approached them. Turns out she lives in Gurye and was able to make some suggestions. We eventually found a good little place and had yet another bibimbap dinner (I also had kimbap). After dinner we caught a taxi back to our motel and passed out pretty easily!

Yesterday was a much more relaxing day. We got up and made our way back up to the national park and back to the cafe along the trail. Again we had Americanos and enjoyed the views. After this we wandered all along a dirt road back down (3.5k) to the temple where we hung out and watched the goings on. We eventually went to the resort that is in the national park and got some traditional Korean adult beverages that we enjoyed outside. While in the resort, we noticed some massage chairs. They looked good so we went back to test them out. $1 got us 10 minutes of glorious deep tissue massage, just what we needed to stay relaxed. The rest of the day was pretty laid back, another meal and then eventually back to our motel around 7:30 where we hung out outside until 9:00 or so and then off to bed...

And so now we are on our way to Busan and the second leg of this trip!