Just to catch up- the first day, we visited Gyeongju where we went to the Bulguksa Temple, Anapji, and the Tomb Park. Bulguksa was my favourite- not only was the scenery and architecture stunning, but seeing the monks praying in front of the statues of Buddha, with rows of red lanterns on the ceiling was a really breathtaking visual. That night we met up with some of Jamie's friends in Pohang, and went to a couple bars (where I tried Soju Cocktail- yummy.) and then Noraebang. (Korean karaoke) Needless to say, Party Rock Anthem was stuck in my head all the next day.
Breakfast: Kimbap
Lunch: Sundubu Jjigae
Dinner: Barbeque Eel
Day two, (Sunday) we slept in and then met Rebecca and Sang Yul, and their two kids, Hanneem and Jason, for coffee. (Also this is funny- Tom and Tom Coffee is basically Korean Starbucks.) Afterwards we drove back up to Donghae, met Miya and went out for a little.
Breakfast/Lunch: Kalgooksu
Dinner: Vietnamese Shabu shabu
Monday, after catching up on email etc, I took the taxi to Miya's pharmacy where we ordered in Bi Bim Bap, and then went next door to Rumorpang to get tea. Afterwards, I walked along the Arrow River and saw a bunch of old guys fishing along the side. So cute! (Gwi yeo weo!) On the way home, the middle school girls got out of school and they all would giggle and say "Hi! Pretty!" when they saw me, or they would just stare. Uncle Jamie says that there is a total count of three blonde haired people in Donghae right now, so that's why.
Breakfast/Lunch: Bi Bim Bap
Dinner: Japanese udong and fried shrimp. (We tried to go get what Uncle Jamie keeps referring to as 'Clamicken'- it's where they cook chicken and clams and one GIANT clam all together. The restaurant was so small and smoky though, so we went to Japanese, which was good too.)
Tuesday, Uncle Jamie and I put together our thermos' of coffee and drove up to Mureung Valley, where there's another temple and lots of hiking trails. The air was so fresh up there, which is way different from down in Donghae. The leaves were changing colours too, and the river (which connects to the Arrow River) was so pretty running over the rocks. We ate lunch at a restaurant on a patio overlooking the river and talked about how if life was ideal, it would be amazing to live in a place like that, and sleep out on the patio in the summer. Uncle Jamie had to teach a class so he drove back down and I stayed to go hiking. I went on a really good longish hike to see the twin falls, which I'd heard were amazing. Took lots of pictures. This was probably the most beautiful place I've been to.
After I had taken the bus back down to Donghae, Jamie and I met up with two teacher friends, George and Yelly, and went up to the orphanage they teach at. I wanted to meet the kids so I went too. They were all so cute! It was George's birthday so we had a birthday cake and then we played Scrabble, since they were being taught English. I couldn't really speak with them much, but I helped two girls find words to put down. Later when we left, they walked us out to the car, and called me Eoni, "older sister." In Korea, people are very personable and people call each other "aunt," "uncle," "younger brother," "older sister" etc, so it was nothing strange, but it was still really sweet. And when they walked back into the orphanage, they yelled "Sister bye!" in English.
Breakfast: Coffee?
Lunch: Baek Banchan
Dinner: Ssambap
Wednesday, I went with Uncle Jamie to visit the elementary school he works at. The grading system here is a little different, so I can't remember what grade they were in but they were 10 years old. (Korean age- in Korea, I'm 19. Here, when every baby is born, they are 1 year old, and then every New Year's, everyone gets older. Birthdays aren't really a thing. We celebrated George's birthday because he's American and I think they wanted to show the kids how we celebrate birthdays.) Anyways, when each class started walking in (there were four total) they would see me and ask Jamie who I was, to which he replied, "I don't know- I walked in and she was already there!" It's so funny watching their reaction to a completely different looking person. They wanted to touch my hair and my nose ring, and after class started and Jamie and Sunny (the other teacher) introduced me and opened it up for questions, they had so many! They asked what the nose ring was, if I was married, if I danced and sang well, if I liked MarioCart, and snakes, and mice, and kimchi, and Starcraft and... well, it went on like that. That day they were learning the weather, and they would do this cute dance to learn it.
(Sorry if this is really low quality)
Afterwards, we went out to lunch, and then Jamie dropped me off at Cheongok Cave, which is right in downtown Donghae! So I went spelunking for about an hour... I even had to wear a hard hat, which turned out to be a very good idea because I kept hitting my head in the tight spots. I was almost positive the old korean guy that was handing out the hats and punching tickets at the mouth of the cave could hear the noise I was making and be able to tell that it was the clumsy american girl who couldn't find the ticket booth until he had pointed it out twice. Heh. When I had double checked to make sure I had seen every crevice in the cave, I went outside and as I was about to hail a cab, I saw a wooden staircase that went up into the trees above the cave. It had a map next to it and it looked like it was some kind of park, so I decided to mosey around in there for awhile. The stairs kept going up, and there were paths that broke off and I could see pretty gardens and an ampitheatre to the left of me, but I was determined to see how high the stairs went. I ended up at a platform pretty high up and I could see the ocean and most of downtown donghae from there. That's when I noticed a small dirt path leading even farther up, and after looking around to make sure no one was watching I started walking up it. As it turns out, I found myself in a labyrinth of hiking trails, way up above this cave, all of Donghae surrounding me! And there were graves, too, overlooking the water. It was so peaceful, and I could tell that it was an incredibly ideal spot to be buried in. I walked up to the highest peak of the mountain I had gotten myself onto and at the very top there was a big rock pile/tower thingy. It was cool, but I still don't know the purpose of it.
Breakfast: Seaweed soup, fried egg, rice.
Lunch: Tonkatsu, cream of mushroom soup.
Dinner: Ori galbi
Today was less exciting, but still fun. I visited Bukpyung Girl's Middle School, which Jamie teaches at, and went into each of his classes and did the example dialogues with him. All of the girls were so sweet, and they all thought I was really pretty. It's funny that all of the things that are more traditional about their appearance, they think is ugly. They like bigger, more open eyes, and higher bridged noses, etc. I tried explaining to some of them that I really liked how they looked too, and I thought they were really pretty, but in my EXTREMELY broken Korean it was difficult. Jamie let them ask me questions at the beginning of class. How old are you, where are you from (to which the answer was, the area Twilight is in, to which the response was "WAOOOHHHH!"), did your nose piercing hurt, why are you in Korea, do you have a boyfriend? (I think the affirmative response to the latter had the biggest reaction on the girls... one girl even shouted "ME TOO!" Hee, hee.)
Anyways, I think I'm going to go back there next week. There was a couple of girls who wanted me to visit them again and so I probably will. I'll take pictures then, too. Today was just really nice meeting all of them, and seeing what Korean girls close to my age are like... I wish I could've spoken with them more and gotten to know them better, but I'll visit next week and maybe then I'll be able to understand more.
Breakfast: ...
Lunch: Squid, rice, kimchi (It's probably needless to say that I ate kimchi- I've been eating it at every meal almost. Haven't gotten tired of it though!)
Dinner: Not yet.
Glad to see you went with Cardigan Kitten, like I said, All kinds of warm planets.
ReplyDeleteomg! you have had a full trip so far! please post descriptions / opinions / pictures etc on the food too!
ReplyDeleteYeah, I probably will in the future. This post was already so long that I figured the most I should do on food was say what I ate. But the rest of my posts will be a lot smaller. So I'll talk more about it.
ReplyDelete