Beijing Day 4

No, you did not mysteriously miss Day 2 and Day 3,  I am just skipping ahead because Day 2 is skipping my memory at the moment, possibly because Day 4 was my favorite day in Beijing.  As for Day 3, Alison will be the author of that post because the visiting the Great Wall was her lifelong dream, so my words could not do it justice.  So here is Day 4.  

Monday was our last day in Beijing.  Our flight left at 6:45 pm so we had until about 3:00 pm to wander around before we had to get a cab from our hostel.  Alison and Katrina went to Silk Street to do some more shopping.   I on the other hand wanted to see some different parts of the city. So I rented a bike from our hostel for a mere 4 dollars and set out to explore the city.  I had looked at a map the night before and plotted some destinations I wanted to see.   Olympic Park, a city park(so I thought), Pearl Market, and Snack Street(again) were on my list.  I thought I could do math AND use my finger as an accurate means of measuring distance on the map, turns out I can not do either.  What I had thought would be a 10 mile journey at most, turned out to be a 30 mile one.  The legs were a little wobbly the next day, but even after I finished riding, I had not realized how far I had gone.  I had read somewhere that Beijing was as flat as a Mahjong table. Corny, but oh so true!  It was so flat, and every street had a massive bike lane, and a seperate set of lights just for bikes at every intersection.  I have to admit that pulling out into traffic to pass buses that were picking up passengers was a little nerve racking, but the cars in the road actually respected the bikes and gave them the right of way.  I guess that is how it works in a city where literally millions of people commute on their bikes everyday.  It was also thrilling knowing that when I was on that bike I was controlling where I was going.  I don't miss the cost of having to put gas in a car, but I do miss being able to go where I want to go, when I want to go, and being able to stop when I want to stop.  Being on a bike for those 5 hours gave me that.  It was a lot more fun than I had expected, and I wish I could have done it for a couple more days.  Here is a map of Beijing.  I put some place markers in Blue, and my bike path in Red.  

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Beijing Day 1

It's true, I did put a moratorium on Sam's blogging until we had pictures because, really, how do you explain things like The Great Wall in words?  Even the pictures we captured don't quite do these places justice.   As Sam already described our first day I thought I'd just give you a quick recap with pictures.  We're working on getting some of the 1200 pictures we took over the weekend up on the picture page, so check there if you want to see more!

As Sam said we really hit the ground running when we got to Beijing.  We stayed in a great hostel, The Red Lantern House.  It was a great deal... in a historic hutong, room for 3 (using the shared bathroom) for $33 a night.  The front desk staff was super helpful as well and directed us to lunch and a bus to the Summer Palace, which is about 45 minutes north of the city.  Here are few shots from our journey:

The Summer Palace was absolutely gorgeous.  We are quite used to Palaces in Korea, which are generally pretty small in scale and were somewhat unprepared for the sheer scale of the Summer Palace.  We were pretty wiped out from traveling all day, but easily could have spent more time there than we had.


After the palace we decided to head over to Tienaman Square.  We got a bit turned around coming out of the subway (which is in no way as well marked as Seoul's), but had fun exploring the area on the west side of the square for a bit.

When we got closer to the square we realized that traffic was being re-directed and there was no way to actually get into the square as the underground tunnel was blocked off.  There was also a pretty big crowd gathering, but we couldn't figure out what was going on.

Then we saw the guards marching across the road and realized that we were there for one of the two times a day that they bring everything to a halt in order to raise and lower the giant flag.  Kind of cool to see.

By this point we were famished and decided to hoof it over to Snack Street, which Sam filled you about.  After that we headed back to the hostel and promptly passed out!  The day was a great start to our trip... but the next couple of days just kept getting better and better!  Be sure to check back soon for the "Day 2" installment :)

Sunday Night In China

Alison has requested that I wait to fully blog about the rest of China until she can add pictures to give y'all the full effect. Here is a sneak preview though......shhh

We went to...
The Forbidden Palace
Tiananmen Square
The Great Wall
Pearl Market


We ate...
Scorpion
Seahore
Meat on a stick
Giant Eggrolls
More meat on a stick
Candied fruit on a stick

We bought...
alot

Hello From China

We made it!!! We are currently in Beijing. We flew in yesterday morning, dropped our stuff at the hostel and headed for the city. Yesterday we made it to the Summer Palace, which is absouletly enormous compared to the palaces in Korea, but parts of them are not as well kept. Korea has done an excellent job of preservation and upkeep with their palaces. The Chinese have not done so with all part of the Summer Palace, which actually made it more interesting. All the fading paint, cracks in the walls, heads missing from statues, and worn down stairs gave the place a lot more character and made it seem more authentic. We then made our way to Tianenman Square in time to see the lowering of the flag. For dinner we found the "Snack Market." It was about 1 acre of food stalls with all sorts of goodness. Grilled corn, giant eggrolls, candied fruit, and EVERYTHING on a stick. I mean everything....Squid, lamb, seahorse, scorpion, starfish, octopi, etc. We were just plain hungry last night so we kept to the normal stuff, but the stranger items will have to be tasted before we leave. Don't worry, there will be plenty of pictures of that adventure. Today we are going to the Forbidden City, then maybe some shopping and possibly an acrobatic or Kung Fu show tonight. Sunday will be dominated by the Great Wall, which we are really getting excited about. It has been Alison's dream to visit the Great Wall since childhood, and it is the main reason that we chose China as our only trip outside of Korea this year. I think we are going to try to update everyday while we are here since there is so much that we are doing, it will be hard to remember after we get back. So check back again tomorrow.

The Korean Way

There is no telling how many blogs entries I could write about "The Korean Way." I've got work on my mind today though. I can't claim that I have ever worked in an office full time back in the states, but I have done some part time work. Most of that work consisted of planning ahead for future events and being given deadlines for projects, whether they were big or small. These things simply do not happen in the office here. About a month ago I was told that I would be giving a presentation on the new curriculum for our company's academies. They gave me two weeks to get ready, which was actually quite amazing. Consider what I have been told in the past 48 hours(the beginning of a new term) at our office1. There are no questions for the novels for three of the nine levels at our campus2. Potential investors are coming to watch you teach a different teacher's class on Wednesday.3. A few hours later I was told that I would instead be teaching a different class, still not my own, and another teacher would also be observed.4. Just 4 hours ago I was told that someone from one of our big investors was coming to take some pictures.5. What actually happened was a small film crew(foreigners) showed up and wanted to film some classes. 6. Talking with them, they told me that they had just been contacted 3 hours ago by our investor when they heard that this crew was in Korea currently and asked them to swing by.7. We should dress up tomorrow for the investors.Everything is just so last minute. Luckily I perfected the art of scrambling during my college days. I was good at procrastinating and even better at working on the fly. But I also love having things organized, and my Korean co-workers are often impressed by the little things that I do. I actually came in on Saturday to get some work done. One of the things I wanted to accomplish that day was make an assignment sheet so every teacher knows what sections of their books they need to cover in class. Since we share some of the books with the Korean teachers, it can get confusing because one foreign might teach the same level 4 times, but have 4 different Korean teachers that he or she co-teachers with. So all I did was make a spreadsheet that had the titles of the sections of the books, and underneath them they were marked F for Foreign, K for Korean, and B for Both. They were amazed! It was as if they had never even thought about organizing this before, and they probably hadn't. It must just be a cultural difference that the norm is for them to fly by the seat of their pants for everything. They roll with the punches, sometimes complaining, but generally not. For us foreigners, it is a little more difficult, but everyone slowly learns to deal with it.

August

Hey everyone,

I apologize for not being as loyal to you as Alison has been. August has no doubt been a busy month at work, but I know y'all don't care about that. So lets get into the exciting stuff. Watching the olympics here was really something to witness. While South Korea is a top medal contender every Olympics, they win about 1/4 the total number of what the USA wins, so every medal is celebrated. Some of the highlights of watching the Olympics here were watching Park Tae Hwan win the countries first ever gold in swimming, a Korean woman winning the gold in taekwondo, and of course watching the Korean baseaball team dominate, which culminated with Jordan, his girlfriend, Brady, and myself going to the local pro baseball stadium to watch the gold medal game versus powerhouse Cuba televised live. We were surrounded by 40,000 Korean baseball fans. Admittance was free, and tall boys are always just $3, so it was a cheap and fun time.

Jordan leaves in two weeks, so he and I went east for a man's weekend. We took the bus east to Chuncheon, which was alright, we managed to find a festival, but no real good activies, other than the carnival games. We only played one, I performed better, and was awarded with a yo-yo, but the lady felt bad for Jordan, and have him a big roman candle(which he carried with him for the rest of the day). We thought this might be the case, so we hopped on another bus and headed farther East to Inje, which is toted as the adventure sport capitol of South Korea. We managed to find a place by the river where we set up Jordan's tent. Then we made the 15 minute walk into town to find some dinner. We got some pizza and fried chicken at a local joint, and ate it in front of a convenience store down the road. While there we made friends with a guy that is a rafting a ice fishing guide. He gave us his number and e-mail address, so we are going to hook up with him again come ice fishing season. After we had stuffed our selves with food and beer, we hailed a cab back to our campsite and played some cards(and finally set off jordan's fireworks) before getting some sleep. We resisted the sun, but it finally woke us up around 8. We then made the walk into town again to figure out where we would raft/kayak. We figured out where we wanted to go and grabbed a cab, he dropped us off at this place up in the valley along a nice flowing river. We ended up using inflatable kayaks. Our guides were two guides about our age. The trip was about 2 hours and we got plenty of sun, and the water was cold, but felt great. After drying off we waited for the bus and took it back to our campsite. We then made the walk back into town again to find some food. We ate, chilled by the river. Then Jordan went bungee jumping from 63 meters over the river. Pictures to come later. We then made the walk back into town again, and then jordan realized he left his wallet at the bungee jump place. So he took a cab there and they had it, and then came back into town(this time in a cab cuz we had a bus to catch soon). Funny thing happened on the way back to the bus. We were walking down a hill towards the bus station and from behind us we hear a "Hey!" We turn around, and its our friend from the night before, and he asks, "did you find your wallet?" and were thinking how does he know Jordan lost his wallet? Turns out, the people at the bungee jump place went through Jordan's wallet and found this guy's number that he had given to us, and called him to try to find us. HAHA. It was such a small town, only 30,000 people. We will definitly be heading back to Inje again.

Sokcho

I told you'd we'd be catching up eventually! This is a bit out of order, as we actually went to Jeju before we went to Sokcho, but a) Sokcho was the more "interesting" trip (i.e. we did more than lay by the pool) and b) I already posted a few pictures from Jeju, but none from our super fabulous trip to Sokcho.

Sokcho is on Korea's East Coast, just a 4 1/2 hour bus ride from Seoul. The buses in Korea have the Greyhounds back home beat by like 200 times over. For just $44 per person round-trip we were treated to arm-chair sized leather seats with foot rests and a rest stop half-way there that American rest-stops could learn a thing or two from!

So, we hopped on the bus with a vague idea of what we would be doing over our 4 days there and had decided to pretty much just wing it. Sokcho appealed to us because it had both the beach and the mountains in close proximity. It turned out to be one of our absolute favorite trips we have taken so far and we are already making plans to return this fall!

Sam's family went to Sokcho during their trip to Korea and picked up a brochure for "The House" hostel. We tried to call ahead and make reservations, but ummm... forgot, so we thought we'd just see when we got there. The man who runs this place is super friendly and helpful and came and picked us up from the bus station to show us where the hostel was (it's a bit tricky to find). For just $30 a night we got a small, functional room with a bathroom, ac, a water cooler and a mini-fridge. We also got a modest (free!) breakfast each morning and there was a computer with internet access. Plus the lobby was super cute. The bathroom was a bit dicey, and if you're planning on heading out during the summer I would definitely make a reservation, we had to move rooms the 3rd night to a room with no AC (but they were nice enough to accomodate us even without the reservation).



Our first order of business was to check out Seoraksan National Park. As you can see, it was absolutely gorgeous. The entire time we were there was great hiking weather! The first day we took a short hike up to a waterfall and then the cable car up to a peak whose trails were closed.


Not a great picture, but I post it because when we got up to the waterfall everyone had their shoes off and was enjoying splashing around, and I was amazed by all the tiny kids they managed to haul up the literally 20+ flights of stairs that make up the end of the hike. (Plus, they couldn't get this kid to stop picking his nose for their own photo which kind of cracked me up.)



Sam and I split up on the 2nd day and we both had quite the adventure. Sam climbed the highest peak in the park (which I'm sure he will post about some day) and I decided to set off to find Hwajinpo, a small town north of Sokcho.

Let me just say that whoever writes directions for a certain very popular guidebook might need to be fired. For most of the day I thought I was lost in the Korean countryside and would probably not ever find my way back... but I ended up making to my final destination unscathed beside a minor sunburn from hiking in the direct sunlight (and slight embarassment because they neglect to mention that entrance they guide you to is actually a vehicle entrance so I waited in line with a car both in front of and behind me MUCH to the amusement of the woman at the ticket booth).

While there I was able to see this house, which is where the infamous Kim Jong Il summered as a child. It was pretty interesting, but maybe not so much worth the 1.5 hour bus ride each way and then half hour hike. If only that guidebook had told me there was a great beach nearby I would have brought my suit!

We loved going to the beach at night. It's quite unlike the States where they have to shut the beaches down early so that people don't wreak havoc! Instead it's like a big party with families everywhere shooting off fireworks and walking along the water.

Our last morning there we decided to walk along the harbor and see the fishing boats that had just come in from their night's work. We got to see some fresh caught squid and guys working on their nets.

Then, we noticed these gentlemen gesturing at us and they invited us to sit down for some raw squid with chili paste. It was absolutely delicious! They spoke very little English, and we speak only a very little Korean, but we had a really nice conversation for about half an hour. They were super impressed that Sam climbed the mountain, and they all wanted to touch his beard.

Then we decided to check out the lighthouse. Poor Sam, soooooo many stairs the day after he climbed the mountain! However, it yielded a rare decent photo of the two of us together, so I think it was well worth it!

After all that walking and climbing and such we decided to treat ourselves to the "Sokcho special" of... fried goodness. We got ALL of this food, plus the ddok bokki in the background for $2! The fried shrimp and fried pajeon were amazing, and I'm not even that big a fan of fried things.



So, there you have it, more than you ever wanted to know about our trip to Sokcho!