Korea #8

I had a really eventful weekend, and also an eventful end of week. It’s Sunday night now and I last wrote on Thursday, I think.

Friday was the last day of elementary camp. It was not as bad as I’d thought it would be; the kids were sad to leave us but of course elated to go home and see their families. I took tons of pictures that will eventually get online; I’m hoping to make it to a “pishibang” (PC room) and get my computer hooked up. This whole no new pics up for two weeks thing is driving me crazy, as I have several hundred and want them online!

So on Friday after the kids left, Abbye, Wim, Brianne, Shannon and I got in a couple cars with some of the Korean co-teachers to go to Mokpo for the weekend. We were so lucky to get both a free ride to Mokpo AND a free place to stay on Friday night. Mrs. Bark, one of the co-teachers who lives in Mokpo, had a student in her normal class whose mother had a spare room in the city, so we got to stay there. It’s kind of crazy—we just randomly stayed at the house of a total stranger with whom we couldn’t even communicate because we can’t speak Korean. It sounds weird but I actually think this is pretty normal for Korea. If a person has an opportunity to be helpful…they’ll take it, instead of turning up their nose like most people in other countries do.

So first we went to E-mart, the Korean equivalent of Target or Walmart. We bought some stuff, including some wine in a can, and then went to Pizza Hut, which tasted exactly like American Pizza Hut, and was heavenly. Just can’t get enough pizza lately. Then we walked up and down some streets near Pizza Hut and ended up going back to E-mart again because I spilled wine on my shirt and needed a new one, and Abbye needed some new shoes. Also, we needed ice cream. For some reason, they wouldn’t let us buy the ice cream bars individually; a Korean woman adamantly demanded that we buy eleven or none, and we had to put them in some kind of special freezer bag. So finally we gave in and bought eleven, each ate one or two or even three, and then had Wim offer the rest to the small children hanging around the area.

Strangely, there was a rabbit hutch outside the E-mart. I have no idea why. There was no sign; even if there had been I couldn’t have read it, but regardless there seemed to be no explanation. Just a random rabbit hutch with about seven or eight sweet bunnies in the middle of a grassy lawn in the middle of Mokpo, next to an E-mart. The poor bunnies licked our fingers when we stuck them through the cages, but then miraculously some guy came and just dropped some huge bag of lettuce in front of the cage and left, so we fed them big handfuls of lettuce. Then we decided to hit the town. We went to some bar where they put really nasty smelling dried fish and peanuts on our table and got us a pitcher of Hite (crappiest beer, I swear I’m so sick of it; but there isn’t really much else. Korea is the worst beer place I’ve ever been). We drank it and moved on, trying to find a bathroom and walking around with big bottles of beer and generally being obnoxious. Finally we found a bathroom—in a “Sexy Girl Bar.” We used the bathroom and then decided we should go in because we felt bad for using the bathroom and not buying anything. It was really bizarre. The girls were clearly a little more than just dancers—I think it was sort of a place where you might pick up a callgirl. You couldn’t just buy one mixed drink; it was the whole bottle or nothing, and the vodka was $130. A little more high class than we were looking for, so we drank one beer each and left as it was fairly clear that the girls were bored of our low-level spending and the fact that four of us were girls and would not be a lucrative source of income for them. We were the only females in that bar that weren’t working.

After that we were wandering the streets and came upon some more foreigners. One was from Vancouver, WA. We ended up falling in with them and went to some bar, where I progressively became drunker, took a zillion dorky pictures, made out with a cardboard cut-out of some Korean celebrity, and was generally retarded. Then when we went home, we got lost. Our cabbie did not know our address and was kind of irate, so eventually we just got him to drop us off in the vicinity of a landmark we were familiar with and wandered the streets of Mokpo at about 1:30 in the morning. Finally, thankfully, Shannon found the place we were staying and we made our way up to the apartment and crashed out. We had thought to try and make it to Jeju on Saturday, so we set our alarms for 5am. Unsurprisingly, we did not get up at 5am to catch the earliest Jeju ferry. We got up and all took showers; then the woman who owned the apartment had made us breakfast, which I did not eat as it consisted of many fishy smelling things, kimchi, and rice. NOT my idea of breakfast food.

Unbeknownst to me, we had learned of a smaller but just as beautiful island near Jeju called Bigeum and had decided to go there when we missed the Jeju ferries. So, first we went to E-mart (visit three!) and bought some beach towels and snacks for the ride, including more beer. We managed to get to the ferry station and on a ferry okay, and pretty quickly we were on our way. It was just over a two hour ride to Bigeum. The ferry ride was actually quite pleasant; the weather was beautiful and Wim had bought some cards, so we played Hearts and talked and drank beer until we docked at Bigeum.

It was not overly impressive when we landed. There were some less than appealing little shops, an unfinished visitors’ center, and no taxis or phones. We were actually quite clueless as to what to do. This is where the biggest stroke of luck in our entire weekend happened—there was another foreigner there, a teacher from Seoul, with his girlfriend who was a Korean English teacher. Their names were Nick and April, and April was our saving grace. She kindly called a cab on her cell phone for us as well as for them and negotiated a room for us at the same hotel as the one where they’d decided to stay. They had not been planning to go to Bigeum; the ferry to the island they were going to had not been running for a few days and so they were kind of stranded, as were we since we had not had any idea of what we were really getting ourselves into.

I have never seen any place as amazing beautiful and abundant as Bigeum. It was absolutely incredible. When our cabs came, April had negotiated that they would take us on a bit of a drive tour around the island before we went to our hotel. We drove through the most lush, green forest I’ve ever seen before emerging on a gorgeous beach mostly devoid of human activity. We drove down the beach, watching the sunshine glistening on the water and feeling like we were in some kind of commercial advertising the beauties of Bigeum—it was surreal. It turns out the beach we were on was one of the longest beaches in Korea; I think it was about four kilometers long, but I may have heard wrong. Regardless, it was breathtaking. There are not words to describe the beauty and sense of awe we felt as we drove down the beach. It is totally cheesy, but it really made me choke up a bit at the sight. I’m such a crier though, that’s not really any big shocker. We stopped and got out to look closer at the ocean and saw that the wet sand seemed to be carved with strange round designs. At closer look, we discovered these strange designs were snail tracks—the beach was absolutely covered by small snails.

We got back in the cars and went to our motel, which was on the beach (a mud beach though, like the one in Jeung-do), and was pretty darn nice at only $50 a night. Then we went to another beach. It is part of a national park and is known as Heart Beach, because the inlet is shaped like a heart. We swam in the ocean—it was cold, not like Jeung-do—and because it was starting to be pretty windy, there were tons of huge waves. It was a total blast, leaping into the waves and letting them carry us towards shore, coming up coughing and laughing and spitting out the disgusting salt water. After we’d had our fill of the water and it was getting a little too cold, we went on the sand to dry off. The sand there was covered in tiny sand-colored crabs. It was funny to watch them; many of them were digging holes and we would see them pop their heads out, throw out a handful of sand, and then return to dig more and come out to throw more sand.

After the beach, we went to a store and bought snacks and ramen and beer and soju for dinner. We spent the evening preparing ramen, talking, drinking, and playing Presidents & Assholes. We went to bed around midnight, although we didn’t fall asleep right away; Abbye and I had a random second spurt of energy and got a little ridiculous.

It was extremely rainy and windy all night long; as we’d worried at the beach seeing the clouds come in, a storm had arrived. I am not sure it was a typhoon, like last weekend in Jeung-do, but it was bad regardless. When I woke at 7:30, the storm had mostly ended but our fears were confirmed when April said that there would be no ferries running that day, or even Monday. We really thought we were in pretty big trouble. However, there was another opportunity: chartering a private boat. It would be expensive, around 300,000 won or maybe even 400,000. We weighed our options and decided that even if we did have to spend 80,000 won apiece to get home, we’d saved a lot of money by not staying in a motel the first night and going to Bigeum instead of Jeju—the ferry to Jeju was 50,000 won vs. the ferry to Bigeum at 7,000. So, we ended up going for it, but then it turned out that a lot of people wanted to ride…like 25 people, on a ten person boat.

That was an experience. It was pouring rain and extremely choppy on the sea as the captain navigated his boat through the waves. We were crammed into a hold designed to comfortably hold about ten people, seven of us (Nick and April ended up coming) along with about 18 Koreans. There was no room. We had one small spot in which we each took turns stretching our legs into; otherwise, we mostly sat with our knees pulled to our chests. Honestly, even though I consciously knew that the captain had probably seen worse weather and did not seem afraid in the least, I was a little afraid for my life. The boat was tossing in the waves, sometimes seeming on the verge of capsizing (I’m sure that was just the impression I had; still, it was terrifying). The ride lasted just over an hour. I have never been so happy to get onto dry land.

After that, things were mostly uneventful. We went and bought Nick and April lunch in appreciation for all they’d done for us. We bought bus tickets back from Mokpo to Haenam, said goodbye to Nick and April, and made it on the bus mostly without mishap. Koreans seem particularly fond of making their sidewalks pretty with these stones that are really, really slick when wet. I was running through the rain, trying to avoid getting wet as much as possible, when I fell and landed smack on my ass in the middle of a puddle, also ripping the strap on one of my flip flops so that it now hangs ridiculously on my foot and is mostly impossible to walk in. So, I got to sit on the bus with a wet butt, but fortunately I slept through most of the hour ride.

We unloaded in Haenam, went to Wim’s apartment and made sure my host family was home, and then Abbye and I caught a taxi to home. And here we are; we ate a wonderful dinner, showered, and I feel so much better. Tired, but great. Our trip was so much fun and it was so unplanned. There was something really cool about going into it with only vague plans and just trusting that things would turn out okay. I mean, maybe not so good that we didn’t find out more about Bigeum before going; there were no landlines there and it was at least five miles to the nearest hotel, and you had to call a cab to come get you…tough for uninformed Americans with no cell phones. But, regardless, things turned out okay. Great, actually. Amazing and fun and I felt so incredibly lucky to see the sights I did and to be with the awesome people I was with. Putting faith in the idea that things will work out because they usually do was a little tough but really exhilarating. So that was my weekend.

Now we start middle school camp in the morning. I think it will be more difficult that elementary camp in many ways; I think it will be hard to become as fond of the students and to develop similar bonds. The teaching may be easier, though. Also, I move to a hotel in the morning. I have really enjoyed my homestay but I will be glad to go. It will be nice to just go have a beer after work without having to arrange transportation, etc. The hotel is in the middle of downtown, near many shops and restaurants.

Anyhow, this is pretty long and I need to go to bed, so I will write more another time. Hope all’s well for all my friends and family.