Seogwipo, High Five!

Went to Seogwipo (Soggy Po) on Jeju island for my week off this summer. I didn't leave Korea but I got as far South as I could. Where everything was most un-Seoul like.

For the first 3 days we took the coastal, scenic road around the island. It's not a large island, you can go from the northern most city to the southern most city on a direct road in about an hour, but we circumnavigated the island and took our time. Our vehicle was a sexy white scooter which required a not so sexy red helmet. We stopped at gorgeous turquoise water beaches and took roads that were lined for miles with seaweed drying in the sun, getting ready to be wrapped for your culinary pleasure around California rolls. The seaweed was occasionally joined by laundry lines of squid or blankets of garlic cloves, but mostly it was just seaweed. Another day, another road, a truck full of energy drinks has an accident and for a half mile or so we are intoxicated with fruity, highly caffeinated scents. Cows (both with horns! both male?) mounting each other but stopping to stare at us indignantly for interrupting. There were giant oranges, depressing zoos, and a pretty cool Mongolian themed Medieval Times park. Our navigation was not always at high alert. Went past Jeju-Si, the biggest city on the island, missed the entrance to one of the waterfalls, as well as the biggest temple in Asia (a claim I have some doubts about, but it was a large temple none the less.)

First night the drama unfolds like a high school tween drama. We drink from R2D2 at Cool Hoff before making our way to sing at Korean karoake late into the night. Wandering white boy ears hear the undeniably English voices belting out “Sweet Caroline” and open the door to join us in the famous chorus. For Seogwipo is a small town and there can only be so many English speakers. And they all know each other. A small town is a small town. Even if it is on an island. Ate great Korean food. Duck! Raw Pheasant! Hallabongs! Jaw-sicles! A meal made up entirely of side dishes. Sandwiches. Lots of sandwiches. Mmmm. Deserted houses in orange groves with newspaper clippings dated to when Clinton was first elected. Winking ajummas, bad movie sequels, good people, funny people, maybe one crazy, cute kids, even came across my own beatnik coworkers wandering aimlessly in parking lots and on piers.

Hallasan, the tallest mountain in Korea. On our way up a worker warned of dangerous shoes. I laughed it off, my hiking sandals serve me well in Seoul.

In Seoul the trails are not dotted with treacherous ankle breaking lava rocks.

Took the long trail up. Seongpanak. 3 hours up , 5 hours down. Never been so permeated by wetness in my life. On way up it was your typical mist, on the way down it was torrential downpour. Got to the top, took a picture. Looked at the lake and crater for a minute. Started shivering. And headed back down. Journey dotted with mysterious signs with the nonsensical phrase "The Top of an Election is a Clean Election."

Torrential downpours supplemented by beautiful blue skies, the likes of which are never seen in Seoul. Waterfalls. Many, many waterfalls. Tourist traps? Yes. But beautiful none the less. Waterfalls that have previous been devoid of water trickled a few drops down rust tinted mountain sides. Birds, lesser cuckoos, Roe deer, puppies, giant bugs and snails. My favorite part? Igor Fefflehoff

No Longer Just an Urban Legend

Fathers and grandfathers be warned: the entire point to this entry may make you uncomfortable.

A common grief that finds its way into the heart of every Western woman in Korea is the lack of bras. Not lack of. They're sold from the back of trucks and underground in every other subway station. But the lack of any sizes above cups that resemble the 1/4 measuring cup. For 9 months I've watched helplessly as my monster of a washing machine destroys clothing article after clothing article. And my bras were some of the first victims. The worst is when you open your washing machine and everything is just a big knot that you can pick up with one hand. And the binding that ties your jeans, sweaters, tshirts together is one bra, being stretched to its limits. But there's no where to buy bras. Even the American stores out here, like Gap and American Apparel, only stock items in children- I mean Asian women- sizes. A few foreign women whispered about shady dealings in dark alleys where suitcases were opened and wal mart bras were sold for hundreds of dollars. But the situation seemed pretty gloomy.

Until last Saturday that is.

I was wandering around Hongdae- a college/artsy/nightclub- area with no particular destination in mind. And I saw a Korean lingere store. For giggles, I thought I'd go in and peruse the merchandise. Not expecting anything to fit me. The quiet shopkeeper came over to me after watching me for a few minutes. And proceeded to cup me, nod her head, open a drawer and hand me the most lacy ribbon adorned bra I have ever seen. She ushered me into the dressing room, gave me approximately 45 seconds of privacy, before entering and manhandling me once again. Very few words were spoken during this exchange. The first one didn't really fit but she came back with a bra mysteriously labeled 85C (have no idea what the western equivalent would be and through al the persuing I've done in the bras sold from the backs of trucks and underground I've never seen a letter bigger than A) that lo and behold...FIT! A bra! In Korea! I was thrilled with my discovery and was quick to purchase many different colors, all equally lacy and donned with ribbons. I'm not going to call any of them particularly pretty. But they're bras. And they fit.

Happy Birthday America!

The First week of July- otherwise known as the birthday week for the white colonial nations of North America. July 1st is Canada Day (add 1 more thing to my new found knowledge of that delightful country) and 3 days later is America's. I went with Michele and Maranda to an area north east of Seoul called Gangwon Do. First thing we did was go whitewater rafting down some rapids (making pit stops along the way to jump off rocks and partake in an odd ritual where the guide of your raft would hold you under neath ice cold streaming water, twisting your neck into the stream). That night we celebrated the 4th in grand style. BBQ, music, fireworks, juice box sizes of soju. We had it all. We also had mud wrestling, people passing out, steam engine snoring. Needless to say we started the next day's river trekking hike nearly 3 hours late and some stupid people who did the entire hike in 2,500 won flip flops from Homeplus. Like yours truly. I went pretty fast but my feet are still mad at me.

Partook in my second hike with Warren yesterday. Warren of the-lets-play-hopscotch-across-the-peaks-on-Bukhansan fame. We hiked in Buyongsan and Cheongseongsan, about a 2 hour commute from Jamsil. The group was small and extremely multicultural. I represented the only American, there were 2 Canadians, a Pakistani, a Bolivian born and raised Korean, and Warren making his outrageous generalizations about Chinese and Japenese and everybody in between. We hiked in 90 degree weather for about 16 km but the forests were beautiful and reminded me of parks back home. It took several hours to complete but Warren kept us entertained with the two Michael Jackson songs he had on his cell phone: We are the World and Beat It, which he kept playing over and over again while hiking in honor of MJ whom passed away yesterday. We also attempted to bust the myth of fan death, discussed which language bilingual people chose to curse in, and I discovered that I have the option of suing my doctor for giving me a semi-outie belly button. We ended the hike with my first ever hitchhiking experience! Warren wanted food and mekju so we hitched a ride in the back of a truck to a restaurant famous for its tofu soup. The Han River lazed peacefully next to us for most of this hike, as lazy and fat as rivers come with lily pads and rice growing thickly on its banks. I'm sure we were just a few miles from Seoul but it felt so far, far away from the ant hill chaos that the capital often fills like. For a few hours, at least.

There's a myth on Jeju that people take their elderly parents and grandparents to the island, and return home without them, having left the older folks there to roam as they will on the biggest island in Korea, a way of setting them free in their old age. Jeju is to Korea like fertile fields are to retired cows and horses. Jeju is called by some as the Hawaii of Korea, but I never really saw the comparison. It just didn't seem fair to do that. There are farms just a few yards away from white, sand beaches and the hills bear more resembelence to the rolling nature of Irealnd than the tropical sexiness of Hawaii. Whatever one wants to call Jeju is a personal choice, for me I call it the best place in all of Korea. And I'm making that bold statement having just seen a handful parts of the peninsula. The 3 M's of the Kids College office set off together yet again, with plans to meet up with a fourth M, a guy called Matt whom I met at Polly's Tavern in Itaewon a few months back. An excellent tour guide, and a pretty good looking guy as well :) He was gracious enough to show us around his island and even though we only had about 36 hours on the island, I'm fully satisified with how enthusiastically we embraced it.
On Friday night, after a commute where more time was spent traveling to the airport than in the actual air, we got a room at a cheap love motel and had mystery meat tacos at a Mexican restaurant. We got some beers to drink on a pier made entirely from giant man made rocks that looked like pieces from a game of Tetris. On Saturday we headed to Seongsan for a leisurely hike up to a very green, very large, very windy crater. As soon as we hit the top of it we were blasted by a wind that immobilized skirt-wearing Maranda until Michele rescued her with a pair of capri pants. We got our first glimpse of haenyeo's-female divers who scour the ocean floor off the island’s gnarled coast harvesting conch, octopus, urchin, and abalone, they dive without tanks holding their breath for up to two minutes at a time. Pretty impressive. And by impressive I mean tough as nails and scary as hell to meet out of water. Coupled with Matt's spirit guide bird, the Blue Rock Thrush, I felt as if I met the most authentic inhabitants of Jeju-do. After the hike we headed to Udo Island, a small island off the north east coast, where we rented scooters and scooted our way around an island that was as picturesque and as homey as tropical islands come. Like the foolish girls we are,we underestimated the power of sun when behind clouds and we all three developed interesting tan lines. And by tan lines I mean intense sun burns. Early Sunday morning I went swimming in cold, cold ocean water with the girls, refusing to leave the water until my legs were literally turning blue. We had been bitten by the scooter bug, so we chose to spend our remaining few hours on Jeju scootin' some more before taking the ferry back to the mainland, saying goodbye to Matt, and heading back to the airport to catch a reluctant flight back to Seoul.