Hiking Gatbawi part 1

So I went hiking over break, I rode the bus to Gatbawi on Mt. Palgongsan.  It was incredibly beautiful, the leaves are just starting to change.  Apparently in the next few weeks the leaves are really going to start changing I guess that means I will just have to go back! If I can ever move again... I kid, mostly...

The bus ride up was pretty lovely.  I also passed the Lotus Themepark... Not sure what you do there but it was interesting looking.

Finally I arrived at Gatbawi on Mt. Palgongsan.

This was at the starting area right after you got off the bus. 

They lure you into a false sense of security with those nice evenly spaced steps slowly making their way up the mountain... Little do you expect what is waiting for you...

He was bigger than the building! 

Not really sure how they get up there...

When they say hiking is Korea's national past time they really mean it there were a lot of people out enjoying the beautiful weather on their vacation.

Those stairs are looking a little less harmless...

Time for some random pictures of... Whatever I took pictures of...

 So I have finally managed to get blogger to load some of the photos that I have on my computer!  Yay for working computer programs!  I love it when technology chooses to work for me...

This is a photo from the last typhoon we had.  It looks hazy but that's actually just a downpour!  I had read somewhere that Jeju island got almost 100 inches of rain during the typhoon.










This is a water fountain in the Banwoldang subway station. 

This is the green line.  I ride it to get to Daegu.

IT'S SOOOOOOO PINK.....  I have a friend that would be in heaven here.

The 17th annual Yeungnam University Rock festival.  Some of the bands were fantastic and some of them... well they tried really hard?  This band fell into the second category!  I was rather entertained that the lead singer was wearing a Lamb of God t-shirt.

Got really crowded later in the evening but was a lot of fun!

She was incredibly fantastic!

This is a famous singer in Korea apparently!  She didn't really seem like a rock singer but was still pretty good.

Mario was shy apparently.  This is downtown Daegu.

At the YU Rock concert with Rachel, Newri and Me Yeung!  It was a lot of fun!

Me Yeung, Rachel and I!

Time flies when you're having fu... Well time flies!

Well I can't believe that it's been over a month since I posted!  I've always been bad at keeping journals too!  The time is just flying.  We've been working a lot at work.  I'm now teaching an adult education class Wednesday evenings and 3 Saturday mornings a month I co-teach a gifted class.  So a lot of extra work going on!

This was the first year since 1968 that 4 typhoons hit the Korean peninsula.  So for a few weeks we were getting a lot of rain.  It seemed like after one another one was following for a while.  What was also unusual was the timing.  Apparently it is rather rare for Korea to get typhoons this late in the year.  I arrived on August 1st and was present for 3 of the 4 typhoons.  Some areas of Korea were hit pretty hard and there was quite a bit of damage.  Where I'm located though we are surrounded by mountains so that provided quite a bit of protection, we mostly just experienced intense rain for a few days and some wind.

Although I haven't really had a chance to travel a lot so far, I've gotten rather good at getting around in my area.  It does tend to take me a while though when I'm in downtown Daegu, doesn't take very much to get turned around in a city that houses 2.5 million people.  Already been warned that means I'll more than likely get lost in Seoul.  Which I suppose is okay I find some of the niftiest things when wandering around disoriented.

The 17th annual YU (Yeungnam University) Rock Festival was in September.  It was free so my friend Me Yeung from work and her friend Newri decided to go.  Rachel even rode the subway over from Daegu to go with us.  It was so much fun!  Some of the bands were awesome!  Some of the band were... well interesting.  All in all for free entertainment it was unbeatable!

The beginning of October is Chuseok in Korea.  It's a huge holiday for Koreans that is pretty much like our Thanksgiving so I have the next 3 days off.  It's going to be epic!  This evening I was invited to Me Yeung's family's house for dinner.  It was great.  I really do wish I knew more Korean.  Her family is amazing.  She has a younger sister and 8 aunts and 3 uncles!  It was quite a full apartment but it was hilarious listening to them all talk and laugh.

I have a lot of pictures that for some reason blogger isn't letting me upload right now!  :/  I'll try to upload them next time I sit down at the computer!  So hopefully I have something shiny to put up here soon.

My Walk Home

My apartment complex is on the last road before the rice paddies and farms start.  If I go one direction I see countryside, if I go the other direction it's city streets!  Today after I left work I decided to take some pictures of my walk home just because it really does look like I'm emerging from the jungle!

My apartment is the corner one.

All the construction materials for the subway station are across the street from my house.  Today they had a crane there and they were moving big stacks of things.

My apartment complex is next to the building with the giant bowling pin that's how I can always find my way home lol.  Also those bowling pins are an insanely popular way for bowling alleys to let you know that they are hidden away in a building.  That particular bowling alley is on the second floor above a fried chicken restaurant and below a gym....

After passing through this little road (that's almost like an alley) you go from the city to countryside almost.

Walking towards the school.  That giant apartment complex seems to be for wealthy people.  I always see really expensive cars parked in front of it...

These are grape vines.  I'm not sure what the coverings are for as I've yet to see a bird in Korea...

More grape vines.  There are like 3 seperate orchards of them between my place and the school. Also a bunch of Jujube orchards.

Koreans don't like to waste space.  Even the fence posts are used to hold up bean plants.  Every square inch of land is used to grow something...

I honestly can't tell if this is a natural river or irrigation.  Either way it's pretty...

The rice comes up to my waist now.  It looks like a tall field of grass right?

I keep wondering what they have growing in those greenhouse looking buildings.  If I were to guess I'd say peppers just because everytime I look at a plant if I don't recognize it when I ask it's a pepper plant of some sort.  The Koreans love their spicy food!

I really love the mountains that surround us.  They seem to make just about any picture of the city just a little bit prettier.  Today it was a bit hazy around them though...

Peppers!  Seems like they are being grown everywhere!

These are like cicadas.  They are soooooooo noisy! He doesn't look like it but he's huge too.  Korea has some truly startlingly large bugs... These guys don't bother me but don't get me started on the spiders I have seen already since coming to Korea...

Almost home by this point.  As soon as I round the bend and see the bowling pin in the distance I know I'm close lol!  It takes me about 10 minutes to get from the school to my house so not a bad walk... Unless it is as hot as today was then it's a bit miserable and I'm sweating by the end of it...

My apartment complex.  Wish I could get the picture to rotate so it is standing upright!  The 1st floor is a really delicious cheap restaurant.  Lunch there is only 4500 won (about 4 USD)!  That is where my school takes the teachers to lunch when the cafeteria is closed in the summer.  We ate there a lot when I first got to Korea!  They make this cinnamon tea that is delicious!

I hopped on the bus today to go to E-mart because I wanted to buy another sheet for my bed so I could wash my sheets, got there and bought groceries.  I got everything I needed for making Japchae and some jujube wine to try.  Rode  the bus all the way home only to realize that I got everything but sheets!  Guess who gets to go back tomorrow?  *Insert sigh here*  The problem with doing laundry here is that without a dryer it can take up to 3 days for things to dry depending on what it is...

Tomorrow I am going to try to ride the subway into Daegu to go to Daiso!  I want to buy some cheap stickers and candies for my kids.  I only have two more days of summer camp so I want to make it fun for them!  They are all great kids so hopefully they can behave for two more days until English camp ends!  Today the older kids in the 5th and 6th grade class got into a super intense K-pop discussion during one of the activities.  They all like different bands and had to find out what music teacher liked to listen to.  The level of fan devotion that these elementary school kids are able to have towards a pop band is intense man!  Thankfully I passed and they all decided I had decent tastes.  Yay I'm cool.... To a bunch of elementary school kids... sigh...

To Daegu!

Today was close to the tail end of my vacation and since I have been limping around on a bad knee for the past week I hadn't gone anywhere yet.  Since I've been getting around and feeling okay I decided to try the transit system and made my way to Daegu.  The transit system in South Korea is amazing!  I am truly amazed by how convenient and easy it is to get around whether it is bus, subway, etc.  I rode the bus to Seomun Market which is the oldest historical shopping district in Daegu.

  

The tall brick building across the field is my school!  It's the only building tall enough to see over the trees.  Apparently that is a jujube orchard, jujubes from this area are famous and are used in teas and liquor among other things.  I've never eaten one...

This is the construction of the new subway that is going to be 3 blocks from my apartment.  With everything torn up it's hard to believe they plan on having it done by December!

I keep wondering what these little trees are they are everywhere!  Really pretty but none of them look very big.

Some days everything feels so foreign here that when I randomly come across stores like this it makes me laugh a little.

I've seen a Dominos, PizzaHut, McDonald's, Burger King, Starbucks, Dunkin Donuts and a Baskin Robins so far in Korea.  Haven't eaten at any of them yet...

I love how close nature is.  No matter how crowded or big the city is there will still be random little parks everywhere.  There were a bunch of people outside here laying in the grass next to the river.

I had felt like Gyeongsan was rather large but the giant buildings in Daegu really do make Gyeongsan seem like a small town.  Also the traffic is insane!  I can't imagine what it would be like somewhere like Seoul!

I made it to Seomun Market!  The largest historical shopping district in Daegu and one of the oldest.  Apparently it has existed since the  Joseon  Dynasty although it used to be called Daegu-jang market and existed in another location.  It was just gigantic.  Walking around and looking at stuff was amazing.

There were fish vendors everywhere.  All kinds of seafood (some of it still alive) were at various stalls.  While I was taking this picture I was standing next to a bucket that was moving and almost dropped my camera when I realized it was full of live eels... They looked like they were trying to escape!

Huge fresh flower market! It was so beautiful.  I had wanted to walk in the store but it was INSANELY crowded and I learned very quickly that these women are serious about their flowers!  So I just took pictures from a safe distance!

This was a huge wig store!  I had never seen so many wigs all in one place...

There are supposedly over 4,000 vendors at the Seomun market.  The market is 3 floors and an underground level and literally covers like a city block.  What is disconcerting is to walk between vendors only to have a motorbike speed by.  Those guys literally go everywhere...






After I wandered around a bit looking at things I met up with Rachel a super awesome teacher living in Daegu.  She showed me how to use the subway, and my ATM!  It solved two of my major problems all in the span of like 10 minutes.  We went to dinner and visited and then she took me to a huge underground shopping center near one of the subway stops!  It was amazing and convenient as it was raining by this point.  I have 4 umbrellas in my apartment that the previous tenant left behind.  Did I bring one?  Nope...

I bought 3 CDs and a few things from Daiso and then Rachel made sure I got on the right bus to head home and I got back at about 11!  It was a long but wonderful day, probably the best I've had so far!  The one day I'm gone of course is the day that they tried to deliver a package my mom sent!  Tomorrow is Korean Independence day so Thursday I will see if the Korean teacher would be nice enough to call the number they left on my door.

Around Gyeongsan

So I was at work for about a week and a half before it was time for holiday.  Everyone in school was going on vacation this week so I have an abundance of free time.  I wish I could say that I was doing something terribly exciting but as of yet not so much although tomorrow I plan to go to Daegu.  Gyeongsan is considered a suburb of Daegu as the city and my town have pretty much merged into a very large expanse of metropolitan with just a green stretch of farmland and a small river separating us.

This is the view from my apartment.  The green fields are actually rice paddies.  The rice looks kind of like tall grass up close.

This area is surrounded by mountains and apparently two of them are very popular hiking spots.  From what I understand that is Daegu in the distance as it is over the bridge.  Once you cross the bridge apparently you are in the outer Daegu area.

The International Center at Yongnam University.  At least I think it is Yongnam University....  There are a lot of universities in Gyeongsan.  Despite being a smaller city Gyeongsan prides itself in it's education. This international center offers classes to foreigners who want to learn Korean.  I bought a beginner textbook already!

There is a huge building back there.  I was intrigued by it's interesting architecture and was told that it was a museum by another foreign teacher who has lived here for a few years.  A huge museum that is run by the University!

All of the tall buildings and people amaze me.  When you are walking through the town though it is incredibly common to see an old house, small park or trees just randomly amidst skyscrapers.  Although the city has grown so big the Koreans seem to like to leave nature alone whenever possible.

This is the road leading down to my apartment complex.  The city looks rather large for a rural area right?  You can find the most amazing stores just wandering around.








Well those are just a few of my photos hopefully tomorrow I will have cleaned my apartment enough that I won't feel insanely guilty taking and posting pictures of it.  I was given a two bedroom apartment, I expected the living quarters to be tiny but my apartment is actually a fairly decent size and so far I have loved it!  It is conveniently close to school.  Right now I don't have a very good view though because of the construction of a new subway stop.  All of the building materials they are using are literally stacked up right across the street from my apartment complex.  Oh well.  Come December apparently the new subway will be open and they should be cleaning it all up.  Then I will only have to walk 2 blocks to take the subway to Daegu!

In Korea!

I arrived in Gyeongsan, South Korea at approximately 1:30 in the morning last Wednesday and have been going ever since!  It's crazy trying to settle in.  I had to be at work at 10:30 the next morning!  My bosses have been incredibly nice though in helping me with the transition.  Tomorrow is my Monday and marks my first full week of work.  I hope to have some good pictures up for everyone soon.