Chuseok Break Part 3

The Mists of Gonju at 8:30 AM

I decided to change it up and lead you in with a picture. Please return to contemplating it and seeing all that it has to offer you, even finding hidden symbolism for your life. The mists obscuring the sky (symbolic of the unknown future) but letting the light through (either the light of God if you are uncreative, or the promise of a bright future if you are equally uncreative and also not-religious), the river of life running through it all, nature on one side and man’s constructions on the other (set in opposition through which life wends, touching both and of both yet neither), and so forth (Whoa, way too philosophical in here. I am, like, waaaaay the deepest, man.). Now return to the present and notice that the time for that shot is somewhere around 8:30 AM. That’s because Erin, Heather, and I took the 7:05 bus from Cheongju to Gonju operating under the information given to us by a fellow teacher that the bus ride would take 2 hours. It didn’t, so we had an hour and a half to kill. We used that time to wander the streets and see what we could before we were shackled to the strictures of the guided tour. It was a good choice because we got to see that lovely time of day that I shared with you at the top of this post and many fun parts of the city:

Nut festival!

This counts as a fun part. Cuz look how happy that nut-boy is.

After wandering and getting even more exercise in (I am so healthy here!) we made it to the museum to meet up with the Adventure Korea tour that we signed up for. The first two parts of the tour were through a museum of the Baekje Kingdom which existed from roughly 18BC-678AD (or so we understood from the guide, you can check the Wikipedia if you really want) and through the replica tombs of one of the Baekje Kings. Not much to say about that except the following shot was probably the highlight of this first segment:

Korean juice is torture.

Having heard of grape drink and purple drink, I was shocked by this grape squeeze and this apple squeeze, but now that I think about it a little more, I think the best exhibit (still can’t compare to the image of squeezing grapes to bottle/can and drink their blood) was the following:

The Buddha from straight ahead.

The Buddha from the side.

Well done on the Buddha.

Then we were off to eat our lunches (packed) back at those tents from the first picture and exploring the little stalls, food stands, and music presentations going on around us. Very lovely. Finishing our lunch, but still feeling a mite peckish, Heather and I made an amazing discovery: 1,000 Won fried rice cake/pancake with sugar and ground chestnut filling. Wicked sweet, wicked cheap, wicked good. A perfect topping to the meal (No pictures because we ate them too quickly). It also proved a great segue for our minds to get extra psyched up for chestnut picking! Hooray for pretending to be agricultural laborers for an hour! Erin and Heather had been playing this up for the past week and how they would be getting “3 kg” of chestnuts and how jealous everyone would be come Christmas time (If even one more person sings “Chestnuts roasting on an open fire…” in my presence before December F****** 1st, you will lose all respect I have for you, permanently). And now we were going to realize the dream of chestnut acquisition yuppies everywhere: GET ALL THE CHESTNUTS!

We whiteys pulled up to the chestnut farm (immigrant workers bussed to the farm…), handed bags, and told to go fill them (if we wanted). The bags did not seem able to hold a full 6 pounds, which several members of the group commented on. This seemed to be a point of some embarrassment for the leader as she looked at us all sheepishly and told us that there had been a mistake (always passive voice “there has been,” never “I made” or “they sent me the wrong information”) and that it was 3 pounds (1.5 kgs), not 3 kgs. Erin and Heather were a little demoralized by this development, but recovered well and we continued to hike up the mountain to pick chestnuts. Oh yeah, the chestnut trees were planted on the steep slopes of a mountain, not in a field. So we got even more exercise! Disclaimer: I will not be held responsible for the havoc that my perfectly sculpted gluteus maximus will cause when you see it after all my cultural and nature excursion-adventures. Seriously, I’ll be akin to a Greek God. The other thing they didn’t quite tell us was what to be prepared for in terms of “picking chestnuts.” A nut is a nut, right? They grow on trees, you pull them off the tree. Right?

WRONG!

So that brown, shiny nut in the center of that sea-urchin-tennis-ball-from-Hell is the Chestnut. The sea-urchin-tennis-ball-from-Hell is exactly as it sounds. Painful as sin and it will draw blood if you so much as graze it with bare or regularly-clothed flesh. You have to peel off that sea-urchin-tennis-ball to get to the chestnuts inside (anywhere from 1 to 3). Then, you have to inspect the nuts themselves (ha) because if there is a hole in it, that means it has maggots and you just lost a finger for nothing. Actually, you are supposed to find the ones that have dropped and are partially opened, then use your feet to pry them apart to get to the nuts (insert joke about Rex Ryan here). I just went around and used a stick to hit partially open ones out of the tree and take the nuts out of those. Not a bad gig, but fairly painful because even after they have fallen, the husks (the sea-urchin-tennis-ball-from-Hell) are sharp enough to go through the sides of shoes (Erin was wearing sandals too, so she was way up proverbial creek). We all managed to wrest as many nuts as we could hold from the vicious Korean Chestnut gods and made our way down the mountain full of pride. As we were leaving, we noticed that there was a giant kiddie-pool-sized tub of chestnuts where everyone could fill up their bags if they had not succeeded in trapping their own wild ones. Yay…

At this point we headed back to those tents from that first shot (far more people hustling and bustling now though) to prepare for our march through the fortress dressed as Baekje warriors! As there were 3 hours until the march started, we were brought to a little mock village across the river for some more cultural experiences and to find dinner. Not much to say about what we did: made some rice cakes, ate dinner, and dressed in “traditional Baekje royal garb.” This photo here is of Heather and Erin all accoutered in said garb.

Heather (l) and Erin (r) in royal garb of the Baekje culture (or so they told us).

At this point, it was 5:10 and we were a little tired (having been up and going since 6:00), but more importantly we had found out that we would not be wearing the warrior garb of the Baekje times. Instead we would be wearing just a jacket. Somewhat disenchanted, we decided to save ourselves the 2.5 hours and catch the 5:45 bus back to Cheongju so we could detox and get ready for school tomorrow. Oof, the break went by already? I don’t get another all year? Aight, I’d say I enjoyed my break and can live with myself. Here’s hoping I can survive the next two days to the weekend and the next week to payday without spending any money I don’t have… Thanks for reading! Hope you liked hearing about my break. As a reward I will give you a rare picture of myself, instigated by and approved by myself:

His Holy Highness, and Emperor of Eminence, Defender of the Realm and Protector of the Downtrodden, The Tiny-Headed Indefatigable Leader of Ineffable Wisdom!

Chuseok Break Part 2

Ok! So you made it to the Tuesday of Chuseok Break a.k.a. Chuseok Break Serial no.2! Congratulations on making it through no.1. If you didn’t read prt1, I understand how much you value this friendship and you can take a giant step back and literally go… back to prt1 and read that. Or if you are the impatient sort, here’s a recap: I spent Friday night doing Karaoke and drunk playing Call of Duty with a coworker of mine (Mason), then did the same thing Saturday, went to a spicy dinner Saturday night with a bunch of us foreign teachers, then Sunday and Monday proceeded to play all the video games with Mason (Halo, Call of Duty, Skyrim, and Dungeon Siege III). In my post I also talked about cheap food, solved global poverty, and explained the meaning of life, but you were too concerned with your 9AM job “start-time” to read it. Thanks. There, now you are all caught up to Tuesday, Oct. 1.

So on this most auspicious of days, Mason and I were forced to deviate from our normal course of action (video games and sexual jokes/solving the worlds’ problems) in order to familiarize ourselves with some Korean history and culture in the form of the Sangdangsanseong (Sangdong Fortress). Joining the dynamic duo of Heather and Erin (2 other coworkers of ours just returned from an exciting weekend in Seoul, we made a midday start to walk around the fortress and get some exercise. Now, to get there we could have walked for roughly 2 hours along the dangerous roads of Cheongju, or take a taxi. We decided that we’d taxi there and if we felt that we could walk back, we would add that to our exercise. Well I hailed a taxi cab (it being the first one we had seen in roughly 5 minutes) and we piled in to start our adventure (like a herd of turtles, as my family would say). The first thing we noticed was that our driver was sitting way leaned back and shifting in his seat a lot. Then we noticed that he wasn’t able to keep his foot on the pedals. Then we realized he had a severe case of something akin to Parkinson’s Disease. I’ll spare you all the gory details of that trip in favor of summing up: we arrived at the fortress safely, but scared out of our minds. Now at the fortress, we wanted to begin our nice 4 km hike to see some beautiful vistas and soak up the ancient Korean wisdom residing in the very stones we walked upon.

The Hike!

We beasts in human form were going to conquer the hell out of this hike: Mason is a rural Canadian, Heather is a volleyball player, Erin is Ms. Makes-all-the-adventures, and I know how to lean on shoulders/convince others to carry me. Seriously, Mason did this hike in flip flops and a beater. Instead of telling you about what we saw, I’ll just show you since a photo is worth 1,000 words (2,000 of mine if you include my tangents and verbal stops).

All hail The Great Welcoming Turtle of Sangdangsanseong!

Our pagoda’d point of path-taking!

Pretty painted picture of pagoda posterior (interior)!

View back to our start point from part way up the trail.

The Cheongju vista.

Look at that little cairn along the path. Funny.

The thumping Three Musketeers.

The 2nd Pagoda’d Gate. And Mason’s right side.

All hail the fire-extinguisher toad!

Happy Dragon says _____!

As we went a-wandering…

Boom. Korean Fortress. Perfect views, strenuous exercise, and fun to do in a small group. Now it was time to head home, but there was nary a taxi in sight. We could try the bus or walk it back. We waited for the bus and found it bursting to the gills. So we decided to hike. Down a mountain. No biggie, there are roads and it was a beautifully sunny day out. Plus, if we got tired we could always just call out to one of the hundreds of thousands of taxis that are always driving around. That was the plan anyways (ha, foreshadowing!). We started down the mountain and began to realize something: no taxis coming up this way. Then we realized something else: any semblance of a sidewalk had disappeared. So Krazy Korean drivers are whizzing by at roughly 60-100km/h (which is somewhere between 100-3000 mp/h for us Americans) and we are walking in the breakdown lane. So we are walking and walking, mildly freaked out by the close proximity of all these high-speed death-machines, when we see a tunnel up ahead. Sorry, no pictures are available to document the horror, you just have to take my word for it. 750 meters of tunnel, times 2 separate tunnels equals roughly the scariest highway walk of your life. Especially when you see tire marks at head level on the side of the tunnel 1/2 way through. We four Americans (“white people,” as I like to call us foreigners) are just strolling along the side of the road for 2 miles getting laughed at the entire time and fairly certain that we are about to get trucked at any moment.

But we made it through (which involved some sprinting across the highway and jumping a jersey barrier to safe sidewalks) and made it back into civilization:

We survived the highway and saw this beautiful sight.

“Such fun! How does one conclude such a fun day, Jon?” you ask in your curious voice. “Well,” I reply good humoredly, “you stop at the store to go grocery shopping and buy the following: 3 dozen eggs, 1 kg of potatoes, 1 kg of pork, some broccoli, orange juice to mix with the vodka that Mason bought, and 3 kg of noodles.” In other words, you acquire the means to eat and drink your pain away (3 KG OF NOODLES! THAT’S 6.6 POUNDS OF NOODLES!). Then you go out to eat dinner with your friends who survived the harrowing ordeal with you anyways because the local version of fish and chips (fried fish and rice) is 4 bucks and no one feels like cooking. Whew. So many activities! So much culture, history, adventure, and productivity! All accomplished while on break, no less. This was only the precursor, too, since Wednesday was meant to be the highlight of the entire break: the Baekje Festival in Gongju. Set up through Adventure Korea, Erin, Heather, and I were set to partake in some chestnut picking, fortress seeing, cultural experience-having, and warrior-dressed-marching fun! Such culture! And pictures to share, some of which even document my existence! Quick! You don’t want to be left behind at part 2, you want to charge to part 3!

Chuseok Break part 1

Sorry that this post is so late. I’ve been a whirling dervish of activity in the past few days and haven’t found the energy when I’ve internet access, or if I have energy then I have no internet access. Aside from the few of you smart enough to figure out that blogging is nothing more than internet-publishing, yes I guess I could have written posts when I had the energy and then posted them when I had internet. However, because I’m a recent graduate, a bit of my procrastination and if-conditions-aren’t-perfect-it-can-wait mentality have overruled those logical thoughts (me not acting logically? Hmm…). Relax, the four of you who are reading this, I still value you enough to tell you all about my glorious times. There will be three parts or so to this Chuseok (pronounced Chew-sock) Break blog serial. So buckle up, and get ready to be appropriately awed by my conquests and incredible adventures (It’s in the freaking title of my blog, so, yeah, I will use it!)!

Chuseok started way back on Friday night. A bunch of us (read: all) were ecstatic to be leaving work and went to go blow off steam in our own fashions or prep for our big trips. Some were headed to Japan, some to far-flung reaches of Korea, and others of us were staying in the local environs (I was staying in Cheongju for the most part). Regardless of where we were headed, many of us chose to partake in some norebang (pronounced: noray-bong. Means: Karaoke) a.k.a. “bongin” and drinks. Getting off work at 11 means when you go, you go for a whiles into the morning. So those of us strong enough, did, and rocked adoring crowds of the-other-coworkers until roughly 4 AM. Kickin! I do feel bad about one of my songs being the last, but it was Scatman John’s: I’m the Scatman. Come on. Pretty awesome. If you don’t know it, treat yourself to 3 and a half minutes of upbeat hilarity.

At this point, I joined one of my coworkers, Mason from Canada, to his place to get some video-gaming on. At 5, his land-lady told us we were being too loud (yeah, ok, old lady. 5 AM is suddenly too early to be shouting BOOM-HEADSHOT over Call of Duty?). I trudged back through the icebox that was Korea at 5AM and went to bed. Wonder of wonders, I slept till roughly 2 PM. Does that sound like me? Does anybody know the last time I slept past noon:30? No one? Didn’t think so… At this point I joined Mason for some fast food for lunch at Lotteria and we went back to gaming for the weekend. We rotated through Skyrim (he played, I watched and made the appropriate oohs and ahs whenever something pretty happened), CoD, Halo, and Dungeon Seige 3. Nothing varied from Saturday to Monday: wake up, get food, go game with Mason, get dinner, game with Mason, go home, repeat (ah, break, you remind me of college!). There was one exception: Saturday night for dinner a group of us went to go get dalkgaobi. It is chicken, thick Rice noodle the size of a cigar, and vegetables in hot paste that you cook yourself at your table and everyone noms all over. I don’t do spicy food very well, so it was: bite, 1/2 glass of water, bite, other 1/2 of glass, refill, bite, 1/2 glass of water, etc. Difficult, but delicious. A fun meal had by all.

Actually, I want to revisit that Lotteria food establishment for a minute so that you all understand. It is like a McDonald’s/other American fast food chains in the same way that Europe is like Africa. It’s close, and there are a lot of people who go from one to the other, but everyone knows there is a difference and hates McDonald’s. And McDonald’s doesn’t technically have edible food, just plastic food-shapes and tears of shame. Lotteria serves things like “Bulgogi” which is Korean BBQ flavored beef, the European Frico Burger (which has a fried cheese patty, a burger patty, red pepper, olives, lettuce, tomato, and I think even more), shrimp burger, fried chicken, mozz stix, ice cream, and more. And each meal is anywhere from 4,500-7,500 Won. That’s roughly $4-7. So for $4 I got a bulgogi with fries and a Pepsi (Pepsi! Not Coke! Justice!). Ah, Korea! It isn’t traditional Korean food, and doesn’t compare to the Dalkgaobi, Mando (dumplings!), or diner food I had over the weekend at other establishments, but it does in a pinch when everything else is closed. And everything is so cheap! Food is cheap! I can sing that from the heavens!

First tale told. So now you are all caught up from Friday to Monday. See the other posts for Tuesday shenanigans and Wednesday shenanigans. Just a teaser: they are cultural! Picture-ful too!