18 Month Interlude

Shortly after that trip to Gyeongju, my time in Korea and my life in general underwent some notable changes. Alex was around another ten days or so. He did some travel on his own while I worked during the week, and we took a daytrip down to Suncheon the next weekend. Then he went home, and a few days later I extended my teaching contract an extra few months, until the winter. About a week after that, I met a lovely woman who has had a huge impact on me that greatly expanded the scope of my experiences in Korea. At the same time, I became reluctant to blog about those experiences because I wanted to keep them private, at least for the time being. She's a great photographer, so I started taking far fewer pictures and enjoyed looking at the many terrific images she captured. We took many interesting and enjoyable trips and ate countless fantastic Korean meals, including many that she prepared herself (and a few I managed to learn from her).

In October of 2013 I took a couple of weeks off work to return home for the first time since I'd left in the summer of 2012. In fact, it was exactly 444 days between my original departure and my return to the states. I was home for my grandpa's birthday and the wedding of one of my closest friends, and then it was back to Korea for my last two-and-a-half months of teaching. However, I realized during that time that I wasn't ready to leave Korea behind for good, and I extended my contract to finish out the last eight months of a second year after taking the month of December off.

That month gave me the chance to do some travel abroad in Hong Kong and Malaysia (where Alex joined me again), with brief stops in Shanghai, Bangkok, and Abu Dhabi. I was thrilled to get to spend Christmas at home with all my immediate family, the first time we'd all been together in nearly two years. And then, on New Year's Eve, I was on a plane back to Korea. I actually didn't have a midnight that New Year's Eve. I just jumped from 2013-2014 by crossing the Date Line. I landed in Korea the night of January 1 and was back at work the next morning.

I didn't do much travel during the final months of my contract. I ended up taking a Korean language class at Cheonnam National University in Gwangju in the mornings for a couple of months in the spring, which inspired me to continue studying the language. After completing my teaching contract at the end of August 2014, I transferred to a D-10 work-seeking visa, which allowed me to stay in Korea for up to 6 months between work contracts. I took an intensive Korean language class at the university, studying for four hours every weekday for 10 weeks. It was a fantastic experience. I was sorry the class had to end, but by December of 2014 I was ready to get back home and see my family again for the first time in almost a year.

My family was all together again for Christmas, just like the year before. I had a terrific time getting to be around my brothers for a couple of weeks before they started dispersing again. I was able to do some traveling with two of them to the Southeast for about a week. Then I was home for about six weeks immersing myself in job-searching. I enjoyed being home again after having been away for so much longer than I expected when I first came to Korea in 2012.

Yet I missed Korea as well. I missed my girlfriend, I missed the conveniences of living in Gwangju, the ability to hop on a bus or train and explore the city and country. I worried my Korean language skills would quickly atrophy without the everyday use they get while living in Korea. I worried that once I found a good job in the states it would be a long time before I would return to Korea.

I kept sending out cover letters and resumes for the jobs I was aiming for in the states, and one day I added an email to Dan, who had been my original recruiter at Teach ESL Korea. And Dan helped connect me with a great opportunity right back here in Gwangju, just in time for me to return to Korea before my D-10 visa expired.

So now I'm back in Gwangju, on the other side of town from last time around. It's only been a week, and I feel homesick from time to time, but I'm loving being back. I'm busier than ever, and I really should be in bed by now, but I want to get this blog started again, and what better time than now (other than the morning, which I might have seen if I'd gone to bed a couple of hours ago).

In the coming months I'll likely double back to cover some of the memorable moments from my eighteen months of blog silence, in addition to the adventures I fully expect to have this spring and summer here in Gwangju and possibly elsewhere in Korea. For example:

Sprite with a hint of mint -
Do we have this in the states? I never noticed it before.

Gyeongju and Busan

Bulguksa Temple in Gyeongju

On the second Friday of my brother's visit we had no classes for the day. Instead, the teachers met in the morning for a meeting and a short workshop and were finished by lunchtime. This allowed Alexander and I to get a bit of an early start on our weekend trip. After I got home from work we packed a few things for the trip and went out for lunch.

After the usual vacillation, we decided to stop in a restaurant near my academy to try their dolsotbap, a mix of rice, vegetables, and chili paste. We ordered it and enjoyed the banjan (side dishes) while we waited, discussing the upcoming trip. We hadn't made any concrete plans, other than that we wanted to go to Gyeongju. We weren't even sure where we would end up that night. Since it wasn't a holiday weekend, I figured we wouldn't have much trouble finding accommodations on the fly. Finally, the server brought out our two hot bowls of...samgyetang. That's basically a chicken stuffed with rice and ginseng and boiled in a soup. Apparently my pronunciation still needed quite a bit of work. Actually, it still does. The soup was delicious anyway.

Bulguksa

Lunch took longer than we expected, so we hurried to get back to the apartment to grab our things for the weekend trip, then went quickly on to the bus terminal. Our main target was Gyeongju, which was a capital of one of Korea's kingdoms, the Silla kingdom. Several other teachers had visited before, including Lily, who recommended seeing it.

As we suspected would be the case, there were no more direct buses to Gyeongju by the time we reached the bus station in the late afternoon. Luckily, we had a backup plan in place and bought tickets for the next train to Daegu, one of Korea's largest cities and just a short train or bus ride from Gyeongju. I have to admit I was a bit nervous during the 3-hour trip to Daegu, since I hadn't done much research about what was around the bus station there and wasn't sure where we'd sleep that night.

Still, we figured there'd be plenty of lodging options somewhere nearby, and we turned out to be right. While walking around the bus station area for about an hour after arriving, we passed dozens of motels and hotels. Finally, as it started to rain lightly we decided we'd better stop in one and get rested up for an early start to the next day.

Bulguksa

Luckily we stopped in a spot very near the train station, and we caught the Saemaeul for the short ride to Gyeongju the next morning. We got off a stop earlier than we were supposed to, and wandered around a bit on the far side of Gyeongju from where we wanted to end up. But it was a nice day, and we got to walk along the river. Finally, we decided just to hail a cab, figuring that would be the easiest way to end up near the usual tourist spots that we hoped to explore.

We turned out to be even further from that part of town than we thought, and after about a fifteen minute ride the taxi dropped us off at the tourist gateway to Gyeongju's historical sites. There turned out to be a just-opened tourist hotel near the bus terminal with reasonable rates. We checked in and dropped off our bags, then went over to the visitor information kiosk. The woman working the desk spoke excellent English and told us exactly which bus to take to go out to Bulguksa Temple. We decided to start there, since it was the furthest out of the attractions we hoped to visit, and work our way back.

While waiting for the bus to the temple, we met another American tourist who had come down for the weekend from Seoul, where she had been attending a conference. She teamed up with us for the remainder of the afternoon. The bus ride to Bulguksa took nearly half an hour, so it turned out to be nice to have a larger group when we ended up taking a cab part of the way back later.

There were many, many people visiting Bulguksa that day. It is a popular site, and understandably so. It is one of many Gyeongju attractions that have been named UNESCO World Heritage sites. The temple is nestled on the side of a mountain, affording some gorgeous views of the peaks. Even more impressive to me, however, was Seokguram Grotto, linked to the temple by a several-kilometer long trail around the mountainside.

Trail to Seokguram Grotto

It was a hot day, so we enjoyed drinking from a mountain spring along the side of the trail as we made our way toward the grotto. The path was mostly smooth, but with some incline. However, upon reaching the grotto we realized it was well worth the trek.

paper lanterns below Seokguram Grotto

Hundreds of colorful paper lanterns were strung up at the base of the slope leading to the grotto itself. We bought some much-needed drinks from the vending machines and stood in the shade under the lanterns to cool off. It was pretty steamy that day, as you can probably tell from the mist in these pictures. Once refreshed, we walked up the short path leading to the grotto and waited in line to enter.

The temple was constructed of granite, and is basically an artificial cave. Inside are several stone statues. These are protected by glass, and visitors are only permitted to walk through the main hall area. Photographs were not permitted inside, but they wouldn't do it justice anyway.

In Korea, when people ask me where I've traveled here, I always mention Gyeongju. If the conversation continues and I get to make suggestions for them to travel, I recommend seeing Seokguram Grotto. Koreans consider it one of their great historical treasures. Having an idea of the aura around it, the experience of hiking from Bulguksa and entering the grotto is sure to be a memorable one. It was like glimpsing a hidden treasure and leaving it hidden.

Seokguram Grotto from below

Our temporary companion was running a bit short on time to get back to the bus terminal to get back to Seoul, so we took a taxi from a parking lot near the grotto back toward the city. Yes, there is a parking lot near the grotto, so you can take a bus or taxi there and skip the hike from Bulguksa. But if you have the time and ability I strongly suggest starting from Bulguksa and hiking the trail.

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Alex and I had the taxi drop us off near another historical area while our companion continued to the terminal. Evening was approaching, and we wanted to explore Daereungwon Tomb Complex.

This is just a small portion of Daereungwon Tomb Complex

While visiting Seokguram Grotto certainly made a great impression on me, it was our walking around the Tomb Complex that has really made Gyeongju stand out as probably my favorite destination in Korea. These burial mounds are massive, and even more vibrant green than they appear in these pictures. And there are so many of them.

Dusk came on quickly, and in the diminishing sunlight the tombs gave the landscape an otherworldly import. Not that there aren't countless other reminders of Gyeongju's ancient history, but the tombs made it impossible not to be mindful of how timeless this city is. It was a capital of the Silla Dynasty, which over the course of it's nearly millennium-long reign expanded to include nearly half the Korean peninsula.

When it was dark, we returned briefly to the hotel to change and pick a direction to search for dinner. We ended up having a dish which I believe was some kind of skate or ray in a very spicy sauce over rice. After that, we sought out a Cafe Droptop for some bingsu. It turned out to be different from what we had at the Droptop near my apartment in Gwangju, but still good nonetheless. It's hard to go too wrong with bingsu (Cafe Bene's New York Cheesecake bingsu with smashed-up saltine crackers from 2014 is a notable exception.) It was getting near bedtime by then, so we picked up some snacks from a convenience store for the morning and went back to the hotel. The path home led through a park surrounding another burial mound, this one with trees growing on its slopes, a dark, jagged crown of life.

Haeundae

The next morning we walked to the train station and booked tickets for the next Saemaeul to Busan. While waiting we had some ice noodles at a little restaurant down the block. We'd seen a program on one of Korea's English-language channels about different ice-noodle dishes at the hotel in Daegu and were eager to try them out. It's since become one of my favorite Korean foods, which is saying a lot, because I like most Korean foods.

The train took us down the lower east coast, past Ulsan and into Busan, Korea's second-largest city. We exited at the Haeundae station and walked a few blocks to the famous stretch of beach. It was a bit cooler that day, with some light rain falling. There were still plenty of people on the beach, but not nearly the crowds I'd seen in photos covering every inch of sand.

Our time in the city was limited, since I needed to be back in Gwangju that night for work the next day. We didn't stay on the beach long before we took the subway out to the UN Memorial Cemetery.

Busan was a major staging area of the UN forces during the Korean War. In the early weeks of the war, North Korean forces had pushed ROK troops down to the southeast corner of the peninsula. By securing the "Pusan Perimeter", the ROK and UN forces bought enough time for supplies and reinforcements to arrive before the tide was turned with the UN landing at Incheon.

Of course, there was a lot of tragedy yet to come. In fact, no peace treaty was ever signed. A cease-fire brought an end to major hostilities, but as most of you surely know tensions still often run high and violence occasionally breaks out near the DMZ. I wanted to visit the cemetery to pay respects to the UN troops who gave their lives here and to reflect on the continuing impact of the Korean War.

We arrived at the cemetery just in time to witness the flag-lowering ceremony, which was carried out with dignity and great care by the soldiers there. We only had about eight hours to spend in Busan, and we spent nearly two of them in the cemetery, reading the names of fallen soldiers and inscriptions on the various memorials to them. It is a beautiful and well-maintained space that is conducive to reflecting on the sacrifices made.

UN Memorial Cemetery

We exited the cemetery as it was closing for the evening and took a taxi toward the train station. We had a bit of time left to explore the fish and seafood market and grab some dinner. We had our picture taken behind the market just before dark.

After this we walked back to the station and caught the train. We'd considered taking a bus, but many of them were sold out. We realized overall it would be faster to take the KTX, even though we'd have to take it up to Daejeon and transfer to a train down to Gwangju. We enjoy the train enough that we didn't mind the extra expense. A few hours later, after finding our way to the other Daejeon station and catching our other train, we arrived at Gwangju Songjeong Station and took a taxi back to the apartment. We'd filled the weekend with about as much activity as we could, and I was ready to rest up for a full week of teaching.

P.S.
I'm finally finishing this blog post now, nearly two years after that weekend with Alex in Daegu, Gyeongju, and Busan (but mostly Gyeongju), and it honestly does still stand out as one of my favorite travel experiences in Korea. If anyone is looking for a place to visit in Korea, especially English teachers spending a year here, I implore you to get out to Gyeongju for at least a day if you can. If you have any interest in Korean history and culture, it can be a highly rewarding experience.

Diving In

Yeongsan River, looking upstream

Today I made a second visit to a location I suspect I'll spend a great deal of time in during the remainder of my time here.

This morning I woke up feeling a bit under the weather, with a sore throat and some congestion. It was nothing too serious, but I was feeling groggy enough that I drifted back to sleep several times before actually getting out of bed. Even after I was up and about I lazed about my apartment, straightening up a bit and making a call home to my parents and probably worrying them unduly with my slightly raspy voice, and my unwashed face and mussed hair when we got the video calling to work.

It could easily have been a day where I queue up some videos or reading and stayed in my building, perhaps even my apartment, all afternoon and evening by giving myself the excuse that I needed to get more rest to nip this cold in the bud.

Alas, yesterday I consumed the last of the calories I had in my apartment. I have been building a collection of Pepsi something-or-others in my fridge that are sometimes thrown into my bags when I pick up bottles of water or late-night-snacks from the 7-11, but I'm pretty sure they don't have any calories. I haven't tried one yet, but there's a large zero near the logo and usually that's a good indicator that I'm not going to enjoy the taste of whatever is inside.

It is possible to get food from the lobby of my building, which could come in handy this week with a whopper of a typhoon apparently bringing loads of rain our way. However, since I was going all the way downstairs, I decided I may as well take a step outside and see where it leads me. I threw on some jeans and a long-sleeve shirt, grabbed my iPod (I'm still relying on Wifi for all communications here, and I knew I needed some pictures for a post this week) my sunglasses, and my wallet, and walked out.

I decided to grab a candy bar (Twix, an old favorite I rarely indulge in because I often give in to the temptation to indulge in new favorites) to hold me over until I might come across some place to eat, or until I made it to the store to pick up some groceries. Really I wasn't sure where I would end up.

I walked past this park near my apartment in Sangmu.

I walked down to City Hall and headed...east or north, or northeast, possibly southeast. I know it wasn't west. There's a road that runs from City Hall past the May 18 Memorial Park and on to the bus station, and I went that way, thinking I might turn at the park and go up to the store to buy food.

Walking can be a great way to explore a new environment, and with plenty of daylight left and the weather being absolutely beautiful this afternoon, I continued along that road past the park. While walking I'm able to take in more of my surroundings than I could by other methods. If I am transported to some other location, I get nervous about being able to find my way back. When I walk (or run) I feel familiar enough with the route I've taken that I know I can basically backtrack if I need to. So I kept going.

I remembered seeing a large KIA plant along that road while riding in the taxi to the bus station with Sarah and Jolene to go to Yeosu a few weeks ago, so I decided to go at least far enough to see that and take some pictures to send to Dylan. He drives a KIA back home and is currently struggling with the pain of having to leave it at home as he returns to college, so I thought he might be annoyed to have me taunting him with reminders of all the KIAs I see everyday.

This one's for you, Dylan.
A KIA dealership near the school

Over time I've realized that getting out and moving around tends to make me think I'm feeling better when I think I'm sick. I picked up the pace and strolled up and down hills pretending I knew exactly where I was going and that I was covering enough of my skin and eyes to blend in (I realized how wrong I was when the first of several passers-by said "hello" to me) By the time I reached the KIA plant I'd forgotten the relative grogginess of the morning.

If you search "Gwangju, South Korea" in Google maps satellite view and zoom in a bit, until the scale is at about 1 inch=1 mile, you'll notice the city is roughly divided into half by the Yeongsan River. On the west side of the river is a large complex of light blue roofs. This is the KIA plant, and it's huge. It makes a great reference point when I'm trying to get an idea of where different landmarks are located in relation to my neighborhood because it sticks out so much on the map.

My route had brought me around the back edge of the plant, so I continued along the perimeter to the other side, which brought me to the bus station. Other than Sangmu, the bus station is the location in Gwangju I have seen the most. It's where I first arrived in Gwangju on the bus down from Incheon International Airport, so it was comforting in a way to have connected the dots between my apartment and this portal to the rest of Korea (and home) on foot. I love Gwangju so far and have much more to explore here, so it's not as though I'm dreaming of escape. Instead, I find it opens up the imagination when I can see how where I am is connected to so many other places.

Before going into the station itself I crossed to the other side of the street through an underground walkway between the bus station, a department store, and the local bus stops across the street. On the other side I noticed an LG electronics store and decided to duck in to cool off and browse around. There seemed to be a wide variety of electronics and appliances, and I was curious as to how many different items LG makes. If nothing else I thought perhaps I could stock up on some toothpaste.

Unlike the LG washing machine and dryer at my house in the states, this product does not sing to me when it's done.

To my surprise, I was the only customer in the store and thus became the focus of the attention of the three workers patrolling the floor. Since I wasn't sure how to convey "just browsing" to them, I decided to ask about cell phones, since I'm planning on buying one soon. I held my hand up to my ear and was led to the phone counter.

Luckily for me, the man working the phone counter spoke very good English. He said he'd spent the past year in Sydney and seemed eager to practice his English, which proved very helpful as I had a large store of questions about buying a cell phone. After fifteen minutes another customer came in, and not wanting to monopolize his time, I thanked him for his help. He wished me luck and saw me to the door.

Often I find myself hesitant to enter situations in which I'm not sure exactly what to do. Even in the states I like to know exactly how to proceed in any number of contingencies, and I'll occasionally avoid situations that I feel present too much uncertainty despite the fact that I'm constantly surrounded by people who would understand what I was saying were I to ask them for help and whom I could understand when they respond.

In that light, walking into an electronics store by myself for no particular reason without knowing much relevant Korean besides "Hello...where is...how much does it cost...thank you" felt like an adventure of sorts for me, albeit one that morphed from a skydive to a roller coaster once I found an English speaker. Still, this is the sort of thing I need to do more often if I want to really feel as though I'm living here and not just working here. I think the trick may be to ask myself, "What's the worst that could happen?" and then not allow myself to imagine an answer.

After leaving the store I crossed the street and browsed through a multi-level (and seemingly very expensive) department store connected to the bus station. I went up a few levels thinking I might look through some nice suits I would never buy, but each level seemed to be more and more devoted to women's clothes, so I turned around and began descending before I went too high up and possibly found myself in a situation that could be embarrassing in any language...an unaccompanied male in the intimates department. This is the kind of anxiety I feel when I begin allowing myself to answer the "worst that could happen" question.

Once safely on the ground floor again I went over to the bus station and browsed through a few of the multitude of shops there, including my first visit to a Korean bookstore, where I was quickly greeted by this semi-familiar sight:

Fifty Shades of Grey in Korean

Ahhh...the power of marketing. Take a mass-market bodice ripper and print it as a trade paperback (I used to work at Borders..RIP) and you have a global phenomenon. I've read one of your paragraphs, book, before I knew what you were. I'm glad to see they keep you in plastic wrap here to protect unsuspecting book-browsers from the gagging that paragraph induced in me.

To be honest, I took this picture again to joke with my brother and decided to include it here in part to fulfill my promise of including more pictures and also on the off-chance that some 50 Shades fans might end up on this page, where they may then actually read to this point in the blog, where I will tell them, "I'm glad you read. If you enjoy 50 Shades you should check out some Zora Neale Hurston or Cormac McCarthy. Their Eyes Were Watching God or All the Pretty Horses might be good places to start. Or if you hated 50 Shades you may want to jump straight to Blood Meridian. It's sort of a reading cleanse diet. For a long time I remembered very little of what I had read in the months before reading McCarthy's Blood Meridian, and for a few months afterwards I had trouble focusing on what I attempted to read in its wake."

For those of you still with me (thank you for that, by the way!) I continued out of the bookstore and on to the ticket counters, which I stared at for about ten minutes, just reading through the destinations and schedules, imagining day trips I could take in the coming months, and how easily entertained I am by just riding on a bus and staring out the window at the landscape and thinking about how incredibly far I am from anywhere I've been before.

Then I wandered upstairs to the IMAX theater, grabbed a couple "The Expendables 2" brochures to mail to my brother Ethan, and spotted a Cold Stone Creamery and a Burger King.

With just a couple hours of good daylight left, I walked out of the bus station and turned west. I decided to walk along the front side of the KIA complex this time so I could take better pictures of it for Dylan to see.

KIA plant gate

Building at KIA plant in Gwangju

The plant stretches along several blocks and covers both sides of the road for the majority of that. KIA's website shows the locations of their plants, and according to it this plant covers nearly 1 million square meters and assembles commercial vehicles and buses, as well as some military vehicles.

When I had finally walked past the length of the plant and thought I was nearly home, I noticed a large sign in the middle of the sidewalk. Having some idea of what it said without really knowing what it said, I walked around it in trepidation. Sure enough, the sidewalk beyond the crosswalk was completely blocked off for construction work.

This is when it becomes very advantageous to live along a river. The Yeongsan River, as mentioned previously, runs through the city of Gwangju. It is considered one of the four major rivers of the Republic of Korea and is part of a trail system that was recently the subject of a major government project to revitalize riverside recreation in the country. A smaller tributary of the Yeongsan runs along City Hall near my apartment and up past the bus station and on to the base of Mudeung Mountain on the other end of the city. Anytime I get lost in Gwangju, it seems if I can find my way to the river, I can find my way home. Of course, I doubt this will ever really be an issue, but it is a comforting thought just the same. City Hall is downriver from just about everything in Gwangju, so if I get to the river and there's anything around me, I can follow it downstream and find my way back.

At the sidewalk closure I made a right turn and headed for a bridge. From that bridge I took the picture I used at the top of this post, and on the other side I found steps leading down to the riverside path.

A picture of he bridge from which I took the picture mentioned in the sentence above and shown at the top of the post, taken from the riverside path which I reached via this bridge

I first walked along a different portion of this path two weeks ago on a similar Sunday afternoon stroll, and was struck by how quiet and removed it seems compared to the sidewalks a mere ten meters away. When I lived in Boston I ran the paths along the Charles quite often. I loved running that, but it includes a lot of crosswalks and is usually about level with the busy roads alongside it. This path goes under the bridges and is often flanked with high vegetation in addition to being set below the roads to really make it feel separate from the surrounding city. It seems to be an ideal location to get back into my running routine.


I followed the path down to City Hall, which is where I began my walk and headed down river two weeks ago (without a camera). Downstream from there the path affords beautiful views of the surrounding mountains as the tributary runs into the Yeongsan as it continues on down toward Mokpo. From Mokpo there are ferries to Jeju and Shanghai.

The  riverside path from under the City Hall bridge, looking downstream

I've always lived right along a river. I grew up in towns bordering the Mississippi and imagined the journey the barges made to New Orleans on many occasions while crossing into Missouri. In addition to running along the Charles in Boston, I also often ran along the River des Peres (aka the sometimes-connected series of puddles des Peres) during the past year while living in the city of St. Louis. I was able to participate in the final Lewis and Clark Marathon along the Missouri River in St. Charles. Having the Yeongsan right here brings yet another element of familiarity to this experience and provides another possible avenue for diving into new and uncertain experiences here.

Looking upstream from the City Hall Bridge (City Hall complex on the right)

When I got back to Sangmu I ordered a chicken sandwich and fries to take back to my apartment for dinner while watching an episode of Mad Men. Baby steps.