The lights of Seoul.

I guess it was a couple of weeks ago now, but I went to Seoul (the BIG city!!) with my friend Stacie. We went there in the late afternoon one day and then I left before dinner the next day, so it was a whirlwind of a trip, but it was fun.
Stacie took me to the Seoul shopping Mecca. I was super happy that she did, despite not really in the mood to do any serious shopping, because there is no way that if I went to Seoul with Jeremy he would have wanted to go there at all. Everyone who you talk to here raves about the shopping in Seoul though, and it would have been a real shame to not at least check it out. It was fun. Most fashion here is really different then home, so the clothes in the stores were not exactly what I am used to. It is hard to put your finger on, but it is definitely not the same thing. Stacie also took me into stores that I would have never gone into on my own. Having her take me was like getting the real Korean shopping experience. We went up Seoul tower late at night and the view was stunning. It was cool to be able to walk the 360 and get a look at the city in all directions, but it didn't give me any sense of where things were or how big it was even from there. The subway maps look like a maze. Although it is easy enough to find your way around once you know where you are going (if you count several metro line transfers easy), but I can't imagine actually knowing where you were at any given moment. Seoul isn't set up like a North American city with the high rises in the city center, it seems to me (but then again what do I know) that most of the high rise buildings in South Korea are apartments. That is the case outside of the city and from the looks of it things weren't that much different in the city. This picture is of a fence up by Seoul tower that had locks of love on it. People made promises of love and locked the forever to the fence. It was huge and really quite beautiful, especially with the city sparkling behind all the hopes that are attached to each lock and note. There were even a few couples up there making them. Very romantic. Day 2 had lots of plans to see lots of awesome sites, but things did not really work out that way. We ended up spending the whole day at the palace and its corresponding museum. This was Stacie's work... she insisted that we look at every artifact in every room and read every sign. Not exactly how I would have approached the museum visit, but at least I got to see it. She is a hoot though so having her explain what the Korean signs meant was pretty funny. The palace itself was unreal. My favourite part was that when you look back at the gates from the inside you could see all the modern buildings of Seoul. I like that the palace is so large and so plunked in the middle of the city. I suppose the city was built around the palace, but it feel somehow the other way around.

Halla-san.

Jeju is relatively flat for the most part. There are a few beautiful mountains poking up here and there, but other than that it is basically flat. Other then the heat and the sun, we sort of envied the dozens of groups of people we saw who were riding their bikes around the island. We even met one guy who was walking around the coast. Halla Mountain (Halla-san in Korean), however, is the largest mountain in South Korea and is located in the center of the island, as it is the reason for the island being there in the first place. The mountain takes up about one third of the island and is 1,950 m tall. For english testing at Jeremy's school the kids had to write essay, which I helped mark. One of the questions was about the place they found most memorable and I got to read many essays about Jeju island, specifically Halla Mountain. They said that they were so proud of themselves for climbing it and that it was what they would recommend to anyone (Jeremy) who was to visit South Korea. So, mostly because of their recommendation, I was very excited to climb it (although I must confess I was also nervous as I am not overly confident in my mountain climbing abilities).

But we did it! It took us almost exactly 8 hours and was totally awesome! We were both sore for days afterwards. Funny that your muscles rebel when you climb a mountain after sitting on your butt for a few months straight. We took Seongpanak Trail up, which is 9.6km, and then took Donnaeko Trail down, which is 9.1km. The trail down was much more difficult then the one up, but to make up for its steepness and sketchy paths it was far more beautiful. We were so glad that we decided to see more of the mountain by going down a different route. It was super cloudy when we got to the top, so we didn't get to see the crater lake or appreciate the size of the volcano. In fact, it was so cloudy up on Halla-san that even from the island down below we only saw the top of the mountain 2 times. On the way down the mountain the clouds parted for a short time and the sky and sun was beautiful, we felt so lucky to have the cloud break just as we reached the best views of the hike.

When we were almost at the bottom Jeremy was pooped and grumpy, but I kept thinking “I wonder if we have time to climb it again before we leave?” My muscles would not have approved of such an attempt, but those thoughts show how much I enjoyed the hike.

Stormy weather.

Yesterday morning and all last night there were the most incredible storms. I am hoping that they continue because, although they make it hard to do anything, they are very exciting and very different from home. The rain pours down, the thunder is right overhead and almost constant, the lightning could give you a seizure with its frequency and the wind blows so that the rain doesn't hit the puddles outside in any kind of downward motion, it comes in sheets flying in every which direction. One thunder strike was so close that I jumped out of my skin. And they are so loud that some of the car alarms in the parking lot go off when they s0und.

It is fantastic!!!! I can hardly imagine what they are like on the edge of the country where the storms are coming off the ocean. Typhoon warnings across the country. Very fun.

Beaches and craters.

We arrived on Jeju island in the evening by plane with hoards of Korean tourists touting straw sunhats. From the airport we took the bus to the Jeju city bus terminal where we caught the last bus leaving town. It dropped us off at the closest beach to the West of the city. By the time we got there it was dark and we were unsure what the camping scene was going to be like. I suggested we stop for the night on one of the patches of grass in the parking lot thinking that it was the best we were going to do. When we saw the beach actual beach my hopes of good camping plummeted. There was a small area of the sea sectioned off with a few very bright spotlights shining on it. The water was maybe knee deep, but there were many lifeguards. Not exactly the serene beach that I envisioned on a subtropical island. But Jeremy didn't lose faith and we kept walking along the shore to find a fairly large area of sand and grass where there were quite a few tents set up with people sitting around... camping. We were stoked and set up our new tent for its first use.

The next day was one we would have liked to forget for the most part, but one we will not for a long time. The reasons for wishing to forget are mostly surrounding issues with buses and going places that turned out not to be anything like what we expected and far from what we wanted. The reason for not being able to forget is singular: sunburn. Between waiting for the bus and walking to where we could catch another bus, we got fried. I didn't even think about the sun because we weren't doing anything in particular, like going to the beach or going on a hike, but the little sun filled moments added up. It is maybe three weeks later and I am finally starting to stop peeling. My arms (and Jeremy's too) are splotchy because I have patches of peel from that first day and patches of fairly dark tan from the rest of the trip. Needless to say, we were very conscious of sunscreen from then on. Two good very good things happened that day however.

One: We climbed up Seongsan Ilchulbong (Sunrise Peak). It is a small volcanic crater. It only took us maybe 20 minutes to get from the base to the ridge, but those 20 minutes were ruthless. The heat was hardly bearable. I sweat a few liters of water out and as we were reaching the top I remember thinking to myself that it felt as though my head would explode. As we climbed those last few steps, however, and stood on the edge of the crater itself a cool breeze off the ocean hit us. It felt like heaven. I'm sure I laughed out loud as I stepped from that heat into that refreshingly cold air. When we had driven past the crater earlier that day it had been completely shrouded by clouds, but when we climbed it it was clear and looking out over the island behind us and over the crater and the ocean in front of us I was pretty darn happy.

Two: We ended up staying that night at Pyoseon beach. At first we couldn't find the camping space there and we were less than impressed as we had been so many times that day, but then Jeremy spotted it. It was a large grassy space with a few trees up a few steps from the beach. It was lovely. We ended up staying there several nights and then even coming back there later in the trip. We laid around and read. We ate, we swam, we watched the ever changing sky. Just relaxed.

Unwanted visitors.

Probably the most memorable moment of our whole summer vacation occurred when I was attempting to retrieve something from my bag. You would think that it would be something to with the awesome scenery; perhaps the white sand beaches contrasting with the black volcanic rocks that lay as a constant reminder of the million year old history of the landscape, or maybe the bright green subtropical forest covered mountain sides of the tallest mountain in South Korea contrasting with the rich blue sky and constantly moving clouds of white and grey. But, no. The most memorable moment, for me at least, was a moment with me and my backpack.

It was morning and I needed to go into the clothes compartment of my backpack to get a new outfit that was at least theoretically more clean then the one I had been wearing the day before. I unzipped the pouch, rustled the clothes slightly and saw something that made my heart skip a beat. It was orange and grey, but it was gone. I thought to myself that it kind of looked like the chords we were using to tie down our tent. I said out loud “Boy am I jumpy!” and thought back to the snake that had wriggled in front of me on the sidewalk a few days early nearly giving me a heart attack. I took a deep breath and stuck my hands back into the mess of clothes. At that moment what I had feared deep down, but had refused even to admit to myself happened. A centipede, about 4 inches long, bright orange, as fast as light, ran out from amongst my clothes, across my hand and into the top compartment of my bag. I screamed. I jumped. I was surprised to not feel tears running down my face. Jeremy thought I was being a big baby and that there was probably a little spider in my pack, but then he kicked my bag and the centipede made its final escape. As we watched it run off with its many legs into the grass, I was redeemed in Jeremy's eyes for being scared of a "scary bug".

Jeremy had never seen a bug like that before, and I had wished that I would never see one again. I can still feel those little legs making their way across my hand and it makes me cringe. It took me days to be able to go into my bag again with giving it a few hard kicks first.