To the bat cave!

Ah, what a good weekend.

As mentioned last time, Laura and I decided to go to place called Donghae (which, literally translated, means East Sea), up on the northeast coast. It was actually a random choice of places. We originally wanted to go to Gwangju, which is on the complete opposite end of the country, but were advised that if we wanted to see the north part of the country, this would likely be the last time it would be pleasant to do so before spring, so Donghae it was.

It started with a lovely seven hour train ride overnight from Milyang. For some reason, they decided to crank the heat on the train making for a rather uncomfortable ride. We survived despite the havoc it wreaked with Laura's cold. The other unfortunate thing about the train ride was that it was taken at night, thus denying us the opportunity to gawk at the scenery. The night travel was a good thing in theory, though, as supposedly we could sleep while traveling. The sleep on the train sucked, but the train did get us there for 6am giving us plenty of time to check the place out.

At first, checking the place out consisted of wandering around, cold, hungry and tired, from motel to motel trying to find one that had someone behind the counter to give us a room. After about an hour of this, we finally succeeded. Our room was, well, kind of icky, but seeing as we just planned on using it as a base to explore, it would do.

After a quick nap, it was time for some food then some exploring. We found a cheap and tasty place nearby the motel. We had some tasty chol-myun (cold noodles with veggies and a spicy sauce, really tasty) and pizza mandu (mandu are dumplings and these were fried dumplings with pizza sauce and cheese on them). Then we were off... to the bat cave.

The bat cave was very interesting. Actually, everything from its unpronounceable name (Cheongokcheonyeondonggul, as listed in the Lonely Planet) to the fact that it was in the middle of the city made it appealing to us. It turned out to be bat-less, at least as far as we could tell, but it did have strings of colourful light along the railings and on certain bits of jutting rock that one might otherwise crack one's head on and these lights more than made up for our disappointment in the lack of bats. The cave itself was pretty cool. Stalactites and stalagmites, weird bacon-like formations, and one rather phallic bit of stone that everyone seemed to want a picture of (well, ok, it was one lady, but she seemed to make an extra effort to get that picture). The signs labeling certain things thought to be of extra interest were pretty interesting themselves. According to the signs, nearly half of everything in the cave was "Mysterious," and one thing was actually described as being "bacon-like," despite the fact that it clearly wasn't. The bacon-like formations were elsewhere. The exit from the cave was lined with glass cases containing a variety of geodes which fairly likely had nothing to with the cave, but were pretty stones nonetheless.

After our cave adventure, we decided to venture down to the water. The waterfront in Donghae is very pretty. We found this cliff-lined beach with fishermen and playing children on it. As well, there was the pretty little restaurant/coffee chop that looked like it could have been transported directly out of Nova Scotia. We sat up on the third floor, drinking our bad and overpriced coffee (something one just gets used to here), and looking out at the fishing boats on the East Sea (or, Sea of Japan as anyone outside of Korea would know it). It was really quite pleasant.

Due to our lack of sleep and the fact that we both had, to differing degrees, colds, we were pretty tired by this point so we made our way back to the motel for another quick nap.

A few hours later, we emerged refreshed and made our way back into town for dinner and some beer. We found a nice seafood restaurant and had eel and salmon rice hotpots. Tasty! Afterwards we went to the 11th floor of a building to a place called Sky Beer. It was full of well dressed young Koreans. It seemed to be everyone's birthday that night as at numerous times the lights would dim, birthday music would blare out of the speakers, strobe lights would come on and a cake would be delivered to a table accompanied full of happy people detonating those loud popping streamer things. Laura and I just sat at our slightly isolated table and observed it all, enjoying the spectacle and attempting to converse over the din. Just as we were figuring on leaving, our pitcher of beer done and our feeling of exhaustion returning, we mysteriously found that a second pitcher of beer had been delivered to our table. We didn't order it. We didn't want it. And we didn't want to pay for it. When the waitress returned to add it to our bill, we used various hand motions, grunts and head shakings to indicate that this beer was not ours and we wanted to leave. She seemed to understand as it was not added to our bill. Why the beer came to our table is still a mystery.

We slept well that night and got up mid-morning. Our train back to Milyang didn't leave until 2-ish so we casually got some food (pizza don-gas - pork cutlet with pizza sauce and cheese, and more chol-myun) then wandered about the area around the train station in search of snacks for the ride. We found those and discovered we still had a few hours so continued our wandering. We ended up at the Mukho fish market (Mukho is the slightly smaller town just north of Donghae - they may as well be the same city) which was really cool and was just asking to have pictures taken of it. Still don't have a digital camera or a scanner, so it will be a while before I can show anything from these, assuming they turn out at all, but it was a cool place with buckets of live squid swimming around and row upon row of all sorts of fish of various sizes, shapes and colours.

Well, that pretty much took care of the rest of our time and we were off to catch our train. The ride back was long and uneventful, but the scenery was really pretty, at least those parts that weren't being bulldozed to make a new expressway (I really think this country just wants to become one giant, thousand lane highway).

So, in a week I will have been here for six months. Half way through my contract and currently debating whether I want to sign on for another. If I do, it likely will not be with this same school or likely even in Milyang. I have lots of time to decide on that though. Regardless of that decision, I will be back in Canada at the end of my year here, at the very least for an extended visit before coming back. We'll see how things go the rest of the way. I'll be sure to keep you all updated.

Guy

Peppero Day

Well, yesterday was Nov. 11. A special day here in Korea: Peppero Day. Those of unfamiliar with Korea may be asking yourself, "What is this Peppero of which he speaks?" Well, it may be familiar to those of you in the know about Asian snack food in general because at home (and in Japan), it is known as Pocky. If you are not in the know about Pocky, I will now explain: Pocky is a thin stick of dry cookie, coated in a chocolatey substance or some other tasty confection.

Yes, an entire day has been dedicated to them here. The sheer marketing genius behind this astounds me. I believe the brainstorming session may have been a little like this (only, in Korean):

"Peppero sales have been slipping, especially during November. What can we do about this?"
thoughtful pause
"We could try putting them in fancier packages..."
"We've done that, didn't help."
more thoughtful pausing
"Well... the sticks kinda look like 1's... um, maybe, it being November, you know, the eleventh month, we could make it Peppero month or something..."
"I like your thinking, but a whole month is probably too much. Maybe just a day. I know! 11/11! Yes! We'll make millions!"

And that is the story of Peppero Day, as interpreted by me. I was given many sticks of Peppero by my students. Pure choco-stick fun!

In other news, it appears that I am gaining another class outside my institute. It starts on Monday and involves students from middle school to adults. Not sure what to expect, really.

Laura and I are going to a small city called Donghae for a few days. It's on the NE coast of the country. Hopefully, it will be good. We figured that this might be our last chance to travel before winter comes along. The weather here is still quite nice (it's mid-November and we still have mosquitoes) and it would be a shame not to take advantage of that (not the mosquitoes; they take advantage of me, though - I feel so used).

Well, that's about all today. I may still try to type up the full stories of the hike, the trip to Andong, etc. Time is lacking lately though, but I will try.

Guy