Dusk in Korea

Here's a special treat for you all:





I also posted this on Facebook. In the video you hear me mention that today (6/25) was the 49th anniversary of the start of the Korean War. Well, I was off by 10 years. It's actually the 59th.

Update

Well, a few things have happened since my last post:

I had a 10 day unscheduled vacation. A teacher arriving from the US was confirmed to have swine flu. They didn't find out until after she had been in the country for a week. Fortunately, she did not have any contact with any students as she had not begun teaching yet. However, they put her and several other teachers in quarantine, and they closed all CDI schools across the country for 10 days as a precaution. So, it was a chance to relax and spend time with the other faculty members outside of a school setting. This past week was our first week back, and it just so happened to be the first week of the term. Our first day was on Wednesday, and in an effort to make up for Monday and Tuesday, the school crammed 6 days' worth of classes into 4. As a result, there was a lot of chaos and improvisation: teachers subbing for classes they had never taught before, students coming on consecutive days (normally they have 2 full days off between CDI classes), and teachers trying to nail everything down for the new term. Fortunately, we all got through it.

I'm sure everyone has been hearing about North Korea again. Well, exploding a nuclear weapon is serious business, but in terms of an all out war breaking out, the chances are extremely small. Still, tensions were very high for a couple of days.

As a special bonus, here are a couple of videos that show you around the neighborhood.

Lost!

Yesterday, four other co-workers and I went down to Busan, which is on the coast. First we went up to a Buddhist Temple.










I took these videos mainly for the sound. You can clearly hear ceremonial chants in the background. The second video also gives you some idea of what the area is like.



This is all on top of a mountain in Busan.


These next few photos are of a wall that once surrounded a mountaintop fortress. The walls were only 2 meters high. The fortress was called Geumjeongsanseong. Below is the North Gate.








Busan from the mountain. (West side of the city)



East side of Busan


Now to explain the title of this post. We got lost on top of this ridge trying to get down. At night. We decided to go see another temple. After climbing up a rather steep grade (they're all steep in Korea), we found that we were just in time to see the temple...close down for the night. It was seven o'clock. Then we decided to take the cable car down. So we hiked back down that slope and then up another one. Followed the signs, and got there at quarter to eight. The cable car stops at seven o'clock too. Keep in mind, there is no daylight savings time here in Korea, so the sun sets at about 7:30pm. At this point it's getting quite dark, and you could see the lights of Busan below (a really cool sight if I say so). Therefore, we had to backtrack again, but we eventually found our way to the East Gate. There were three roads to take: left, center, and right. We took the left road. That's the way we came to the East Gate.

Wrong. It took us about a half-hour, in diminishing light, to figure out that we went the wrong way. It was now nearly dark. The signposts were solar-powered, so they were alight, but otherwise I was using my cell phone to see. We found our way to pavement, and fortunately the buses were still running (it was about nine o'clock now). If they hadn't, it was about another five kilometers of walking to get to the bottom. We got on the train and got home at about midnight. We had been on our feet for nearly nine hours straight. I seriously thought we would have to camp out up there on the mountainside. I knew coming to Korea would be an adventure...

Hapkido

For about a month now a couple of the teachers at our school and I have been taking hapkido classes, which is a martial art native to Korea. Here are some pictures!

L to R: Owner of the gym, Anna Phillips, Andrew Pike, Jake Hilton, me, Ben (my boss), our other instructor.

Fighting pose

Kick!

We get to do fun stuff like handsprings, rolls, and dives. This is me finishing a backwards roll. We did one backwards roll on the blue part, and then do another one, finishing in a handstand.

Hapkido is very practical: it deals with self-defense, so there are a lot of holds and hold breaks that we learn. There is also a good deal of kicking, but not as much as in taekwondo. It's a lot of fun, but it works you out. Like anything, it takes lots of practice.

Apsan Mountain*

I climbed a mountain on Sunday. Here are pictures!







This is a burial mound. I have no idea how old it is. There are others along the pathway, but this was the most ornate.



Click to get a close-up









This is a prayer marker, on the ridge of the mountain.



Home is closer than you think. Part of Camp Walker, the US Army base in Daegu. (click for a close-up)





*"San" in Korean means mountain, so essentially the title of this post is "Ap Mountain Mountain" :)

Gyeongju

This past Sunday we took a trip to Gyeongju, which is on the east coast of Korea, about an hour's bus ride away from Daegu. Sunday was the annual cherry blossom festival, when all of the cherry trees bloom. Here are pictures:




These are the burial mounds of the ancient Silla kings, who ruled this part of Korea over a thousand years ago.





Cherry blossoms





This is Anapji pond, built as a royal pond/garden. It is artificial. The palace burnt down, but the lake was restored and several artifacts have been recovered from the lake bed.





And then there's this video I took...



More coming soon!

The Most Anticipated Film of the Year...

Is finally here! Presenting a video tour of my apartment.