Gangneung (강릉)

We went on vacation to Gangneung, a small beach town on the northeastern coast of the country. There wasn't too much information on the internet, at least not in an organized sense, so this post can hopefully be of use to people who, like me, find themselves googling "Gangneung blog" in hopes of adventure ideas. 

Hostel, Gyeongpo Beach (경포해변)
Our hostel was a quick cab ride from the train station. We walked there when we arrived which was a mistake, but it was cool to see the area. Myunganae Guesthouse was right on the beach. Technically, it was on Gangmun Beach, but it was right next to this awesome rainbow bridge (not to be confused with the rainbow footbridge) that led to a more bumpin' beach, Gyeongpo.

This is the footbridge (photo cred: Tyler)...

...the distinction is crucial.

Gyeongpo was the hang out place of the town. Mind you, this was pre-beach season, so there was no swimming or rainbow rows of umbrellas. Just a stretch of sand and waves and little pockets of people being merry and setting off fireworks. Korea loves fireworks, and drunk people on the beach do, too! Along the beach is a boardwalk and a line of fish restaurants. The atmosphere was ideal, the buzz of warm weather and vacation. On our first night we got seafood stir fry which turned out to be seafood soup, and it was delicious! As long as you're not shy about cracking crab legs and licking your fingers at the dinner table...and we definitely weren't.

 

Unification Park(s) (통일공원)

On Day One we grabbed our new friends from the hostel and hopped on a bus to Unification Park. Things in "Gangneung" are a bit spread out, so it took some time to get all the way down to this tourist attraction, and it felt like we had left the town because, well, we had. (Pro Tip #1: Cashbee and TMoney cards work on the buses in Gangneung, just be sure to charge up before you leave) The park is inconveniently spread out in two parts, with a busy, winding beachside road connecting them. The first bit is basically an outdoor military museum with airplanes and tanks, and an indoor museum that is actually about the Korean War and unification efforts.  The signage inside the museum was mostly in Korean, but there's still a lot to learn from what they are displaying and how they are displaying it. Outside there was more information in English. We mostly wandered around and took pictures with a bunch of stuff we didn't know too much about.

We decided to walk to the second bit of the park because the bus stop didn't have a timetable and we knew it didn't come as often as we would have liked. The walk itself was interesting because we followed the barbed wire fence along the beach, pointing out the Korean Army posts and hideout shelters that popped up every 500 yards or so.  We thought this was probably unnecessary until we arrived at the next part of the park.

Seems safe enough

No, Tyler, that's not the bathroom.

In this section there is a huge warship that Korea purchased from the US and used for a while. The ship itself is cool, but we couldn't find out too much of its history since, again, signs were in Korean. We did have an enthusiastic, older volunteer who shared some interesting stories with us about the first Korean novelist, who was from Gangneung, and his father who was from North Korea.

Tire on the boat

The best part by far was at the end of this park. There were two other seafaring vessels, one a homemade boat and one a submarine, both with fascinating stories. The boat was used in 2009 as a means to defect by 11 North Korean Refugees.  I was surprised to see how recently such an escape had occurred, and the boat itself was an amazing construction of everyday objects. The submarine told an even more exciting tale of 25 North Korean spies getting stranded on land due to rough waters. The submarine got stuck trying to get closer to shore, so the North Koreans set it on fire and were caught/killed attempting to walk back home. This explained the barbed wire and big guns all along the shoreline, and added quite a bit to my clearly very weak understanding of the history and climate between these two countries. Although we started the day slightly underwhelmed, by the end of our tour through Unification Park we were pleased with our decision to check it out.

Haslla Art World (하슬라아트월드)
After Unification Park, we realized we were already close to an indoor and outdoor art museum, so we waited around for the bus to take us to the Haslla Art Park. (Pro Tip #2: get food at the 7Eleven by the submarine/boat/ship. Aside from expensive museum dining, there's not really many other options) The museum was small, but the park was beautiful and a nice way to end a gorgeous day. It's basically a large arrangement of paths on a hillside that overlooks the East Sea. The art was cool, the view was lovely, and Korea once again delivered with satisfyingly organized and efficient markers directing you around the park so you were sure to see everything.

If you look closely, you can see the awesome cruise ship hotel "marooned" in the background.

Raw Fish (회)
That night we were delighted to meet up with more friends, and our group split up for a choose-your-own-adventure dinner. I ended up getting the famous raw fish. The price didn't look friendly, so we had resisted temptation the first night. But this time we had a Korean friend to help us around the menu and assure that we would receive enough food. For a hungry group of four, we ordered a medium sized plate of two kinds of fish: Rock fish and Flat fish. We were delighted when the meal came with tasty seaweed soup and a huge sampler plate of other raw fish for appetizers: shrimp, octopus, scallops, and more. The fish we actually ordered was delectable. I liked the flat fish better, as it was more buttery, but both were excellent choices. We even struggled to be clean plate rangers, which made the price (about $34 a piece, compared to the standard $10-15 for a meal), well worth it. I love fish, so I was in heaven.

 This is buttery as f***!  10/10

So many flavors!

It should go without saying that the night concluded with more fireworks and round two of vacation norebang.

Chamsori Gramaphone and Edison Science Museum (참소리축음기 & 에디슨과학박물관)
The next day was Monday and Korean Children's Day. Sort of like Mothers' or Fathers' Day, but for kids.  Incidentally, later in the month Korea celebrates Parents' Day and Teachers' Day, so I think the comparison is fairly valid. We took a cab to the Chamsori Gramaphone and Edison Science Museum, confusingly advertised as the third largest collection of Edison Artifacts in the world. In fact, the whole museum in confusing. It started out normal enough; a lobby packed with families and a pamphlet explaining the owner's intentions for the museum to be world-renowned made me think it would be an informative and kid-friendly experience. The first room was full of music boxes and gramaphones and the second had a bazillion light bulbs.  But as we followed the arrows through the halls, the displays were progressively weirder. Glass cases jammed with products manufactured by the Edison company seemed to be a stretch from our original understanding of the museum.  Then there was the exhibit dedicated to Edison's impact on Hollywood, with plaques about Justin Beiber and an Obama bobble head. Another room resembled someone's grandmothers' attic, with old televisions, radios, Coke Cola memorabilia, weird paintings. The true moment of bafflement occurred at every stairwell shrine to the owner himself. Rows upon rows of photographs of him in what seemed to be vacation spots, or posing with various celebrities. By the end we concluded that the museum was more an exhibition of the passions of a somewhat organized and likely wealthy hoarder. I think the experience was worth the time, we spent about an hour wandering around in entertained bewilderment, but it seemed more a lesson about Korea.  What that lesson is...we're still not sure.

Gyeongpodae Pavilion (경포대)
Our next stop was right next to the Edison Museum. The Gyeongpodae Pavilion was one of my priorities for the trip as I was able to read about it before arriving in Gangneung. It dates back to 1326, but Korea really likes relocation and restoring things, so I have no clue how old the current real deal really is. Famous for the view it offers of its unique location, the pavilion is on a sizable lake which literally a stone's throw from the beach. From the pavilion, you're supposed to be able to see the moon five times: once in the sky, once in the lake, once in the sea, once in a drinking glass, and once in eyes of a lover. We went around 1pm so we didn't see the moon at all, but it was really cool to see this beautiful lake and to make out a glimpse on the sea between the hotels and trees that line Gyeongpo beach.

Foreground: Lake. Dark blue square in center back: Ocean.  Apparently it was BYOLover

Traditional Houses (한옥/Hanok)
We made another mistake and decided to walk to our last two destinations of the trip: two traditional Korean nobility houses, Seongyojang (선교장) and Ojukheon (오죽헌). Seongyojang was a essentially a museum without all the boring being-inside bits, a museum of showing and not telling. Instead of having a random iron pot and explaining how it was used, visitors can piece together normal life based on the locations of different buildings, the division of the home into sections, the architecture and strategically placed furniture, as well as the occasional explanatory placard.

Heated floors

Proper party flow (for Mom)

Ojukheon was a much more popular attraction, probably because it is featured on some Korean bills. Two Korean historical figures lived at the home, Scholar Yulgok Yi Yi and his mother, Shin Saimdang, both of whom have spots on different notes of the Korean Won. Yulgok Yi Yi is known as the father of Korean Confucianism, and his mother was an artist, calligrapher and poet who is considered a model for Korean women. Unfortunately (for me, at least) much of the information at this house was in Korean, but with the help of Wikipedia I've managed to put together some of the picture. Yulgok was essentially a child prodigy, particularly in civil service, as well as three major Eastern religions: Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism. One particularly striking anecdote is that Yulgok proposed to the king  the army in preparation for an attack by Japan. The king refused, and of course, nine years later, Japan invaded Korea. And Yulgok didn't even get to gloat (or have to deal with the devastation of Korea, depending on how you look at it) because by that time he had been dead for eight years.

That night we struggled with taxi drivers to find a place for chimek (fried chicken and beer), but it was still better than walking around as we had been doing for the whole vacation. (Pro Tip #3: I prefer public transportation and walking, but everything was farther than it seemed- take a cab!) After lighting some last fireworks, we crawled into bed early, to mirror the early start we had planned for the next morning.








Sunrise

A couple notes on the vacation as a whole (skip this part if you like)  
We decided to take the train instead of the Express Bus, as it was a holiday weekend and we anticipated lots of traffic.  From reports from other travelers who had taken the bus, it seems like our travel time was about the same.  The train takes a roundabout route, so even though it's only a three hour drive from seoul it was nearly a six hour train ride. Still, the train was lovely and provided a nice tour of the Korean countryside. The last stretch runs right alongside the shore, and we even passed through the station with the world record for it's proximity to the ocean (or something like that, I didn't look up the fact).  So that was cool!

We didn't make it up to Jumunjin Beach, the Coffee Museum, or the fantastically shaped rocks at Sogeumgang.  Our tour guide on the war ship told us not to go to the coffee museum, plus it would have taken far to long to get there by bus (although knowing us we probably would have decided to walk). One of our awesome friends from the hostel had hiked Sogeumgang before we arrived and let us know that the path was blocked off pretty early, so we decided against that. We didn't do Jumunjin because after raw fish night we were all fished out.

Choosing vacation destinations is difficult, especially when you have limited funds, limited time, and limited information. Having already been to Busan, we wanted to see something new and chose Gangneung for not really any reason in particular. In the end, I think it was a good idea. At this time of year, it's too cold for beach bumming no matter where you go in Korea. Jeju was out of the picture because the flights were sold out. We weren't exactly sure what we were getting ourselves into, from the moment we booked our hostel to the time we arrived at the train station, but that's part of the excitement of vacation: making choices, finding adventures, and learning from it. We made some awesome friends, spent a lot of money on fireworks, and saw many things we will never see again. It was round two of winning vacation.

Dear Dreams, Can You Drop Me a Pin?

Lately I've found myself chopping my way through a jungle of questions, and it seems it's entangling most everyone who's ever made me jealous, as well. So I figure the pen keyboard is stronger than the sword machete, right? Let me take another hack at it.

Like everyone else, I want it all. We want adventure. We relish late night philosophizing with fascinating characters. We wake up at ungodly hours to stand in awe of spectacular views. We seek out people we love and expect to magically keep them as close as our closest moments. We feel the desire for—and the pressure of—financial stability. We struggle to convince our families and ourselves that we really will be around for the momentous events, and even some of the unimportant ones. Most of all, we want to challenge ourselves with the world.  And the world certainly provides challenges...the main ones being: how to we get 'it all,' and how get it all at the same time?

Easy Answer A: Move close to home and take some shitty job.  Shitty means unfulfilling. Maybe you make a gazillion dollars a year. But it doesn't push your boundaries. It doesn't give you that feeling of snapping a piece into the world's jigsaw. Mostly it just makes you count down until Friday. Starting every Sunday morning.

Easy Answer B: Say goodbye to everyone you love, sell everything, and explore the world. You'll meet people you care about. You'll make a new home in every place you go. But you'll be in transit, and so will each new family you find.

In both cases, you'd sacrifice something that I, at least, am unwilling to sacrifice. I want the exhilarating life that keeps a person in love with the world, but I want the people who I love to come with me.

There's something about people who travel. They remember how to be young no matter how old they are. It's not about looks, it's about their outlook. To them, life does include adventures, it is an adventure, a constant question mark. This view is beautiful, it's admirable, it's something I strive for, but I also see these people as lonely, connected by ever improving but never satisfying means like email, not-frequent-enough Skype dates, and the occasional real life visit. I have been and am one of those people, momentarily but also meaningfully connected to many...but I have to ask myself, how meaningful can all these fleeting relationships be? My inner deliberation eventually comes down to a new question: do I want to spend every family holiday with a new 'family'?

The exuberance of a traveler is not gleaned from the party life that traveling so often affords. If that were the case we could all just move to any huge party city (or establish our own) and spend all our money getting fucked up every weekend. But that's not it.  It's the awareness and proactivity one has to practice to get through life. Nearly everything is an effort. I won't say a greater effort, but it's certainly a different one. Want to venture slightly off the beaten path? You will devote all your energy to finding something you've never heard of and likely won't be able to recognize. Want to pay your bills? Want to purchase a week's worth of groceries, or simply take out your garbage?  You will bury your concentration into a translator app, fixating over one tiny detail that might just tell you what you are looking at. We take for granted how often we are on autopilot when we are comfortable. Our brains have spent our entire lives figuring out how to survive on the least amount of energy. Any minute task in a new country becomes a research project on cultural difference. Living in new culture forces your brain to synthesize all the sensory input you've trained it to abandon. When you start to exist in this heightened and often overwhelming state of perception, you start to realize that life is something you have to live and not just get through.

So if we can't just choose home and we can't just choose travel, what's our next option?

Fantasy Answer C: Find the ideal job, one that allows you to travel the world and come home when you want. 

Okay this option isn't so bad. But choosing it is difficult, and finding it on the page is even worse. If someone knows the direct route to an awesome life, please send me the directions.  For now I think most of us are confused.  How do you know if the job from hell is going to land you the best job ever? Does such a  job even exist, and in the unlikely case it does, shouldn't I be able to get their by letting my interests and talents guide me? When should you give up one goal for another? I'm starting to think that comedian Mitch Hedburg has the only real answer: "You know, I’m sick of following my dreams, man. I’m just gonna ask where they’re going and hook up with ‘em later."

The final question is, if we have pinpointed the lifestyle we want to lead, why can't we just lead that life from home? I don't think it's impossible, but it's not easy. Teaching in Korea has been described as your freshman year of post-college life. Your housing is provided, your salary is high, and there are tons of people all in the same crazy situation as you, looking for friends and fun. Living back home feels infinitely more complicated, with rent and cars and cost of living...all limiting factors on what jobs you can apply to, and which locations are feasible. Combine these restrictions with the fact that I still don't know what I want to be when I grow up, and the options are simultaneously too many and too few.  I don't know what I want to do, and there are lots of reasons why I can't do so many things.  Especially back home. 

Maybe I'm lying to myself. Maybe I'm not supposed to know the answers and just can't help but turn the questions over and over in my head. But since I can't meet up with my dreams later, I guess I'll have to keep following them as my best source of guidance.  

Kindergarten Graduation and the New School Year

At school, nearly all of 2014 has been sacrificed to the demon-god that is kindergarten graduation at a Korean hagwon. I'll try not to make too many statements like the following, but I have to say at least this one: Korean culture puts a lot of value into presentation and performance. You see it in how people dress, how they whip out their phones to check their hair and their makeup, and I could tell when my six seven-year-olds spent the majority of their last month of kindergarten memorizing lines, learning a choreographed dance, and squinting in the blinding stage lights.

My kindergarteners are unbelievable. First of all, they speak two languages.  They come to school every day, where they sit quietly while we read and discuss stories, write journal entries, learn geography and math and facts about various classical composers. They speak in complete sentences, they practice beautiful handwriting, they get unpacked and packed up all by themselves, and they go home and do homework. Well, I have thoughts about all of this, as I always do, so I make a point to get the kids moving and coloring and laughing as much as I can. The school encourages us to do so, and I know my co-teachers all make similar efforts. Occasionally we do catch ourselves complaining, but we quickly remember that we asked a five year old to 'sit nicely and pay attention' for 40 minutes straight, and we manage our expectations.

Photo day was a perfect example of the Korean attention to presentation. Our children had three different outfits: fancy, uniform, and jeans with a white tee and bare feet. The Korean teachers were buzzing about fixing hair and MAKEUP yes makeup, and the photographer took series of photos to ensure capturing that cute kid smile. To top it all off, my coworkers preached of the promise of photoshop to fix any flaws, and the final product delivered! That was the second picture day of the year, and later that week the photographer came back to retake a few of the pictures. Presentation is serious business.

So fast-forward to graduation time. My 7A India Peacocks had to learn the ILS motto and give a little speech around a theme (some classes did a skit), we had to record a two-minute 'commercial', and we still had school. In the end the graduation ceremonies-- the nine classes were split over two days-- were orderly, impressive, and adorable. As expected. Still, the amount of times I used some variation of the phrase "Don't worry so much!" was much too high. Everyone was so stressed, and our students could sense it.  They felt the pressure, they worked hard at every rehearsal, even when they were sick and tired of doing the same routine for the 20th time that week. As for me, I still stand by my motto for those weeks.  No matter what happens, a group of kindergarteners on stage in little caps and gowns is always going to be charming and precious and perfect.  And they were!

We started the new school year on Thursday. The 7B1 Jungle Jaguars are five seven-year-olds who are in their second year of studying English. I have quickly become an expert on wild cats. And since now you're wondering...cheetahs have spots, while leopards have rosettes and jaguars have spots inside their rosettes. Also, there are only four 'big cats', the ones that can ROAR: lion, tiger, jaguar, leopard. Boom! Education! Here's to a year full of fun learning, for my jaguars and the Carolion.

Six Things to Do When You Have Nothing to Do

Having a job that's not school means that I have significantly more free time.  And I mean legitimately free, as in "I am so completely un-scheduled that I'm not even procrastinating right now." Aside from the fact that wherever you are, and especially if you are in a new place, there is always plenty to explore, adventures are often too involved for those awkward hours between a late dinner and a bedtime that's not the same as your students. Back in school, this time was overflowing with rehearsals, homework, work work, and pretending to be productive in order to put off any of the aforementioned tasks.  But now...I've got nothing.  The sensation is so unfamiliar that it still feels weird, so I made this to remind myself how to fill my free time with something slightly more substantial than wondering if I've forgotten something important.

1. Watch movies. I've never been a big movie fan, despite many friends' valiant efforts to inspire and educate me. Nevertheless, I am slowly advancing towards cinematic competency. Every time someone expels incredulously, "You've never seen ----?!" (and this usually follows a quotation or reference that flew right over my head) I make a mental note: Caroline, watch ---- next time you are sitting on your computer, wondering what to do, because you've answered every email and hit the point in your newsfeed where you last stopped reading.

2. Read a book.  Ideally this would be my go-to option.  But it's a bit more challenging here where books are hard to acquire or are in Korean. At school, picking up a book is rarely enticing, mostly because you're already reading so many goddamn books! So "Read a book" has somewhat evolved to be "Learn Something" and here's where I ricochet back to my computer screen. The internet- so much likely fallicious knowledge! It's a corn maze of goats being awesome and documentaries about the history of logic. Then there are those questions of how much information is too much information, and I don't mean the not-safe-for-work-kind. I've been using this super cool site to monitor my time on the internet, in an attempt to go back to books. But like I said it can be difficult.

3. Go outside! Outside, with a book, in the sunshine, iced tea in hand, cheese and crackers...erm, kimchi and rice? And winter weather and the search for grass in a concrete jungle. Actually, Korea has excellent hiking spots, it just takes a little forethought and an extended chunk of daylight.  So the great outdoors is an exploration in the works.

4. Errands (and chores).  I think 'errand' is my mother's favorite word.  They always take longer than they should and are never too fun.  Although living in a foreign country certainly keeps them interesting.  Cleaning, grocery shopping, cooking, paying bills, taking out the trash...it can get complicated.  Finding motivation, particularly in the face of the extra complications of language barriers, etc, can also be a challenge.  But sometimes boredom is motivation enough!  More thoughts to come on how living abroad as an American brings to light some of the struggles immigrants and English Language Learners deal with in the States...

5. Have real Skype dates.  When you know you're not going to run into your friends or family any time soon, Skype takes on a completely new purpose.  It's not just another way of contacting people; it becomes an integral component in maintaining and building your relationships. Despite having lived away from home and overseas before, I didn't realize Skype's new role until recently while Skyping with my friend, Willow. Skype dates are a bit of a pain to set up, and it always feels awkward to click the little red X and 'say goodbye' when no one's really going anywhere.  A real Skype date needs a clear purpose.  It's like meeting a friend for coffee- you're (generally) not going for the coffee, you're going for your friend. The car rides with your mom or times you bump into a friend on your way to class are gone, so now your interaction must be intentional.  This doesn't mean it can't be impromptu. But the best Skype conversations are the ones where I decided to talk with the person in the same manner as I decide to watch a movie. It's going to take some finite amount of time, and my attention should be focused, as much as possible, on that person.  Finally, a critical moment in a Skype date or a phone call or anything is to let it end when it's over. If you find yourself scrambling to think of another question you were supposed to ask that 'just slipped my mind,'  just say goodbye! It's okay to hang up. Next time, there will be more to talk about, and you won't feel weird lunging for some mundane topic to which no one has much to contribute.

6. Make something.  I know, I know, watching movies and writing can really be lumped into 'learn something' if you want. But I mean create something.  For me it's often this blog. Sometimes it's a coloring sheet I stole from my kindergarteners. When I'm lucky, it's music or a craft or a plan for an adventure. The amount of creative 'juices' I have now is astonishing, because at school it was entirely sapped up by papers and problem sets and class discussions. Who knew that a college kid could work so hard in between intramural softball and happy hour? It feels good to direct that creative energy into something I choose, to be inspired by something and then create something new. And it's productive!

If you have ideas for how to fill free time, send 'em my way. I also accept movie and book suggestions :D

Lotte World

You know how sometimes you come across those horrifying articles on the internet where they show you that most of commercial USA is owned by a few major corporations, like this one? In Korea, no one bothers with the "illusion of choice"—everything is quite obviously owned by a company called Lotte. Walk down the street and you'll pass Lotte Mart, Lotte Cinema, Lotte Department Store, Lotte Castle Apartments, and even Lotteria, a fast food joint. But wait, there's more! A quick Google search reveals that Lotte also dabbles in hotels, insurance, and oil. Still, I'm not here to comment on the conglomerate (I'm way under qualified). I'm here to tell you about my trip to Lotte World, the largest indoor amusement park in, well, the world.

Imagine a huge mall. You can see down to the bottom floor, up to and through the glass ceiling, and all around you is adorable, pastel, cheery, fun-focused fantasy land. Four floors (really, five) of cutesy rides, food kiosks, a ginormous stage, photo opportunities, and janitors on roller blades. It was awesome.

The lack of expiration date on my student ID meant I got in for 28,000₩ (about $28.00).  Even without the discount, the price was super cheap for an amusement park, and we were all thrilled to see that Lotte didn't try to make up the difference in its snack or souvenir prices.  I've been spoiled by the Roller Coaster Capital of the World, but rides like The French Revolution and Pharaoh's Fury managed to excite, and the free fall tower of death, aka the Gyro Drop, scared the living daylights out of all of us. And Emily really enjoyed Lotte World's spinning teacups, christened with the family friendly title "Drunken Baskets."

All and all there wasn't much different about Lotte World from my experiences at amusement parks in the States. The fact that it's inside is kinda nice, since we didn't have to wait in unbearable heat or frigid cold. And the park is open until eleven pm. We didn't stay that late, but we did adventure out to Magic Island, an artificial island on an artificial lake connected to the indoor section, which happens to have a logo and castle that, well, might upset Cinderella a little bit.

At the end of our day, we visited the park of Lotte World that I think US parks should try to steal from Korea.  Attached to the park was an informative, well organized, and interactive Korean Folk Museum. I was delighted to follow the arrows around different periods of Korea's extensive and fascinating history, without being bogged down in too many details or unidentifiable artifacts.  I can totally imagine my mom (hi, Mom!), who never gave in to trips to Six Flags, agreeing to a day a Lotte World if we promised to visit the history museum.  And honestly, the museum was cool, so that's a deal to me!

Above, Emily sports a couture backpack. Try carrying your books around in this baby!  To her right yet another adorable Korean child tickles the world which demonstrating an ironing technique.  Yes, ironing.  Shout out to my mémère! Finally, James and Emily have a go at 윷/Yut, a traditional Korean game. Every museum should be interactive.

Amusement parks are a one time thing for me, so I was happy to spend the entire day in various lines around one large, colorful room, with great company, crunching on candy, cracking jokes about our surroundings, crowding around a cell phone game, and of course, capturing many goofy selfies.