A Typical Day of Hiking in Korea

That was exactly nothing like what Tahl and I had today. You see today was the first time I've been hiking mid-week out of season. There was actually about 30 minutes where we didn't see another hiker. In a country that is 70% mountainous, with 50 million people all contained in an area about as big as the state as Indiana, that is a rare yet SWEET moment.

Go hiking on a weekend and you make "Choo Choo" sounds going up the mountain, pumping your fist in the air. (At least I would). Go hiking on a holiday and dress down, you will stay warm with the plenthora of wind barriers. Go hiking on a holiday weekend and improve your grinding skills for the club.

One thing that was typical about today was that the hikers that were out were in their full hiking gear. How could one hike without a 30 Litre backpack, hiking poles, hat, sunglasses, proper footwear, and your versatile moisture wicking jacket and pants? (OK, I totally stole that last bit of wording from a hiking gear website). After all, think of all the dangers that could occur in the elements of the mountains in Seoul during the 2-5 hour adventure.

Nevertheless, korean hikers are amongst the most generous people in the world. You could pack nothing and be fed, drunk, and get a brand new sturdy low profile brimmed and adjustable closure cap with built in sweatband! HWIGHTING!

My prison of Korea

Well it's a lovely prison, I must say, But I am still here. I will get to that in a minute, first an update on the genial Cooper, and lovely Hee-Young's wedding! It was two weeks ago, in the southern port city of Ulsan. The Korea Ultimate family that is, was in full form to mark this momentous occasion between two truly awesome people.

The pair has been living in Oz for the past year so it was a reunion time of sorts, with many missing but also some friendly new faces. The wedding was a traditional one, and we were lucky to have our billingual MC Yoonee explain the meaning behind each process during the ceremony.

http://www.lifeinkorea.com/Culture/marriage/marriage.cfm?xURL=ceremony

Here, the beautiful, still legally single Hee-Young awaits for the ceremony to begin. She declines my last request for her hand in marriage.

The washing of the hands here symbloizes the cleansing before the ceremony begins.


The bride covers her face during the ceremony which she reveals during the bowing custom towards the end of the ceremony. Phew , Coop got lucky, she aint ugly!Typically Korean weddings nowadays are quite western, in that the bride wears the glamourous white gown, and the groom wears the tamer yet luxurious rented tux. Coop and Hee-young went the old way of the traditional hanbok. The hanbok is something you only really see in Korea during the two major holidays, Seolal (Chinese New Year- it was last weekend), and Chuseok (A sort of korean thanksgiving in late September or early October). So it's always pleasant to see these outfits worn, especially when the subject is a white guy.


I gotta give some props to Coop. Under pressure he perfectly executed the acorn jelly chopstick grab, not once, but twice to an eye-gazing audience of several hundred onlookers. He was rewarded with oooooooo's , awwwwww's, and applause, followed by laughter. After 2 1/2 years in Asia and some damn good chopstick abilities I doubt I could match Coop's skill. Acorn jelly is so tender and easy to cut in half if one were to apply too much pressure, yet enough pressure is required to lift the delicacy to one's mouth. It's like eating tofu with chopsticks, but one step above that.

The usual Korean wedding includes the short ceremony (be it traditional or modern) followed by a hurry-up, hello-thanks-for-coming-lunch and that does er. Of course with a plethora of foreigners in attendence we took it one step further. Of course we tried to consume as much free alcohol at lunch as we could, I mean cmon, like we wanted to pay 2000 won for soju at 7-11 after. To illustrate:

Soju Mathematics
(each bottle is $2)

1 bottle- feel good

2 bottles-everyone is your friend
3 bottles - vommiting and start losing friends
4 bottles- rolling in your own vomit, unaware that you no longer have friends
5 bottles-no more rolling, no more friends, you must be dead

After the lunch was the photo shoot, then back to Dray's to chill out and play some frisbee related games (all other games are inferior). Some kept drinking and it was obvious who they were by the time we got to the bar at night. The night was full of good times, drinking, flippy cups and more drinking. By far the award winner of the night was Jeff, a newcomer to Korea and Korea Ultmate. Jeff managed to get lost late in the evening at which time he realized the only place he knew where to go was Seoul. So he got the taxi driver to take him to the bus station and he hopped on a bus to Seoul. When he got to Seoul and was on the subway going home, he realized that he forgot his house keys and bags in Ulsan. You see the funny thing is that Ulsan is about as far as you can get from Seoul in Korea, its 410 km. Or a 5 HOUR bus ride! He then had to get back on a bus and go 5 hours back to Ulsan to get his belongings. It wasn't all a loss though because he ended up being 30 min early to our 12 pm frisbee start time and proceeded to get drunk again in Ulsan, Welcome to KUPA Jeff!

Now the happy newlyweds are back in Oz, Good luck, can't wait to see ya again!

Here's where the reference in my title comes into play. Two days after the wedding, I was back in Seoul getting my passport ready, to go to the Chinese embassy to apply for my Chinese tourist Visa. There was only one problem, I couldn't find my passport. After digging, racking my brain, and more digging I realized that my money belt with ALL my i.d had been stolen from my friend's apartment. Upon further thought I deduced my passport was the least of my problems as my money belt contained about $1600 cash and the same in travellers cheques. Luckily I can get refunded for the travellers cheques but the cash is gone. I further became agitated when I noticed that the $1200 in cash that was raised for the Cambodian orphanage was also stolen. That was really the worst part, the money that I was accountable and responsible for was taken while in my possession.

So I must stay in Korea a bit longer dealing with passport and cash issues. I'm starting korean lessons again on March 5 to make up for what I should have learned the past few years. I'm really stoked for that. As for the orphanage money, well at the suggestion of my friends here, we are going to do another one. Hopefully bigger and better. I'm a bit worried about how the original attendees may feel, suspecting foul play or negligence on my part. I don't want these people to feel their donation was wasted. I'm still racking my brain attempting to figure out the best approach to this. However a friend and journalist may help me out in this regard, we'll see how that works out.

All things considered, I'm in great spirits, excited for the opportunites that have resulted from this misfortune. I gotta extend a huge Thank you to everyone here that is helping me out, especially Yong for allowing me to continue to sleep on his four cushions, sometimes forget to flush the toilet (drunken mishaps) and eat his jelly bellies.

Korean History- So fascinating

So I've been meaning to make my blog a lot more educational and interesting. But I have no idea if anyone really reads this other than my sister and my now un-anonymous reader Shauna. Oh well, here it goes.

So there was a President named Park Chung Hee who was Korea's longest serving president, from 1961-1979 which he gained in a blodless coup. He is still revered by many as Korea's greatest President despite his awful human rights record. His long reign as President was not due to free elections, rather it was due to his firm grip on power and intention to keep it that way.

The reason he is held in such positive light is that he began the transition that turned the post-Korean-war-poverty-striken-South into the 11th largest economic powerhouse it is today. He focused the country's efforts on export, ship building, and technology. To his credit, he did an outstanding job in that regard.

Of course, there were many people who didn't like him. A good number of those people were North Koreans, who tried twice to assinate him. In their first attempt in 1968 they dressed up as South Korean soliders and passed several security checkpoints on their way inside the Blue House. Fortunatley for Mr. Park, not all the South Korean guards were fooled, and the assassins were stopped and questioned. Some were killed on the spot, but many fled and escaped only to be hunted down and killed days later. Around 30 North Koreans were involved.

The second assination attempt occured on August 15, 1974, a national holiday in Korea celebrating the 29th anniversary of independence from Japanese rule. This was perfromed by a sole assassin, Mun Se-gwang who was sitting in during a ceremonial speech. At one point, the gunman stood up but in a panic shot a bullet into the ground. Confusion ensued immediatley and the panicked hit man pointed the gun and aimed it at the stage. He missed the President but succeded in hitting his wife. The President completed his speech. His wife was taken to the hospital where she died.

In the last assination attemp on Oct 26, 1979, it wasn't the North Koreans but the head of the KCIA, Kim Jae-kyu who led the way. Seemingly Mr Kim was unhappy with the President's relentless grip on power and treatment of student protesters and dissidents. He later claimed in court "I did it for the democracy of this country, nothing more, nothing less".

While having dinner together, along with two female companion singers, Mr Kim excused himself to go upstairs. He returned with a gun after telling his bodyguards that if they heard shots inside to kill all the President's bodygaurds outside. Mr Kim entered the room and first killed one of the Presidents bodyguards. He shot the President as well, but not enough to leave him dead before the gun jammed. Mr Kim went back upstairs and reloaded the gun to finish the dying President off. After two failed attempts, the President had been assinated.

I tell you this family is like the Kennedy Family of Korea; such strange misfortunes with family members seemingly always in the spotlight. Currently one of the leading candidates for the next Korean election is none other than Ms Park Geun-hye, daughter of Park Chung Hee. Last year while campaigning to gain support for her Grand National Party during local elections, a distraught middle-aged man sliced part of her face with a box cutter knife. She required 60 stiches but recovered quite quickly and as a result her party won an even larger majority in the elections than expected.

Crazy shit.

Links and more info here


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Park_Geun-hye

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Park_Chung_Hee

AWESOME WEEKEND

I had such a great weekend. On Saturday I ran around getting ready for the fundraiser we had here at Mike's Cabin in Shinchon. It is a new bar that a friend from Ultimate Frisbee recently opened. There were about 7 musicians that entertained the crowd all night. The place was packed, busier than its ever been. I worked the door to make sure everyone paid there $5 donation to Rainbow House, the orphanage I have close ties with in Cambodia. We also did a raffle for a DVD player (random guy won), bottle of Jack (Tori took it as a birthday gift!) and gift certificate to INDIGO restaurant (went to Gobbles but the certificate went missing during the draw:<. Also there was a peanut estimating contest. Here was the riddle on the massive jar of peanuts:

How many peanuts in ths jar?
Can you outguess everyone in this bar?
Buried inside is a SWEET treasure,
with which you can SHARE the VARIETY of pleasure.

There were 494 Peanuts. Coop the bachelor scribbled his last second guess of 491 peanuts as I was walking to the stage. What a champion that guy is. He was also the winner of $20 worth of jelly bellies inside. Appreciate wit now. Also, Cheers to Jon Dart who drunkinly and unknowingly guessed that jelly bellies were inside. Sorry for not drinking that beer you bought me Jonny, but you should learn not to buy me garbage beer no matter how cheap it is.

Nevertheless, when all was said and done, we raised $1180 (US) for Rainbow House!!!!!!!!!!!!!
A great time was had by all. It was so nice to see so many friends from the recent to those from when I first came here.

You see, this is a great last week in Korea for me because my friends Coop and Hee Yung and getting married this weekend. Therefor tons of people are sticking around, visiting, or coming out of the woodwork for this momentous occasion. I'm stoked for the wedding and accompanying Ulty tourney the day after.

On Sunday we had a great day of Ultimate in beautiful plus 10 weather. And I wasn't hungover! Just tired from only 3 hours sleep.

Monday was Christmas. The Superbowl. It was awesome watching it with buddies who care about football too. I'm happy for Peyton and the Colts, its about time they won one. What a roller coaster sloppy game though. Modestly I must comment that I extended my Superbowl betting streak to two years! Thanks Jacob for the e-man-won. Cooper was too scared to bet more than a chunner ($1) after last years loss. Also, my sister has mentioned that next year may be the year she fulfills he promise of taking me to one Superbowl. How amaaaaaazing would that be? Thats like Christmas times 10.

AND Today my buddy John Ross let me take his motorbike out for a cruise all day. It was a beautiful 11 degrees, perfect riding weather. We are working on putting together a video of Motorbiking Seoul, since the last one I made crashed on Damien's hard drive. That sucked sooooooo much, but its all good cuz I'm gonna make a better one now. Stay tuned for that. I will complete it when I'm in China later this month.