road trips and dried fish

well, it has been a month and so much has happened. i continued tutoring the korean students for a few more tuesdays. it got easier, but not easy. while i was teaching, one 6 year old, carlos (the "english" name he chose for himself), punched another one, sonny, which caused a 25 minute delay in teaching. sonny's lip was bleeding the rest of the lesson. i was just waiting for his parents to come up later that night and attack me. they didn't.

we took a road trip to the yellow sea, mallipo beach. it was cold, so there were very few people around. the ocean/sea was beautiful. the beach was slightly littered, but the surrounding cliffs and lighthouse made the scenery.

we had thanksgiving at kate and kevin's house. it was a big party. they fried 2 turkeys and had a ham as well. we were responsible for the mashed potatoes, asian salad, pomegranate martinis, and wine. there were about 12-14 people there...we ate a ton and played games (namely catch phrase) late into the night. it was both brant and my first thanksgiving without any family, so despite the fact that it was an absolutely great time, it didn't quite feel like thanksgiving. such fun though.

the next day we went to seoraksan national park in the northeast corner of south korea, by north korea. it took about 4.5 hours to get there through the downpour. we stopped at the beach on the sea of japan which koreans call the east sea. it was very well kept and the water was just as beautiful as the west coast. the public beach was very wide and the sand was clean and more toward the white side. i collected some shells as we walked and watched the turbulent water crash against the beach. we continued on and when we got closer to mt. sorak, the rain died off and we hiked up to 3 different waterfalls. it grew dark quickly, so we only had time for that on friday. we checked into our hotel, hotel sorak park, and immediately got spooked. we were the ONLY people at the hotel. it was fancy (for a mountain hotel in korea) but absolutely vacant. we felt like we were in "the shining". i guess Lonely Planet wasn't lying when they said that you may feel as though you just died...this due to the all white decor in the rooms and, in our case, the eerie quiet. we went to the restaurants, all vacant, checked out the "singing room", vacant, and then made way out the front door to get some good ole korean bibimbap. we actually did not want that, but this is what every korean restaurant serves. that's it. unless you want dried fish or pork belly. we ordered veggie bibimbap...even though we didn't quite feel like it at the moment it was delicious. the side dishes are what make us lose our appetite though. sesame oil fish skin, dried minnows (eyeballs and all...people pop these like chips!), dried squid, marinated pork belly....many of these come with every meal you order, as they did with this one. it'll make you lose your appetite. brant did. we ended up finishing our beer and going next door to by chocolate chip cookies and mentos at the convenience store. we headed back to check out the casino in the basement of our hotel. once again, not a sole there. we asked for a drink at the bar and for some reason they wouldn't give us one. ok. so we sat down at started playing 100 won (dime) slots. immediately they brought us 2 hite (the budweiser of korea), some dried squid, and some hollow m and m's. aha. you need to play to drink for free. we finished here and headed to the blackjack table. minimum 10,000 won ($10) bet. oh, and 2 people have to be playing at once. interesting. so brant ended up playing 20,000 won hands for an hour until our limit had been spent. by the way, 4 people were working in the casino, and all of them were staring at us during this game and during our whole time in the casino...

we went back to the park saturday and it was packed. the smell of silkworm larvae soup was in the air! yum, yum! we hiked to some temples along the way up to ulsanbawi rock. this hike was undoubtedly the most treacherous destination i have ever arrived at....it would not have been allowed in the US. at least not for the general public. it was awesome. we were going up vertical metal steps along the mountainside. sometimes the steps would stop and we'd be climbing on crumbled rock. it was absolutely amazing. we got to the top and saw the entire park's peaks and valleys. the top boulder which was a sheer 2500 foot drop had no railing whatsoever. one slip of the foot and you'd be gone. the koreans were walking right at the edge too. i have included a pic of brant on this boulder. this hike took about 4 hours and then we took the cable car to the top of a surrounding mountainside and had some coffee. we were beat. my legs are actually still aching today, 3 days later.

i accepted a job for the month of december teaching english at a school downtown. i am subbing for a canadian english teacher who wanted to go home for december. i will teach from 2-7 on weekdays.

brant's new job here is to upgrade the f-16s to a newer computer system (like they had at shaw). for this, he is going to be sent to meetings in hawaii in dec. and jan. i am going to go with in january and we will extend to make it a weeklong trip. we hope to do a dive while we are there and i also want to finally take my surf lessons.

that's about it. brant is just starting to fly more and loves his new job at the wing level. i am excited to sub for this teacher and have been having fun christmas shopping and training for the seoul marathon.

bye now!
s.