Elusive Campgrounds and Turquoise Waters

We realize it has been a little too long since our last blog and therefore there are too many stories to tell about our adventures, but we'll try to do the best we can.  The last two weeks the clan has been out and about exploring Korea.  We started with a trip to the Gangwon-do Province to the east of where we live.  We piled camping gear and the three of us into a school vehicle to go searching for locations for our outdoor education programs.

The trip started with the normal Korean challenges, why would anything be easy?  After a small debacle to get a much needed cell phone we headed for the mountains, leaving Incheon at 1:30 instead of the projected 10:00 in the morning.  Driving was the second hurdle to overcome, with the navigation system, which is difficult to understand at times (luckily its in English), the multiple tourism maps, following the somewhat cryptic road signs and watching out for millions of other Korean drivers, Koreans are not necessarily known for their good driving habits, there was quite a bit to juggle.  Jess kept it together for the most part, only yelled maybe once or twice.  Thank goodness Koreans drive on the right side of the road, most of the time.

After a few stops along the way to pantomime to tourism officials we encountered the third obstacle.  Locating the campground.  Arriving in Seoraksan national park after 9:00 pm the campground was nowhere to be found, so we purused the other options of small minbaks and pensions advertised as honeymoon retreats. We opted for a small "honeymoon" hotel, which John checked into and unfortunately after paying for and seeing the room, noticed that it had a few to many remnants of past honeymoons to be inhabited by our family. We took our bags back to the car and in frustration pantomimed with the unhappy owner and her inebriated husband for a refund.  With the late hour of night in mind and not knowing our surroundings, we headed up the hill to the Seorak Grand Park Hotel, the big national park hotel with a decor straight out of the 70's but plenty clean for Finn to crawl around in. Anything for a good night's sleep at this point.

All the hard work and trials and tribulations payed off though when we awoke to the mountain air and stunning views of jagged mountain peaks in the morning.  We spent the day talking with National Park rangers (they spoke english! yeah!) and then took the cable car up to some beautiful granite peaks overlooking the eastern shore of Korea and the Sea of Japan. A short hike from the top of the cable car was an ancient fortress hidden within the granite crags and a small Buddhist temple with throaty chants echoing through the mountains.

View from the top of the cable car looking out over the Sea of Japan

 

On the way back down the cable car we noticed a very large Buddha statue just up the valley from the base area. Once back on the ground we headed in that direction and found a four story tall statue with another temple dug into the hillside behind it. Slightly farther up the valley was yet another temple compound last rebuilt in the 1700's, but over a 1000 years old and still in use today. Its amazing how dates blend together when buildings are noted not by the year, but the dynasties they were constructed in and how commonplace historical places become in a society that claims a four or five thousand year old lineage. 

 In the remaining daylight we exited the park and finally found the elusive campground. We set up camp and spent the evening playing with Finn in the grass.

The next two days we found ourselves driving through back roads and countryside of eastern South Korea, looking for campgrounds and recreation sites that didn't exist or were being renovated.  Nearly every place we went people crossed their arms in an "X" saying no, no, no.  We did find some trails that we need to follow up on and a few campgrounds that we haven't found on the map.  John regularly reminded Jess that finding what won't work is a part of the process of finding what will work.

On the way home we spent the night on the Eastern seashore in a small minbak and spent the morning playing with Finn on the beach and in the turquoise water of the Sea of Japan. On the way back home we happened upon the ski resorts that will be in the 2018 winter Olympics and toured their base facilities.  John says their seems to be some steep terrain but their are twenty foot tall nets that line each run top to bottom, guess he won't be skiing off trail at those resorts.

This past week has been the equivalent of Korean Thanksgiving.  We spent the first four days recovering from our scouting mission and attempting to find things for the house.  Then we headed back to the islands off the coast of Incheon where we spent two wonderful days hiking on the island and playing in the ocean. We have never seen Finn so happy as he is at the beach, digging in the sand and splashing in the water and the waves.  He is totally fearless!  Now that he can walk we're attempting to help him realize that when he walks into the water and falls over it might be too deep to keep his head above water.  He seems unphased!

Jess and Finn looking out over the Yellow Sea from Deokjeok Island

Hiking towards the pagoda in the upper right of the photo

The town of Sepori where we stayed

Free from the backpack

Evening beach session, Finn couldn't get enough

Mom breaking the news to Finn that it really is time to leave

Watson is a retired police dog from Oregon and he's been doing a great job babysitting Finn

Overall things are good.  We are all adjusting.  John has been happy to get to dog-sit a very large black German Shepherd named Watson. He might be trying to get Jess used to the idea of having a dog (not so sure about that!).  Especially not without a yard.  Jess' job is challenging but it keeps her mind busy.  Its difficult to  find what we're looking for in a culture where it doesn't really seem to exist, but we'll keep looking.  We have numerous ideas, just need to do some more exploring.  Finn is getting big, has a molar starting to pop through, but still only two sets of four teeth in the front (top and bottom).  He learned to walk about two weeks ago and already he seems to be running circles around both of us.

Our New Home

Its been a whirlwind of a week here in Songdo.  Monday, the final day before work started, we decided to venture into the depths of Incheon.  After two mis-stops on the  subway, we arrived in Bupyeong (third time is a charm) where we visited a traditional market with narrow sidewalks between vendors, baskets of fruit and vegetables, and glass containers filled with an assortment of live eels.  Beneath it was the largest underground mall in Korea.  Vendor after vendor of shoes, clothing, jewelry, and fragrance products.  My younger sister, Melanie, would have been in heaven.  We even found a movie theatre and a dollar store.

Tuesday John and I found ourselves doing the official change of roles.  I got ready for work in the morning while he prepared to stay home with Finn.  It has been eye opening for both of us to turn the tables.  For me it feels like I am going non-stop all day long and for John he can't understand how he can busy all day and feel like he hasn't gotten anything done.  Its good to spend some time in each others shoes.

Work has been good.  Lots of information during orientation,  coupled with learning our way around the city.  There is a great group of teachers here and many families.  Even another stay at home dad with a one-year-old daughter, and numerous trailing husbands that will be looking for people to do things with during the day.   I don't think John will be lonely!

The school also scheduled a trip to Costco, an hours bus ride away.  What I thought would be a small taste of home in this foreign land.  I was so excited and John was dreading the whole thing.  Little did I know that despite all of my food buying trips where I had 6 carts and spent thousands of dollars on food for courses, that this would be the worst Costco experience ever.  The costco was two stories and we had one and a half hours to make it through and back to the bus.  We felt like ants in an ant farm.  We could hardly push a cart through the hoards of people while trying to fill the cart as quickly as possible with all the goods we needed.  It was like being on supermarket sweep, but at the end we still had to pay for all of the groceries.  Despite the people, the heat, and the time crunch, we were excited to find oatmeal and cheerios, two staples for Finn, and coffee THE staple for John.

Today we took the bus to the airport to return the cell phone (so those of you with that number, we no longer have it), and decided to find a beach to play at.  To get a visual of the beaches here, imagine any popular beach in Los Angeles on a busy summer weekend and then imagine it twice as full, umbrellas next to one another, tents lined up behind the umbrellas, and people sitting on the grass in the shade behind the tents.  The water looks like one of the wave pools at a waterpark like waterworld; people in tubes, people swimming, and children everywhere.  I definitely had one of my eyes bulging out of my head moments, feeling overwhelmed when we saw all of that.  Luckily, we were able to find a small amount of space at the next beach and were refreshed from the heat and humidity in the cool water of the Yellow Sea.  Finn had a blast playing in the ocean.  He was so sad to have to leave.

Tonight we are preparing for the coming typhoon, but by preparing I mean we closed the windows and are waiting for the torrential rain.  My new bike arrives Wednesday, which will make this city more accessible for the three of us.  The city really isn't that big, and almost everything is within walking distance if you are willing to walk about an hour, but it will be nice to be able to get around more quickly together.  We are enjoying our time here so far,  Finn is finally sleeping through the night and is back on his routine, and Songdo is beginning to feel a little bit like home, or at least I can see how it could start to feel like home. 

Adventures in E-Mart

Day one in Korea we found ourselves sticking pretty close to home.  We took a small walking tour of our neighborhood and ventured a few blocks to the First World Towers.  We spent a good hour perusing the grocery store trying to identify foods for Finn and played charades with some Korean mom's to find out what they feed their babies.  Formula was the best answer I got. 

Our apartment is new age and sparse, just the way John likes it.  They only challenge new age presents is that everything is electronic, and with electronics come directions, in korean of course.  Luckily we have figured out how to turn on the air conditioning and we can do the most basic operation on the microwave/convection oven.  I did accidentally push some incorrect buttons and baked Finn's oatmeal in his plastic bowl for a short period of time, oops!

Day two we spent wandering the streets of Songdo.  What started as a short stroll turned into a five hour self-guided tour.  We found central park which we had seen so many pictures and happened upon the Chadwick International School as well.  The city has many high rise buildings, both office and apartment, and the apartments seem mostly inhabited, but we can't figure out where all the people are.  We walked and walked and ran into only a handful of people.  Jess' theory- they commute or they are all on summer vacations somewhere that it isn't hot, humid, and rainy.  John's theory- they are all vampires and have an intricate underground tunneling system they use to get around during daylight hours.  I guess only time will tell.

Day two we had a breakthrough when we realized that there are only 1800 expatriates in this country and only about 300 are from the US.  No wonder no one speaks English at all and we get looked at and pointed at all the time.  We were starting to feel that the city is not very international for an international city after all.

Today, day three, we felt especially adventurous after our walking tour yesterday.  The subway and the local E-Mart were calling our names (mostly, John just wanted to find a full size towel so we could stop using Finn's to dry off with after our showers).  The subway was amazing, clean and easy to use, it even spoke English for us!  After only four stops we exited the subway and walked straight into the E-Mart Mall experience.  Imagine a multi-story target/department store/grocery store.  It was amazing.    The only trouble was whoever was pushing the cart could barely make it through the store because everyone wanted to stop and see Finn.  He was the main attraction in the shopping center.  Women would stop shopping, or working and come to touch him and play with him.  And he just ate it up.   Put on his charm and smiled and giggled for them all.  I wonder what this will do to him when we come back to the states and he doesn't get this kind of attention!

All in all a very successful outing, including a trip to the E-Mart cafeteria, where we ordered our meals by writing numbers on a piece of paper.  John fed Finn kimchi, which he was not partial to, but I find quite delicious.  And we left with our own set of metal chopsticks and large spoons (the customary utensils here).  We're hoping to make it to the park this afternoon so Finn can play, maybe meet some of our neighbors, who knows.

Until next time,
annyeong-hi gaseyo (goodbye)