Gyeongu Cherry Blossoms, all you can eat.

Two Saturdays ago the English cafe where Lindie, Albert, Anriette and I study Korean went on a field trip to Gyeongu to see the cherry blossoms.  We decided to go along, because, after all, they are pretty cool people, and you might as well see cherry blossoms while you're in Korea, but we had no idea what was in store for us. . .

The train left our little town at 8:50am Sunday morning, and the three of us where there by the skin of our teeth.  But we made it, at least Anriette, Albert and I did.  Poor Lindie and Rob missed the train as it stopped by their house and they had to take a later one.  We got to Gyeongu a little before 10 and walked across the parking lot to rent bikes, after we were all divided up into teams.  I'm not sure what we actually were expecting, but for some reason it really surprised me how many people came in our group, we probably had thirty people or so, so Jonah divided everyone up, teams of three, one foreigner and two Koreans to a group.  I was in his group with a sweet little girl named Tika.  Then we went to rent our best friends for the day.

We had a little time, our groups, because we were waiting for Lindie and Rob, so we rode around the parking lot, grabbed some drinks for the road, and got acquainted with our new team members.

Albert and Anriette.  She is also from South Africa and is awesome.  She's working at Albert's school with him now and lives about three feet away from me.  More on her later. . .

I traded my bike in for one with a basket which may have been the best decision I've made in my entire actual life.  Oh, and here's my new hair.  What do you think?

A lot of the group gave up waiting for people they didn't even know and started out ahead of us.  We still had a rather large posse.  

We had no idea what was about to happen to us and our poor muscles. . . 

 Finally, Lindie and Rob arrived, we got them some bikes and were off like a shot.  I had no idea where we were going, I thought there was like a festival but I don't know if it actually had a single location or if it was just sort of a city wide thing.  If it had an actual location it was no where near close to where we were, so off we went.

Cherry blossom streets. . .

My team mate Tika, who was in the middle of saying "Be careful" because I was turning around to take a photo from the back of my bike.

Cherry blossoms

Cherry blossoms and I think golden rod or golden bells. . .

Lindie, Rob, and the rest of the team.  This is the view from the back of my head.

Riding next to a lovely park.  

It's a little difficult to take pictures while you're riding a bike. . .

Rob and Anriette.  Rob was dominating this whole bike yourself to death thing.

Tommy, sweet Korean guy, either trying to photo bomb or point something out to me in the photo.

Sometimes I felt like I was in that jogging/photography group that was in Yes Man.  But it's pretty, isn't it?

This was one place that we stopped (very briefly) a lovely park with cherry blossom trees surrounding the lake.

Beautiful day, too.  

In the distance you can see Gyeongu World.

Lots and lots of cherry blossoms :-)

Lindie, Rob, Albert and I.  Rob is crazy.  :-)

Swan boat anyone?

 We stopped at this park and got some lunch, which was good, because we had already been riding for a couple of hours and we were ready to give our bums a break.  It is a beautiful place, and they have cherry blossom trees planted every maybe seven or eight feet apart for as far as you can see along every road, so it was definitely a city in bloom.  We went with some of the group to a little place and got some soup.  Jonah was with me and remembered that I can't handle spicy things so he ordered me a nice, mild tofu-y soup.

Anriette and her giant shrimp soup friend.

 It wasn't long (at all) before we were off again.  But we insisted on a break long enough to take a photo.  It was a beautiful day, we were really fortunate, it was warm but not hot, and there was a nice breeze most of the day.

Two groups that refused to part.  We were on our way to a famous tomb.

Another well-deserved break by a beautiful lake.

One of my students told me this week that the three most famous MLB hats in Korea are Boston, New York, and Detroit.  Anriette's partner, and new Korean teacher, had this one, so I stole it for a photo.  I'm getting one here.  That's all there is to it.

 We took a pit stop at a little temple on our way to the tomb.  Another really well deserved break from the bikes.  We were basically riding standing up at this point.  I think this was our approaching our fifth hour riding.

A giant bell at the front of the temple complex.  You could ring it for a dollar.

A cute gargoyle.  

A little bit about where we were.

Anriette being awesome.

Anriette posing with one of the gargoyles.

There was money from all over the world here on this statue, but I didn't see any American money.  Nor did I leave any.

We stopped here because Ji Young said there was so much color.  So, this is us with Tika :-)

. . .and Ji Young.

Pretty good place here :-)

It was actually a really busy place, and as hard as it was to ride bikes for so long, we got to see a lot more than people in cars did.  It was really congested.

Ji Young riding a very scary path. . .it doesn't look terribly narrow, but when you're riding on it, it feels like a razor's edge.

Getting a little sunburned now. . . :-)

We met up with Lindie, Albert and Rob at a palace and explored it for a while.  We parked the bikes and walked  the grounds.  It was beautiful.

Tika and I.

One of the views from the place where the king went for relaxation. :-)

Not bad, huh? :-)

We tried to take a quick nap in the grass, Lindie, Albert, Tika and I, and I tried to take a photo, but it didn't really work.

Viciously hungry koi in the lake.

We were here for maybe about half an hour walking around and looking at things.  Then we had to leave to meet the rest of the group at a museum.  My group never actually ended up making it to the tomb but what we did see was really lovely.  :-)

We made it!  The museum is in the background, really neat place, lots of really cool things to see. . .that I wasn't allowed to take pictures of.

From the museum balcony.

Beautiful grounds.

This, I was told, is very famous.  So, I'm sharing it with you.

This one as well.

We were so exhausted.  I can't even tell you.  We walked through the museum and saw everything, then we ran out to get some ice cream.  That was the best ice cream in the whole world.  :-)

The Korean flag against cherry blossoms.

 We left the museum at about 5 or so and headed back to the train station. . .the long way.  :-)  The whole group was together now, so we were quite an impressive bicycle gang for sure.

Sun set with kites.

Our rag tag gang.  :)

Cherry blossoms on the way back to the train station.  A famous grave yard to the right.

Cherry blossom day.  :-)

 It was dusk by the time we got to the train station.  We rode from 10 in the morning to 7 that night.  Our train was scheduled to leave at I think 7:30 or so, but we had to have the bikes back by 7.  On the way there we had standing tickets, and all of us were scared that we would have to stand the whole way back, but fortunately they managed to find seats for all of us, and I, for one, fell soundly asleep almost as soon as we started moving.

When we got back to our town the group wanted to go out and get something to eat.  Albert, Anriette and I wanted to limp back home and have McDonald's deliver some dinner right to our beds, so that's exactly what we did.  That was the best bacon tomato delux combo I had ever had in my life.  :-)

It was a lovely day, but we were barely able to sit for days and days.  I was supposed to go to the gym with Jean and Ji Young the next morning, but we both cancelled on him and got some rest.

I got a nice sunburn, which my students thought was about the most amusing thing they had ever seen.  One of them asked me if I had spray painted my arms.  It wasn't even that bad, but sunburn must not be so common among people without Scottish blood.  :-)

So, that was two Sundays ago.   :-)

Thanks for reading!

Sunday to Sunday-Tekken, Conference, the Beach, and B-day Fest.

Last weekend we did a lot, went to singing rooms, got some lovely chicken, went shopping for video games, and all kinds of things.  To  be honest, last weekend seems like it was months ago, somehow.  But last Sunday Lindie invited us to her and Rob's house in Buku for a bbq, modified Korean style. :-)  So, Albert and I headed over there in the afternoon.

Lindie and Rob have a couple of new really cool toys, including an xbox 360 and an oven (woo hoo!!!)  So, we had to go and check it out.

So, it began, an epic bbq feast (complete with oven roasted potatoes and onions. . .I had NO idea how much I missed those!!!!) and the bloodiest Tekken battle there may have ever been in the history of the world.

Handy little grill with awesome grilled pork, roasted potatoes and onions, rolls (that weren't sweet! fantastic!) and, of course, rice.

This is how the pork starts out.  Rolled up, in a bag.

And then turns into this.  Delicious!

I'm not entirely sure Lindie got a hot bite of anything at that lunch because she was too busy feeding us.  Whoops.  But it was really delicious :-)

Then, after we digested for a while, we decided it was time for a Tekken tournament.  Tekken is an xbox game that's martial arts fighting, and we've been playing it quite a bit since we've been here at gaming rooms because it's a really fun two-player game.  So, we decided to set up some tournaments of 8 fighters against 8 fighters and pit the boys against the girls.

I'm not ashamed to say that the boys absolutely murdered us the first four sets.  I think it was actually 4 to nothing.  And boy were they extremely gracious about it. . .So, Lindie and I started to get really serious. . .

Look at that intensity!!!

But our luck was beginning to turn around.  We won a fight or two, and then a battle or two. . .

And finally we started coming back.  Before the boys knew what hit them, it was 5-4 girls.   So, to pay them back for their "amazing sportsmanship" we needed to take victory photos:

I can't believe it!  We just beat them, like, 5 times in a row!  How did that just happen!  Don't they realize that we are made of awesome??  How could they possibly question that???

The boys were not thrilled.

And continued not to be thrilled as we beat them again. . .

. . .and again.

 There may be some unspoken rule about stopping a game once the winner reaches 10. . .or at least I always thought so.  And at this point it was girls 8 boys 4.  That's a pretty bad slaughter.  They were not happy at all.

But then, would you believe it, they changed their strategy (they said it was strategy, being the most annoying six year olds in the world) and came back, and the score got to be 9-9!  Those guys were not going down easily!!!

It was so intense too, usually they beat us right on the last fight, sometimes it was a slaughter,  but sometimes it was a photo finish.  The last one, game #10, could not have been more intense.  We had been fighting for at least three hours at this point, and all four of us had raw nerves and extremely hot tempers.  We had to stop taking photos because you could actually see the hate and intensity in the air.
So, that last game, it was on the very last match of the very last game to decide who was going to get to ten first.  Lindie and I were on a devastating losing streak and I of all people had to play the last match.  Everyone was sweating.  No one said a word.  This was it.  Punch for punch, kick for kick, I was holding my breath and crushing the controller in my hands while Lindie was wringing her blanket to death.

It was close.  It was SO close.  Lots of magical fighting skills displayed here.  But, Lindie and I did actually beat the boys.  10-9.  Awesome.

Victory is sweet.  But the boys played like crazy, to be sure.

The game was so intense that we finished playing without a word.  Then we ordered some dinner.  And watched a really silly TV show, and finally we were able to communicated like human beings to each other :-)

Good times.


Monday and Tuesday were rather uneventful.  Which is never really a bad thing.  Wednesday we had the day off because the academy teachers in Ulsan had an all day conference they had to go to.  My boss told Mac and I that there was one class we could take, and it was just an hour in the afternoon, so we asked her to sign us up.  Albert decided to come as well, and Lindie was required to go by her school, and I went to my Korean lesson that morning, met Albert and Mac at 12:30, got a cab, met Lindie at the conference center as well as several of our other friends, and sat through our little class.  I'm a total nerd and I was really looking forward to taking a class on teaching, but unfortunately it wasn't really what any of us expected.  But it was a beautiful day, and we had the rest of the day off, so Lindie, Albert and I walked into town to find some lunch. We found this tiny little burger place on a side street (after walking through, literally, a parade of school kids, including one of my students who all stared at us, tried to talk to us, or talked about us as we walked by) and got some lunch.

Our cute little burger lunch :-)

Enjoying our lovely day off :-)

It was an amazingly beautiful day, so there was no way that we could stay inside.  Albert and I decided that the best possible thing that we could do was go to the beach, and there are so many we can get to for the low, low price of about a buck (plus, you know, the varied company you keep on public transport. . .)

We decided to go to Jinha Beach, which is heralded in the Ulsan Guide as the beach with the cleanest water in all of Korea.  I don't know if you remember the blog I did last summer about the time Lindie and I went to this beach, but our experience was that the water was actually dirtier than Myrtle Beach. . .but we did get that whole baseball team that decided right in front of us was the place to take off their shoes and socks and take off into the water. . .remember?
Anyway, Albert had never been there, so we decided to go.

We were planning on taking the 1715, one of the buses that goes there, and the only 4 digit bus that goes there from our neck of the woods.  It's not only that we're bus snobs (Albert really isn't, it's really just me) it's that the 4 digit buses tend to be a lot less crowded and go a lot faster, so the extra 40 cents would be a worthwhile investment since it takes about an hour to get to any of the beaches nearby on a bus.  So, we went to the bus stop where it was supposed to take off and it wasn't there on the screen, so we walked to another one, and another one, and another, and finally called Lindie who looked it up online and informed us that it only ran every 90 minutes, so we couldn't wait that long so we got on another one, a pretty crowded one, and headed out that way.

I wasn't going to confess this actually, but I think I have to.  Last time Lindie and I went there, we got off on the wrong stop, the stop after the actual beach stop.  A stop that had us walking forever and eventually basically scaling a cliff in order to get there.  This time, I was sure, would be different, because we understand more Korean now, so we can read the little digital sign that tells us where the right stop was, plus since I had made the mistake once before I wouldn't make it again, right?

Wrong.

Same thing happened again.

BUT! The bus DID tell us that it was the right stop (I'm offering up as my weak defense--even though I still should have known better, which I did as soon as the bus left the right stop)

So, we walked.  And scaled the same cliff once again.  It seemed a little less treacherous this time around, maybe because we weren't wearing flip flops.  But the little lagoon thing that separated the bottom of our climb from the beach was much, much worse.  It was very much like the dead swamp in the Lord of the Rings movie, with the dead bodies floating in it.  It actually only had mattresses and random things like that floating in it, but my imagination is a little ridiculous.  At the top of the death swamp was a creek, which we thought would make a cleaner place to cross.  Albert made it, but I was pretty sure I was going to fall and break my neck, so I paced up and down the banks of the death swamp as if the mattress carcass would come back to life and turn into a bridge or a life raft, or something to take me across.  It didn't.  And I hate to say that I was the biggest chicken I think I have ever been in my life when I eventually decided to take the creek approach.  I threw everything to Albert, screamed like a girl, and made it across as quickly as I possibly could.

I lived.  That's the really important thing.

And we had the beach to ourselves, which was also lovely :-)

The water was MUCH cleaner this time.  It was blue and beautiful.  Here are some pics.

Blue water, abandoned beach, and the famous island.  At least, famous to us.

Beautiful, isn't it??

Last time I was here, every square inch of this beach was covered in bodies and umbrellas.

Lovely :-)

Do I need a tan?  Yes I do.  I have not weathered the winter well here in Korea :-)

The island as the sun started going down.

Me and my good travel buddy :-)

The boardwalk that ran all along the beach.  Beautiful place to take a little rest.

There's a beautiful, very modern bridge at the other end of the bridge that I hadn't seen last time I was there, so we had to go up and see the beach from there.

So, we did.

Beach hair :-)

I had to break into this shot. . .I was sure it would have been a perfect photo, and I just can't have that.  :-)  This bridge, according to the plaque, connects two villages.  It's designed to look like cranes in flight.  See their necks and heads?  Pretty cool.

We were trying to take photos of ourselves that included some background, and these nice guys came up to us and gave us a hand :-)

The marina in the village on the other side of the bridge.

This is a sunrise beach, so the sunset was behind us, but this is the sunset from the bridge.  Beautiful!

I have to tell all of you that most of these photos are Albert's.  No matter how hard I try and how many photos I take, I am no match for Albert and his camera.  Both vastly superior.

We sat under the bridge in the other village for a while as we lost the rest of the sunlight, then crossed back over to start heading back to one bus stop or another.  It's so good to be close to the beach.  And the mountains.  We are beautifully situated here for sure.

Jinha Beach, from the bridge.

Looks magical, doesn't it?

And this is the actual bridge. :-)  Pretty thing, isn't it?

 We walked, rather blindly, back toward where we hoped the bus stop would be.  It was strange to see this colorful beach town so deserted, but it was a great place to go on a midweek day off.  The sea air, though, absolutely wiped us out, so we got to the bus stop and waited for what seemed like an actual eternity for the bus (which was perpetually 4 minutes away)  When it arrived it was almost empty, so we grabbed the back bench seat, stretched out, and enjoyed the trip home.

Good day.


That weekend was Albert's birthday, for which we had a two-threeish day celebration.  I was going to blog all about it here, but the truth is I need some permission first, I think, to show you how everything went down :-)  But it was a fun weekend, lots of good friends, good cake, good singing, and a hamster.  Can't beat that, right?  :-)

This coming weekend we're heading to Gyeongu to go to the Cherry Blossom Festival (no theme park this time!  Crazy!)  So be prepared for a blog full of flowers coming up next.   :-)


Thanks for reading!