The Most Militarized De-Militarized Zone In the World

I have a story to unravel for you folks. It involves intrigue, romance, danger, and war. I went to the DMZ: The Demilitarized Zone...of Korea. On the 61st anniversary of the beginning of the Korean War.

For those who don't know, the Demilitarized Zone is the 4KM wide de-facto border between North and South Korea. Within the DMZ are special zones, but other than that nobody is allowed within this defined area. As such, this untouched land has become a nature preserve, housing many endangered species of deer and bird. Apparently there are even tigers in it, which cannot be found anywhere else on the peninsula. Indeed, they even have DMZ spring water because of its reputation as pure nature.

With my trip, I only got a cursory glimpse of the nature part, but it was actually fairly beautiful in its purity and a welcome change from the hustle and bustle of Seoul. Unfortunately, this foray into nature was short. What I'm here to talk to you about is the Joint Security Area and Panmunjom.

We awoke early Saturday morning and were at the USO Office at Camp Kim before 7 AM for our 7:30 departure. The weather looked like it might turn for the worse at any moment, but we headed North past the civilian zone anyway. Once you cross the river North of Seoul, everything changes. Nothing but military check points up to Camp Bonifas, named after Captain Bonifas who was brutally axed to death by North Korean soldiers during the "Axe Murder Incident of 1976," which I will get into later.

Once in Camp Bonifas we met our tour guide, an enlisted U.S. soldier at the camp, who would "debrief" us and give us our waivers to sign in case we got shot or whatever. From that point we watched a fairly uninspiring video on the history of the DMZ and the Korean War and we made our way to the Joint Security Area. The motto here and at Camp Bonifas is "In Front Of Them All." I finally understood what this meant when we got to the JSA. ROK Soldiers stand at a ready taekwondo pose literally facing the enemy every single day.

The gray building beyond is crawling with North Koreans. Notice the group on the top left balcony...

As we chose the 61st anniversary of the start of the Korean War to visit, we were rewarded by seeing a North Korean DMZ tour on the other side of the border. This, apparently, is not common. The blue building on the left is where the tour goes and certain inter-Korean talks are held.

See?

Inside, we were able to step into North Korea beyond this cement plank.
I have been to North Korea...but not really. I literally stepped about three feet into North Korea inside a secured building that was built by South Korea. Pretty lame, I know.

From there we went to a lookout where we got a solid glimpse of Kijong-dong, the North Korean "Propaganda Village" and home to the second tallest flagpole in the world.
The story of Propaganda Village is a rather involving one, but I'm here and you're here so let's get it over with. Part of the agreement (with God or whatever) is that each side could have one village in the DMZ. South Korea built Daesong-dong, a farm collective of 50 odd families with odd perks and restrictions. They are exempt from military service, pay no taxes, and the government will purchase 100% of their crop yield, thus earning them a salary of around $100K a year. The restrictions are that they have to spend 240 nights a year in the village, 11PM curfew, and men cannot marry into it.

North Korea, instead of investing in a farming village, decided to build a gigantic movie set. Kijong-dong is virtually uninhabited, yet someone turns on and off lights to make it seem inhabited. Upon closer inspection, it can be seen that the windows of buildings don't have glass and that most buildings don't even have interior rooms. Then there's the issue of the flagpole. Well, that's just a manhood issue between North and South and the South finally gave up. But the flagpole in Daesong-dong is pretty big too.

We next passed by the Bridge of No Return, named as such because after the Korean War, POWs were exchanged across this bridge with options: they got to choose North or South, but once they chose there was no going back... ...as well as the monument replacing the poplar tree from the Axe Murder Incident of 1976. The story behind that particular incident goes like this: South Korea had a lookout post next to the Bridge of No Return which was surrounded by North Korean lookout posts and blocked from South Korean view by a poplar tree.

Here's a visual aid for you folks of the lookout post in question. Keep in mind that North Korea surrounds this outpost on three sides. The Bridge of No Return is directly to the right of the blue outpost and the poplar tree would be blocking the view of the building if it were still standing.

So one day a dozen or so U.S. and ROK soldiers went over to cut it down (not carrying weapons [besides axes to cut down the tree] per the rules at the time). They were met by about 15 North Korean soldiers monitoring them. About 15 minutes into it, the North Koreans ordered them to stop the tree trimming and attacked, killing Bonifas with an axe and injuring others before escaping. North Korea's reasoning was that "Kim Il-Sung planted the tree personally and nourished it and it was growing under his supervision." The tree was at least 10 years older than Kim Il-Sung.

Then we hauled it over to the Third Tunnel. More North Korean craziness there. Do you see a trend? So, four man made tunnels have been discovered under the DMZ originating from the North. It is believed that there are more undiscovered ones. The idea is that North Korea would construct a series of tunnels leading to Seoul that would effectively transport troops and artillery underground in the case of an invasion. This particular tunnel could transport 30,000 troops per hour if completed. It was discovered prematurely, however, and the tunnel ends several kilometers shy of Seoul. When North Korea realized the South was aware of what they were doing, they covered the walls in black. "Why did they do that, Steve?" Well, their subsequent explanation for the tunnel was that it was a coal mine. Yeah, pretty lame considering it's in limestone rock with no coal anywhere in the area. Anyway, the tunnel was...a tunnel. It was surprisingly deep though, at about 400 meters underground (for those dastardly Americans, that's about a quarter of a mile).

Here is also where the gift shop was, so I purchased a rare treat (and probably the only interesting, unique thing in there):

"Chiggity check yo-self."

North Korean beer. It was actually better than South Korean beer because apparently Kim Jong-il imported, brick by brick, a brewery from England to create his own beer.

Our final stop was Dorasan Station. This train station was built in the hopes of reunification. It's an unused train station with two significant points of interest: first, it is the northern most train station in South Korea and second, it has tracks going to Pyeongyang. If this reunification were ever to be realized, this train station would be one of a long, long line of train stations running from Busan, Korea to Lisbon, Portugal. Yes, it would be the longest train line in the world. North Korea is literally standing in the way of that...

"None shall pass!"

The DMZ tour offered through the USO is definitely a worthwhile experience for those visiting Korea or living here. Even to those living here, it is a bizarre look into the sensitive relationship between the North and South.

Gangwon-do Adventures

Gangwon-do in Korea is the most rural, rugged, and most mountainous of South Korea's nine main -dos. Highlights of Gangwon-do include: Seoraksan National Park, mainland South Korea's tallest mountain; Pyeongchang, South Korea's 2018 Winter Olympic bid; and the home of Dokdo, the contested islets off the coast. Here's it's location in relation to Daegu:

It's the pink one, guys.

This past weekend, I took the trip up to Daejeon to meet my roommate from orientation who I hadn't seen in over a year. Since last I saw him, he had upgraded to a university job as well as gotten a car. This latter fact enabled us to explore the otherwise mysterious Gangwon-do in ways that is difficult without a jalopy in which to do it. Indeed, I had never been to Gangwon-do before this past weekend.

ROAD TRIP!!!! That's right. We took a several hour road trip to the East coast. You may not think it would take this long, but it took four hours to get to the East coast. Yeah, it's that mountainous over there. However, it is also beautiful. On our way we passed aforementioned Pyeongchang, the Winter Olympic hopeful. Upon seeing it, I could only think how much infrastructure they would have to invest in to make it Olympic worthy. It can't have a population of more than 20,000. Nonetheless, it had a sleepy Alpine feel to it as we passed. I can only imagine that that infrastructure would drown out the quaint sleepiness of it and actually put it on the map. It could even ruin Gangwon-do. Or...they'll host most of it in neighboring Gyeonggi-do where all of Seoul's influence lies and have only the skiing part in Pyeongchang. Who knows?

As we snaked down the coast admiring rolling mountains that spilled into the ocean, we came upon our first destination: The Reunification Park. This is, of course, referred to Korean reunification. It was fairly dinky with a few Korean War planes and...South Korean Air Force One from the 60s. As you were allowed inside, we got to see where da prezident once sat.

What was more alluring about the park was that down the road there were three naval displays. The first was a Korean war ship that was built by the U.S. in 1945 and then donated to South Korea in the 60s.

"Did you get your tickets?" "What tickets?" "To the gun show!"

Granted, it wasn't as exciting as the U.S.S. Missouri, but it was still kind of neat. Second, we had the small dinghy that the 2009 North Korean defectors used to paddle their way across the border.

How'd you like to live on that for a couple of days?

The last was easily the most alluring. A North Korean submarine. A real one. So, turns out in 1996, a North Korean submarine shored up on Gangwon-do to release some spies to do some spying and hopefully assassinate some VIPs attending some function in the area. On the way out (assassination mission failed), their submarine got stuck on some rocks, so the 13 agents abandoned ship after shooting the submarine crew and burning all their documents. 12 agents were subsequently killed in a firefight and one was captured alive, giving us the information we have. The submarine was subsequently made into a little museum to North Korean aggression.

The results of two starkly contrasting economic systems in one picture.

The inside of the submersible actually wasn't that exciting, but it was still worth it to see (and you had to wear a hard hat to go inside because it's as treacherous as the North Korean regime!).

We snaked down the coast some more, still taking in those rolling mountains that spilled into the ocean, and eventually came upon a landmark sight. In a sleepy beach town there lies this:
A cruise ship on a hill. "Why is there a cruise ship on a hill?" you may ask. Nobody fucking knows. I'm just kidding. It's a hotel that was built into the shape of a cruise ship. From what I hear, it's actually a pretty nice hotel (not surprisingly). The only problem is, what else is there to see in this town? Well, there is a nice beach and the added bonus of our next destination: Haesindang Park.

Haesindang Park was created under the belief that it would satisfy the spirit of a young woman who drowned in the area. After she drowned, the amount of seafood gathered in the area plummeted, so they built a park to satisfy her. Since then, the seafood yield returned to normal. This is no normal park, although it has wonderful rocky beaches. No, this park is full of giant, erect penis statues.

Not pictured: the giant, erect penis statues.

It seems Korea has an obsession with genitalia between this park and Loveland on Jeju-do. What could it be? Probably a vein attempt at getting their birth numbers back up. Either way, it makes a pretty bizarre, yet entertaining adventure for the occasional Westerner who passes through.

That night we stayed in Samcheok, in the southern part of Gangwan-do. They have some sort of specialization in seafood, so we tried blisteringly spicy grilled eel that was actually not bad despite its blistering level of spice.

The morning consisted of the mostly uneventful drive back. All in all, one of the more eventful weekends I've had in a while.

Moon Me

There was a period of time that I didn't even want to acknowledge this blog existed. It was that shameful to me. Neglecting it for so long. But, something has spurred me back. The tiniest little thing. There are those of you who may fault my reasons to slink back to the keyboard, but nobody gives a crap about your negative feelings anyway. What brought me back was to write a movie review (ewww...).

Before I get into it though, I wanted to let you know that I have no less than three draft posts in my que just waiting to be finished. I had attempted three times to update since May 20th and failed miserably at each one. What did it take for me to get back? A friggin' movie. Not any of your whiney pleas for me to start writing again. Not boredom, not guilt. A movie. It must be pretty good, right? Well, let's just say that it hit a chord with me.

Moon (2009) is a sci-fi flick that somewhat pays homage to the classics (2001: A Space Odyssey, Solaris, and that one George Lucas film he did before Star Wars). Sam Rockwell plays Sam Bell, the solitary contract worker on the moon harvesting Helium-3, the clean energy of the future. His only company is Gerty, a computer voiced by Kevin Spacey. As his three year contract finishes up, Sam starts experiencing strange things and hallucinations. That's about all I knew about the film when I started watching and I really can't say much more without giving up what made it so intriguing a watch.

Moon is the writing and directorial debut of Duncan Jones, David Bowie's first son. After watching it, I can attest that Jones is a solid writer/director. I feel like he must have been an English teacher in Korea by the way I can relate to this movie. The solitude one can sometimes feel living in a foreign country, the silly projects one undertakes whilst within that solitude, the longing to see people, the monotony of a job. All things I can very well relate to. Also there are other strange coincidences that give it another level for me. The base on which Sam lives is called "Sarang." Sarang is Korean for "love" and even the hangeul is written on the base: 사랑. There you go, I helped you with a metaphor.

There are layers to this movie that you only catch by watching and paying attention. First there is the slightly humorous alarm tune that wakes Sam up every morning. Also, it is never suggested, but it can be implied that Korea in the future has a much more global role (and even lunar, asitwere). This is demonstrated by both the name of the base as well as some dialogue. At a pivotal point in the movie, a recording says, "annyeonghi kyeseyo (안녕히 계세요). Goodbye." This in Korean means "stay well," as in "you are staying here. Stay here well while I leave." According to the situation, the recording should have said "annyeonghi kaseyo (안녕히 가세요). Goodbye." This would translate to "go well." However, the fact that they used "stay well" instead of "go well" is pivotal to what happens next and you'd only catch the intention if you knew those Korean phrases. Of course, you still get it eventually without knowing. I love little things like that in movies. It shows attention to detail and foresight that most of your viewers will miss it.

Sam Rockwell definitely expanded his acting chops in this movie, portraying practically the only character we see onscreen. And, despite being a bucket of bolts, Kevin Spacey's Gerty is surprisingly warm and dynamic. All in all, a really well done film that I'd suggest to fans of science fiction. One of them thinkers about the definition of life and all that.

Mediocre Incoherency

Warning: As you may gather from the title, this post has no coherency. And it's mediocre.

I sometimes wonder if the strange dreams will ever stop. I had a pretty vivid one wherein Rick Moranis was sent to an alternate dimension where all the dead people go, but he wasn't dead himself. He then had to find a way back to his family while trying to thwart the evil ghost's plans of inhabiting his now soulless body before he can get back to it. If it's not already, it should be a summer blockbuster. What happened to Rick Moranis anyway? We need you now, Rick, more than ever. In the time of our greatest need, Rick has forsaken us. Why, Rick, why?

I had another that was played through twice. First as real life events, and second as a movie (I seem to like dreams that portray themselves as movies. Or maybe I just interpret them that way). Basically, a fellow teacher (that I am actually friends with in real life) didn't like me because I was taking care of his kids one weekend, so he set my house on fire with a lit cigarette. It turns out I wasn't that angry about the house, but moreso that he'd put his kids in danger (because they were inside) just to get back at me for doing something nice for him. So, I decided to leave the country.

In the movie version, my part was portrayed by an early '90s Mel Gibson and the other part was played by John Stamos. They taught at a prestigious New Zealand university, and instead of burning Mel Gibson's house down, John Stamos only peed in his gas tank because it turns out John Stamos' kids were actually fathered by Mel Gibson. As a result, Mel Gibson left New Zealand, but as his plane was taking off, it broke and crashed into the ocean.



I saw a kid's t-shirt today and it said, "We're more popular than Jesus." Man, I wish I had that shirt. Also, I wish that kid got the reference. How many people in America do you think would freak out at that shirt? Start burning things. Ban the Beatles and such.

You know how it's funny to us when someone doesn't know enough English to form a correct sentence so they just kind of wing it with what they have? Like instead of saying, "Yes, I'm sweating," they'll say, "Yes, many water comes"? Yeah, I do that all the time in Korean. I sound like some kind of idiot most of the time and people laugh at me. It's like I'm an unintentional comedian. Since I fail at being an intentional comedian, I guess I'll take what I can get.

I forgot to mention how a few weeks ago my landlord took me out to dinner randomly. Yes, Mr. Lee strikes one more time. Like a hat trick or something. Anyway, I'm just minding my own business when he knocks on my door and immediately grabs my hand when I answer. Luckily, he only holds it until we cross the street and enter the restaurant that I've lived across the street from for over a year, but never patronized. We sit down and what occurs in the next hour is him teaching me random Korean words. Some of them actually stuck, so I'm grateful for the experience (and the free meal) but it was funny to me that I had to remind him of the English word "water" yet he already knew how to say "penis." I guess males really are the same all around the world.

A Letter To Our Consumers

Dear Americans,

When you travel abroad, from time to time you will meet the occasional international traveler who readily admits that he or she "doesn't like Americans." Instead of getting angry, politely remind them that that is no different than saying "I don't like blacks," "I don't like Jews," or "I don't like gay people." Ask them their reasons. Usually, they will state, "Americans are loud and ignorant." Ask them, are Americans ignorant like the kind of ignorant that is disliking a person based on where they are from? You can go so far as to ask them if they've ever visited America. 99% of the time, they'll say, "No, I have no desire to go." You can consider the conversation over at that point, as they are unswayable bigots.

You may get tired of having to justify yourself for being American. Don't give in and claim Canadian citizenship. That would be doing your country a disservice. Stick to your guns and know that you're a better person for not judging someone based on their nationality. What your government does has no basis on your personality and who you are. Your accent does not determine your IQ, and chances are you are not the loud, fat, uncontrollable drunk that your reputation precedes you as. Finally, there are enough worldly, open people you will meet who like Americans just as much as everyone else. Some even like us more because they say we're not stuck up (unlike aforementioned unswayable bigots) and boatloads more fun (they may even use the word "smashing" in their description of us). Words of advice.

Sincerely,
Your Friendly Neighborhood Steve

Dear American Haters,

So, you don't like Americans? Tell me, how many Americans have you known on more than a cursory level? 3? So, for every one of those loud, fat, ignorant ones you knew, there were probably 10 quiet, polite ones that you didn't even notice. How many times have you wrongfully assumed that a Canadian was an American because they were loud and obnoxious? Whatever first world country you're from, I can guarantee that I've met 3 of your fellow countrypeople who were equally, if not more, disgusting and ignorant as the Americans you claim to know. Let's be generous and say that you've met 30 Americans and they were all loud and obnoxious, ignorant, drooling, obese, drug addled cesspools of STDs and drama. Essentially they were all Snookies. That's still .0000001% of the U.S. population. Do you think doctors come to blanketed conclusions based on .0000001% of the data they collect? "Well, Jim, it looks like one of your mitochondria are acting strange, so I'm going to assume that you're mentally retarded and suggest a lobotomy to fix you right up."

Oh, that's right. It's cool to dislike Americans in the international community. You can sit around the campfire on a Thai beach drinking beer all night with everyone else and bash us on how stupid we all are and how we don't speak the Queen's English and aren't part of the Commonwealth. We bomb Islamic countries and get our fingers into everyone else's business internationally and we're proud of it, damn it. It's like some hybrid car owners. You're smug and superior if you dislike Americans. What an ego stroke, eh? If I judged people based on what their government does, regardless of where they're from, I'd have absolutely no friends and hate life. Surely, every single American went down to the White House and personally shook George Bush's hand on invading Iraq and gave him $10 to keep the good work up. Are you really that obtuse?

Oh, you've got one more card to pull. Wait for it. "Americans don't travel." I am clearly case in point, having traveled. Let's take a look the geographical size of Europe vs. that of the U.S. Surprisingly, the size is relatively similar. So, let's go ahead and assume the EU is now one country. On top of it, let's put a 5,000 mile wide ocean between Europe and Asia. Now how many countries have you been to? Many Americans don't leave the U.S. because the U.S. is huge and somewhat isolated. There are 50 states with 50 different feelings. It's like containing 50 countries in one. They all have their own laws and their own governments. In addition, our visa policies make it more expensive to travel than you (again, not my fault, but my government's). It costs you, what, $40 to go to China, whereas it costs me closer to $200. Let's not even get into differences in work ethic expectations and economies. There's only about a billion things you're glossing over to reach that smug conclusion.

If there's one thing that I want you to get from this letter, American hater, is that you are a blight. If you can fall asleep at night making seriously flawed, blanketed statements about a group of people, then you have no place in an increasingly globalized world. Go home and don't reproduce.

Sincerely,
Steve

Jeju 3: The Reckoning

The time has come, dear readers, to recount my final full day on Jeju. Blogger has been acting a lil' whack lately. Some posts disappeared apparently and I couldn't post anything new, but now! No more excuses. The rapture is nigh.

Our final day was spent hiking Hallasan, the highest mountain in South Korea. At a whopping 1,950 meters tall (that's 6,398 feet, children), this mountain takes around 8 hours to successfully hike. The problem with the day we chose (our final day, as mentioned before) is that it was rife with rain...the entire day. Something that is very bizarre about Korean hiking trails is how manicured they are. They include rock paths and wooden boardwalks and staircases...
...the whole way up the mountain. However, on this day a majority of our path looked more like a cascading waterfall:
We were smart enough to purchase stylish trashbag smocks to protect our precious clothing.
These smocks failed on that front. In fact, the smocks did such a poor job that, despite having gone through the wash (ah, my incredible washing machine...), my jeans still retain some semblence of that hike. That is to say, Hallasan rain smells like magic...if you believe magic smells like onions and sulfur. And I do. So, I sometimes opt to wear my onion sulfur pants out on the town and scare the locals even more than normal.

About 2/3 of the way up, there is a shop selling ramen, candy bars, and water to refuel the wary hikers (surprisingly [I'm serious about the surprise part...] no beer or soju). I can only imagine the time the shop owner has every morning, hiking 2 hours up a mountain (perhaps with boxes of ramen in tow) to open the shop rain or shine. Actually, it dawned in my mind that there was perhaps a secret road out back, and that we should have taken that back down instead of enduring the cascading waterfall.

Now for the tale of the summit. Once we passed the tree line (about 1/2 hour from the top), the climate changed so dramatically that it's hard to even express. The temperature dropped dramatically, the wind increased at least ten fold--enough that one could not stand up straight--and the rain shot in sideways strong enough to sting quite a bit. I could not hear or get a sense of equilibrium through that majestic smock. It was easily the hardest wind/rain combination I'd ever been in. After climbing up stairs for 3 1/2 hours, it was not the greatest feeling. But, we endured to the top and were rewarded with these spectacular views of the island:
...ugh. Well, here's a picture of the summit in the rain and wind (which was somehow not quite as strong as about ten feet below the summit):
The way down was when I began to feel the effects of the way up. By the time we reached the base lodge, I could hardly walk. What hurt the most was my feet. Word of advice: don't wear Chuck Taylor All-Stars on a rocky mountain hike (tap the Rockies!). You'll regret it for at least 3 or 4 days afterward. However, it's kind of tradition now that my Chuck Taylors go with me on mountain hikes so I'll next be climbing Kilamanjaro and K-2 with them.

Anyway, at the bottom we ceremoniously flipped Hallasan the bird and considered it conquered. Take that.

Jeju Day 2: Jeju Harder

Before I move on, I just had to point this out: So, in Love Land there was a sculpture series that was clearly themed on large, fat women and small, skinny men trying to escape them. Now, I'm not sure if this was something that was ordered by the creative staff of Love Land or if there just happened to be enough of them to warrant a separate section, but either way somebody's got some psychological issues to work out.

Day two was not quite as action packed as day one. It was sunny, so we wanted to head to the beach. Here's our second beach experience: The beach wasn't quite as majestic as the first, but it's right around where we were staying. Here's our resort: And the interior: It had coy fish and expensive sandwiches! I'm going to go ahead and reveal to you that I am, indeed, lying about where we stayed. We stayed in a hostel that was $15 a night and definitely not as luxurious (or as expensive) as the resorts.

That evening, we tried one of Jeju's specialties: 똥돼지 (ddong dwaeji...poop pig). These are special pigs that are said to taste like tropical rainbows (Skittles?) and ecstatic happiness because they are well taken care of and they eat nothing but shit. Apparently, that's not true so much anymore, so they changed their name to black pig because they're black (racists...). Anyway, it was a tasty treat.

Afterwards, I traversed down the hill to the waterfall area to view all the Koreans taking pictures of a waterfall. Here it is: Oh, you wanted to see the waterfall. Fine. I believe up to this point, I have neglected to mention how random Jeju is. On our various excursions, we would pass a number of museums and sites scattered around the island. To name a few: Teddy Bear Museum, Citrus Museum, African Art Museum, Glass Museum, Green Tea Museum, Genghis Khan re-enactment, traditional Vietnamese village, Anti-Japan Monument (not so random), and Mini World (boasting miniature reproductions of world famous sites). We went to none of these places during our stay, but I wish we had made it to the Green Tea Museum. It sounds so interesting...

Another point to touch upon is the utter lack of driving skills on Jeju. I have never seen worse driving in my life, and I've lived on mainland Korea for over a year. My theory is that mainland Koreans come to Jeju for vacation and rent a car. Mainland Korea is very different than Jeju in that you can get everywhere you need to go via taxi, bus, or train without driving a day in your life. The most economical way to get around Jeju is by renting a car, thus that's what they do. You can guess how well that goes.

Anyway, there's still a whole day of Jeju action left to go. Tune in next time, folks.

Jeju, Day One: Lovely Love Land

I would like you to know that I am aware that my blog is on life support. It would be more difficult to blame myself than to blame an external factor for why this is happening, so I'll just do that instead. I am being facetious, but the next sentence is actually true. For some reason recently, Google (and thus blogger, being owned by aforementioned parent company) has had sporadic trouble loading, both at home and at school. So, when the rare time comes that I actually feel like posting in my blog, I have a 50% chance or so of it not being able to accommodate my request. I feel cheated and violated when this happens. You are not the only one.

As such, I will move on with my most recent excursion: Jeju Island.

For those of you who don't know, Jeju Island is the Hawaii of Korea. As laughable as that may sound, it is partly true. I was surprised to be greeted with humidity and an abundance of palm trees upon my exiting the airport. Other things the two islands have in common:

1. 
   
   Fickle weather


2. 
   
   Volcanic activity


3. 
   
   Resorts


4. 
   
   Honeymooners


5. 
   
   Higher costs


6. 
   
   Waterfalls


7. 
   
   Randomness

I'm going to probably hover around the "randomness" bullet point for most of these posts because Jeju Island is probably the most random place I've ever been to. I'm also breaking the trip up into days, mainly because the first day is so long. You've been warned.

Since we arrived in Seogwipo (the city on the south side of the island where we stayed) late on Friday night, we did nothing noteworthy before Saturday. On Saturday, however, much magic happened. As mentioned before, Jeju is the fickle mistress of weather. The day began pretty crappily and rainy and we had originally thought the entire day would be like this.

It began with us finding out how things work in Seogwipo: every restaurant is closed until at least noon. So, we loaded up on breakfast at the Family Mart before hopping into taxis bound for...THE LAVA TUBES!

The second thing we found out was how big the island was. In an illogical sort of way, we assumed that the bus we rode on the previous night was so long because it had to stop all over the place. We reconsidered that theory after our cab ride was about a half hour on the highway and costing $30. Alas, we arrived and were greeted with a much more varied park than we had anticipated (remember: random).

Since I mentioned it already, we'll start with the lava tubes. Somewhat uninteresting (note the lack of pictures) except that one of the two is the only place in the world where limestone formations reside in a lava formed cave. Interesting...to a SCIENCE TEACHER! I teach English, by the way.

Other things in the park: palm tree avenue, bonzai tree park, stone formations park, bird zoo, a traditional Jeju folk village, a "water garden,":

Holy crap its water!

some other tree park wherein trees were planted by various countries and we get to see ambassadors from said countries posing in front of the tree via photography, gift shop, and, obviously the best part: soft serve ice cream.

At this point the weather had given way to a cloudless sunny day, so we opted to head to the beach that was across the street. Here's a glimpse of that one fer ya:

Hey, how ya doin'?

Unfortunately, the water was still rather cold, so swimming was minimal. From there we hit possibly the highlight of the trip: Love Land.

A trip to Love Land is something that must be seen to be believed. It has been on my list of Korean attractions since the beginning, and I'm obviously glad I went. Love Land's origins are based in Jeju's reputation for being the honeymoon island. In the past (and party so still), Koreans were traditionally very naive and innocent. With a trip to Jeju Island for their honeymoon, they sometimes needed a little help to get certain sexual details correct ("You mean I don't pee in her?"). In fact, hotels even had to hire special "assistants" to coax Korean couples to consummate their recent marriage. The idea behind Love Land is to teach and "get couples in the mood." Instead of doing that, it has become a comedy scene of perversion with some pretty strange sculptures. I can only begin to post the most PG friendly of those, so if you'd like to see the good ones, ask me or gander at Facebook (or Google them [that is, if Google decides to work for you in your region of the world]). Anyway, here are some photos:

This is, apparently, how we perform intercourse in America, based on the international sculpture series.Notice the sperm swimming into the heart on the store front.

She's holding a pepper in her hand. Huh huh. Do you get it? It's subtle, right?

Forget about retaining any semblence of that Western coldness. Old ladies will be manhandling fake penises and old men will be mounting and groping sculptures, etc. Like I said, it's something that needs to be seen to be believed. Truly unique experience.

We ended the night by going to, perhaps, the only Western bar in Jeju. It indeed did have other Westerners, dart boards, and delicious Western food and beer. A treat of a day.

Bang to the Bang

There comes a time in every man's life when he has to make a decision. A fork in the road approaches nigh, and a choice must be made as to which way the rest of your journey unfolds. I sometimes feel like I either stopped my journey to take a satisfying dump or lassoed the nearest albatross to take me away to Never Never Land. Alas, neither is true. My life, like yours is on a path through time and space to an ultimate end point. Since coming to Korea, I've considered part of my journey to be blogging. Now, I'm not having the break up talk with you, but I'm just laying it down that I find it more difficult to blog these days when life runs together and I forget to bring my camera almost all the time. Things are not divided into hilarious episodes as they once were. I believe that also is denoted by a decrease in readership?

With that said, let's see. What do I have to tell you? I thought I had something, but I drank those brain cells away. Ah yes...

Ah no...

Ah yes...

So I was finally lucky enough to visit the illustrious Woobang Tower Land last weekend. This was on Sunday with Saturday being the big bull push--er, fight. The only way to describe Woobang Land would be to say that the $20 entrance fee was pushing it. Hey, Woobang, you're pushing your luck there.

I can tell you, in detail, the experience I had on every ride I went on because there were only about six that I could tell (outside of the kiddie rides):

First, we hit that one carnival ride where they strap about twenty of your luckiest friends into one of two caged cars that subsequently swings to build up momentum (like that stupid pirate ship ride) until it eventually flips you upside down. I believed this would be a good litmus test for the rest of the park as to whether the rides could accommodate a person of Western stature (read: fatass), and it generally was. My shoulders are still a little tender from the bar. It wouldn't have been so bad if the shoulder bar actually did anything to keep me in the seat. Instead I had to hold on for dear life with my feet, lest I fall through the cage bars to my, perhaps, timely death.

The second ride consisted of a single "car" (used liberally) that held maybe 40 people and teeter-tottered forward and backward on a central axis while being flung around in a quick circle. This one, instead of focusing on my shoulders as the basis for pain infliction, decided (correctly) that my balls would be a more vulnerable target. The seats inexplicably had a gentle hill where a normal man would rest himself that almost perfectly fit in sync with the shoulder bar that you lowered, creating a vice. They literally had me by the balls. This was surely planned out by the engineers as some kind of forced self-torture. Despite this flaw, I can still say it was more fun than the first in at least during the second ride I didn't hear the carney maniacally laughing as we spun.

The third ride was a roller coaster that I would rate one step above my first one ever, the Scooby Doo. It was called 'The Camel' alluringly enough because it only had one selling point: hills. It had the necessary curves to make its shape a two storied race track. You could tell it was one of the first steel coasters ever built by the Soviet style architecture. Still, those are fun in their own right. Clearly most fun ride thus far. Our fourth ride would be the culmination of Woobang Land. Do you like my use of suspense? I'm a regular Alfred Hitchcock here.

The fourth ride actually had the caliber of a ride above and beyond Woobang's low bar setting. I don't recall if it had a name or not, but it was the kind of roller coaster that brings you up the hill backward with the help of a magical magnet only to launch you forward through the housing you boarded the coaster from. Then it proceeds to go through a few loops and then up a one sided hill. Once to the top of this hill, you are sent back through the same course you just traversed but backwards, doing your best to remember what came next amid the jarring G force hurling you around at a larger object's will.

The fifth ride wasn't even a ride. I include it because it was just as adrenalitous as the other four. It was one of those stupid haunted houses, equally-stupidly named "Ghost Adventure." The reason I hate these things is not because they are lame. They totally are. The reason I hate them so much is because there are always those things that jump out at you and I hate that feeling. So, instead I slowly creep through the whole thing with my fuse at its end because I feel constantly annoyed and I just want to get out. Only...this one didn't have anything pop out at you. So the feeling was for nothing. Which, to me, was probably better than having people and spring action anamatronics scare the crap out of me.

If you tally up those numbers, that comes to just about $4 per ride. That's definitely pushing it, Woobang. Granted, one of the roller coasters was closed and we got a $5 off coupon for it, and most of it was geared toward children, what with the fuzzy Russian actors and the carousel rides. Anyway, good job Daegu. It was a fun Sunday.

Bull Pushing

On Saturday, a large, rowdy group of foreigners made their way to Cheongdo, a town not-really-famous-but-famous-in-the-fact-that-there-is-only-one-thing-coming-out-of-this-town famous for bullfighting. Apparently, it's in the type of town that will let you in to the ticket-only area if you say you need to use the bathroom based on a trust that you will exit again. Don't worry. My mama raised me right and I stayed inside and cheated the system (just kidding). Once inside the people turnstiles, an open forum area awaits you (pictured). Shops line the outsides and various bull statue projects line the center walkway. We were fortunate enough to get there right when the hour long "break" of the day began, so we had plenty of time to stroll the grounds. After about 10 minutes of this, one tends to get bored, so we headed inside to view the panoply of traditional Korean performances awaiting us in the arena area (pictured...the arena, not the performances [unfortunately for you]). After what seemed like three eternities, the main event resumed. Out came one bull followed by another, entering to the sounds of monster truck death metal. Suddenly their owners were pulling their heads together and, like a polar magnetic connection, they clicked together and began pushing each other at the horns. As quickly as it began it was ended and a winner incoherently declared. This happened for the next two hours and we arbitrarily cheered for one bull over another and just as arbitrarily determined one the winner. Although foreign, it was still fun and we deemed it a success, finishing off the evening with a dinner consisting of beef. Ironic? Maybe, but not as ironic as this guy:

The English Festivus: Part 1

Friday was one of those not-entirely-uncommon special days where we do something different. It was English Festival Day at my school and it wasn't that much different...except in each class groups of students performed an English childrens' song, including "Hokey Pokey," "Old MacDonald," and "Bingo." Here are some pictures:

Taekwondo cow!!!!!!!

A green breakdancing teddy bear? Hell yes.

And the award for most adorable goes to? Yeah, exactly. Anyway, if you like fun then this would have been right up your alley. If ya don't like it, then yew can gittout! I think we have to do two of these a semester, so there's something to post about. Keep it real, yo.