SOJUles: Spring Has Sprung

I am happy to report one of the most beautiful times of the year has finally arrived in Korea, SPRING! These last few weeks have been very busy with school trips, birthday celebrations, afterschool classes, and much more. I feel like I am repeating myself everyday, but time really does fly here. I have been here for almost 8 months now, wow!

The only casualty of the last few weeks is that I have gotten myself well acquainted with the Korean medical system. It started out harmless with a routine dentist visit for a clean-up. I had a great experience and liked it even better than my dentist in America. My second visit to the doctor however was for a not-so-fun reason. I only have myself to blame, but I smushed my finger in a door in my classroom and managed to fracture my finger...Yes, splint and all for at least two weeks. The doctor I saw was extremely nice, but didn't speak English so I went through the whole visit with a series of gestures and common medical terms. He was only confused when I started laughing as he put the splint on my finger, and I couldn't explain that I was laughing because I felt so stupid. Oh well, $20 for a doctor visit (at 6pm), x-rays, and pills, I can not complain at all.

I hurt my finger on Friday and did not see the doctor until Monday as I went on an amazing 2-day biking trip to Gyeongju, a famous city South of Seoul. We had the perfect weekend to do it. It was about 70 degrees with the sun shining the whole time and it was the first weekend that the cherry blossoms were in full bloom. The city was packed with Koreans and tourists trying to get a peak of the beautiful scenary. The trip was organized by a group called Discover Korea, which plans trips for foreigners living in South Korea. A group of about 10 of my friends and I joined about 90 other foreigners to Gyeongju.

The beautiful cherry blossoms!

We left very, very early Saturday morning and it took about five hours on a bus to get there. We were dropped off at the bike rental shop a little before noon, chose a bike, got a map, and were off for the day. Everybody was put into groups of about 10, so lucky for our group we didn't have any strangers. We were all given an end destination of the hotel and six hours to get there. It was really nice that we had the freedom to stop wherever and whenever we wanted and to be able to either take our time or rush to the hotel. We managed to take almost all six hours to get to the hotel as we had a few bumps in the road and got a little lost. The best part of the day for me was lunch, haha. I thought it was delicious. We stopped at this restaurant on the side of the road that served freshly made tofu! It is the best tofu I have ever had and it was super cool to watch them make it. We also had pajeon (which is fried green onion and seafood in a batter, yummy), a soup called sundubu-chi-ge, and makgeolli (Korean rice wine). All very good. Day 1 was also cool as we biked through the main part of the city getting to hit up some of the main tourist sites. We finished Day 1 exahusted, with our butts in a lot of pain, and very hungry for dinner.

Joanna, Chris, and Mo looking good on their bikes.

Our lunch: pajeon (left), home made tofu (right)

Pretty lake.

As you notice by the attire, it got hot!

Back at the hotel everybody showered, changed, and then hopped on the buses to be taken from the hotel into town. For dinner, we ate a traditional Korean meal consisting of many different side dishes. Korean food always comes with at least a few side dishes, but this meal is about 20 or so side dishes. It was decent, but not my favorite food here. I really liked about three of the 20 side dishes and could have done without the rest. After dinner, we got to walk around a really beautiful park and pond and check out the cherry blossoms under the moon. As soon as I got back to the hotel, I hit the pillow and was asleep instantly.

The view from the hotel room, very different from Seoul.

Dinner- all side dishes.

Sunday morning, we woke up around 9:30am and were on the bikes by about 10:15am. We had about another 10 miles to do to make our way back to where the buses were picking us up to head home. Day 2 was even better than Day 1 because we were on the back roads biking through rice fields and farm land. It was really pretty and peaceful. We stopped off to grab some drinks and found a LG Employee Picnic behind the store. If I have not mentioned this before, the man love in this country is hysterical. Before we knew it, my guy friends were throwing back a couple of drinks and receiving kisses on the cheeks from our new friends. These experiences in Korea are so fun.

All of the bikes lined up at the hotel.

Ain't that pretty?

We conquered this road in between rice fields.

We got back into town a couple hours before the buses left and walked around some of the sites in town. The first thing we checked out was a "natural refrigerator" aka a cold space under a large rock. But, it was worth seeing. The better and most popular attraction of Gyeongju are the tombs. They are incredible. In Korea, it is very common to bury people above the ground, cover the body with rocks/dirt, and then grow grass over the body in a semi-circle mound shape. Usually, these burial mounds are fairly small. But, the ones in Gyeongju are enormous, with some about two stories high where important people like kings and queens were buried. There are many of them and you can walk around them and even go inside an excavated one. It is cool to see the structurally base of the tombs and check out some of the artifacts that were buried inside.

Koreans having a picnic in town.

Very cute kids in front of the "natural fridge".

Some kite flying.

Before I left town, I made sure to buy some "Hwangnam bread". It is a small pastry filled with red bean paste and is found only in Gyeongju. It is very good and I brought some back for my co-teachers who were very impressed with my purchase. Around 4pm, we returned our bikes, got on the buses, and headed back to Seoul. Sunday traffic going back to Seoul is horrible no matter what weekend and what time of day. It was a very long ride back to Seoul and we didn't get back until about 11pm. Although I would have preferred a shorter trip home, it was all very worth it as it was a great weekend!