East Sea

This past weekend myself and the other native teachers took a trip with some of our Korean friends to the East Sea. We all had Monday off of work because it was a national holiday. No one was sure what holiday it was exactly but none the less we all welcomed an extra day in our weekend! Our Korean friends are Jin, KyungMin and JongYun. They know much more about Korea and all that it has to offer waygooks (foreigners) like us so we left the details of the weekend up to them.

Saturday night we set off in two cars, where to the foreigners did not know. We all piled in the cars and I learn quickly that driving in Korea forces you into two extremes. First is that Korea has some of the most heinous traffic, it can take an hour to driver less than a mile in some areas (no joke, we experienced this). Second, the moment Korean drivers break free from the constraints of traffic they are suddenly competing in some sort of NASCAR meets mario kart race resulting in high-speeds, quick stops and frequent near death experiences. I cheated death many times this weekend.

We arrive at our hotel late Saturday night. They had rented a nice condo type room on some mountain about 3 hours from Sanbon (where we live). We made bulgogi, which is BBQ meat with side dishes and ate together on the floor (Korean style). We drank soju and played games into the early morning hours until we all passed out. A good time was had by all and a good start to our mystery weekend.

We woke up the next morning and our friends informed us we will be doing some sight seeing and staying at a new hotel that night. So we packed up and headed out. We had no idea our friends has planned a full on sightseeing trip around the east side of Korea, but hey bring it on!

So Away we go! First stop is a traditional lunch of bibimbap. This is a bowl of rice with an egg veggies and red chili paste. You mix it all up and have lots of side dishes to choose from. This was my first taste of this unique rice dish. I told Jin who was sitting next to me this and she quickly took charge of my dish mixing up all the ingredients, pouring in the chili paste and offering different side dishes to me. Koreans are always willing to show you how its done which I don't mind at all. The bibimbap was alright, not my favorite Korean dish but it was fun to eat.

If you dont already know, in Korea you almost always sit on the floor, share most things communal style and some if not all of the meal is prepared in front of you. I think that these features add a lot to the dinning experience. Everybody is trying things and talking about how it tastes, someone is offering a bit of this, someone else is pouring you something to drink, food is steaming in front of you, its quite fun and makes even an unfamiliar crown feel like a family.

With full bellies we set off to tackle the sights of East Sea! We soon arrived at a Buddhist Temple. We walked up to the grounds, in the bitter cold, and looked around. Jin and I went in and, um, prayed (?) to a magnificent Buddha statue. I also drank this water that is supposed to make you live for over a hundred years. We will see how that works out. The grounds were truly magnificent. There was lingering snow covering the grounds and a river that ran adjacent. The river was partially frozen with some water flowing creating both a beautiful visual and audio.

And away we went again. A few more hours of driving and we fell out of our cars to warmer weather and the sound of the ocean. We are informed that we are stopping at a fish market to pick up fresh sashimi for dinner! Yum! The town we were in reminded me of Lincoln City or Newport. Cute, small and full of families. The market was a intense place. Live octopus, fish of every kind and crab all trying to flip, flop and crawl away from their temporary cages. Vendors shouting prices (I assume), men, women and children milling about and pointing to their live selection. After your selection a vendor would grab the fish snap its neck, slice the guts out and fillet it right in front of you. You know its fresh! It was a sight!! The thing I found most interesting was that the market did not smell the least bit fishy. Not sure how the Koreans manage that but they do.

After a quick drive we arrived at another Buddhist Temple. This one is over looking the ocean. We all had a good look around and posed for a picture with a tree that was growing in the shape of a "V". Again, breath taking view but this time of the ocean. It was much colder at the Temple so we had some traditional ginger tea to warm up. Delicious.

A short while later we were at our new hotel, this one had a view of the ocean. We ate our wonderful sashimi on the floor of the hotel. We were all pretty wiped out at this point and after a few soju shots and cups do beer we piled onto our "yos" and went to sleep. (In some Korean hotels there is no furniture or beds in the rooms so they give you mats and blankets called yos to sleep on, on the floor. We all felt like we were at summer camp because all the girls, 6 of us, slept together and the boys were in the other room. Definitely a bonding experience.)

"Hey, look out the window." Was the first thing I heard the next morning, so I abided and peaked out. White, I saw white everywhere. It had snowed heavily that night and there was a good 6 inches of snow on the ground. Again it was a magnificent sight to see snow covering the beach and everything surrounding. We knew this was going to negatively impact out travel home so we ate a breakfast of ramen style noodles and hit the road. The drive from the hotel area to the main road was wonderful. There were few cars and we drove past frozen lakes, snow covered hills and through canopies of white trees.

Then we hit traffic. T R A F F I C. We inched down the interstate for 5 or 6 hours until we had gone barely 20 miles and we were in dire need of some food. Praise heaven for that stop because someone had a brilliant idea at this point. One of the boys suggested that we wait out the traffic at a jimjilbang and get on the road later when the traffic has died down. So we all went. A jimjilbang is a Korea spa, basically. They are very popular, cheap and open 24/7. You go in and use the sauna, ice room , PC room, watch a movie, shower and have some snacks and tea. We came out feeling relaxed and ready to tango with the traffic again. We finally made it home in the wee hours of Monday morning.

It was unfortunate because normally none of us have to work till 2:30 at the earliest but our boss Sarah wanted to take us all to lunch before our staff meeting, at 12:30. Good morning sunshine the weekend is over!

The photos got a little messed up, but you can figure it out!