Nine Months!

Nine months. Nine months I’ve been living in South Korea. If you told me five years ago that I’d be living in Korea teaching children English now, I would probably have laughed in your face. I had a life of graduate school (for something science related, of course) and a secure job planned for myself after undergrad. We all know that things don’t always work out that way.

I am writing this post more for myself than anyone else right now. I am feeling a bit introspective after a visit from a very dear friend from home, a goodbye to one of my first close friends I met in Korea, and a sudden announcement of an early retirement from a Korean co-teacher. 

Last weekend I was on a camping trip with some of my close friends and my visiting friend. A Korean girl by the name of Adele came with one of my friends. Her English level was above average and we started talking about traveling and we had a long conversation about moving abroad. She expressed her desire to, but also how scary the thought of moving away from Korea was. It was one of the first times I’d really stopped to think about and articulate what I went through emotionally and mentally moving here. While it was happening, it was exciting and there were so many things to get done that I really didn’t stop to think twice about what was going on; I just kind of went with it. Now that nine months have passed, I can look back and really start to see legitimate changes in the way I view life and where I’d like to see myself in the future.

Teaching has undoubtedly been one of the most positive and constructive experiences of my life. It has forced me to step outside myself and push my boundaries of comfort more than any one thing I have ever partaken in. It continues to teach me infinite lessons in patience. The language barrier also plays a huge role in developing my patience and interpersonal communication skills in general. The kids can be completely frustrating a lot of the time, and I feel like a circus ringleader at times. Then there are those days when I have a good lesson and what I’m teaching the kids jives and they get excited, things flow, and it feels natural. It’s one of the best feelings in the entire world. The tricky thing is that the things that click for each group of students is totally different, so I have to stay on my toes. Lately, it seems the days where everything clicks are happening more often.

Yoga. I cannot say enough about how positive regularly doing yoga has been for me. I go to a Korean yoga teacher who has been such a positive influence in my psyche since I have moved here. I have seen noticeable mental and physical changes since starting my practice with my teacher. The classes are entirely in Korean, and I absolutely love it. Another lesson in language interpretation and patience!

The next hugely positive thing in Korea for me has been rock climbing itself, and even more importantly, the climbing family that I have accumulated throughout the whole of Korea. Amazing, talented, and loving people that I get to hangout with every weekend. They push me to climb harder and test my limits, more that I ever thought possible. Climbing takes me to places of incredible natural beauty, and strikes just enough fear in me to challenge myself mentally to overcome the thoughts holding me back. I feel lucky to be involved in a sport with such positive mental and physical benefits and an awesome community on top of everything else.

Now that I shared the positives of my life here, I will move on to the original motive for writing this article: the goodbyes.

I shed a lot of tears for the departure of my friend from home and my friend from Korea; soul crushing, mind numbing tears. Then I had a really constructive yoga session, and I started to make peace with the goodbyes. The next day my co-teacher called me down to her classroom and announced that it would in fact be her last day and she was retiring. She embraced me and started to cry. (Side note: this is NOT a common occurrence in Korea; Koreans tend to avoid being emotional.) I was on the verge of going back to my depression from my other goodbyes, and I started to put up a wall and shut down. Then, I was awestruck that this woman who I had taught with two days a week, for three months was genuinely upset that she would no longer be teaching with me. Something clicked in my brain; I realized I had to be the one that was strong and positive for her.

This is not a lifestyle where you can expect to avoid saying goodbyes. You form meaningful, loving relationships with people within short amounts of time, and then those people leave Korea or you leave Korea (or wherever else you may live and travel for that matter). They move back to their home country, they travel indefinitely, etc.; sometimes they come back, but more often than not there is no guarantee of when or if you will see them again. There is this constant flux of coming and going of lovely souls. It’s hard. It really sucks sometimes. It’s par for the course though.

I am not a pessimist, so I will try my best to put a positive spin on this constant shift of loved ones. We all have goals that we want to fulfill for ourselves; these goals take us along paths and places that we may never have thought we would be on, or exactly the paths that we thought we’d be on. We meet people that for some time have the same goals and lifestyles as we do. We form loving bonds with those people. Then maybe we decide that it’s time for a new place or new experience.

Our gut reaction is to push those people away, or to keep from forming a strong bond in the first place. Why? It makes it easier for one of us to leave. It's a defense mechanism. Who wants to live their life on the defense though? In reality, the best thing we can do is continue to love. Love freely. Love without expectations and prejudices. This lifestyle makes this more pertinent because of the constant arrival and departure of wonderful people, but I do not think that this attitude is mutually exclusive to those of use who are world travelers and expats of different countries. I just think it’s a philosophy that is easier for us to understand and apply because of our transient lifestyle.  

Goodbyes to those we love will always be bittersweet. When you form a bond with someone and get used to that person in your presence, thinking about him or her not being there makes you sad. It’s natural. If I didn’t get sad, then I would probably consider taking a step back to reevaluate how much of myself I was investing in the personal relationships that I do have (relationships aren’t one sided). Goodbyes remind us of who we really do care about and they serve to balance out the highs of life. They lead to new beginnings, and new experiences. And if we are lucky enough, those that we say goodbye to we resurface in our lives at another time. 

Some of the climbing family, and some other friends mixed in. 

Moo Myeong Ridge Multipitch Climb

As mentioned in another post, in November I found out about a group climbing gathering in the second largest city in Korea by the name of Busan. I headed down to Busan on a Friday after school, and met part of the group and Robin and Feliz, who I would be staying with. We had a few drinks, and discussed the climbing options for the following day. I decided that I want to do the Moo Myeong Ridge multipitch climb with Robin and another guy named Jake.

For those of you unfamiliar with climbing, a multipitch climb is made up of different sections called pitches. Each pitch is within the span of the rope length (technically half the rope length). Most of the pitches for this climb were around ten to twenty five meters or so. There were five or six pitches in the climb. Some sections were just scrambles across rocks without rope, and some were straight up rock faces.

The next morning we woke up, met the group of about thirty climbers at a coffee shop and we all split off to different crags around the city. Robin, Jake, and I took the subway and then a cab to the bottom of the approach hike. The weather was a little chillier than we thought it would be once we got to the more exposed parts of the climb, but the views of Busan and the color changing trees from above were a nice tradeoff.

At the end of the climb there was a jump across a meter and a half wide gap in the rock at the top of the mountain. Robin and Jake did this no problem, hopping back and fourth across the gap with ease. I won’t even try to pretend that the jump didn’t faze me. It took a few minutes of working myself up to finally make that jump. Once we made it across we shared some whiskey and soaked in the views of the coast.

We hiked down from the top of the mountain and met up with some climbers that had been bouldering near another crag. After every dropped their gear off and got sorted, we all met up to share photos of the different climbs and share some drinks. Great day!

Seoraksan National Park

I met my hiking group for the trip to Seoraksan National Park while on the trip to Namhae Island back in September. I knew I had off 3 week days connected to the following weekend because of the Korean “Thanksgiving” holiday called Chuseok.  Two of the guys on the Namhae trip, Brett and Matt, were planning to meet a friend up in Seoraksan and they told me I could join if I would like. One of the girls from the trip, Kristine, decided to join us as well. So began my quest to find a tent in Jeonju.

I managed to track one down at a random store that rents tents. I informed the man working in the shop via Google translate and hand gestures that I would like to buy a two-man tent. He said that he could rent a four person. I told him that I needed one to buy and he said, “Okay okay, you buy here.” So I bought a “two-man tent” which turned out to be a roomy three-man tent. Ahh, the details lost in translation.

After I was set with a tent, I got my travel plans figured out. I would meet up with Matt, Brett, and Kristine at a jimjilbang in Seoul Friday night, to leave for the east coast city of Sokcho early on Saturday morning. The catch was that at this point I did not have a cell phone to help with the Seoul rendezvous. I was not worried because I had my iPod that I can get Wi-Fi on. I was not going to let my lack of cell phone derail my plans. Korea is very wired so there is a ton of Wi-Fi everywhere, the catch is (as I learned very quickly) that a lot of it is password protected, or you must be registered with a particular cellphone company to use it.

I arrived at the express bus terminal in the southern area of Seoul later than planned. If you can imagine the traffic jams in a city with over 10 million people, you get the picture. I got into the bus terminal expecting to find Wi-Fi and figure out where the rest of my group was. Unfortunately, not the case. I knew which subway stop I needed to travel to meet up with the group, so I headed that direction. I made it to the stop in the eastern area of Seoul and wandered out of the subway station. Still no Wi-Fi. No idea where I was meeting the gang, no dinner, and multiple hours of travel started to get to me.

I wandered around in circles and after unsuccessfully trying to purchase a Wi-Fi card at a few stores, I finally found Wi-Fi outside a coffee shop. I figured out the name of the jimjilbang where the group was. Their phones were not with them for me to message them, or they were dead, so they were out of reach for navigation purposes. I asked a few Koreans if they knew where it was and they attempted to direct me in the right direction without successful results.

I was standing completely lost, disoriented and frustrated stealing Wi-Fi to try to look up directions when a younger Korean couple walked up to me. I felt a hand on my shoulder and the guy said, “Hello, do you need help?” I almost screamed out of happiness. Jonathan (his English name) and his adorable girlfriend informed me they went to college in Pohang, a coastal town in southeast Korea, and they were traveling through Seoul for Chuseok. Not only did Jonathan call the jimjilbang and get directions, him and his girlfriend walked me to door of the jimjilbang and dropped me off to make sure I got there okay. Incredible amounts of kindness from perfect strangers… this has become a theme in Korea.

Korean cultural lesson time! You probably keep reading the word “jimjilbang” and wondering what on earth that could be. Jimjilbangs are incredibly popular with Koreans and some foreigners. They are essentially public bathhouses that also offer heated floor space for people to sleep. The bathhouse part is separated by gender. You shower first and then you can hang out in giant hot bathtubs, freezing cold tubs to improve circulation, saunas, and even get a massage from an old Korean women. After enjoying your bathhouse session, you head to the co-ed area.

In larger jimjilbangs, like this particular one in Seoul, there are a ton of amenities. This jimjilbang had rooms that were lined entirely with minerals for healing purposes, ice rooms, oxygen rooms, Norebang (private karaoke) rooms, TV rooms, a restaurant, etc. Jimjilbangs are open 24 hours and you pay about 7,000 won ($7) for the spa portion and a whopping 11,000 won ($11) for the combined spa and floor sleeping option. This particular jimjilbang is actually one of the largest and more famous in Korea from what I was told.

I arrived dazed and completely forgot what I had been told about jimjilbangs until I walked inside and was surrounded completely by naked Korean women. I got used to the notion of being naked in front of strangers and enjoyed the perfect cure for a stressful day: a hot bath. This bath just happened to include some strangers… relaxing nonetheless. After you get cleaned up, you put on pajamas that are provided for you. The jimjilbang experience might sound intimidating, but it’s strangely liberating. I have been to many since and I enjoy going on a regular basis.

I found Kristine and we headed up to the co-ed area and grabbed some dinner and after wandering around to all of the crazy rooms (oxygen, silver, etc.), found a place to sleep. Our “pillows” were very hard foam blocks; our blanket? The heated floor. Not optimal, but for four dollars, who can really complain? We went to sleep in the quietest room we could find with one other lady who was watching a PSY concert (think “Gangnam Style”) on the big screen TV in the room.

 Foggy Morning in Gangwando Province.

We woke up to a much larger population on the floor of the jimjilbang. We found Brett and Matt and headed to the bus station to catch our bus to Sokcho. Once we got to Sokcho we caught a bus to a ranger station/entrance to Seoraksan National Park. We dropped our packs at the ranger station and headed up Ulsanbawi (bawi means rock and Ulsan is a town in southeastern Korea). The hike was short and steep. We got to see two temples on the way up: one traditional and one that was literally in a rock. The view from Ulsanbawi was spectacular. The rigid spine of the adjacent rock was the big plus of the viewpoint, as well as the view of Sokcho and the coastline below.

If you look closely, you can see climbers! 

After we hiked down Ulsanbawi, we met up with Andy, a friend of Matts that would hike with us for the night, and sat down to eat before our hike in to inner Seoraksan. We hiked about 8 km, increasing elevation, following and crisscrossing the riverbed. We were attempting to make it to a shelter as we were rapidly losing light, but after reading some signs and consulting the map, we realized the spot where we had stopped to rest had previously been a shelter that was no more. We were exhausted and there was an area clear enough to pitch our three tents, so we dropped the packs and set up camp. It was a good decision. The moon illuminated the rock face next to the campsite and the stars were insanely bright. It was one of the better campsites that I’ve ever spent a night.

We started our second day of hiking with a view of a waterfall from above. The weather was just cool enough to keep us from sweating and the sun was shining. The hike was steep and strenuous, but the views were worth the work. Just when we thought we had seen the best of them, we would cross another ridge and be astounded once more. We made it to what we thought was our shelter for the night. It was, in fact, under construction. We hid our packs behind some building materials and hiked down to a Bongjeongam Temple to have dinner. The temple gave out dinner for free to all of the hikers that visited the temple. We sat at the temple and ate the rice and seaweed soup as the sun dropped in the sky.

We got back to our packs at sunset and decided that we would just try to camp around the building materials for the half constructed shelter. One of the builders of the shelter lived in a small hut by the building materials. He attempted to tell us in Korean with a bit of charades that we couldn’t stay there, but we pointed to some Koreans who had set up camp behind the building materials in protest of his prohibition and he eventually relented. We set up the tents and watched twilight set in and the full moon rise over the ridge.

Cultural note: the Chuseok holiday is a harvest festival that coincides with the full moon of the eighth lunar month.  The holiday is three days long and families tend to have picnics around their ancestral gravesites where they pray to the fallen family members and give offerings to the gods. Korean culture is evolving though and now many families travel/go on hiking trips together for Chuseok. Seoraksan was no exception to this holiday travel. The mountain was crowded.

We woke up and attempted to watch the sunrise, but the neighboring ridge blocked the view. The moon had yet to drop behind the mountains and the dawn colors made it glow ghostly white. Our tent neighbors, a group of hardcore Korean hikers, were preparing a steaming breakfast feast of soup and rice as we looked on from our tuna cans and cold, precooked rice packets. The language barrier kept us from really getting a chance to talk to them, but they gave us soup, sausage and hot water to pour in our precooked rice. There were many smiles exchanged and we tried to share some of our food with them, but they kindly refused.

Hiking culture, no matter the language barrier or location, tends to be a very altruistic culture. Along with the benefits of exercise, tranquility, and otherworldly views, I think this is another thing that keeps us all coming back for more.

After a wonderful breakfast, we packed up to summit Daecheongbong, our last summit of the trip and the highest summit within Seoraksan NP (the third highest in South Korea at 1,708 meters). Another beautiful day was unfolding before us and we all donned shorts and our windbreakers in the chilly morning air with the anticipation of warming up on the hike. I include this detail because the Koreans that we hiked past were beyond amazed that we would dare to wear shorts in the 45 to 50 degree Fahrenheit weather. We had people stop us and ask us if we were cold multiple times and a few groups even stopped to take our pictures. Oh Koreans, you never cease to amaze.

We finally made it to the summit of Daecheongbong and we soaked in the views of the coastline and the autumn foliage flecked hills below. The summit was covered in a bunch of boulders that were teeming with people in every direction, but the 360-degree views of inner and outer Seoraksan were ineffable. I would have been happy to end the hike there, but no such luck.

We began the knee destroying decent that was essentially one steep staircase after another. We stopped for lunch at a waterfall with a few pools and then continued to head down. Our spirits were a bit broken by the end, but we knew we were headed to camp on the coast from there, so the motivation factor was there.

A depiction of one of the less steep parts of the hike down.

We crammed our outdoor-perfumed selves in a taxi with our packs and headed to a beach on the coast by the name of Jukdo. The small coastal town was full of surfers and the clear turquoise was a welcomed blessing for my ocean-deprived soul. The salty smell and electricity in the air carry nostalgia for me unlike any other.

Am I really in Korea?

We met up with some friends that had been roadtripping up the east coast, and got down to the first order of business: finding food and beer. We went to a small café that sold pizza and went to town. We bought beer at the bar next to the café and the four of us were giggly with a buzz before our pizza was even ready. After our feast, we set up our tents and visited a tiny jimjilbang to wash off the previous 3 days and rejuvenate our tired bodies in the hot baths. That night we got some makkoli (Korean rice wine), played a pickup soccer game on the turf field next to the beach, and had a bonfire on the beach where we cooked some fresh vegetables and meat. Not a bad way to end a trip. The next morning after lounging on the beach and getting some Korean food, we headed down south to Gangneung to catch the bus back to Jeonju.

Restaurant puppy wishing us farewell.

Chuseok weekend was one of my favorite weekends of my life in Korea, and maybe ever. It was a weekend where somehow everything worked out well. We caught the right buses, we encountered the right people, and the weather was perfect. It was a weekend where everything that happened was exactly how it should have happened. A serendipitous weekend.