Howdy ya'll (see, I switched it up there...what do you think? Too much?). I'm stuck at school for another 2 hours, so I figured I would at least start hammering out the last (I promise) of the vacation blog posts. It's gonna take me longer than usual as my hands have yet to recover their full color and dexterity from a morning in an “ice box”, aka school. I guess I could go outside to warm up, as the school is definitely not in the high 40s to low 50s like outside, but sadly Mother Nature is lacking in electrical outlets. Plus, if I was outside, I wouldn't be blessed with the litany of Korean chatter in the background. In equally distressing news, the music teacher finally reappeared today after not being seen by myself for nearly 2 months. How is this a bad thing, given that she is the only female teacher anywhere near the word “young” and the only thing worth looking at in a given day here? I know she doesn't speak any English, but that is probably better, as she would probably ruin it if she talked (sigh). Well, as soon as she walked in, I realized that I wasn't even a little interested. I'm hoping she was just having an “ugly” day or something, otherwise this upcoming semester is gonna feel even longer. Enough about that, onward and upward to the stories conclusion...
Spoiler: I didn't die. I know I built up the suspense last segment by hinting that I may not have survived my bout with sea sickness or something, but I did survive. I know you were all worried about me, but I'm pretty tough (aren't I?). After around 6 hours in the hospital and 1.5 bags of I.V., I checked myself out and roused Ms. Pfeil from her slumber in the lobby just after midnight and headed home. With all that drama behind us, we were free to head south, to Seogwipo-si, after a full night's rest. While at the bus terminal the next day, we added yet another unique Korean acquaintance to our list. We shall call him the Korean Sherpa, for lack of a name and for reasons to be explained later. He introduced himself to us while we were attempting to buy our tickets to Seogwipo-si. He saw us trying to decipher the time board and stepped in and bought the tickets to Seogwipo-si for us. Now, I appreciate his help, but this kinda stuff annoys me since it just stems from the assumption that foreigners are dumb and clearly need to have their hand held if they don't speak Korean. I can read Korean, it just takes a little longer than natives. Besides, we are in Jeju, so there is only a total of 2 places you could possibly go from the main city. A really dumb monkey is gonna get it right most of the time. We thanked him for his assistance, then it got interesting. He wished to talk to us some more, but seeing as how he knew no English, he instead called up some toll-free (god, I hope so, otherwise I feel bad for all the bills he racked up) translation service and began the awkward disembodied voice as intermediary. I've had plenty of conversations with translators in the flesh, but never one like this. Watching the man speak into the phone, then have him hand us the phone so the voice could tell us something was different and slow. Having him ask one question, then switch the phone for my one word answer, then back to him really brings the conversation to an absolute halt. Usually, by the time the phone made its way back to me, I had forgotten what I had asked previously or the translator had forgotten some aspect of a question posed by the Sherpa. Eventually, this strange conversation ended and we headed on our way to the south of Jeju. Once there, after a minor delay due to directional confusion (we didn't have too many of those as two directionally delinquent people working together can be almost as good as one competent human being), we found Jeongjiyeon Waterfall. Quite pretty, but as usual, crawling with Koreans. Once satisfied, we moved to the next waterfall, conveniently located only 20 minutes, on foot away. And who said there was no such thing as “intelligent design”? Seems like a solid design to put several waterfalls that close to each other. Things got mighty interesting at the next waterfall, Jeongbang Waterfall, as who should we bump into, but the “Sherpa” himself. Queue more disembodied translation. Eventually, he decides that he is gonna take us personally to the places we wanna go. Ummmm, okay. Thus, the “Sherpa”. We appreciated the help, as we made really great time, but Jeju is not quite as treacherous as say, Everest. Whatever. He quickly lead us to the Jusangjeollidae Cliffs, which were quite beautiful and bangin' (yeah, I said bangin'....deal with it), as we were treated to Big Bang reverberating from a sailboat moored several hundred feet below us. You can hear them in the background of one of the videos on YouTube. The Sherpa is visible in some of the videos as well. He's the guy wearing the multicolored jacket that looks like it came from the 1980s. Classy. The downsides of having a guide is that they inevitably take you where they think is interesting, aka a hotel. Yeah, he took us to a hotel. Granted the hotel was pretty cool, as it was designed and set up like traditional Jeju huts, but still, not the most scenic of locations. As we freely wandered the grounds, Alyse and I kept looking at each other and thinking “We probably shouldn't be here”. Our suspicions were confirmed when we found a sign that displayed in Korean, as well as English, “Only hotel guests or staff allowed”. We pointed out the sign to the Sherpa, which he casually brushed off and ignored. Sooooooo Korean. Rules, restrictions, contracts, whatever are more of guidelines. No strict interpretation or adherence necessary. Remember, “Just cuz its in the contract, doesn't mean you are entitled to it.” Makes sense to me. Eventually we were politely herded off the premises and headed to the next waterfall. At this point the Sherpa bid us adieu and went on his own way, while we promptly got lost. You know, cuz we are just dumb waegooks (foreigners). We don't know any better. Seriously though, we found our way around no problems until it came to accommodations for the evening. Alyse had suggested hitting a jimjilbang for the evening, then getting up might early to head to Mt. Halla. Sounds good, now we just gotta find one of the damn places. We had heard rumors of a jimjilbang in the basement of the Jeju World Cup Stadium. Yup, the place where the world's best played the “beautiful game” just 6 years ago now serves a roof for a bunch of naked Koreans. Well, where should our cabby, given instructions to find a jimjilbang, take us to, but the Stadium itself. Rumor confirmed. In Korea's defense, the jimjilbang is attached to an indoor water park. A little bit more reputable. The jimjilbang itself was quality, as it was only 6 years old or less, so everything was new and swanky. Otherwise, business as usual. Get naked, relax in any number of baths, watch your self-esteem go through the roof after seeing the “baby-cut carrots” occupying the baths with you (I implore you to try and go through a jimjilbang and not come out with improved self-image), sleep.
January 8th saw us getting up early (well, early for us) in anticipation of our journey to Mt. Halla. 2 hours and several buses later, we arrived at Mt. Halla. While he began the trek from bus stop to park entrance (2 or 3 miles), we marveled at the fact that we were still on Jeju. Mt. Halla was buried in snow and looked like any other mid western forest in December or January, while just 30 minutes away by bus there were palm trees and tangerine groves, which coincidently looked remarkably like Florida. I thought that I may have been back in the Wisconsin woods but there were too many Asians (aka more than one) for it to be rural Wisconsin. Once at the entrance we attempted to begin our climb, but we were scolded and directed to a booth where they were selling clip on spikes for your shoes. I was originally annoyed, but they were only 10,000 won and as Alyse joked, you van dish out some pretty nasty chapas with those spikes on the bottom of your shoes. When we actually started climbing, we realized how helpful/necessary those spikes were. In one particular spot we were literally climbing on a 50 degree grade or more on wet, slick snow with just a rope. We watched many people who had managed to get past the guards without buying the spikes climbing by pulling themselves up solely by the rope, as their footing was useless. And since Koreans aren't notoriously strong or burly, they were going nowhere fast. Too bad they bought all that really cool looking hiking gear for nothing. Turns out having all the hiking gear doesn't make you climb the mountain any better (as a side note, Koreans always have to be decked out to the nines in whatever activity they participate in. If its swimming they have to have a expensive Speedo suit, top class goggles and swim cap, even though they can't even swim. For hiking, they all have hiking boots, special pants to keep dirt out of their socks, special jackets and hats, walking sticks, and a backpack filled with more gear. It just makes me laugh.). Alyse and I, in our jeans, t-shirts/sweatshirts, and sneakers, just laughed and passed them by. Mt. Halla turned smiles upside down when we realized that we couldn't see anything from the summit. Literally. I even took a video to show the utter lack of sights available to us at the top. At best, we could see 20 feet in front of us. Bummer, but at least the views were solid up to the peak. The downward journey showed a new side of Korea to us: adults acting immaturely and like kids, without the presence of alcohol. Man, kids don't even get to act like kids that much over here. Several middle aged couples decided, to conserve energy, that they would sled down the mountain on either their coat or plastic bags. Pretty cute, especially when the woman would go whizzing by us, unable to stop or slow down, with her husband racing after her down the mountain. We just stayed off to the side of the path, as I had no desire to get undercut and dragged down the mountain by some ajumma.
Friday, January 9th saw Korea finally getting the best of us. We got up reasonably early from our hotel room back in Jeju-si, where we returned to the previous evening, with the intention of visiting “Sunrise Peak” and the Mangangul Cave on the east coast of Jeju-si. We assumed that we wouldn't have to take the 30 minute walk to the bus terminal, since the buses would be coming past us anyway, as we were on the far east side of Jeju-si anyway. We naturally assumed that we could just hop on a bus heading east and it would eventually take us there. Right? Wrong, ohhh so wrong. We hoped on a bus heading east, only to find out that it goes about half-way and ends up depositing us in the middle of fucking nowhere. It would make sense for another bus loop to pick up from this point and continue to our desired city, so clearly such a bus didn't exist. We could have hailed a cab, but we weren't that into the sights to pay 30,000 won at least to get there. Fuck it. We're going back home. So annoyed at the setbacks suffered thus far in Jeju and completely satisfied in what we did managed to accomplish, we decided to head immediately back to Jeju-si, our hotel, and then to the airport. Our airport experience could only be described as a dream. We walked up to a counter in the airport (I say “a counter” since there was literally 4 or 5 different carriers all offering flights back to Seoul), bought our tickets, checked our bags, walked down to our terminal (went through security on the way, took all of a minute), and were boarding the plane five minutes after we reached our terminal. Beautiful. Just beautiful. The flight was over almost before it began, as we touched down at Gimpo Airport in central Seoul just over an hour after we took off. The subway ride from Gimpo to the train station actually took about 30 minutes more than the entire flight did. I always forget how small this country really is. Maybe cuz it takes me close to 2 hours to get to wherever I wanna go in Seoul. But then again it probably takes everyone, regardless of location in Seoul, just 2 hours to get to Seoul. Korea is that small. Once back in Yangpyeong and with another family dinner with the gym teacher and children behind us, I took Alyse to Bobo's to meet the foreigner crew. Now having had to deal with such illustrious titles as “wuss”, “lightweight”, “pussy”, as well as the obviously sarcastic “It's not a contest” comment any time we drink, I felt that Alyse deserved to be in the company of people who bring it harder than myself (which is nearly everyone on Earth) in regards to the sauce. We helped ourselves to substantial amounts of soju, beer, and yogurt soju (yogurt mixed in with soju...tasty) while listening to the stories of the world travelers like Stuart and Jonathon. At one point, another foreign teacher said, after Alyse had headed to the bathroom, “Wow, she has had a lot to drink. Are you sure she is okay? She looks pretty drunk.” I thought about responding, “Pffft, she's from Wisconsin. She knows what the fuck she is doing.”, but I wasn't sure they would understand that, given they weren't from the States. In true Korean style, we followed up the drinking with a spin at the noraebang. We entered with a good sized party of 8-10, but the pressure of the spotlight quickly separated the wannabes from the true lounge lizards. After having honed my skills at Kareoke Kid, singing in noraebangs is as natural as breathing, especially when I get to chose my own songs, rather than have some random song from the 70's chosen for me when I go with my school (“Do you know this song?” “Uhhh no, but I'm sure my parents do.”). For some reason there was an overabundance of Oasis tunes. Not sure why that was, but we definitely played “Wonderwall” at least twice. Alyse tried her hand at Rage Against the Machine, I believe “Killing in the Name”, which is always interesting in a kareoke setting with alcohol, as it usually quickly devolves into unintelligible shouting, mumbling, or both. In her defense, I thought she did it pretty well. But that could have just been the alcohol talking.
It was good that we got all the sinning out of the way on Friday (yes, the offenses committed against the Beatles and other worthy groups' music were certainly sinful), since we shifted back to the other end of the spectrum for the weekend, as our Buddhist temple stay had finally come. We arrived at Yongmunsa not expecting too much, as the candid chats with monks which I was most interested in would be lost on us, due to the absence of Korean knowledge. Yongmunsa, however, pulled out the stops for us. As soon as we arrived, we were notified that the temple had summoned a translator just for us, as the other 30 or so temple dwellers all Korean. The guy was really interesting, as he was a volunteer, though he took the task gladly as he really loves temple life and Buddhism in general, but his job was in the military defense field, I think. His interest in Buddhism was unique, as he is actually a Christian and most Christians over here are of the fervent variety and don't “play nicely” with other religions. His most amusing quality was that he was such a unobservant dork, and I mean that in the nicest way possible. Alyse and I both had our fair share of “Oh no, did he just do that?” and head in hands moments. The crown jewel was definitely when during the chief monk's (not just some low ranking newbie monk, but the guy in charge) conversation with all the visitors, the translator began translating the monk's dialogue word for word for me, except the man lacked volume control and was soon drowning out the monk himself. I just shook my head and laughed as the entire group started tossing him stink-eyes and the manager woman began throwing violent gestures his way in order to get him to shut the fuck up. Well, as it turned it, the translator was completely unnecessary, as one of the other visitors spoke better English than him. Imagine Alyse's shock when a Korean women in her 20's randomly came up to her and said hello in perfect English with a British accent. I can only assume that she had to change her trousers after that. Francesca, the woman in question, was a quite interesting case, as she had spent the last 7 years living and going to school in London, so obviously her English was pretty decent. Alyse and Francesca quickly became the bestest of friends. I cannot speak for her, but I assume meeting Francesca was very eye-opening for Alyse, as it offered her a glimpse into the complicated and sometimes unpleasant world of women, especially young women, in Korea. Francesca was heading back to London just a few days after Alyse left because Korea doesn't feel like home anymore and she can't stand living near her father, who is the prototypical conservative/traditional Korean father who wants to rule his daughter's life and not let her out of sight. Not surprisingly, for fear of suffocation, Francesca couldn't stand to live here. She found her friendships here quite empty, as the majority of her friends live the standard privileged, spoiled, and materialistic lives of the well-to-do. All that had changed in her absence, one would assume, was that they transitioned from being spoiled by daddy to being spoiled by their husband. Alyse, as you might expect, was none of the previously mentioned things, so they were soon thick as thieves. The actual activities were very interesting, albeit quite cold. We quickly changed into the standard monk garb upon arrival, which was quite comfortable and warm. The difficulty was in finding one that fit me. The first one they gave looked like a t-shirt, even though the sleeves were supposed to come to one's wrists or so. Ooopps. They eventually found a non-infantile size and we were good to go. Our activities consisted of several chats with monks, one with the head monk and one with a female monk (yeah, I didn't know you could have those either....truth be told, I really couldn't tell her apart from the men. Normally, my confusion over gender stems from the fact that all the men are really feminine looking, but here it was because the she-monk was quite burly and mannish, which confounded me since I was certain that Korean women don't come in sizes above zero), several tea drinking ceremonies (damn, their tea was good), meditating, praying (108 bows is lot, and one hell of a workout), and walking in the woods. All well and good for maintaining or gaining inner purity. Too bad I'm rotten on the inside. Honestly, I probably spent the better part of our hour of meditation (possibly all of it) thinking about sex. I'm going to hell. And I'm okay with that. The food was wonderful and delicious. Or that's what I'm supposed to say. In truth, I found it terribly bland and dull, while everyone loved it. Alyse was especially fond of it, since Buddhists are vegetarian (the only ones in Korea). I have no problem with vegetarian food (well, maybe a little problem), but my major concern came from the lack of spices. Buddhists also believe that various spices and seasonings can affect one's humor, so they use nothing spicy or hot, because that breeds anger and aggression. Man, fuck that! I need my flavor! God damn it! (see what I did there?). Our homeward journey from the temple brought all manner of excitement from drinking Korean rice wine out of dixie cups on the city bus, to missing the bus (twice) from Yongmun to Yangpyeong because the ladies just had to have a smoke, to getting yelled at by drunk Korean men in the bus station (no surprise there). The smoking was an interesting thing, as women who smoke in Korea are seen as “loose”, so Francesca, having traveled back with us on the bus, needed to find a secluded alley or concealed location in order for her to smoke. At one point I even held the cigarette so Francesca could smoke but not appear to being smoking. Alyse, as you would expect, had no problem with being labeled a “loose” woman.
Monday, January 12th brought me down from the high I had been riding for the whole of the vacation thanks to the lethal dose of reality administered in the form of winter camp. I really don't wanna get into my frustrations with the winter camps, as I could go on for hours. Suffice it to say, I don't like the very idea of mandatory interim classes on a job I took primarily for the ability to travel/see the world (see how those things directly contradict there?). I also do not like the idea of teaching 6 weeks of camps while most foreign teachers have 2-3 weeks and most of my fellow teachers at my school don't do jack shit the entire break. Our vacation runs from Christmas to the beginning of March. How much vacation did/do I get? From December 29th to January 11th. In case you aren't good at math, that's two weeks. The break is 2 months, I get 2 weeks. They couldn't even get me vacation for the entire time Alyse was here, and I fought to get it as good as it was. They wanted to start teaching the week before, so instead of 2 days wasted it would have been 7 days wasted. This brings me to the point of the two Koreas. Traveling in Korea, I will admit, is a lot of fun, as there are many cool things to see. Working in Korea, as you might expect, is less fun on most days. Have no fear, faithful readers, I didn't take it lying down. Giving my best Gandhi impression, I tried my hand at satyagraha or “passive resistance” (though it was probably closer to passive-aggressive). Rather than openly shout at my co-teacher (which she wouldn't understand anyway since her English sucks), I made sure my classes were as contrary to what she wanted as possible, and usually using quite minimal English. No worksheets or textbook lessons, no repeating of awkward English phrases, just a lot of English movies, card games (“Do you have any eights?” “Go Fish!”), English music, and computer games, while chatting with the kids in English while we did all these things. What English is more useful in real life? The stilted garbage in textbooks or the English you use when discussing what character in Lord of the Rings is said person's boyfriend. Sadly, “crazy boy” (Japan hater) and my chosen boyfriends (chosen by someone other than ourselves) didn't survive Fellowship of the Ring. My lover got riddled with arrows (Boromir) while “crazy boy's” man got decapitated by Aragorn (head Uruk-hai that shot Boromir). Crazy boy upgraded to Gollum for Two Towers (he's a bit unstable, but you can't say he isn't obsessively dedicated to his “precious”). The students didn't like that I chose Eowyn for my new significant other. I guess we can't do chicks. Darn. I think they settled on decrepit Theoden, before Saruman's spell was broken. Sure he's old, but fuck, he's royalty. I'll gold dig that (ohhh, that sounds really awful...I made myself sad). Anyways, as I digressed (a bit), classes were pretty boring outside of the amusing grand entrance for Alyse with each of my classes. She got the whole celebrity treatment, as the students saw her through the windows and started squealing and hollering even before she stepped through the door. I think it was the blonde hair. It all further elevated my cool status, as being associated with someone as cool as Alyse can only raise my stocks. It also offered Alyse an opportunity to try an answer the question that I've been struggling to work through for the past several months, namely “You...Eric...girlfriend?”, when addressed to Alyse. I guess, for Koreans, that if you are friends with a female, then you must be dating. They must think I'm some kind of crazy casanova (couldn't be any further from the truth) since they have labeled Alyse, Maria (during some of our Skype conversations), and Amy (during Skype conversations) as girlfriends. The response was easy for Maria and Amy: “No”. Problem solved there. Trying to explain Alyse and my relationship is difficult for me with native speakers. I'm just fucked with low level teachers or students. My usual response is “Ummm.....ehhhh...sort of...not really...kinda?”. Doesn't really matter since the next time they ask about Alyse, its always “Eric...girlfriend...when come?”. Eventually I just gave up trying. We had a good laugh when hanging out with the gym teacher's family, as she was usually just referred to, whether in English or Korean (yeoja chinggu is Korean for girlfriend, which is literally woman/female (yeoja) friend (chinggu)), as just “girlfriend”. Took 2 or 3 visits before they started calling her Alyse instead of Mister Eric's girlfriend. I still remember when we met the wife for the first time. She immediately inquired “Is this Eric's friend?” in Korean, not using the “yeoja” part, so just a friend, but Jaehan (the son) immediately responded “No, no, girlfriend!”. The mom used girlfriend every time after that. Whenever Alyse got a huge ego, as a result of all the attention and admiration from the blonde hair, I made sure to remind her that she was nothing without me. She didn't even have a name, she was only “Eric yeoja chinggu”. As soon as my classes were finished, we blew that Popsicle stand (literally, as the building was frigid), which I would be scolded for the next day, as I lack responsibility because I didn't sit at my desk until 3pm, regardless of the fact that I have Alyse with me. When I told the co-teacher that I wasn't going to see Alyse for probably 1.5 years after this and wanted to spend as much time as possible with her before she left, she responded, with a completely stone-faced and serious demeanor, “Personal lives should not interfere with work”. Man, fuck you! Never mind how hypocritical she was in saying bullshit like that, given her usage of time at school. I'm still plotting how I shall avenge myself for that particular offense, but at the very least I shall have my revenge when we are both burning eternally in hell (Ohh yeah, she is going there...chances are pretty good that she is Catholic, so of course she'll be burning in hell), and I have an upper management position (cuz I'm a sinner of the first class) and she has to do everything I tell her to without complaint. Don't like Confucian social principles any more? Too fucking bad for you. Wow, wandered way off topic again. Sorry. Anyways, once we escaped the school, we hoped the train and headed to Myeong-dong in Seoul, where we were meeting up with Amy, her boyfriend (hooray, they let him in for a day or two this time), Francesca, and some other foreigner teachers for dinner and drinks. Much merriment was had by all. Unfortunately, everyone had to go home that evening, since they had work the next day. We did make plans with Amy and her boyfriend to hit the clubs the next night, stay out all night, then go straight to the airport, since they travelers could sleep on the plane and Amy and I had been given off that day in order to escort our guests to the airport. Don't think that was nice of the school to do that for me, given it was a Wednesday. I straight up told them that I have to take Alyse to the airport and there is no possible way I can make it to class that day. They begrudingly (“heaven forbid they foreigner not do everything I tell him to do, what nerve, how dare he not get down on his knees and eat me out whenever I tell him too”....ugggg, I just made myself really sick thinking about my co-teacher naked....gag) let me take the day as a vacation day.
Tuesday the 13th: the last day in Korea. Before heading to Seoul to enjoy ourselves and forget another boring and frustrating day at school, we headed to the gym teacher's for one last dinner together. It was certainly a sad parting for Alyse, as she had grown quite attached to the family. The wife, who Alyse loved even though she spoke no English, endeared herself even more to Alyse by giving her a present of lipstick when we got ready to leave. Awwwwww. Having said our final goodbyes, we headed to Seoul. As soon as we had our hotel room and arrangements squared away, it was off to Hongdae for drinking and debauchery. Business as usual. Drink, then drink some more. Pee, then load up on alcohol again. Eventually, we moved to a club so Alyse could accomplish her goal of dancing with a Korean guy. She was gracious enough to make sure I was cool with the idea before going through with it. Did I like the idea? No, but I'm not so selfish as to deprive the rest of the world of Ms. Pfeil's splendid company. I also take small consolation in the fact that the guy she danced with is probably infertile now from how hard I glared at him. We finally called it a night around 3am, plenty of time for a 11am flight.
We've now (finally! God, just finish the bloody story already!) come to our story's final day and its goodbyes. Wednesday, January 14th saw us catching the airport shuttle from central Seoul towards the airport. The ride was spent in almost absolute silence, as we were both accessing what we had seen, what we had done, and just generally what had happened over our several weeks together. All arrivals must in time make way to departures, and we had finally reached that moment. We both knew that we were gonna miss Korea, general Korea for Alyse and “fun” Korea for me, and of course, we were gonna miss each other a little bit. Not too much. Just a little. You know, just the tip. This had been the best vacation ever, without question, for either of us, so we were both obviously reluctant to go back to the rigors/chaos of school and the boredom/stupidity of work. Thankfully, I was able to keep from crying during the final goodbye, as I would have never heard the end of the “pussy” insults from Alyse, especially since she shed not a single tear. Alyse probably didn't realize this, but, as I told Amy on the way home from the airport, had she asked me to come back to the States with her, I would have gone in a heartbeat. Screw Korea, job, contract, money, everything. Had she asked, I would have left. I know she would have never asked me to drop everything for her like that, but it was jokingly mentioned at some point during the trip. A year and a half is a long time to wait to see someone again. Well, back to the grind....
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