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Happy Alive

I am probably the happiest person alive right now!

My boxes from SA arrived today! It was like Christmas in November to open all the goodies from South Africa. Niknaks, rooibos tea, myprodolls, heat, shoes and coats! I love my mom!

I found a really cool book, called Korean Folk and Fairy Tales by Suzanne Crowder Han and thought I'd share some of the stories with you.

(Just a quick something to remember: Haneunim was believed to be the Celestial Emperor of the Heavenly Kingdom who ruled over everything. He rewarded the good and punished the bad. He wasn't worshipped in any way.)

Why pig's nose is short

One day a very long time ago Haneunim called for chicken, dog and pig to appear before him. When the three heard this, they began to worry. On their way to the palace, each one thought about his past and what he may have don wrong.

"I command the three of you to go down to Earth and try to do something kind for humans," said Haneunim when the three came before him. "Do you understand?"

"Yes, Your Majesty, we will do as you command," replied the three in unison and they left on their mission.

On Earth each one exerted himself to try to do some work to help humans. Time passed and one day Haneunim called for the three to appear before him again.

"The three of you were sent to Earth to help humans. Please tell me what you did to help them." Chicken spoke first. "I informed them of the time, Your Majesty."

"You informed them of the time?"

"Yes, Your Majesty. Every day at daybreak I crowed to let them know it was time to get up and start a new day. If I didn't let them know it was time to get up, they would just sleep and never get any work done. Moreover, every day I provided them with eggs which they could use to make very tasty foods."

"Well, you certainly helped humans. And, because you did,I am going to award you this red ornament to wear on your head. Please wear it from now on."

"Thank you, Your Majesty," said Chicken in a humble voice.

"And what did you do for humans?" said Haneunim, turning to dog.

"I guarded their houses, Your Majesty."

"Why did you guard their houses?"

"In the day time humans go out to work and at night they sleep very soundly because they worked very hard during the day. I thus guarded their houses during the day and protected them from thieves during the night."

"Does this mean you never slept?"

"No, Your Majesty. I slept in the afternoon when humans were home doing their housework and having their meals."

"I see," said Haneunim, nodding his head. "You also worked very hard for humans. As a reward I am going to give you a fourth leg. Life should be much easier for you with four legs that with three."

"Oh, thank you, Your Majesty. I will be always thankful," said Dog, bowing humbly.

"All right, Pig," said Haneunim. "Tell me how you helped humans."

"Kkul, kkul."

"What do you mean grunting like that? I asked you a question!" stormed Haneunim.

"I'm sorry, Your Majesty. I tried and tried to think of a way to help humans but everything I thought of, Chicken and Dog were already doing. No matter how hard I thought, nothing good came to mind. So, all I did was eat what humans gave me and slept."

"You no good swine! I ordered you to try to help humans but all you did was eat and sleep. You disobeyed me so I have no choice but to punish you." And with one swing of his mighty sword, Haneunim cut off Pig's long nose.

Ever since then, pigs have had short pug noses and go around sniffing and grunting whenever they are hungry, chickens have had red coxcombs and dogs have lifted their hind leg when urinating so as not to defile their gift from Haneunim.

Field Trip

Twice a year the teachers of Yongmun Elementary School embark on a bonding trip.

I was fortunate enough to attend today's excursion to Gyeong-ju. Gyeong-ju is South Korea's largest and very popular with tourists! Age-old traditions linger there unlike anywhere else in Korea, providing more than 2000 years of history.

The trip started off with an hour and a bit's bus ride. First up was a hike around the dam. What a hike. I dressed up in my finest jean pant and takkies (I can like to be wearing a rokkie wif a belt) for this expedition only to find it was a super slow walk on a paved pathway. Awesome!

Not much of a bonding trip if you ask me, nobody really talked to each other.. strange! Later in the day we stopped at the Bulguksa temple, now a world heritage site. Bulguksa temple is the most visited temple in the country. It really was beautiful. This time of year is the perfect time for a visit, because of the autumn leaves.
Gyeong-ju is a very peaceful and relaxing place with beautiful scenery! x

Lets get physical

Let me tell you about the gym. What an experience!

I joined the gym, or health club as it's known here, on Monday. The joining itself was fairly easy, but the rest was just plain strange. As anywhere else in Korea you have to leave your shoes at the door of the place before you enter. So that's exactly what I did. Just keep in mind that I was wearing my gym clothes, so off course my trainers were at the door. I asked the receptionist if I can work out on my first night. The answer was yes, but she was very worried that I didn't have shoes. I assured her I did, but they were outside. She told me that I'm not allowed in the gym with those shoes, because I wore them outside. I had to lock them in a locker and give the key to her. (So obviously you can't pitch up at the gym with your running shoes, you have to wear different ones.) Note to self - carry your running shoes in your hand.

The next thing I knew, the receptionist handed me an orange overall and two VERY small towels. She showed me to the bathroom. Before that, when I handed her my locker key, she gave me a watch with a number on it.

In the bathroom I tried to open every single locker, but couldn't get one to open. Eventually I realized that the number on the watch was the number for the locker. The gym's bathroom is very strange and everyone is naked! But not normal naked, you have to squeeze past old naked Asian ladies to get to your locker. Bum on bum action. Not cool! They sit on the floor (naked) and chill with their friends - come on that's not normal!? Anyways so I undressed and open my orange overall. The guys in the gym works out with black pants and lime green shirts and the lucky ladies with orange shorts and orange + grey shirts. SEXY!

Seeing that I didn't have my trainers with me I just missioned around the gym barefoot and after ten minutes decided it was time to sauna. I couldn't figure out which sauna was the female one (I have seen enough naked bodies for one day thank you very much) so I headed back to my locker to get dressed and leave the crazy place.

Back at reception the lady gave me a weird look and said: "card, tomorrow". Ok tannie ek sal dit more kom haal!

My first actual gym experience wasn't that bad. I did the shoe thing and my card was there! I looked like a pro - well not in my 'aksie pakkie' yet, but we'll get there! I worked out and headed for another try at the sauna. Turns out the sauna's are unisex and no one is naked in side - think they've got the naked thing completely wrong..haha! The sauna looks like a torture room. There is nothing but this wall like thing in the middle and a million asian carpets everywhere with an odd brick or two lying around. You can pick a spot anywhere on the floor and then just chill until the heat gets to you. At first the idea of chilling on those carpets/mats (whatever) was quite revolting (germs!!!) but you get over it very quickly! The sauna is very relaxing and helps you 'de-day'.

I will be back there tonight and if anything strange happens I will let you know tomorrow!

Wikkel dai boude en skud die krummels! x

Seoul Station

Electronic Market

Namdaemun Market

Blue Motel

Seoul Tower

On our way to the DMZ

DMZ

North Korea

North Korea behind me

First station to the North

Seoul Searching

This past weekend we spent in Seoul, the capital city of Korea.

First here's a few facts about Seoul...

Seoul has a population of more or less 49 million people, making it the world's 26th most populous city. As just mentioned it's one of the world's largest and most technically advanced cities.

They have a massive public transport system. There is 8 subway lines with just over 200 stations (can you imagine what my map looks like after this weekend?) Their subway system is one of the best developed and comprehensive subway systems on earth.

Ok well now you have a small idea of what we got ourselves into this past weekend.

Our weekend started by getting on the KTX (bullet train that goes 300km's per hour) for an 3 hour journey to Seoul.

Once we got to Seoul we decided we were brave enough to take on the subways, map in hand off course. We found Luka's (salome's cousin) hotel and popped in for a quick hallo. After the greeting session we had to make a mission to find a place to lay our heads down for the night. Turned out to be the biggest mission ever, but so much fun!! We walked around till about half past 1 in the morning looking for a cheap place to sleep. We walked up and down through various area's, including Hongdae which is the most happening of all because of it's night life. Unfortunately we couldn't find a place there, so after phoning information we got into a cab and headed to the Rex Motel. Haha luckily it didn't turn out to be dodgy, we just stayed up the WHOLE night fighting off mozzies. Damn mozzies, thought they would stay away in the winter. Apparently not!

We had an early start Saturday morning because of our fun filled day. We were supposed to pick Luka up at 10, which only happened at 11. Oops! We started our day off with a lovely Starbucks brekkie and then headed to her hotel. Our first stop for the day was the electronic market. Now, market makes it sounds teeny weeni! It's not!!! It has about 8 floors and one floor is HUGE! It's got camera's, hard drives, video camera's, instruments, flash disks, computers, anything you can think of even the tiniest gadgets!

Our second stop was the Namdaemun market. Namdaemun could quite conceivable feed , and maybe clothe, the whole world. Namdaemun means 'big south door' and once marked the city's perimeter. The original market burnt down in Feb 2008, so it's supposed to be new - but trust me, it doesn't look new. Als behalwe! You have to walk through mud to get to little shops. Off course they sell everything you can possible think of here, so you can imagine how insane it was. O and I forgot to mention the rain. It was POURING on Saturday, so we were squished up under umbrellas just trying to stay dry - but needless to say it didn't work. It was all part of the fun, it makes the adventure so much more exciting don't you think?

After lunch we had to rush back to Luka's hotel for her to get on a plane and go back to South Africa. We had about 30 minutes to get here back and at that stage we didn't have a clue where we were. This city is so big, it is easy to get confused. After 10 minutes of trying to find a taxi we decided to start looking for a subway station. We didn't really want to get a subway because we would've had to change stations - which would take forever. up and down the stairs over the street and down again. As soon as we reached the stupid station we found a taxi driver. I was so glad I rushed to climb into the taxi just to find the stupid driver snapping my (super) wet umbrella from my hand and tossing it at my feet. The dumb man made my finger bleed. He spent the rest of the ride to the hotel shouting at us. What an idiot!

We got Luka to her hotel early enough so that we can pack the last few things into her bag. As soon as Luka left we started looking for motels. We didn't want to walk around with our luggage in the rain so we quickly made a plan. We took a taxi back to the Rex motel in Sinchon. There's a few motels in that area so we just picked another one. This one was the Blue Motel. Literally blue, free porn in the rooms! SCORE! haha the rooms was a lot smaller than the previous night, but just what we wanted and no mozzies in sight!

We chilled for a bit and then headed out for our next adventure which was Seoul Tower. We weren't quite sure how to get there, but luckily Salome printed out directions. So off to the subway we went. We ended up climbing a mountain which luckily took us to the cable car station for Seoul Tower. We didn't have much of few from the tower itself, because the weather was still pretty sucky, but the experience was cool and we got some really nice photo's from the tower it self.

Sunday was an early start as well. For Sunday we had a scheduled trip/tour to the DMZ. Before I tell you about our adventure, here's some history or background or whatever you want to call it :)

Not surprisingly, Koreans have a keen sense of national identity: the peninsula plays host to two of the most distinctive societies on earth, now cleaved into North and South Korea by the spiky twin frontiers of the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ). Since the korean war, North Korea has armed itself to the teeth, stagnated in its pursuit of a local brand of communism and became one of the least accessible countries in the world. Adventure Korea used to do trips there, but it stopped recently. All access denied! Bummer! (Adventure Korea is the company we did this trip with). They say North Korea has a population of about 23 million people and they live in an area about half the size of the UK.

Gyeonggi and Gangwon is South Korea's northernmost provinces and often described as one of the most dangerous places on earth. North and South Korea is separated by a 4 km demilitarized zone (DMZ) which is obviously a nomansland. Just to throw it in there - the two Korea's have never signed a peace treaty so technically they are still at war... SCARY!

Anyways so our first stop to the DMZ was at Imjingak. This is where you have to show your passport and where you get permission to enter the DMZ. At this point you are still allowed to take pictures. Here we saw the monument dedicated to the united states forces in the korean war. There was also a South African flag :)

As soon as the bus started to drive off again we weren't allowed to take pictures. We crossed the bridge over a river and stopped at the Civilian border control. A soldier entered the bus and once again checked everyone's passport. It was quite scary (he can't do anything to you but still) and the whole bus was silent all of a sudden. When he left the north korean jokes started... we had americans behind us on the bus..

Our second stop was the actual DMZ building where the third infiltration tunnel is. We watched a short documentary of the DMZ (which was more of a dramatic add) and then we headed towards the tunnel. Now the north koreans built these underground tunnels in an attempt to attack Seoul, secretly obviously. The tunnel was found in 1970 if I remember correctly. They have only found 4 tunnels, but suspect that there's about 20 more to be found. Scary shit! Anyways we had to lock all our belongings in lockers and find ourselves hard hats for the mission down to the tunnel. The tunnel is about 73 metres underground. You weren't allowed to take anything down, not even your camera. The tunnel's height is about a meter and a half and about 2 meters wide. You can only walk down the tunnel for about 200 meters but was definitely worth it. It was very eerie though... The walk up wasn't fun!

Our third stop was where you can get a clear view of North Korea. We saw a lot of soldiers at that point, because of the strict security regulations. You are only allowed to take pictures of north Korea from behind the yellow line. I think it's stupid because North Korea is quite far out. Anyways, we couldn't see as much as you usually can because of the cold weather, but we saw enough. The place looks like a ghost city. Even with binoculars you couldn't see a single car or person. Weird and very eerie!

Our forth and last stop was the last train station of South Korea. They prefer to call it not the last station of south korea but the first to the north. When you do a trip to North Korea this is the only way you can access it. As I've already said it's been closed off completely, so you can only access Seoul from this Station for now.

We had an amazing weekend!! It was unbelievable exciting, adventurous and interesting and I hope to take a trip to North Korea in the near future.

Nite x