A Day At The Beach - Sunday, April 11, 2010

I don't guess jet lag is ever going to be done with us. We awoke at 05:00 again today, but lounged in bed until 06:00. Ma and Pa woke up early, also, just after us, and began their day. I spent a good part of my morning uploading and tagging all the pictures I've been taking over the past few days. We all had an early breakfast, and Ok Hwa and I met the bus at 10:00.

The ride into town was crowded, and I gave up my seat to one of the elderly ladies early on. In town, we stopped by Dunkin' Donuts first for some real coffee and a donut. Next, we went over to this new building building we've been wanting to check out. This place is called "Home Plus" and "Anytime Cine Mall". It's six stories tall, and houses the Home Plus multi-level department store and American style grocery store on the first five floors. The top floor holds the Anytime Cine Mall complex. This is a mini-mall of nice, small restaurants, and a multi-plex movie theatre. This place is all slick and modern, and is very popular with teens and twenty-somethings, and with young families. A large portion of the front wall of the building is taken up by multi-story windows, and just inside these windows are escalators, cris-crossed back and forth, from street level up to the sixth floor. From the street you can see everyone going up and down the escalators, and from inside the building, the view gets loftier as you ascend. These are the most unique escalators I've ever seen. They have no steps, but instead are just long moving ramps, made out of the same type of metal construction as regular escalators. They are longer and less steep than regular escalators, but, they're very cool and functional.

After we'd gotten the lay of the land inside the Home Plus building, we decided to head east through Gangneung 'till we hit the waterfront. Neither of us had ever been over there before, but I was determined to check it out. I had seen a billboard advertising what seemed to be a static battleship display hereabouts somewhere. I figured it would be over at the harbor. Since we were already on the main east-west drag, we got aboard the next east bound bus that came by. It took us straight to the beach, called Anmok Beach. Funny thing is, though, that the city thinned out as we got closer to the beach. The buildings got lower, then fewer, and pretty soon we were in farm fields. This only lasted for a mile or so, 'till we started seeing tall apartment buildings, then the unmistakable sight of beach front high-rise hotel buildings. The last stop on the line was a block from the beach. The driver let us off here, then turned around and headed back into town. At least we knew how to get back, the 503 bus.

We walked over to the beach, and it was pretty much like the Gyeongpo Beach front - the surf, a beautiful beach, and a front street lined with hotels, seafood shops, coffee shops, and bars. There were not any pine trees by the beach here, like up at Gyeongpo. There was not a harbor full of Navy vessels, container shops, and oil tankers either. There was only a small harbor full of small fishing boats. It was formed by two jetties, one going out from the left and curving to the right, and another going out from the right to almost meet the first one. There was a small opening about one hundred yards wide, running perpendicular to the beach, where boats could enter and leave.

This is a nice beach, and you could tell the city had been investing some money into the infrastructure lately. There was a sparkling new public restroom building right by the beach. It had a spiral staircase leading up to an observation deck on the roof. Very nice. There was a new drive down to the small harbor, and the jetties which formed it looked almost new, also. The row of hotels, etc. just behind the beach ended about this point, where there was a beautiful, steep natural hill covered in pine trees just behind the harbor. There was a stone staircase leading up to a park at the top of the hill. We went up and discovered a nice new observation deck and gazebo, lots of benches, and a boardwalk through the trees. We followed the boardwalk to the south end of the hill, where we found an old anti-aircraft gun emplacement, flanked by concrete bunkers. The immobilized gun was still in place, and you could sit in the seat imagining you were defending the homeland from invaders. The view from up there was excellent in all directions. Just south from this hill is where the main river which flows through the town empties into the sea. There is a nice pedestrian bridge over the river at this point, and another beach with hotels, cafes, bars, and seafood restaurants on the other side. The day was cool and windy, and there were a number of windsurfers out in the surf. In the distance we saw a ship of some sort making it's way towards the harbor.

We descended the hill from one of the two other staircases on the south end, and made our way out onto the wide jetty which formed the south end of the harbor. There was a police station by the boat docks on this end of the harbor, and a white lighthouse on the end of the jetty. A red lighthouse was on the end of the other jetty coming around from the north side. We walked out to the end and made some pictures by the lighthouse. Just about this time, that ship we'd seen earlier made it's way into the harbor. It was a large tourist excursion ship, heading back in after a sightseeing tour. We thought we'd go over to the dock and try to get aboard if it went back out. Once we got over there, though, we saw that there were about ten or twelve tour buses parked by where the ship was docked. All the people getting off the ship were climbing into the tour buses. It looked like a package tour, and probably wouldn't be going back out again today. No loss, though. We were ready to move on.

We walked along the front street for a ways, scoping out the restaurants. We weren't in the mood for seafood, though, and that's pretty much all that was there. We decided to head back into town and eat at one of those cute little restaurants we'd seen in the Home Plus building. The wait for the bus was about twenty chilly minutes, but he finally came along.

We got back into town, and went into the Home Plus/Cine Mall building. Up on the sixth floor there was a lot to choose from. Ok Hwa really wanted Bi Bim Bob, and we found a nice little place specializing in just that. I ordered the Bulgogi, a favorite Korean dish for Americans. It's Korean style Bar-B-Q. Bi Bim Bob is a big bowl with a handful each of several kinds of chopped vegetables, a handful of BBQ beef, and a fried egg on top. You add the Korean hot pepper paste, a bowl of rice, mix it all up, and dig in.

After our lunch we headed back over to the Jungang Market to pick up some fresh fruits and a few other things to take back home. Then it was another long, chilly wait for the 308. On the ride home I was on the lookout for some interesting things to do tomorrow. There are a number of places along the route that look worth checking out. Today we got off the beaten path and did a little exploring, and it paid off. I'll try to convince her to go exploring again tomorrow.

A slide show of today's pictures:
http://s594.photobucket.com/albums/tt23/allenhare/Korea%2010/A%20Day%20At%20The%20Beach/?albumview=slideshow

A Day In Town - Saturday, April 10, 2010

We awoke at 05:30 this morning, hearing the cocks crowing as the window began to lighten up the room. We didn't linger trying to get back to sleep, but got up straight away.

Even though we got up early, we didn't do much with our morning except get breakfast and take our showers. We are on vacation, after all. I had big plans to hike back up to Yongyeon Temple today, making a video of the trip. That plan fell by the wayside. Maybe I'll do it tomorrow. Yesterday evening I found another trail up the mountainside leading to a more extensive system of burial sites. I halfway thought I might make a video of the hike up this trail, also, time permitting. That one will have to wait, too.

We headed out the door to catch the bus at 10:00, and he was waiting for us there at the stop. Being Saturday, the ride into town was a little different than before. There were more young school aged children aboard because they weren't in school. When we got to our usual stop in town, the streets were more crowded than usual, with lots of young people out of school and out on the town.

We had no plan for the day, so we wandered far and wide through the central shopping district. There are a great number of very trendy clothing boutiques there which we'd never seen before. Lots of great clothes, shoes, and accessories at reasonable prices. We also ran across many tailor shops of many sizes, from full size shops to small stalls in the crowded shopping alleyways. One tailor shop we found was a small hut down what looked like a service alley. There was nothing else down this alley except this hut, and when we looked inside there were two women working, and two customers waiting.

One of our best finds was the D/C Store, the Korean equivalent of the dollar store. There was most everything you'd need for your household at super low prices. We picked up a few small essentials for the toiletry kit, and I found a great set of beautiful ceramic sake cups, which will be a gift. I also found some different, more rustic ceramic sake cups that I liked a lot. Those will be coming home with me. Ok Hwa found a beautiful red leather wallet for her mom, as well as a few other small things for herself. We'll probably find our way back to this store a few more times in the near future.

We headed back over to the Jungang Market next. There are more things than food there. There are stalls selling house wares, luggage, hats, socks, scarves, hair clips, and many other things. I picked up several pairs of beautiful multi-colored woven and embroidered house slippers for another gift. Ok Hwa found a great pair of casual pants for her mom for only ten dollars.

We were getting hungry, and went looking for something to eat. There were many little lunch counter stalls in the food market area, selling Korean food. I had in mind something a little more upscale, though. Maybe a nice sit down Korean restaurant, or one of those fried chicken specialty restaurants. What we ended up with, though, was the trendy Lotteria fast food burger chain out on the main avenue. This is similar to, but nicer than the McDonald's that we ate at yesterday. The food was a bit better than the McDonald's, also. The burgers at all these chain burger places in Korea are pretty puny by American standards, though. If someone were to open up a Whataburger over here, and show these folks what a real hamburger is, they'd make a killing. Then again, the obesity rates in America from eating this kind of rich diet are pretty high. I've seen exactly five overweight Koreans on this trip, and out of the many thousands of people we've seen, that is an extremely small percentage. Even for all these trendy western style restaurants in town, I suspect that most Koreans eat a pretty traditional rice and vegetable based diet at home. Also, they lead a more active lifestyle than most Americans do. Not every family here owns a car. There is a lot more walking and bicycling, and even those who ride the bus end up walking a ways on either end of the bus ride. Up here in Sacheon Valley where we're staying, I see a tremendous amount of good old fashioned manual labor being done out in the fields every day. None of it is being done by a lower paid, lower class, immigrant workforce either, but by ordinary home grown Koreans. I'll get off my soap box now.

After lunch and some more window shopping, we headed back towards the bus stop by the railroad overpass. Along the way, we picked up some apples and some strawberries from street vendors. Street vendors are conveniently located almost everywhere along the main avenues downtown. We got lucky at the bus stop, only waiting about five minutes 'till the 308 came along. The ride back home was a bit busy, as there was a lot of traffic out for a Saturday afternoon.

Back at the house, the front door was locked. This meant that both Ma and Pa were out. Mrs. Kim had a doctor's appointment today, and I guess Pa was out visiting friends in the neighborhood. Ok Hwa had a key that Mrs. Kim had given her yesterday, figuring that we might need it. We let ourselves in and started putting away our packages.

A short while later Mrs. Kim showed up. Ok Hwa gave her the gifts she'd bought, and they were well received. Mrs. Kim really liked the pants, and put them right on and wore them the rest of the day. At first she thought the red wallet was too much, and gave it back to Ok Hwa. Ok Hwa was fine with this, because she'd told me earlier that she really wanted the wallet for herself, and would keep it in case her mom didn't like it. She gave it one more try with Mrs. Kim, though, showing her all the many compartments and cool features. Mrs. Kim decided that she really liked it, and would take it after all. Ok Hwa was very happy about this. She has a good heart, and really enjoys doing for others, especially her mom.

A little while later Pa showed up from where ever he'd been. The ladies started making dinner then, and I took a nap 'till dinner was ready. A neighbor had stopped by earlier, dropping off some kimchi, which was on the dinner table when I was called to eat. This kimchi was quite a bit different from Mrs. Kim's. I took one bite and realized that it was not for me. There is a wide variety of styles in the world of kimchi, and lots of individual preferences. I could well imagine that almost every family here has a slightly different way to prepare it. There must be regional differences, also. I like Ok Hwa's best, followed closely by Mrs. Kim's. Is there any wonder?

Click the image below to start a slide show of todays pictures:

Immersion and Acclimation - Friday, April 9, 2010

We slept in 'till 05:00 today, then laid there trying to get back to sleep, finally giving up at around 05:30. We scurried around getting ready for our day, trying not to make any noise. Mom and Pop were asleep in the next room, and didn't awake until around 08:00. They're both in their eighties, and neither of them work, so they spend most of their time eating, watching satellite TV, or napping. Pretty laid back. It's getting harder for Mama to get around. Her knees are bad from years of working in the fields, and she suffered a couple of falls recently which has exacerbated the problem. Since we've been here, Ok Hwa has been doing a lot of the kitchen work for her.

When they got up, Ok Hwa started getting breakfast ready. It was really just a continuation of the supper we'd had the night before - chicken soup, kimchi, rice, and various vegetable side dishes.

After breakfast, Mom and Pop retired to the front room to watch TV and talk. I laid back down for a mid-morning nap. I think the lack of real coffee is getting to me. I would never be able to take a nap right after breakfast if I was back home in my normal routine. Ok Hwa cleaned up the breakfast dishes, put away the food, got her shower, and did some hand clothes washing. She's an amazingly industrious girl when she has a real task at hand. She woke me from my nap, and I got a shower, got dressed and ready to face the world.

We were going into town to do some shopping, with a swing by the beach on the way. As the only American in sight, I had an image to uphold, and intended to dress the part. It was blue jeans, a western shirt, my new hiking shoes, and no hat, with my camera slung over my shoulder. A lot of Koreans would be giving me the eye today, and I wanted to look right. They are very surreptitious in their glances, with no open stares, except for the little children. The little ones are very forward, with lots of giggling and a tentative "Hello, nice to meet you!". When I answer back it's all nervous laughter and good natured embarrassment on their part. They are always in a group of friends or schoolmates when this happens. The young ones must be learning some English in school, because they all seem to be able to carry on a basic conversation with me. Very encouraging. Of course, the Koreans are all about industrious hard work, being the best, and learning as much as possible to get ahead in the world. In case you didn't notice, I have the utmost admiration for them and their culture.

So, we got on the bus here by the house, and transferred to the 202 bus about half way to town. The 202 runs down to our favorite beach, Gyeongpo. As outlined in last year's posts, the whole Gyeongpo tourist area is an excellent place to spend some time. Aside from the great beach here, there's also the lake, many seafood restaurants, hotels, museums, parks, bikes to rent, walking along the boardwalk through the pine trees, horse drawn carriage rides, the I Cheng men who will tell your fortune, and music clubs for dancing into the night. Someday I hope to take advantage of all these many attractions. For today, however, we contented ourselves with a walk along the boardwalk, and a short stroll down the front street just behind the pine trees along the beach, looking at all the live fish in the big tanks out front of all the seafood restaurants. It was a short walk back to the bus stop by the lake. There we waited for the 202 bus to come back by and take us into town.

I was determined to have a hamburger for lunch, so that was our first objective when we got off the bus in town. The quickest, easiest hamburger we could find was at McDonald's. It is one of the few American restaurants with a market share in Korea. A few of the others are Dunkin' Donuts, and Pizza Hut. These three were adjacent to each other on a busy downtown street, so into the McDonald's we went. Back home I would never be caught in a McDonald's, but in Asia it is a welcome sign of home and comfort food. It was just like any McDonald's back home. The menu was in Korean, with English translations below. Ok Hwa got the chicken sandwich combo, and I settled for the Bulgogi Burger combo. We got a table by the front window, and had an interesting time watching the group of young Christian women who set up a sidewalk stand right out front of the McDonald's. They were handing out religious books and pamphlets, and generally trying to win some converts. They were not having much luck. They never got discouraged, or lost their enthusiasm, though, a testament to their faith and good nature.

After lunch, we made our window shopping way over to the Jungang Market to pick up some groceries. Downtown Gangneung is a walker's, shopper's paradise. Street culture reigns here, with crowded sidewalks full of pedestrians, sidewalk vendors of all sorts, and a proliferation of boutiques, restaurants, and stores of all kinds. This is what city living is all about. Too bad we Americans have largely lost sight of this, with our car culture and urban sprawl.

We had a few things on our to-get list, namely fish, kokma (Korean sweet potatoes), and bananas. The rest was up to us, what ever caught our eye. After browsing the meat and vegetable area for a while, we descended a ramp to the lower level fish market. This is a vast subterranean seafood wonderland. The ramp allows the seafood delivery trucks to bring their fresh wares straight from the docks to the market stalls. We had to weave our way through a few trucks in the parking area. The floor here was wet from them emptying the water from their tanks after unloading the fish. There was a drain in the floor, and some people were sweeping water towards it. The stalls held every kind of fish, mollusk, or crustacean you could imagine, and a few you couldn't. These people will eat just about anything that moves or grows out of the ground!

After Ok Hwa selected a couple of blue and silver fish, and I took pictures of a few more, we made our way back topside. We made our vegetable selections amid much commentary from competing sellers there. A few of them are a bit aggressive in their marketing. Back on the traffic filled streets, we window shopped our way over to the Dunkin' Donuts for a variety box to go. Packages in hand, we headed over to the bus stop by the railroad overpass. A twenty minute wait for the 308, and we were on our way back home. It was just past three o'clock in the afternoon.

The bus ride back to Sacheon Valley is about twenty-five minutes, and was a bit crowded for so early in the afternoon. A couple hours later and it would be packed to standing room only. These buses have only a single seat per row along the walls, leaving a large standing room in the middle with, many hand holds. Along the back, there is a bench seat from side to side, usually occupied by cliques of school kids in the afternoons. We saw a little brother and sister about five and six years old get on about half way out to the valley cut off. It is not uncommon here to see little kids traveling by themselves on city buses. Can you imagine this taking place in any American city? Big sister and little brother sat huddled together in one seat until their stop, then bounded off the bus, running for home with their backpacks bouncing up and down on their backs. Precious children.

Back home Ma and Pa were excited to open all our bags to see what we'd brought. They were especially delighted by the Dunkin' Donuts, and immediately dove into the box and fished one out. I joined them, having a chocolate covered chocolate for myself.

At dinnertime no one's appetite seemed diminished by the donuts. We had another great Korean supper, featuring the blue and silver fish, skinned, cut up, and pan fried. It was excellent.

I recon the jet lag is still with us some, because after dinner we were about ready for bed. I managed to stay awake, reading and writing, 'till about nine-thirty.

Here is a video slide show of pictures from today:

Jet Lag and Rest - Thursday, April 8, 2010

Coming over Alaska and Siberia yesterday was very interisting. I had the chance to look out the window of the plane often and for as long as I wanted. The view was great, with hardly any cloud cover. The cabin attendants had asked everyone to close the window shades early on, just after the first meal was served. Most of the passengers tried to get a nap about then, anyway. I kept my window shade down most of the time, also, but opened it for a look outside whenever I wanted.

I guess most of the northern hemisphere had a pretty hard winter this year. The snow covered mountains in Alaska were spectacular. When we crossed over into Siberis, it was truly amazing. The landscape, mountains and valleys, were completely covered in snow. There were no trees or other vegetation of any kind. It was a stark, beautiful scene, with nothing except snow covered wilderness as far as the eye could see. I could see pretty far, too, from thirty-four thousand feet. My seat was on the port (left) side of the aircraft, about six rows back from the wing, so I had a clear view, without the wing in the way. It was mesmerizing. I found myself closing the book every couple of pages, and opening the window shade for another look. When we got back out over the open sea again, it was covered in ice, also. The sea ice was broken into different patterns, and these patterns changed in nature as we moved south.

We passed over the west coast of Sakilin Island, and I had a great view of it. There was still plenty of snow there, also, and sea ice as well. This was the first sign of civilization I saw since Alaska. There were some tracts laid out on the ground near the coast, with roads and buildings nearby. There was also a coastal road which I followed until we finally moved off over the sea again.

When we next saw land, it was as we crossed over the east coast of Korea. Civilization was clearly evident here. I knew from the route map on the seatback video monitor that we were just south of Gangneung City. We were also begining our gradual descent in preparation for landing, so the ground features were becoming easier to see. It only took us about thirty minutes to cross the Korean Peninsula. I was surprised to see that most of the mountains here had some snow, mostly on the north slope. Closer to the east coast there are some ski resorts, and they were clearly visible. As we moved closer to the west coast, the ground elevations become lower, and the population density becomes greater. In addition to all the other infrastructure, many golf courses came into view. They have a distinctive look from the air. The west coast of Korea is low, and broken up by many peninsulas and different sized islands scattered out into the Yellow Sea. Coming into Incheon International Airport almost seems like you'll be landing on water. The airport is located on an island which has been extensively reshaped with much earth moving. The natural hilliness has been flattened on one side, and extended out into the water for a ways to accommodate the long runways.

Well, what a great journey it was, with many great sights to keep me entertained. This is my third time making this trip from DFW to Incheon, and it was by far the best.

After our bus, bus, and taxi trip over to Mrs. Kim's house, we arrived to find that she was not at home. Her husband was there waiting for us, but she was away attending the funeral of one of her sisters. More sadness for Mrs. Kim. We were invited in, and made ourselves at home. After some dinner and a shower, exhaustion overcame us, and we fell into a deep, well deserved sleep. I figure we'd been awake for about thirty hours by this point.

Jet Lag is a funny thing. After about six hours sleep, we both awoke about four o'clock in the morning, Korea time, and could not get back to sleep. We finally gave up trying about five o'clock, and got on up. We tried to be quiet, because the old guy was still asleep in the next room. After the cocks started crowing about five thirty, and the sky started getting lighter, Ok Hwa started getting some food ready for breakfast. The Koreans seem to eat the same food for breakfast that they eat for lunch and dinner. We ended up eating some more of the same leftovers we'd had for dinner the night berore.

The old guy got up and had some "breakfast" with us, and a little later he got hold of Mrs. Kim on the telephone. He told her that we'd arrived, and she said that she'd be back home around lunch time. I figured I had time for a hike, so I told Ok Hwa that I was going out for a walk, and would be back in about an hour or so. She gave me her blessing, and off I went.

I'd planned to hike up to the Buddhist Temple in the mountains at the head of the valley. It's only four kilometers and should only take me about forty-five minutes each way, with time to take some pictures along the way. I set off up the road and quickly got side tracked. There's a dirt road about one kilometer up that cuts off to the right, climbing steeply up the hillside into the trees. I couldn't resist, so off I went, climbing. After a hundred yards or so, it opens up to a clearing on the hillside, a burial site. You see these all over Korea, in the cities, and in the countryside. They carve out a level notch on a hillside, and there'll be a burial mound with a stupa, and sometimes a stone memorial with writing on it. They are of varying levels of ornateness, depending, I guess, on budget. This particular one was very ornate, consisting of four levels stair stepped down the hillside. There were two or three mounds on each level, with stone monuments, stupas, and shrubbery. I took some pictures, and then found another side trail, which led a few yards over through the trees to another couple of burial mounds. These were not nearly as fancy, consisting of only the leveled out notch, and one mound each for the two levels. A trail led away from these two, steeply down the hillside to the road below, emerging a couple hundred yards up from where I'd exited before.

My next distraction came from the river, down a steep bank on the left side of the road. I could tell there had been a lot of rain recently, as the ground was pretty saturated everywhere I'd walked. It was also evident from the roar of the water flowing over the rocks in the riverbed below. This is a very rugged, fast moving river, with huge rocks and boulders strewn about all along it's course, more so this high up the valley. Up here, the mountains squeeze in pretty tight on both sides, and it's very rugged and steep. I spied through the trees what looked like a small dam, and the begining of the aquecuct system for the farms in the lower part of the valley. A short scramble through the trees brought me to the bank, and the concrete dam. Sure enough, the dam impounds a pool of water, some of it spilling over the dam, and some of it channeled off to the side into the aqueduct. About ten yards down the aqueduct, there is a juncture with two sluice gates. One leads to the aqueduct, and the other leads back into the river. In this way, the water flow into the aqueduct can be controlled. The gate leading back into the river was opened, and the one into the aqueduct was closed. It's still a bit early for the water to be needed in the aqueduct and the fields down in the valley. Everywhere in the valley now, the fields are being tilled and prepaired for planting. In a very few some of the women are starting to set out seedlings.

Well, I goofed around down there for about thirty minutes, taking pictures of this concrete works, then hiked on back up to the road. Anothe ten minutes of walking brought me up to the big dam at the lake up at the head of the valley. There was a crew with a large backhoe doing some earth moving work here, repairing some of the earth berm, or the spillway. I couldn't see exactly what, because they had put up a large metal wall to screen off the work from the road. One of the workmen came around the wall to get something out of his truck. He was a young man, and we exchanged a few words. He knew a few English words. I pointed out the big mountain in the distance to the west, which was still covered in snow. He knew the English words for "snow" and "mountain". He was a pretty nice guy.

Time was slipping away from me now, so I got to walking, trying to really cover the remaining distance up to the temple as fast as possible. The road up to the temple cuts off of the main road just as it starts to curve around the back side of the lake. This little road is a serious climb, very steep, following a little tributary to the main river. This little stream is really just a long series of waterfalls, spilling down over the boulders scattered up the mountainside. I was determined not to stop, and pretty soon I was feeling it in my legs, and especially in my lungs. I had to slow it down a bit, but finally made it up to the temple without stopping.

Up at the temple, I could really see it had rained a lot. The roadway just before you get to the parking lot had been washed out completely, and the repairs were not finished yet. You could drive over it, but it was not paved. There was a lot of raw earth on the hillside below, leading down to the stream. The temple complex seemed undamaged by all the rain, thank goodness. I only stayed up there looking around for about five minutes, and didn't take any pictures this time. I knew I'd been gone for about two hours by this point, and wanted to get back as soon as possible. I figured that Ok Hwa would be worried about me.

I hiked back down to Mrs. Kim's house as quickly as possible, without any side trips. When I got there, the old guy was taking a nap, and Ok Hwa was just sitting at the kitchen table. Mrs. Kim had not made it back yet. She did show up before long, though. It was all excitement and chatter in the house then. We visited and had lunch (remarkably similar to breakfast), and then Ok Hwa and I decided to go into town to get some different food for dinner.

Mrs. Kim's house is at the last stop on the line, so when the bus driver turns around there, he backs it up into a little side road, and takes about a ten minute break. We hopped on, paid our fare, and pretty soon we were on our way into town.

We went straight to the central food market area, the Jungang Market, and quickly picked up all that we would need. Jungang market is a warren of about forty small city blocks, made up of streets, alleys, and small pedestrian only passageways. It is jam packed with cars, scooters, deliery trucks, and pededtrians. With every kind of mercantile you could imagine, from brick and mortar stores to sidewalk vendors of every description, it is a feast for all the senses. We got a whole chicken for four dollars, and a bunch of vegetables for a few dollars more. The hardest part was waiting for the 308 bus to come back around to take us home. We waited there at the bus stop by the rail overpass for at least thirty minutes before he arrived. It seemed that every other bus came by at least twice before ours showed up. Oh, well, at least we were finally on our way home.

Back home, the ladies set about making dinner, while the old guy and I laid around. The jet lag was catching up with me again. It was only about five o'clock, but I could barely keep my eyes open. I was yawning every minute. What a relief when they finally called us to dinner. I had been reading a magazine, and struggling to keep my eyes open. The food revived me for a bit, but the jet lag caught up with me again before long. About seven o'clock all I could do was brush my teeth and fall into bed. I slept like a rock until about five a.m. What a great night's sleep!

Here are pictures from the day. Click on the image for a slideshow:

Travel Time - Tuesday, April 6, 2010

We awoke this morning, got our things together, and headed out the door to Korea. Everything was organized and ready to go, so the morning went smoothly.

We met our neighbor and good friend Carlos out front, loaded our bags into his car, and he drove us to the airport. Good friends like this are hard to come by.

We arrived at the airport about three hours and twenty minutes early for our flight, but there was already a line to check in at the Korean Air counter. The line moved pretty quickly, so we got our bags checked, and our boarding passes, then proceeded to the security check-point. For once, there was no line, and we were able to get through with no problems, quick and easy.

On the secure side, we had time to kill. We had breakfast, used the restroom, then headed to the gate to wait. I'd remembered to bring a book with me, so I dug it out and started to read. The book was "Water For Elephants", by Sara Gruen. It's a very good book, and I enjoyed it thoroughly. Between the hour or so we had to wait to board, and the thirteen hours in flight, I was able to finish the book before we landed. I just wish I had another one to read on the way back.

The plane started boarding at 10:20, and we were in the air on time at 11:00. The flight is approximately thirteen and a half hours, and you chase the sun the whole way. The aircraft can not quite keep up with the sun, and so falls behind a little bit the whole way. Since the sun never sets on the aircraft during the flight, it seems like just one very long afternoon spent flying. When we finally land, it's 2:30 in the afternoon local time in Incheon, but it's the next day, Wednesday, April 7. We crossed the international date line going over the Bering Sea.

I was fortunate enough to get a window seat for the flight, and so spent a good bit of time looking out at the passing scenery. We had good, almost cloud-free weather the whole way, so I was able to see a lot. The flight takes what aviators call "the great circle route". This follows a great arc up north, through the Artic, and then back south again to the destination. It seems crazy when you look at it on a flat map, but seen on a globe it makes perfect sense. It's actually the shortest distance, because a great circle route, extrapolated around the globe, would be the largest perfect circle you could make around the globe, dividing the Earth exactly in half, right down through the center.

So, this great circle takes us from Dallas/Fort Worth up through Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, into Western Canada, barely skirting by Juneau in the lower panhandle of Alaska, across the southern coast and on to the west coast of Alaska near Nome, across the Bering Sea and into Russian Siberia. The route starts it's southwest curve around here, heading out over the Sea of Okhotsk behind the Kamchatka Peninsula, over the western part of Sakhalin Island, over the sea east of the Russian city of Vladivostok, and over the Sea Of Japan (the Koreans call this "The East Sea"), keeping plenty of space between us and North Korea. We finally cross over the east coast of Korea just south of our final destination, Gangneung City. We had to keep on flying, though, on over to the west coast of the Korean Peninsula, to the port city of Incheon. This is where Seoul's international airport lies, about thirty miles from downtown.

We breezed through Immigration and Customs, and caught an express bus to Seoul's Express Bus Terminal. We bought our tickets for the next bus to Gangneung City, and had about thirty minutes to wait 'till it pulled out at five o'clock. A three hour bus ride back across the Korean Peninsula to the east coast put us in the Gangneung Express Bus Terminal at eight o'clock. A fifteen minute, fifteen dollar taxi ride deposited us at Mrs. Kim's front door. Rest at last, after a very long day spent traveling.

Home Again

We are back home from the trip to Korea. All went well, and we touched down at DFW at about 08:25 yesterday morning. Now, we're just dealing with the jet lag. For any of you who have not traveled to the other side of the world on a jet airplane, jet lag is a real thing. It takes your body about four days to adjust to the new time zone. I struggled to stay awake 'till six p.m. yesterday, and almost made it. We both woke up at midnight, and have been awake ever since. I'm going to try to make it 'till eight o'clock toninght.

Over in Korea, I couldn't get an internet connection out where we were staying, so each evening I wrote up my account of the day in a word processor document, then saved them to the computer. I will be posting them here to the blog over the next several days, with photos and videos.

For today, I will leave you with this little teaser video. This was the scene out back, over the garden wall of Mrs. Kim's house. That rooster started crowing around five-thirty every morning.



Official Website for Korea Tourism: http://www.visitkorea.or.kr/

Official Website for Tourism in Gangwon-do Province: http://www.gangwon.to/

Official Website for Tourism in Gangneung City: http://www.gntour.go.kr/

Slaid Cleaves

Slaid Cleaves came by KNON Community Radio yesterday, Friday, April 2, 2010. He brought with him a couple of side men, namely Billy Bright playing mandolin, and Chojo Jacques on the fiddle. Slaid was always one of my personal favorites. His two early albums "Broke Down", and "No Angel Knows" are a couple of the best alt-country albums ever released. Slaid wrote some of his best songs for them, and Lloyd Maines did an excellent job producing them.

Slaid was in town as the headliner for a show that night at the Granada Theatre, on Lower Greenville Ave. This old movie theatre is a great place to see a show. There's not a bad seat in the house, and they have a great sound system.

He kicked it off with a new song called "Hard To Believe":




Friends in the studio watching and helping out were Mark Ivey, Michael Williams, John Bass, Lee Petty, David Callison, and my beautiful wife Ok Hwa. You can see some of them in the background in the videos.

The next song up was "Green Mountains And Me":



I recently bought a new camera, which shoots video in high definition. I decided to give it's first try-out on the song "Horseshoe Lounge". My computer could just barely handle the upload, and my video editing software would not even recognise the file, so I was not able to edit it like I wanted, with fade in/out, titles, and end credits. Here it is in it's unedited form:



It was good to see ol' Slaid after all these years. He's looking and sounding very good. He has some great new material out, and I urge you to check it out. The link is below.

After the program, Slaid headed off to have dinner before his show, and we all went down the the parking lot, where we gathered around the tail gate of some one's pick-up truck for some light conversation and beverages.

Official website of KNON Community Radio in Dallas: http://www.knon.org/

Official website of Slaid Cleaves: http://www.slaidcleaves.com/