Fishcapades

Yesterday at the grocery store by my apartment, I became mesmerized by the display in the seafood section:



I had only seen fish this huge in aquariums before, never available for you to purchase and take home to cook for dinner.



The attendant saw me gawking and came over to assist me, so I explained I was just looking because the fish was so big. She told me its Korean name and my dictionary says it is a flatfish. I think she said the flatfish is Korean, and these beauties are Norwegian:





I stood there for a while just gaping at the fish. I really loved the black and shining silver squiggle stripes on the one, but I really can't get over that there are fish so beautiful out there.

I wonder how they taste. I bought a potato peeler earlier this week, and the diagram on the packaging shows you can use the other edge of the tool for scaling fish. I guess I could try cooking one sometime.

But for someone who still often botches easy things like omelets, trying to cook fish like that might turn out rather tragically. For now I'll stick to ogling.

The Gunsan International Marathon

The Gunsan International Marathon is on April 28th.

I registered for the 5K myself. I have a month to get ready, but I've never done much running before, so I'll just be happy if I finish in the set time and get a souvenir.

We have a wonderful manmade lake here called Eunpa (은파 means silver wave) that has a trail that's exactly ten kilometers. It even has markers along the way letting you know exactly how much distance you have left or have already covered (depending on which direction you're heading in). There's also a beautiful bridge so you can just do half of it if you're inclined. I walked the 5K version of Eunpa last night and timed myself at a normal, casual pace, just to get a feel for how doable this is for me. The time limit for the 5K is one hour, so to get a souvenir I have to finish under that. But when I walked at Eunpa yesterday I did 5K in under 55 minutes. So now I feel more confident that I can do it on the real race day, because I will be running at least some (and preferably all) of it. Hooray!

Stamps and Approval

Today I bought some stamps for use within Korea, and I totally approve of their excessive cuteness.

I Own a UFO

Today I bought a mandu (dumpling) steamer.



It expands and contracts.



It also looks like a UFO.



I boiled some water in a pot tonight and stood my UFO up in the pot and dumped some broccoli in with very satisfying results.



But the carrots I steamed after them were so good they might as well be called dessert.

The Kamiso Hotel

The hotel we stayed at in Japan was one of the best hotels I've ever stayed at, and a thousand times better than the love motel in Busan. I'd recommend it to anyone who stays in that part of Tsushima for a night or more.

Exploding Cat Hazard Ahead

At first I was really worried when I saw this sign. I thought, Maybe it means, “Caution: Vicious Cats Await to Disembowl You” (or the like)...

But later I found out it's really just to warn you not to squish them with your car. Kinda anticlimactic, right? Yeah, I thought so, too.

Landing at Tsushima

I think this sign is explaining about the sanitizing mats you walk on when you pass through immigration/customs/quarantine, apparently a method of annihilating germs you might be bringing on your shoes.




The weather was warm and the port was beautiful.

The Ferry to Japan

The Beetle was quite spacious and comfortable inside. Due to its high speed, however, we weren't permitted to wander around or go out on the deck.



We had some excellent views of both Busan and Tsushima from our seats.

The Busan Ferry Terminal

The international ferry terminal in Busan was a pretty bustling place. I liked how it had little touristy shops in so many languages, though.





That tiny boat behind the big ship is our jet-foil ferry, the Beetle.

The Love Motel

When we went to Japan, we took the KTX to Busan first. That Friday night was the first time I've ever been inside one of Korea's infamous love motels. Here are a couple pictures:

일본

This weekend I was in Japan.

Actually, I probably spent at least as much time traveling to and from Japan as I spent actually being in Japan.  But the time I spent there was still wonderful nonetheless.

I went with my good Canadian friend, her Korean husband, and their not-quite-year-and-a-half-year-old baby.  We traveled by bus to Iksan, by KTX (high speed train) to Daejeon and then Busan, and then by ferry to Tsushima, an island off the mainland of Japan that's only about an hour from Korea by jet-foil ferry (we took the Beetle).

The island was beautiful, quiet, and quaint, and the time we spent there was wholly relaxing and enjoyable.  There were a multitude of hawks (we think?) that flew so close to us we couldn't help remark about them.  The people were exceedingly kind to us as well.

We walked for about half an hour looking for a hotel to stay in, and finally we asked some Japanese women how to get there.  Instead of just telling us where to go, one called the hotel and made a reservation for us and the other drove us there in her own car - which was a great experience itself, because the Japanese drive on the left, so I got to sit in the front seat of a "backwards" car and ride around on windy island mountain roads!

We stayed at the Kamiso Hotel, which I would recommend to anyone for a great experience.  It was quite affordable considering all the benefits we enjoyed: a seaside room with paper walls, a heated toilet, jjimjilbang-style bath and shower options, and some of the most comfortable beds I've ever slept on - mats on the floor with fluffy blankets and pillows stuffed with nuts or something that felt similar.  We also enjoyed dinner and then breakfast.  For breakfast they prepared a fish - at first I was a little skeptical, because it was the whole fish - eyes, tail, everything - but once I picked off the skin and tried the meat I was blown away.  I have never had fish as good as that one was.

But one of the best things about the Kamiso Hotel was the service.  The main man who worked behind the counter there spoke not only Japanese but Korean and English as well.  I bought several postcards there and asked if he could mail them for me (since I know I have a hard time mailing things from here), so he calculated the prices and said he'd have them sent for me.  Well, apparently he'd overcharged me on the postage fees somehow, because I was in the ferry terminal about to board the boat when suddenly he arrived to give me my extra change!  It wasn't that much, and considering that the terminal is thirty minutes from the hotel by foot, I consider this man's service to be incredibly impressive.

I'd like to go back another time.  If only traveling from here to Busan weren't so tedious!

An Aside:
I took a lot of pictures with my phone, but now my phone is almost dead (I forgot that Japanese outlets aren't like Korea's!).  If I find the time I'll try to post some pictures later.

White Day

Today was White Day, and I received a nice heap of spoils from my students:



I definitely feel the love!

I'll Admit It...

Sometimes I feel like a toddler boy...I just can't help but be fascinated by all of these big trucks and equipmenty things!

I Have a Working Phone! Huzzah!

And to test it I will post this lovely picture from my attempted bike ride to Saemangeum. ^^

생일 축하합니다!

Yesterday was my birthday.  I didn't have any official plans, but it turned out to be an awesome day regardless.

I don't go to the church I used to go to anymore.  Instead I now attend the church I used to cycle to to dance on Tuesday nights.  It takes about forty minutes to get there by bicycle, but I really like it a lot.

When I was in Korea before, I attended a Baptist church that was against dancing even as a form of worship.  After a while I was starting to go crazy because I needed to worship God with more than just words.  But at the time I felt like I should keep attending the Baptist church, and my schedule at work was really packed, so I didn't have a lot of time to go to weekday meetings.  So I prayed that there'd be some sort of meeting I could go to during the week to recharge and feel the presence of the Lord, and it just happened to come up in a conversation with one of my Korean co-workers that I was looking for something like this.  And she told me about this church I go to now, because her mother had attended there one time.  Sure enough, they had a meeting on Tuesdays that went from 9:00 a.m. to 12 midnight, so I could go after work when I felt up to it and still make it.

The first time I went I just showed up.  The people there don't speak much English, and my Korean is atrocious.  But when I got there I saw there was a section roped off, and it said, in English, "Worship Area," and nobody was using it.  So I danced.

And they invited me to keep on coming back.  Another time the pastor there gave me a bottle of oil.  Sometimes a Korean woman would play the piano and sing Misty Edwards-style, and sometimes they would pipe music in from the International House of Prayer.

So when I came back to Korea this time I began attending this church.  This past Sunday was only my third Sunday there, but they celebrated my birthday like all get-out.  In Korean churches there's almost always a big meal after the service, and they had spaghetti on Sunday because it was my birthday and I like spaghetti.  And a bunch of the girls in the youth group there gave me presents.  They led me to a room with the lights out and brought me a chocolate cake with a lit candle and sang happy birthday to me in English - except for the middle part, because they didn't know the words.  I can't fault them for that, though - I don't know that part in Korean, either.  They gave me pens and notebooks and whiteout and a cookie and the cake.  And one girl gave me a bracelet she'd gotten at IHOP in America.  And one guy gave me a worship CD in English from IHOP.  And one of the girls' fathers gave me a can of juice.  And the pastor gave me four books in English (!).

It was really nice.  It really made my day.

Afterwards I spent some time with my friend (the one I went to Saemangeum with) and we watched Oz the Great and Powerful.  It wasn't as good as I expected, and after working in a movie theater every weekend last year, I have to say I'm much more easily disappointed by movies, screens, and theater sizes than I ever was before.  Oh well...  It was still a lot of fun, though.  Then we went to Popeyes together, which is cool, because when I first came to Korea in 2011 she took me there for my first meal.  I became a regular there the last time I was here, and I always got the same thing.  I would always take the pickles off, and one day I noticed that they'd made my sandwich without pickles.  I never said anything, but the guy who runs the place must have noticed.  So I was eager to see if he remembered that about me after all these months that I've been gone, and sure enough, there were no pickles on my sandwich on my birthday.  It was excellent.

It's really good being back.  Some of the shopkeepers at places I always regularly went have commented to me that it's been a while.  And my Korean's better now than it has ever been, so I can say more than just "hello" and "thank you."  I'm really enjoying being here and looking forward to staying here a while.

Anyway.  This is a long and rambly post.  But I had a good birthday and I thought that I should mention that.

I got Internet in my apartment this afternoon but I still don't have phone service, and all my pictures are on my phone.  So I apologize for the long, wordy posts without anything exciting to look at.  I've also been busy (two kindergartens does that to you), which is why I haven't posted anything in two weeks even though all kinds of post-worthy events have happened.  Hopefully once I get my phone service up and running I'll be better at updating you with more exciting posts and pictures!

Cycling to Saemangeum: A First (and Incomplete) Attempt

The day after our excursion to Saemangeum, I decided to trek out in that direction on my bicycle.  If I had left earlier (I left at maybe 2 p.m. or so) and if it hadn't been lethally cold out with face-numbing wind gusts, I very likely could have made it at least to the beginning of the seawall.  With the conditions as they were, though - and with my decision to make sure that I was back and not out in remote and freezing areas after the sun had disappeared - I only made it part of the way.  It was pretty far, actually, considering that I went by bicycle.  I can't wait until the weather warms up for real.  Once the strangling humidity of summer hits that seaspray on the seawall would really feel amazing.  And now that I know Gyeokpo is full of motels, a cycling trip across the whole wall isn't totally out of the question.

Saemangeum

March 1st is Independence Movement Day in Korea, so we had a three-day weekend.  On Friday I went with my friend, her husband, and their daughter to Saemangeum, the longest seawall in the world.  They have a car, so we actually drove the length of it and ended up visiting a really picturesque area on the southern coast that we found out was Gyeokpo.  It was so beautiful.  We stopped several times on the seawall to stop and look at the waves crashing in from the Yellow Sea, but the wind was insane and the water - which did splash us quite a bit - was very cold.  Of course, my phone's battery was low, so I couldn't take any pictures!  What a shame!  We saw some marvelous views from the cliffs of Gyeokpo and just in general the sea has always been amazing for me personally.

I always wanted to live by the sea, and now I did.  Even when I studied abroad in Senegal, I loved Saint-Louis more than Dakar because the time we spent in Saint-Louis was so much closer to the water than where I lived in Dakar.  The sea always has a strange effect on me - it's both beautiful and terrible, mortifying and yet mesmerizing.  I'm notorious for just stopping and staring at the waves for long periods of time whenever I get too close to the pull of the sea - like it has some sort of invisible force that draws me in and compels me to be fascinated by it.

I tend to think that one of the things I love about the sea is that it's such a good (albeit small in comparison) parallel to God: so beautiful you can't look away, but so powerful you can't help but feel fragile and small.

Anyway.  My friend said she'd e-mail me the pictures that she took, since her phone was fully charged, but she hasn't yet.  Maybe at some point I can post them here.  It was an awesome time.