The Blog Formerly Know as KimchiontheBrain

I just found out that I've broken Korean blogging protocol.   According to this here article,  when blogging in or about Korea, don't use "Kimchi" in the title.  I did do this knowingly,   but I couldn't get the image of kimchi shaped like a brain out of my brain.  So against my better judgement,  I did it anyway.  


Second, post a lot, and regularly.  Jeez,  that's a lot of work.  I don't know if most people put up as many photos as I do, but I find that Blogger makes it harder than it has to be, and there are other quirks to Blogger that make it a little more time consuming than it should be.  Anyway,  I'm no professional, I don't have a ton of free time, and as far as I can tell only maybe 10 people are reading this sucker anyways.  So I'll keep on my monthly posting schedule, and keep the title despite its cliche' nature. 


 I've been organizing some pictures of a huge hike I did a couple of weekends ago,  so I'll put them up soon. 


I rode 185 km in the mountains north of Seoul with a couple new friends last weekend,  that times out to about 111 miles,   I didn't bring my camera because it was too bulky for a ride where you have to haul a ton of food and water.  


It's been mostly in the 80s and humid as hell,  maybe hell is a dry heat,  I wouldn't know.   But it's realllly humid here.  And the mosquitos aren't terrible,  it's just that they only get you in your apartment,  when you're sleeping.  All of us teachers have these little red welts all over our faces and arms.  The funny thing is that they can't really go anywhere to lay their eggs, so you just find them floating bloated around your apartment in the morning and swat them, then clean the blood off the wall before you go to work.  The coffee shop guy that I've befriended, Kenny,  showed me an electrified tennis racquet for killing mosquitos and other flying pests.  I'm going to get one, they look like fun, and only a few thousand W.


Also there's a park near my apt that has a free weight room on the top of the hill.  It's free in that there's no cost and also it has free-weights.  I have to give credit to the Koreans that they trust their fellow citizens enough to have something like that open to the public, unguarded 24 hours a day, and yet the dumbbells, plates, benches, exercycles, and hipsleds haven't been stolen yet.  Anyway,  I've started pumping iron with the old dudes that hang out there, and this has renewed my interest in learning Korean which I had sort of let go through laziness and the fact that it's summer and I don't like to spend my few precious moments of sunshine in a coffeeshop studying.  Plus there are some minor league ball players that lift up there every night from 10 til lights out.  I want to get some free tickets to their gams, but I need to make better friends with them first.  Unfortunately I am usually just leaving when they show up.  


So that's that for now.  Hope you're all having a good summer.

Hikin n Bikin 2

Just a quick one.  I wanted to put this up before I forget, and run out of time.  Mitch, Ken and I hiked the sacred Bukansan last weekend.  It was a hot, multi-stage ascent.  we had to establish several base camps in order to acclimatize to the altitude changes.  At the end we made a feathered friend.  I'm not sure what Mitch's obsession with his butt is here, but it's there.   

The ascent to base camp alpha

Ascent to base camp Bravo

Ascent to base camp Charlie

Base camp Charlie

I like this one because it reminds me of Star Wars.  Think about it for a minute and it will come to you.

Ascent to base camp Delta

Ascent to base camp Echo

Base Camp Echo

Ascent to base camp Foxtrot

Out of breath at base camp Foxtrot before the final push.

Our decent was a bit different from the ascent, which was much appreciated.

I add this ad because the owner of Wildroses hired me to tutor his kid last week,  but the kid is at too basic a level for me to effectively teach him.  It would have been a fun gig, I liked the kid and the dad,  I just wasn't going to be a good tutor.  So I passed the gig off to someone who would be better.

Busan to Uljin

Alrighty,  as I meet people and do things I loose track of what's important.  Like blogging.  So once again, I'm taking the easy route, and posting lots of pictures with fewer words.  But if a picture equals a 1000 words, then you'll have   something like 80,000 words to pick through.  That's like reading 1/7 of War and Peace.  

Brace yourselves. 

The reinterpretation of famous logos and brands continues.  I actually like the Lion better.






A gal from Michigan/Texas named Leann organized a bike trip from Busan (the southernmost city on the east coast)
to points undetermined  along the east coast.   And Marlene, a gal from Virginia, did me an immense kindness by purchasing many clif bars and energy gels for me, and also buying our bus tickets.  I, however, was completely usless.

    


We got there by bus and stashed our bikes in the hold.
We left at 10:30 pm,  the bus ride takes 4.5 hours so you can do the math and figure out what time we got there.

Here's what I stared at for the entire bus trip...

We had a hard time sleeping on the bus, and then again on the floor of the bus station in Busan.  So on maybe 2 or 3 hours of sleep we set off on two day, 170 mile ride.  


Sunrise in northern Busan

This photo pretty well sums up the first day.  The road between Busan and Pohang was mostly highway and traffic.  Pohang is a steel town,  fairly dirty and nasty.  I can't recommend it as a vacation spot.  But here are some highlights nonetheless. 

The top of this mile-long climb, had a VD, CV,  DD mobile selling unit.   

This was some sort of long term camping situation

Even corrugated roofs get the Asian peak and ridge treatments.

Tractor

By the time we got to Pohang at 2:30,  we were filthy and exhausted.   Mostly from the lack of sleep.  We found a love motel, ate, and bonked out early.

The next day we loaded up with Pocari Sweat, and DMZ H2O and set out by 8. 


 Day 2 was much more scenic and enjoyable.  The Koreans are very pragmatic  in a lot of ways.  The main highway (at least the old one A.H.6 (asian highway 6)) runs right next to the ocean, which is great for riding and viewing the ocean, but it's no PCH.  


Just about every little inlet is a small fishing community containing little minbachs (hostel type places)  and Hajuma drying seaweed and generally going about their business.  

Cute little motel,   unfortunately it was across the street from a factory,  which I seem to have forgotten to photograph.

Interesting resort.  On the hill back there.  There's a closeup below.  It's a strange collage of architectural themes.

And then there's this one...   The love boat.

Then we headed into crab country,   I didn't have enough room on my 32 gb SD card to take a photo of all of the fiberglass snow crabs (i think they're snow crabs) that I saw.  So again the highlight real. 

I did a little research, and it turns out that the fiberglass sea-creature industry is the fourth largest industry in the entire country.   

Squid Jerkey!

We rode through a huge crab market.   This lady wanted us to buy some,  but our bikes weren't equipped  to carry many Kilos of crab in a refrigerated fashion.  

This was a road side attraction that combined two of the most common themes on the trip.  Light houses and crabs.


  Faboo.


Reminds me of home somehow.

For lunch I had a fabulous fishy meal,  however, this raw squid was foul.  


The locals at the other table were loving it, and so we thought we'd try it.  Never again.  like eating a slimy dog toy, with Alpo stuffed inside,   maybe Fancy Feast.  But definitely not in my palate.


The picture does it justice. 

Poseidon cults in Korea seem to congregate in towns along the SE coast.  Here is the public alter in the Dolphin cult's town.  We didn't really spend any time here.  Nor did we spend any time in the villages of the Blue Whale or Herring.  But I can assure you that they're equally weird.

Then there are these guys.....












Cockroach motel,  or maybe a stag beetle.  I'm not sure which.  

We stayed in a motel just south of Uljin a cute little harbor town on the ocean.  Here are a couple panoramas of the harbor.

Marlene in the foreground, Leann in the back.

Sun up on day 3

Game farm.   As soon as we stopped watching they all turned and ran over the ridge.

These little plastic hot houses were cute,  but not very eco friendly.

This thing was an automated aebelskiver machine that we saw at a rest stop.  The hajuma monitoring it got a little wound up when I tried to video tape it in action.  

It took 6 or more hours on the bus to bet back from Uljin, because of holiday traffic, it should have been 4.