So I'm back teaching in South Korea after a fantastic month living the good life back in Vancouver.
The humidity's already started to kick in, but I decided I wanted to go out for a hike today before it really gets bad. My new job is only 4 days a week, Monday to Thursday, so I thought today (Friday) would be a good day to go and avoid the crowds.
From what I'd heard, the Mureung Valley is considered one of the nicest in South Korea, but I've been misled before so I didn't have high expectations.
Turns out, they weren't lying. I'd have to say it's probably the nicest place I've been in Korea so far. This second waterfall is one of the biggest draws in the area, as there's a nice little pool you can swim in in the summer. I stuck my feet in to check it out as I really wanted to go for a swim, but after 30 seconds my feet had had enough, so no swim today.
There's very little wildlife left in Korea, as most of it has been hunted to extinction. So all I saw today were a bunch of these little chipmunks darting around all over the place. This one paused just long enough for me to get a picture.
On a completely unrelated note, there's a mountain spring about a 3 minute walk from my apartment where I fill a huge jug for my drinking water. So I was there on Monday and while I was filling it, an old Korean man came up to fill his bottle. He started talking to me and realized quickly how bad my Korean was. So he tried Japanese. Apparently he had been a Japanese professor at the university 10 years ago. He kept talking to me in Japanese for at least 10 minutes, and then finally decided it was time to go.
Well a couple of days ago I was walking home from the grocery store with a bunch of stuff, and I guess he'd seen me, because he pulled up beside me on his bike, and again in Japanese, asked me where I was going. I explained that I was going home so he offered to double me on his bike. He had told me that he was 86 years old, and I'd be surprised if he weighed much more than 100 pounds. Well I weigh around 200, plus I had all my groceries, so something about accepting a ride from him just felt wrong, so I had to decline.
So I went up to Gangneung yesterday. It's the only thing close to a real city in this area, but it's still only about 200,000 people. Every year they have Danoje, which is one of the larger festivals in Korea.
From what I could see, it seemed to consist, like most Korean festivals, of traditional drumming and people wearing traditional masks performing some kind of play. I've never been able to sit through a whole play, because they seem to be written for 2 year-olds and so I lose interest very quickly. I'm sure they're much more profound than that, and I'm obviously missing something.
One of the performances included these 2 boys - you can see how excited they are to be participating.
