Rafting and River Trekking

I went to the Inje area last weekend, which is up towards the North Korean border, to go white water rafting and river trekking. I went with a group of other foreigners, mostly Americans and Canadians, and we spent the first day rafting and then the second day river trekking.


The rafting was quite tame, but it was okay. We finished late afternoon and then headed to a pension in the mountains that we had rented. I went for a short hike there and saw many of these Oriental Firebellied Toads like the one pictured above. They are green with black spots/stripes on top, and then red with black on their underside. I saw a dead one that was all red and black, so I assume they gradually change colour.


The next day we hiked into a river and then walked down through the river about 8 to 10 kilometres. It was a blast. The river was pretty calm most of the way, but there were a few of these mini water slides like the one above.
The Koreans you meet while hiking tend to be quite friendly. At the start of the river, the man above grabbed my arm as I walked past him and started talking to me in a mix of broken English and Korean. He dragged me into the river with him, but because he was laughing the whole time, I was curious what he wanted so I went along with it. Turns out he wanted me to sit down in the river with him so his wife could take a picture of us.
He was a really happy/crazy guy, so when I ran into him later down the river, I had his wife take another picture of us. It's quite easy to notice our different attire. All of the Koreans I saw were dressed like this. It doesn't matter how long the hike is, they ALWAYS get dressed up like they're going on a multi-day expedition.

Widgeon Creek

When I was back in Vancouver last month, my buddy Fudge and I took my Dad's canoe out one day up to Pitt Lake.
As you can see, the weather was perfect, and because it was a Friday, there weren't a lot of people there, other than a couple of groups of school kids.

We found a place to pull over for lunch. I wanted to see how far we could make it up the creek, but unfortunately we had to turn around because Fudge had to head to work.
On the way back we decided to go in for a swim. Because the creek is mostly melted snow from the mountains, it was FREEZING!!! So we didn't stay in too long, but it felt great after we dried off.

Gangneung Danoje Festival

This festival is held every May/June in Gangneung, a mid-sized city about 40 minutes from my place. I went last year and it was okay, so I decided to check it out again today.
In the top picture you can see them performing a show/dance that was telling a story about farmers plowing the fields and planting rice.
There were four guys who played the roles of the two cows. I was hoping they were going to have a bullfight or do something exciting, but unfortunately they just walked around in a circle.
I've seen this look at other Korean festivals but I'm not really sure what it means. The performers dress up to look like a cross between a bum and a clown and they play the drums and sing.

Hanseom Beach

Hanseom is the closest beach to my place, being about a 15 minute walk. As it was sunny and in the mid-20s today, I decided to head down there for a while to enjoy the peace and quiet.
Officially, beach season runs from July 1st to August 31st in Korea, and so Koreans, following the herd mentality common in Asia, rarely go outside of this time. This means I had the whole beach to myself, even though I was there in the middle of the day and it's so close to downtown.
A month from now, though, even if the weather's exactly the same, it'll be packed and so I won't be going. So I'll just enjoy it all by myself in June and September.

This is looking out over the Sea of Japan towards southern Japan.

Election Day

They're holding provincial and municipal elections today in South Korea and I guess it's a kind of quasi-holiday. I'm not really sure of the details, but I got today off so I headed up to Mureung Valley again to go hiking.

I wanted to beat the crowds, so I was up there and on the trail by 8am. It was nice and sunny today, low 20s, and the humidity hasn't really kicked in yet (surprisingly, but no complaints.)

Here's a picture of a couple of minnows feeding on all of the insects buzzing over the river.

And this was the best part at the end. Even though the water was freezing, it felt good on my aching feet.

Salmon Fishing

Just got back from 10 days in Vancouver for my sister's wedding. My first full day back, my Dad, little brother and I got up early and headed out to North Van to go fishing with my Uncle Frank on his boat.
We headed for Bowen Island and fished out that way. We ended up with 2 springs, which you can see Chad holding in the first picture (fortunately my sister just made him shave that ridiculous beard.) We also saw some dolphins and we had several seals following us hoping to snag our fish.

Namhae Island

I took a short trip down to Namhae, an island down on the central south coast, last weekend. I had to take 3 different buses, taking a total of about 7 hours each way. That's pretty far for a 3 day weekend, but I'd never been to that area before, and the weather was supposed to be nice and sunny all weekend.
The island is the 3rd largest in South Korea, but it's only a little bit bigger than Saltspring. There's one small town of probably 30,000 people, and then several little villages scattered around the island.
As you can see from the giant garlic clove in the top picture, garlic is quite famous here, and apparently there's a garlic festival about a month from now.
In the second picture you can see a giant mask at the entrance to the mask dance museum, but it was closed when I went past.
I'd decided that I wanted to climb Mt. Geumsan while I was there. It's one of the tallest mountains on the island at just under 700m, and I heard the view was really nice. The weather was about 15 or 16 degrees and nothing but sun, which was perfect hiking weather.
Unfortunately most of the pictures of the view out over the other islands were a little hazy, so this picture above is of Boriam Temple, near the summit of Geumsan.

Korean Deer

I saw my first Korean-deer-while-jogging today (I've seen deer here before, just never while jogging.) Although I didn't have my camera with me, I think you'll find my drawing above is a fairly accurate representation.

The kids love when I draw on the whiteboard in class, because we end up arguing for 10 minutes about what the animal actually is. "Teacher, is it a shark?" "Uh, no." "Is it a gorilla?" "No." This could go on forever, so I finally tell them, "It's a tiger." "That's not a tiger," they say, shaking their heads emphatically.

To distract them from my (lack of) drawing skills, I change the subject to, "What do tigers eat?" The answer is usually some variation of, "They eat fish/deer/kimchi." And I say, "That's right. Do you know what else they eat?" To which I usually get silence, allowing me to deliver my punch line, "They eat little Korean boys/girls." That joke always cracks me up, but inevitably they turn it around and say, "No, they eat Canadian men."