January 23, 2007 (The Mother of all Blogs)

Kindergarten Graduation

The ceremony was short and simple.  All the parents gathered in the Kinder room and we paraded their little graduates through the room, each dressed in a graduation robe.  I was asked to speak on behalf of the foreign teachers and was one of three keynote speakers.  Kay asked me to paraphrase my speech so that we could print it out for the parent's whose English skills are a bit rusty.  It was something like this: 

My name is Owen Wagenhals and I am on the staff of foreign teachers here.

I don’t remember much from my days of kindergarten in the United States.  I remember the good times with friends and I remember the studies, as kindergarten is where our studying begins.  We studied a little bit of numbers, a little bit of writing, a little bit of vocabulary, a lot of art.  One thing that my American kindergarten lacked was a little bit of language.  When I graduated from my kindergarten so many years ago, the only foreign language I had learned was how to count to ten in Spanish.  I think most Americans can empathize with this.  That is why I am so amazed by our wonderful students that are graduating today.  When I was there age I could count to ten in Spanish, but they can do much more than that in English.  It makes me very happy and proud that these students can have full conversations with me every day.  I am very proud to have been a part of their education, which will take them very far in life. 

The text series that both classes have completed, Wake-Up, contains roughly the same amount of vocabulary and concepts as three years of public school English Education.  This just shows that they are already far ahead of their elementary school peers.  Our students have all had a great year.  They have progressed very well and I can see them all having a bright and promising future. 

The speech was short and sweet just like the ceremony and soon enough, the students were out the door with their parents and we were left cleaning up the mess.  Kay treated us for lunch to thank us for donating our time.  I was a bit tired of the usual places, so I suggested a Chinese food place down the street.  The menu at the restaurant had no English on it, so I had to rely on the Korean teachers to help me figure out what I wanted to eat.  All I wanted was something spicy, so they ordered something called Jam-ppong, which is a spicy seafood stew.  Kay warned me that it would be so hot that I would want to cry, but I ignored the warnings and ordered it anyway.  Well, it was hot.  Too hot.  As I was eating it, it was making me sweat.  Then, the worst thing that could ever happen happened.  I sucked up a noodle, the end flipped up and a tiny drop of stew went into my eye.  I can't even begin to describe how painful that was!  I immediately started crying massive tears, it was like my eyes turned on like faucets.  I did the only thing I could do, I threw back my chair and grabbed at my eyes.  That will probably be my most favorite food-related story from Korea!  After all, Kay did warn me that the food would make me cry.  I guess next time I'll listen.  Thanks to Rob for all the pictures.

Seomun Market is Daegu's largest outdoor marketplace.  There, vendors sell anything and everything from seafood too fruits and vegetables to apparel and durables.  I like to go there sometimes just to check everything out, drool over the food or just to learn a little more about Korea.  Most of the pictures are self-explanatory, except for the puppies--which may or may not be for sale to eat--and the skyline picture of Downtown Daegu as seen from the market.

This trip was definitely one of my favorites so far here in Korea.  It was short trip and in the end, I failed to complete even twenty-percent of the things on my list, including climbing Biseul Mountain.  But even so, it was amazing mostly due to the liberty of having my own vehicle.

We got five days off of work for Winter Vacation and I decided to go to Biseul Mountain.  Leona let me borrow her bike because she was going to be in Seoul during the break and wouldn't need it.  I decided to go out into the mountains and cycle for five days on a multi-hundred mile trip.  I didn't have much money, so my plan was to sleep the first two nights in an abandoned house that I had found a month earlier and the next two nights under bridges. 

I left Daegu tottering on Leona's bike with about a fifty-pound backpack.  I traveled along the Sincheon River thirty miles to Hulti Pass, the border between Daegu Metropolitan City and Cheongdo County.  From there, I found my way to my abandoned house, which I hypothesized was abandoned during the Asian Financial Crisis in 1997. 

The driveway of the house was overgrown, which comforted me that no one would venture down to disturb me while I was squatting there.  The house had no windows, yet the floors were intact and there was plenty of room to set up camp.  The roof was shingled, except for the front-porch area and for this reason the house was in exceptional shape.  I figured it had been abandoned for about ten years because although the main house was in good condition, the portion that was un-shingled was nearly destroyed by rainwater.  The house had a large patch of dirt in front of it, in which I built a fire pit and set up a table.  The second floor banister became my clothes rack and the eave over the front window became my roost for reading and looking out at the mountains over which my mansion resided. 

I was worried about making it to Gaya Mountain National Park later in my trip due to time, so I decided to head straight up to the top of Biseul Mountain the first afternoon.  But, after the thirty mile cycling trip, I was a little tired and after encountering difficult mud (the two-steps forward one-step back type of mud) I decided to rest before tackling the mountain the next morning. 

I went back to the house and sat on the roof until sunset and remained there watching the light slowly fade over the Bisel Mountains.  After dark, I lit a candle, which I had purchased at a local temple and continued reading, wrapped up in my blanket.  Later in the evening, I met Kyra at a small restaurant near the abandoned house.  After dinner, we spent the rest of the night at the house sitting around the campfire roasting marshmallows and making S'mores.  About midnight, Kyra went back to Daegu and I curled up for a long, cold night's sleep.

I woke up no less than five times during the night; at least I only remember waking up five times.  The first time, I could see Venus outside my window.  The second time, it was Orion's left leg that greeted me.  The third time, I could see Orion's right leg.  The fourth time it was Cassiopia.  By that time it was pretty cold.  Earlier in the week, I had checked the weather, hoping for a little bit of warmth to grace the province.  My trip would have been impossible at normal Winter temperatures--I wouldn't have been able to sleep outside!  Thankfully enough, though, one of the Korean teachers had told me that it was going to be warm.  That fourth time I awoke, I began to wonder what "warm" meant to a Korean.  Generally, to a Korean "warm" meant what I would call "hot" and "hot" meant what I would call "a bad day in hell."  I woke up a fifth time, at dawn, listening to raindrops.  I guess "warm" can also mean "rainy."

I finally roused myself out of bed when I realized that I couldn't feel my middle toe and my ring-toe on my right foot.  As I collected more firewood, I wondered what I was going to do for the rest of my trip if it was raining.  I gather the firewood and brought it into the great room of the house and built a fire on the concrete floor.  Just as I lit the fire, I looked up and the snow was coming down like a wet winter day at Snoqualmie.  I spent four hours in the house that morning reading in the heat of the fire as snow fell outside.

At about noon, the snow and rain subsided and I decided that I would just have to attempt the mountain at that time and hope for a long enough break from the rain.  From my perch at the abandoned house, I could see snow accumulated on the mountain, but I figured I could still make it to the top. 

About a quarter of the way up, I got a call on my cell phone from my friend Kate, who knew I was up in the mountains with nothing but a bicycle.  She was calling me from Daejon, where a squall had just passed and was rumored to be heading into the Biseul Mountains.  I immediately ignored that figuring that the chances of it hitting me were slim.  The just like in the movies, as I hung up the phone it poured, torrentially.  I just figured I was in it now and had better just hurry up the mountain. 

As I entered the clouds, the rain turned to snow, but I kept going.  I made it about half-way up, just past the point I had turned around the previous day, when I realized that I wasn't going to make it.  The snow was almost impossible to walk through.  Each step forward took me nearly a whole step back and I was constantly falling, which would have been fine except I was hiking through a Hawthorne forest and my hands were already bleeding from grabbing branches as I fell.  I turned around and made it back to the abandoned house just in time for the last dry spot on my underwear to be inundated. 

The story ends with Kyra calling me and asking if I needed a pick-up.  I accepted and we went back to Daegu to watch a movie at the Megabox.  Even though my five-day trip was cut in half, it was still a great adventure and I would like to do it again.

Hulti Pass

Looking into Cheongdo County from Hulti Pass.

Low altitude forest around Biseul Mountain.

A bit higher in altitude.  This picture was taken looking down a riparian.

I'm really glad this backcountry sign was all messed up. 

Entering the clouds.

Just before the snow got out of control.

Thirsty?  Spring water at Biseul Mountain.

The view of the Biseul Mountains from my second floor.

Kyra had a good idea one weekend to head out to Juwangsan National Park to see the sights.  The weather was a bit gray and rainy, but I find mountainous areas beautiful in that weather, so it was okay.  It took us a couple of hours to drive there from Daegu and the scenery was fascinating.  We arrived at Jusanji Pond and took a walk around the pond.

The pond is famous for being the filming location for a Korean movie called Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter and Spring.  A king constructed the pond centuries ago and today it is famous for its beauty in all seasons.  The pond is unique in that when it was created, the trees along the banks did not die and therefore there are several trees growing right out of the water!  In spring, they turn green and in fall the leaves turn orange.  Of course, it is winter, so they looked like bare trees sticking out of the water, but I can imagine how beautiful it would be in other seasons. 

After leaving Jusanji Pond, we visited a small living history museum.  Or I should say we stumbled across it.  We were actually looking for a place to go to the bathroom and we found that place.  It was really cool.  It had a bunch of historic buildings all set up so that we could tour them.  Kyra even told me how to use some of the old tools.

After driving through the mountains a little bit more, we headed out to a city by the name of Yeongduk, which sits on the coast of the East Sea (Sea of Japan).  Kyra mentioned that the city was famous for crab.  I imagined that it would be similar to any other city in the world that was famous for crab.  But, boy, was I wrong!  This city was like Crabtown, Korea!  There must have been hundreds of crab restaurants there.  We tried to find a place to get a crab or two, but crab is a bit expensive, so we passed on a crab dinner.  As night fell, we took a walk along the East Sea on the city's breakwater.  It was a very nice day.

In the morning, we got up early and took a ferry from Dojangpo to Oedo Island via Haegumgang Island.  The ferry ride itself was amazing, let alone our destination at Oedo.  The ferry took us around the harbor at Dojangpo and around a peninsula at the southern end of Goje Island to another Island called Haegumgang.  At that Island, we visited a spot called Cross Rock.  At cross rock, the ferry entered a cave-like channel that burrowed straight into the rock.  Once the ferry was completely inside the crevasse, the announcer told us to look up.  What we saw was a massive blue cross above our heads formed by the shape of the cliffs around us and colored by the sky.  It was amazing!  And we didn't even hit the canyon walls.

From there, the ferry took us to Oedo Island were it docked and allowed us one and a half hours ashore.  Oedo Island is famous for its botanical gardens.  A long time ago a man visited Goje Island and noticed that the locals were using the Korean National Tree, the Dongbaek Tree (Camellia), for everyday life such as for burning and woodcrafting.  He didn't like this and wanted to create a refuge where he could grow the Dongbaek Trees and allow people to come and marvel at them.  So he bought Oedo Island and created an amazing botanical garden.  The gardens were more amazing than words and the views from the top were just as amazing--sweeping vistas of Goje Island and its islets to one side and the vast South Sea (East China Sea) to the other side with nothing between us and the Philippines except the sea itself.   The man was also a Christian and build a chapel high in a natural amphitheater on the island.  He put a giant stone statue of Jesus next to the chapel.  It is one of the most beautiful church settings I have ever seen.

After docking back at Dojangpo, we drove to Mongdol (Round Stone) Beach.  We enjoyed a nice seafood lunch there before taking a stroll on the pebble beach.  At one point, I looked to my left, looked to my right and then looked at Rob, asking him to bury me in the pebbles.  So he did.

On the way back to Daegu, we visited the Goje Island POW museum to look at the exhibits from several Korean wars including the War of Colonial Agression, WWII and the Korean War.

A massive school of fish.

Of course, I couldn't resist drawing that on my foot.

Pretending to talk on the phone in a car in Korea.