Muhan Dojeon! INFINITE CHALLENGE!

Muhan Dojeon!

I have recently discovered Korean television! Now I know what some of you are thinking "Oh great just what he needs to be doing for a year." Rest at ease I am not sitting in our dark little apartment watching these crazy Korean guys do these stupid challenges. Well at least not until the evening. Ok anyway from what I have gathered from my limited Korean these six guys are given challenges or play a games to create this awkward or funny situations. The first episode I watched had the group divided three of them were in Alaska looking for this guy with a Korean name they knew nothing about. Turns out there is a large Korean population in Alaska. The other three were on this huge crane sleeping in a tent. Random celebrities from what I gathered would show up and the three on the crane would have to get the guest to say a word kind of like catch phrase and then they would come up. The three in Alaska actually found the guy they were looking for but he did not speak Korean and could not be filmed due to the fact that he was in the military. Ok I am dragging on and making the show seem really lame. Its not.

Tuesday I went in search for Rose Street determined to find it. I headed out in the general direction and ended up taking a wrong turn towards finding myself in the constructions district. My keen sense of direction quickly prompted me to turn around. I found the right way and walked along a road that followed the coast line. I found the natural history museum and the cultural and maritime buildings. While walking I see this pelican flying low over the water and the water starts to move like it has a strong current. Its fish swimming for their lives. The pelican never scoops up a fish much to my disappointment. However, when it leaves the fish take to the sky. They were either flying fish or could just jump ridiculously high.

After about an hour and a half of speed walking I came to Gatwabi rocks. It is said that this rock formations looks two women with hats on. If you look hard I guess you could say that. I snapped off a couple of pictures and was leaving when a Korean family asked me to take their picture. I took the picture then haded the camera back when the daughter pointed to her then to me and said something in Korean. Of course I had no idea what she said my first though was she wanted to know if I wanted her to take my picture. So I just shook my head no with a confused look on my face. After walking away I realized that she probably wanted her picture with me and that is why the mom kinda giggled. I would have taken a picture if I would have realized that is what she wanted. Feeling like an ass, I continued on in the search for Rose Street.

I found Peace Square and realized I was in the right area. I walked around the newer part of Mokpo looking at the building and shops. I had just about given up when I came to a little rose garden with a street sign. At last I had found Rose Street and walked down it. It is very similar to the street of lights with more bars. It could be a cool place to hang out. I did not see Moe's which is a bar where the Canadian girl that works at the high school says "white people" hang out.

Wednesday Lindsey and I went out to dinner. We found ourselves, thanks to me, in a place were you cook the meat yourself. It was a little awkward at first because there was pictures on the wall of other meat and even chicken. Of course Lindsey wanted chicken and I tried to say bulgogi. The lady just looked at us like we were crazy and then got another lady to help us who also did not speak english. She pretty much just gave us what she thought we would eat. So you get a big plate of meat similar to bacon only not cured and from a different part of the pig. You then cook the meat on this primitive George Foreman (no top but slanted so the grease runs off). You have garlic, onion and other toppings and then lettuce to create a wrap. You then stuff the whole wrap into your mouth at least the Koreans did. It was good I know what to expect next time.

Also as soon as I posted the last entery people started taking money with two hands and being more formal. Its like they read my blog haha. Pat would fit in well here: they are loud, they pick their feet in public and like hot dogs but theirs are just on a stick.

Mountains and Generalizations

Generalizations

1. Koreans in Mokpo are not as formal as I thought they would be.
i.e. no handing money with two hands

2. Not as humble as i thought either.

3. They are skinny not because of what they eat but because they walk and exercise a lot!
Well at least the older generations I have not seen younger people do so.
There are walking and biking paths everywhere with exercise equipment on the side.

4. They are very into the outdoors. They have little parks on that go up mountains. They have tons of expensive out door shops.

Since my last post I have been hiking up Yudal Mt. You get a great view of all of Mokpo. I have been hiking around 4 hours a day all over the city. Lindsey and I are going to go hike Yudal later today. I have not really had that much Korean food. First thing I had by mistake, I tried to point a sushi but the lady thought I was pointing at the words on the sign. So I got this big bowl of rice with different vegetables and hot red paste and an egg over easy on top. It was not bad too much of the red paste. I had a fried pork cutlet with a brown sweet sauce that was really good. I still have not had any fried street food from the carts. There is a shopping district with lots of shops including Jeep (clothing), The North Face, and many others. It has a street that has archways of light over them, looks pretty cool at night. I am looking into getting a cheap bicycle so I can get to a bigger National Park that is around 20 miles away from Mokpo.

It will be at least a week and a half before internet in our apt so pictures will be a while. Sorry

If it were The Amazing Race we would be eliminated

We got to the airport two hours early like it said on the website and were the first in line this was our first mistake. The time was 3:30 am and the united airlines desk did not open until 4:30 am. We made it to Chicago just fine. However, when it was time to get on the plane it was announced that there was technical difficulties with the plane and that a replacement would have to be found. Two hours later we were on our way to San Fran and we knew we were not going to make our flight. We were met at the gate with new tickets and directions. Our new flight would take us to Shanghai, China and then on to Korea. When we got to china we walked around the airport looking for the next gate along with other lost Americans. I befriended another american and we soon found our way. Against Lindsey's wishes I waited for him and his friend to fill out paperwork. Lucky for me I did or else we would not have our bags. He told us that we needed to pick up our bags so they could be transferred. So we finally made it to Seoul around 1:00 am Friday morning and called our contact he then told us to get a hotel. The next day we then go on a five hour bus ride to get to Mokpo. We arrived and were greeted by two teacher at Lindsey's school who helped us load all our bags in their little car and take us to our new home. If you can call it that it is one room with a bathroom. Pictures will come when we have Internet in our apartment.
The country is very beautiful and I can not wait to see more of it. We hiked around a large part of the city today and had a lot of interaction with the people. A young girl said Hello and "I Love You" and now at the PC Room young boys try to read my writting and older ones do read Lindsey's as she writes about them.
And now I am going to join the rest of them and play some sort of online game. If you can't beat them join them...

The Beginning

It’s the evening before our flight leaves for South Korea. I have been putting a lot of thought into how I wanted to tell the story of this adventure and finally decided to start a blog. When everything is finished it should be your one shop stop for everything I see, eat, and do. Right now however it is still under construction. So bare with me until I get everything up and running the way I want it.

So in the morning it is over to San Francisco then a hop and a skip across the big pond to Seoul, South Korea and then a FIVE hour bus ride to Mokpo.

More to come…