Summer Ends

Apparently today is the last day of summer according to my Korean friends. It seems early to me but if it is then I'm happy with it. This was supposed to be the hottest summer in a long time but with the exception of a hot spell at the end of June, it's been not so bad. A couple weeks ago the pastor (from Canada who married us) and his wife came for a visit. They only had about 4 days with us so we took them to what we considered to be the best sights in and around Jeonju. On Saturday we went to Seonyouido (islands off the coast near Gunsan) and walked around for a few hours. It's a group of 3 islands connected by bridges. The scenery is beautiful and the fishing villages quaint. I went swimming (the first time in almost 2 years of being in Korea), but no one wanted to join me even though the water was filled with locals. Since we Canadians weren't too keen on seafood, we opted out of the local cuisine and waited until we got back to Gunsan where we had "shabu shabu" which is some kind of Mongolian stew or, maybe Korean version of Mongolian stew. Anyway it's good. The next day we walked around the Korean traditional village in Jeonju (Hanok village). There we shopped a bit, checked out traditional wine making, paper making and had ourselves diagnosed by a Chinese medicine showroom via computer. We each got our personality profile which tells us what kinds of medical problems we are prone to have, our personalities, foods we should eat or not eat, etc. Later during the week, my wife took them to E-Mart which is a modern grocery/shopping store. It's interesting to see the variety of seafood and the large section just for kimchi there. In Canada, you can't even find kimchi in most grocery stores, but here they have a kimchi department fully stocked with kimchi made from all kinds of vegetables, obscure plants, roots, and seafood. Our guests took a bus tour around Seoul before heading to China for the second phase of their trip. When we took them to the airport bus, we were surprised to see our old friend there (who mom and dad should remember)...a young man who doesn't seem all there hangs out at the bus stop and practices his English with any foreigner who will make eye contact with him. Although he's friendly enough, it's hard to share a tearful goodbye with your friends when a stranger keeps yelling "OK! OK!" at you while pulling your arm hair (this guy seems to have a fascination with arm hair, which Koreans generally don't have). Yeosu Last weekend we went to Yeosu, which is on the southern coast, for our 4 days of holidays. Originally we were planning to go to Seokcho, a very famous summer getaway, but my wife's mother advised us against it because it was going to rain all week in Sokcho. We took the train to Yeosu which was much more relaxing than the overheated, Upon arrival we found a hotel which was the best I've been in so far in Korea. There was free coffee, free juice and free Internet in our room and the best part was the fact that it was cheap without feeling like a Korean "love hotel". The owner was also very friendly and gave us advice each day as we headed out to a different location. The first day in Yeosu we explored the city, walking around for about 6 hours. We checked out a 500 year old guest house, an island that used to be a naval base and a statue of the famous Korean general Yi Sun-shin. We had lunch at Popeye's Chicken which I usually enjoy but for some reason there was only one employee on duty at lunch time on Saturday. It took us 45 minutes to get our fast food meal. The guy who took our order was also the cook and did everything by himself. The second day we went to a black sand beach where Koreans go to relieve their sore joints and muscles by burying themselves in the hot sand. We also tried this, which felt nice but later we made the mistake of trying to walk to the refreshment stand without our shoes and ended up burning the bottoms of our feet on the hot sand. The best part of this trip was the tunnel our taxi drove through to get there. It was about a half kilometre long but only wide enough for 1 car. There were cutouts in the rock every 100 metres where maybe 5 cars could pull over while cars coming the opposite direction could go past. We barely made it without someone having to back out of the tunnel because of lack of room. The third day we were going to go to an island but it was about $30 each for the ferry one way...so over a hundred just for a day trip. So we decided instead to go to Hyangilam, a Buddhist hermitage on the tip of a large island, accessible by bus. It was a bit of a hike to the hermitage, but there weren't many people (very rare during a summer weekend in Korea) and there were actually monks there doing their meditations and people were welcome to join them. In some places, there were rocks covered in money. From my understanding, these coins represent wishes or blessings. This trip was my best memory of Yeosu as the hermitage site was so peaceful, the buildings all set against a cliff overlooking the ocean. The fourth day we returned to Jeonju to rest a bit before work on Monday. On the way back we passed through Imsil, which is famous for cheese. Some weekend I hope to return there and see what dairy farming and cheese making is like in Korea. Argh...I just finished writing another several paragraphs and while deleting a small section, deleted several paragraphs. I'm too frustrated now to finish it so will tell the story of my terrible sword testing day later.