Munsu Football Stadium, home of the Tigers

Sports day in Ulsan Grand Park

On this day it was a nationally declared "sports day". To celebrate, we took the morning classes (ages 4-7) to the city's major park, Ulsan Grand Park. We had a picnic and played many games... Too bad we didn't do this regularily. I think that keeping the little guys cooped up on the 3rd floor of an office building all day long, with no contact with anything natural (air, sun, plants, or otherwise) is pretty sad. The kids would be a lot healthier, and less wound up (i.e. easier to manage for teachers) with an outdoor recess. Well, it makes me appreciate my elementary school more I guess.

Ridge climbing on Sinbulsan

On May 6th, Holly and I were invited to do a climb/hike up Sinbul mountain. It's a popular thing to do here in Korea. There are many mountain enthusiasts who are not necessarily rock climbers, but into doing scramble-type ridge climbs. We did the hike with 3 other friends, one of which was Mr. Hong, who we've mentioned before in other posts. They are all seasoned ridge-climbers and rock climbers. Mr. Ahn (the man in the red coat) was the leader for us, he's the resident trail guide, naturalist, and increadibly srtong rock climber. In his spare time he's a real estate agent.

The climb was beathtaking, we initially crossed a military training ground that is apparantly rarely used. It was quite overgrown and lush with green shrubs and smaller trees. There were frogs all over the place, too. We crossed the open area, finding the remains of detonated bombs on the way, and reached a mountain stream, which we had to follow to get to the base of the ridge.

We climbed up the rocky stream bed. It was very beautiful to see such clean trickling water moving down across the rocks, falling at some points down the larger boulders in the bed. The aquatic biologist in me was really perked at this point, these ecosystems are quite unique and I really appreciate the condition of the water, and its contents (leaves, organisms, etc...) at this stage of the water cycle. We don't exactly have these ecosystems in mountainless Saskatchewan. The water is very fresh, since it has just fallen from the clouds (by the way we were a few hundred feet from entering the clouds at this point) and the organic plant material in the water is still quite whole, since the insects that shred the stuff haven't had the chance to do their thing... Anyway enough nerd talk, the point is it was clean water, enough said.

We reached the point where the climb got steeper, the trail switched back and forth and lead into the rocky, more scrambley climbing, up an actual ridge (where the climbing gets its name). The rock wasn't vertical, but pretty steep nonetheless. We had fun making our way up the sustained rock outcropping.

Near the top there was a tall, spectacular, exposed face that we had intended on climbing. It had many climbs of medium difficulty, but the rain was coming down so hard that we passed on climbing it and went down another trail that took us back to the begining, basically completing a loop up and down Sinbul mountain.

It was a very special experience, hopefully the pictures we post convey the beauty of the area. It is a highly reveered area for the locals. In fact climbing groups use it to pepare and train for major alpine climbs (eg. climbing Mt. Everest). There are some very challenging and technical areas on the moutain that we saw from a distance but did not get to, maybe we'll get back to it one day.

JEFF! THE COINS POWERS ARE STILL WORKING!

I lead a 5.12b! That's all I'm going to say for now...but I give the coin FULL credit. Thanks for the magic powers Jeff. Auh, narcissist. Lots of love from, the shorter one...

Hak Dam Am

Hak Dam Am was a major highlight for Matt and I! The battery on the computer is going, so you'll have to wait for the stories about these pictures. Keep posted!

Buangsei Bawi (Owl Rock)

The black roofed, short building is one of the many restaurants along the highway. They serve many soups, barbecues, and lots of rice ('bop', in Korean).

The picture below is our friends sweet ride. These are my favorite vehicles in Korea: It's a Kia 'Bongo'... interestingly, the Korean word for farts is 'Bongu'... I learned that from one of my 6 year old students who called me 'Bongu teacher' for a while. We are on to bigger and better nicknames now though. Anyway, we ride in this cool flatbed regularly, most of the gear goes in the back... pure style.

The man climbing in green pants is Mr. Jong, the strongest climber at the gym, and one of the funniest guys... his official drink is 'Soju', the vodka type drink they have here. We will probably have many pictures of him in these posts, he's fun to watch, on and off the rock. He enjoys getting bombed on Soju, laughing lots and alwayas making a joke, and then sending 5.13's...for this he reminds us of our dear friend Nevin. Nevin, he's no replacement...but we think that your Dad may have been in Korea about 35 years ago.


I've described Owl Rock in an earlier post below, so check it out. It was a beautiful place. It was a fair drive from Ulsan, but a breathtaking one. We climbed some 5.10's and 5.11's. The routes were really long in the middle of the rock, roughly 30m (100 feet or so).





Holly is posing with Mr. Hong, our great friend who has really helped us out here in the city, he is probably the strongest, healthiest guy around. He started climbing 10 months ago, but his mad yoga and Taekwondo skills have prepared him well for climbing.... soooo strong! He is also a wealth of knowledge for Korean medicine. We'd be in rough shape now if it weren't for him!





Mr. Jong is in the yellow jacket here. They guys are having a break from our trip back to the city. Most people resume this squatting position while resting in Korea. It is very common to see all sorts of people (young and old alike) stopped, and squatting on the sidewalk...just taking a break!

Gyongju city: Buddhist Temple and Go Karts

So a few weekends ago we went, with our other coworkers, to Gyongju, an ancient city near ours. In old times the Korean peninsula was divided into 3 provinces, and the capital city of one of the provinces was Gyongju. So it is very very old. We visited one of the main Buddhist temples that has been restored (and is still in use to this day). It is over a millenium in age, so its pretty cool, its definately the oldest place I've been, architechturally speaking.

Following the visit, we went down the road and stopped for a rousing ride at 'Kart Valley'...a local Go Karting track. I'm not sure what to say, it definately marred my first peaceful Buddhist experience... but who am I kidding, they're go karts, it was awesome.