A typical walk in the countryside

These pictures show the landscape on the outskirts of our city, Ulsan.
You can see below (in the picture where Holly is walking on the widest road in Korea) that at the lower altitudes, there is a lot of stepped agricultural land flooded with water. We think they must be rice fields... Most rivers are diverted to flood these fields, that are home to many amazing bird species looking to do some harvesting of their own! The man fishing in the lower picture is at a pond in this lower, lush area. I asked him if I could take a few casts but he told me to take a hike.

Depending on the altitude and orientation on the mountains surrounding Ulsan, there are dense bamboo stands, a sharp and sudden change in scenerey, as you can see here.

Finally, if an experienced guide is present (like the guy translating the signs for the others) he or she will lead hikers high up the mountains, possibly into the clouds if they are present, to breathe the cleanest, sweetest air... granted the guide doesn't get you lost!

Actually I was pretending to read the signs to catch my breath. If you've ever hiked with a member of the Kalyn family (Holly being no exception... She may be a Bogard by name but she's still got the Kalyn hiking pace in her blood) you'll understand why I was out of breath!

A Side Note

Matt failed to mention that he spent the last week diligently checking the surf reports online, constantly smiling and staring off into space with a look in his eye similar to Keanu Reeves in Point Break. Yes, it's true. Matt has falling in love with surfing. When he's willing to even sacrifice a day or two of climbing for something else, you know it's serious!

The best way to describe Matt surfing to you, is to visualize Chester (the Bogard's old family dog) getting ready for a day at the beach! Matt and Chester would both have a huge beaming smile stuck on there face. They both need a walking harness to keep them in line (i.e. me having to redirect Matt constantly from running into people and objects because he's gaukin at the waves). Chester would be so friendly, and visit everyone on the beach. Matt (likewise) made friends with young and old, white and Korean alike on the beach. Everytime I came back to Matt on the beach, he'd be chatting to someone in broken English about the waves. Then finally, no matter how hard Matt got tossed around in the waves, or how strong the wind became, or how cold he got from spending so much time in the water...he always had that big smile on his face. AND he'd always be ready to go out and try to catch another wave. I finally had to restrain Matt from going out as I could see he was totally exhasted but the thrill of surfing had taken control of his reasoning!

It made me laugh all day. I thought to myself, "he's Chester! Totally!" See if you can see the resemblance...

I also threw in a picture of the beach to show the sand. It's hot, fine and I love it!

Korea from a coastal perspective

So, this was how we spent Saturday at Song Jeong beach... getting tossed, worked over, and destroyed in some waves larger than our previous visit... The waves ranged in size this day from 1m to 2m (2m when the tide was in, bigger than in these pictures).

This made it a lot harder to catch the waves, as they moved a lot quicker, requiring a lot more paddling power and better timing to catch the wave, stand up, and stay up!

Needless to say, we caught some of the smaller ones, but mostly tumbled in to shore in the larger waves.

BUT, we are making progress! So maybe by the end of the summer we can put some actual surfing pictures on the blog, not just cheezy pictures of me standing in front of the wave!

Surfing is, without a doubt, one of the most amazing sports I have ever tried. I would recommend trying it to any of my friends or family, it is such a healthy, natural, difficult hobby. Like climbing, surfing has been a great escape from our city and its noisiness!

A while back we visited the coastal region of our city, the area called 'Bangojin'. It had a very different feel from the rest of the city. Bangojin is oceanside, and is largely made up of the factory and offices for Hyundai industries. If you own a Hyundai vehicle, it was likely built here... or if you own anything else Hyundai for that matter (computer stuff, appliances, etc...).

So Hyundai occupies a lot of this area, but there are many regular apartments, and many people live down here too. This area has one of the countries larger ports, too, not as big as Busan, but very large, I beleive.

On this weekend we checked out the Hyundai cultural center, then made our way to the beach, then to the point adjacent to the beach to see the lighthouse and park.

The cultural center has a sport climbing wall, a big gymnasium, bowling alley, art gallery, cinema, and coolest of all, a skating rink in the basment (bad joke...by bad I mean great!). This is the place to be if you are bored, I suppose.

Korea was taking on Japan for bragging rights in a major badminton tournament when we made our appearance in the gym, and the skating rink was packed with people skating in figure skates... it was strange for us not to see a single pair of hockey skates on the whole ice surface!

We then made our way to the beach and the light house... It was a very nice day, the sun was out, the wind was down, and the waves coming into shore were quite relaxing.

There was a nice park set up around the point where the lighthouse was. Here we walked to the lighthouse, then crossed a bridge to get to a small rocky island with a nice viewpoint. It was interesting to see so many ships in the water, they were all so massive, a big contrast from the boats I am used to seeing...Spooner's 16 foot aluminum boat that we used for tubing, ... Yup, big changes for both of us, from Lac La Ronge and Katepwa...

On the other hand, as the port was to the right of us, and we were walking distance from the hyundai factory yard, I wasn't too eager to dine at one of the many picnic tables (see the bottom picture) set up by wetsuit-clad elderly Korean women who were collecting shelfish and serving them to people visiting the lighthouse!

Song Jeong and Haeundae Beaches, Busan

This was a very special weekend for us, since we got to try surfing in Busan, on Song Jeong beach. It was my first time ever, and I managed to stand up on the board by the end of the day… Don’t laugh at the waves! I won’t even say that they were bigger in person because they were not! However, they were easy to learn on, and they are usually quite a bit bigger I guess, so we really look forward to trying some faster waves soon. Holly was great, a natural, she got up many times and rode some nice waves, I had as much fun watching her as I did riding!

This part of Busan is quite removed and distinct from the rest of the city. I really feel lucky to live so close to the ocean this year, it is an intriguingly beautiful environment and its quite mysterious in my eyes, as I have grown up in the landlocked province of Saskatchewan! I look forward to exploring the coast a lot more in the upcoming months.

Sunday the waves were non existent, so we headed down the beach to the aquarium, outside of which there was a Taekwondo demonstration, where the little kids were kicking and punching to the beat of Korean dance music… I won’t even make any jokes because they could probably all beat me up, despite the 18-15 year age difference between us. The aquarium had some amazing fish, and invertebrates, even a few mammals. There was an enormous shark tank, a Penguin exhibit, striking Jellyfish, a huge octopus, and many beautiful fish of all kinds

More Climbing Pictures

Alright, this is Holly here. So maybe we spend too much time climbing, and our readers were hoping to see some of the other sites in Korea. But our hearts and happy climbing, our minds are at peace in nature and I give my Mom ample reason to be nervous about our adventures. How dangerous is a musuem? All good childern provide some level of worry to keep their parents young, quick and on their toes. So Mom, I only do this so much because I love you!

Anyways, here are some pictures of some of the great days we've had over the past month. Our climbing friends are beyond generous to us. Even if we can only share a smile and good food with one another, it still feels like we are sharing a common love of the outdoors, and a small insight into each others culture.

These pictures show how relaxing (see Matt); entertaining (see our friend Mr. Shim and his nice hat); fulfilling (literally. The food is incredible); and exilerating (see climbing) these days can be for us. Enjoy!

May 24, Thursday – Buddha’s Birthday, Munsu Mountain

One of the more important holidays in Korea, Buddha’s Birthday is a happy, busy day when Buddhists visit temples to pray and, at some temples, have lunch. Holly and I had the day off from work so we decided to head to the local mountain, Munsusan, to spend the day climbing. We hopped the bus to the base of the mountain and hiked up to the top. It was a 3km walk that sucked the life out of me, but was a warm up for Holly… Holly has the graceful, efficient stride made for this kind of stuff, I bound and stumble, what can I say? At times I would look up and swear that Bill Kalyn was leading up this mountain (and to my death). Same pace, same posture…same speed! The resemblance was remarkable.
So at the top of the mountain is a temple that was jam packed with people meeting for lunch (bi bim bap – a bowl of rice, veggies, a fried egg, and some spicy pepper paste, all mixed up… delicious). There were hundreds of people up there, and we were the only foreigners, so naturally we were stared at (in a friendly way of course). BUT, the final straw was when the camera men present all stopped photographing the important, ceremonial events, and crowded around us like the paparazzi, with their cameras in our faces, taking pictures of us like we were some washed up movie stars coming out of the police station after a night in detox due to impaired driving. I can handle the stares, but this put me over the top… We quickly left the courtyard and descended to the climbing area, where we enjoyed a beautiful afternoon of climbing. We worked on a climb called ‘Red Sunset’, which is a burly 5.11d that begins steep and finishes on a vertical, cracky face.
On a side note, the colorful balls hung up at the temple were a symbol for the special day, they were hung all around town as well. The one of the main symbols for a Buddhist temple is the backward-looking swastika. It is completely coincidental that the signs are so similar, I think… Or at least that is the assumption I have made seeing as those two groups of people are about the two most opposite in this entire world!