Hallasan Musings

Halla from the Eorimok Trail

I am forever spoiled by Halla Mountain. Throughout the year, I am awe-struck and inspired again and again by this thumbtack-like mountain.

Some days, her royal Majesty refuses to deign us with her presence, rising above the low-hanging clouds that hug the ground. And on others, her magnetic force pulls in the few clouds, caching her face beneath a veil. How shy she seems.

Feeling above the clouds up on Halla's Yeongshil Trail.

And yet, then come those days where she bursts forth, crown and scepter for all to see, as though her timidity was only a passing phase. A brief memory to be forgotten. On those days, that first glimpse of Halla is always like an arrow to my chest; it stops me in my tracks, my breath hitching in my throat. I wonder if my eyes grow the longer I stare. Pulling them away from her peak is hard and I guess it's not only clouds that feel her magnetic pull. And on those days, I seek constantly for that next glimpse--for that better vantage point. How can others go about their mundane tasks so calmly? How can they not stop and stare?

"Have you seen her?" I want to ask. "Have you looked at Halla today?" I want to shout.

Maybe I'm crazy for feeling such elation from the sight of a mountain, but is it so wrong to find joy in nature?

Someone else's snowman, chilling beside Halla's crown.

With that glimpse in the distance, I'm done. If there's a hiker's anonymous, sign me up now... I'm sure I'll be in good company. It's like a hum in my bones or a poem in my soul. I can hear Maria singing, "climb every mountain" and I long to be off and away.

"The mountains are calling and I must go." You'll find me somewhere out there.

Love and Hugs

Size is relative.

Settling In: Apartment Life

And thus, I have entered the world of apartment dwellers—the people who have a room or two, a kitchen, a bed and sporadic furniture minus a yard—and it feels great. No residence living for me this year! Get out the flags and play the music loud. (But not too loud so as not to annoy the neighbours!)

It's been a whirlwind over the last couple of weeks (feels more like a couple of months, but alas it was not that long).

After Quebec City, my mum sister and I found time for a bit of camping in between visits with friends, and then I flew off to Colorado for a few days for more visits with friends, before at last embarking on my 26h trek from Denver to my new apartment near my school (see a couple of landscape highlights below!). Last week was packed with induction-y things as I joined the crew of "new" teachers coming to Jeju and BHA for the first time. It's fun meeting new people and it looks like this will be a good year with some good people. Or at least here's hoping.

My apartment is a one bedroom apartment with the main flaw being there is not as much space as many of us westerners are used to. For those of us in the same apartment complex, we were all surprised there were no drawers. In reflection, it's probably a good thing because I then keep everything visible and this will hopefully keep me from hoarding utensils that I never use and a permanent residence of dark drawers, but I also didn't want to keep that much on my counter top if I could help it... Oh well. The joys of interior decorating, I suppose.

The only thing I'm missing is a good bookshelf to bring it all together. Until then, no photos. ㅋㅋㅋHere's hoping I can find something that suits my designs in the next couple of weeks, or, after discussing with coworkers, potentially build something to suit my purposes (I did always want to do woodshop in high school. A little late but...).

At least I now have wifi!

Here's hoping I get everything I need done before classes next week! Time to be productive.

Love and Hugs

Sunset over Charleston Lake (Ontario)

Beautiful sun shining over the Rockies (South of Garden of the Gods, Colorado)

View of Pike's Peak from Palmer Park

U Island (우도)

Udo is one of the bigger islands surrounding Jeju and it is also one of the more popular tourist spot.  Famous for its peanuts, Udo offers many peanut-treats (including peanut ice cream, peanut sandwiches, peanuts on waffles, peanuts on burgers...) as well as fresh seafood, and beautiful coastal views among other attractions.

View of Udo (and Sunrise Peak) from the Ferry.

We boarded the ferry at 8am from Seongsan Harbour.  The boats leave every 30 minutes on the hour.  The last boat depends on the season.  We learned this at the ticket office as we couldn't find times posted anywhere online.  It was really inexpensive, too.

Looking back toward Jeju from Udo.

Audrey and I, we decided to do the Olle Trail 1-1 while we were on the island.  The trail gave a good circuit so we got to see a lot of the island, but it also meant I got to cross the trail off my list.  We're not entirely sure whether we walked 11.3 km or 16.4 km because it was written differently in two different sources.  But in any case, off we went.

By now, this was my 6th Olle Trail.  Unlike the previous trails that I have done, Audrey and I found this trail a little hard to follow.  We were going counter-clockwise (or the orange route, for those who know), and there were more than a handful of times where we had to double back because we missed the turn, or where we were confused because we weren't sure which way to go.

View looking down at Udo from near the highest point.

The trail was still lovely and we did manage to complete it, but it was a little annoying at times.  I think the way is a bit clearer when you walk the other direction (blue way), but then that means you're leaving the big hill (and that uphill), for closer to the end--which we didn't want to do.

An old lighthouse (left) and its successor (right), keeping watch over Udo.

Hide and seek anyone? Photo Cred: Audrey

By the time we were finished, we were very much physically exhausted.  We really didn't want to walk anymore than we had to.  ㅎㅎ.  We had some more ice cream as a final treat before heading back to Jeju--a little earlier than we planned, but because we were so tired, we were looking forward to getting home earlier.

Slightly guilty because I once again took a bite before the picture was snapped... PC: Audrey

We had hallabong and peanut flavours.  (Hallabong is a special orange that is grown on Jeju and it is considered the supreme leader of all the orange citrus family).  Audrey and I agreed that the Hallabong was more like dessert ice cream that you'd have at rare occasions and then the peanut one was a more mellow flavour that you might have more often.  Still, green tea ice cream could be had everyday.  ㅎㅎㅎㅎ.

I would consider going back to Udo again.  There is more I would like to see--ideally with a bit sunnier weather.  But I also feel that I can now cross it off my list.

Until the next adventure,

Love and Hugs.

The Five Day Market and My "Work" Room

So I managed to make another video, and this time I left my room.  Ha.  Pictures can only give so much perspective, I suppose.

This vlog features my working room--which I actually live in more than my personal rooms in the other residence.  I'm very much a desk person and my personal rooms don't have a desk so if I am planning on getting work done during my time off, I usually spend it in Sherborne.  Like now, actually, as I type this post (Although today it is also because the Internet is down in the other residence.  We had a really bad storm and something related to wifi got struck by lightning in our building).

This vlog also features the Moseulpo Five Day Market (오일장, o-il-jang).  The Market is one of those quirky island-things.  It moves around the island on a five day cycle.  On any digit of the month ending with a 1 or 6, it is in Moseulpo, which is closest to where I live.  On days ending with a 2 or a 7, it is up in Jeju city and I believe the ~3 and ~8 are in Seogwipo, but I might be mistaken.  I am not sure about the other two locations.  As you can probably tell from the video, you can find all sorts of things at the market.  

One of the clothes stalls at the market.

There is definitely a lot of produce, dried legumes and dried seafood as well as fresh meat/fish.  But you can also get a variety of clothing from shirts, skirts, pants, to hiking gear and shoes.  There are also accessories (purses, wallets, hair clips, hats, gloves, etc...), and random knick-knacks/toys.  And we can't forget the food stalls.  That's definitely my favourite part.  This time, I only had hoddeok (호떡), which is the pancake-like thing, and the bondaegi (번대기), or pupae-bug-thing (honestly, it didn't taste bad, but I don't know if I would classify it as good either).  A couple of my students had some cold noodles (냉면, naeng-myeon), too.  (Previously I've also had spicy rice cakes (떡복이, ddeokboki) and fish bread (붕어빵, bungeoppang) at this market).

And because it was a warm day, we finished off the trip with a lovely drive along the coast on our way back to school.  It was pretty misty, but the haze didn't prevent these yellow fields of rapeseed flowers (유채꽃) from being beautiful.  So naturally, we left the van and played tourist for a couple minutes together.

On a non-hazy day you could see the sea in the distance, but not today.

A shot of SanBangSan looming behind the field.

And voilà!  I hope you enjoyed the video and this post.

Until next time, Tara!
Love and Hugs.

Foreigner Musings: Thoughts from China

While I have now been living in Korea for nearly 7 months, I have never really felt my "foreigner-ness" as much as when I was in Liu Zhou, China.  Here in Korea, my work environment is pretty much an English bubble and there are a lot supports when I go out and about on errands from bilingual friends, to signs, to the ever present wifi/data on my phone.  Even when I first arrived in Korea, I could at least sound out store names because the Korean alphabet is so straight forward.  The Chinese characters are currently beyond my ability and with everything closed up tight for the Spring Festival, I had no idea what anything was supposed to be.

My friends took me to this lovely park that was in the middle of the Liu Zhou.

Liu Zhou, while quite large at 3 million people, is not a tourist destination.  Other than my friends, I think we only saw one other westerner the whole week.  I also quickly learned some of the biggest pet peeves for my two western friends.  While one has only recently moved to China, the other has been there a number of years and relayed that these annoyances never go away.  In the short time that I was there, I quickly saw what they meant.  And while I was amused, I realized that after months and years, it could get more... annoying. Haha.

It was a beautiful day to walk around the park.  We went to the two pagodas seen in this picture.

If it was only the staring, I think they wouldn't have mentioned it.  I occasionally get stared at in Korea but I don't always realize.  Once I was out with one of my Korean students and she straight up asked me what it feels like to be stared at all the time after we had walked down one street.  I hadn't noticed at all.  And so, in China, too, they stare.  We three westerners are obvious.  As much as I try and blend in, but I just don't. Ha!  Like I said, if it was just staring, that would be okay, but...

#1 - You are Caucasian so you must speak English so I will speak to you in English right now even though I'm just walking past you and we've never met and I will never see you again and I can only say one word:

HELLO.

While we were walking around town or around some of the parks, people would, upon seeing us, yell "Hello/Hi" and then grin.  That's it.  Depending on the age, they might run away or giggle or smile shyly, too.  A couple times though, we were walking down the sidewalk and people on motorcycles would just yell it out as they rode by.  It's one thing to want to practice your English, but another thing to yell at random strangers.  And while I speak English, I didn't like how they assumed that because I'm white I speak English.  There are a lot of other languages I might speak instead.  My friends said that sometimes they replied in Mandarin, much to the surprise of the "offenders."

A lovely bridge and some paddle boats available for rent.

#2 - Because you are Caucasian I want to take your picture--I might ask if I can think of the English words but if I can't I'm just going to point my camera at you and take one anyway.

I don't really understand why people want pictures of random strangers, but then again I need to remember that I grew up in a multicultural environment.  My elementary school classes had people from all sorts of countries and I was accustomed to seeing Chinese, Korean, Caribbean, African, Middle Eastern and so on.  I don't fully understand the novelty of seeing someone who looks so different from you because I grew up with it. Still, having people sneakily--and then some not so sneakily--take your picture while you are walking around a park is a little weird.  I wonder what they will do with the photos and what they will say to their friends...

My friends.  The park entrance is hidden off to the right.

All in all though, it was a lot fun. While I definitely felt the cultural differences more because of the language barrier, I greatly enjoyed exploring the city and the surrounding nature.  I am forever humbled by how vast and amazing the world is--in natural scenery, societal structure, and language development.

In another park a couple days later, we found this statue of a young woman riding a carp to heaven.

Me, taken from the top of the small mountain featured in the above picture.

Until next time,

Love and Hugs.

Welcome to China.

Distant thunder awakens me from a heavy slumber. Did it start raining?  Better question: is it morning yet?  I hope not.  With great effort, I open eyelids sanded shut.  Darkness.  Blast.  I roll over and shut my eyes.  More sleep please.  I've had a long day of travelling from Seoul, through Shanghai to Guilin and then at last to Liu Zhou, and for now I wish to be dead to the world...

Again I am awakened by a loud noise.  Is that a train I hear? Cracking and clunking down the line?  I don't remember seeing tracks near here... but then again I arrived in the middle of the night.  I emerge from the covers and pry open an eye.  White light shines through the translucent windows and I surrender to wakefulness.  A smile tugs at my cracked lips as I rub the sleep from my eyes.  It's a new day and I have arrived in China.  A trip to see a friend; a trip to visit a country; an adventure waiting to begin.

View from the top of one of the mountains.  Taken a couple days after I arrived.

To say my expectations shattered upon my exploration of the city would be inaccurate.  Mostly because, like with most of my adventures, I wasn't entirely sure what to expect.  All my life, China has been the strange and very distant place.  Sure, everything is made in China, but the country itself seemed enshrouded in thick cloth like a lady covered by a veil.  Just what lies hidden beneath the fabric?

One of the main roads as seen from atop a small mountain.

A look down a smaller street.

I head out into the city streets, excited to see and learn something new.  The main roads are wide and often chaotic. Cars, motorbikes and people all seem to follow a complicated dance.  It's a wonder to me that no one gets injured, and yet it also seems to work.  The side streets, too, are their own poetry.  Some weaving like zigzags between houses, while others march straight around the apartment-like buildings.

As I walk to market, I pass patches of red... dust?  Flower petals?  I bend low and examine the strange clumps of paper.  Looking down one of the narrow streets, I can see large patches of red every few feet.

Shots fire from somewhere between the buildings and I jump back in alarm.  The sound echoes through the narrow valleys, the tall buildings acting as an amp both magnifying and distorting the sound waves until it sounds like waves crashing... or thunder rolling and even a train clunking...

Do these shots meaning gun fire?  No one else appears alarmed...

I take another step down the street beneath red lanterns when a whine breaks the silence followed by a couple more shots.  I turn the corner to see lights popping and sparking in the air.  A few feet away, children crouch and cover their ears, their faces alive with glee.

Click.

Piles of fire cracker remains was everywhere.

Ah.  Never gun fire.  Not even a train or thunder in the early morning.

Fire crackers and fireworks.  Anytime, anywhere.  All week long.

Welcome to the Spring Festival and the Lunar New Year.

Love and Hugs.

Look, Mum! Monkeys!

Well, it's just about time to head back to Korea. It's been a fun couple of weeks and I had a lot of fantastic experiences here in Malaysia, but I am ready to sleep in my own bed again. I am also looking forward to some good Korean food.  I have enjoyed the food in Malaysia and Singapore, but I like Korean food better. 

My first day on Peninsular Malaysia, my friend Jade and I trekked it out to the Batu Caves.  The Caves double as, well, caves, and a temple.  It's a pretty touristy-spot, but a cool one nonetheless.  Be amazed at the impressive exterior and giant statue:

A shot of the stairs leading up to the temple as well as the giant statue.

You can go all the way up and into the temple section, but in addition, near the top their is a cave veering off where you can go on a tour and learn more about the caves in general. The cave tour features lots of bats overhead (some squeaking some not) and other cave dwellers. Unfortunately, we didn't get to see any snakes but we did see lots of spiders, a rat and a couple centipedes and cockroaches.  Yum yum.

Jade and I inside the cave-cave portion. Women can't wear shorts up the stairs to the temple so we have makeshift skirts.

 But, the best part of the experience was seeing all of the monkeys.  They came right up to the stairs and wove between the pedestrians.  I was borrowing Jade's camera and was able to snap some awesome shots.  I feel like a stellar photographer now!

Monkey 1!

Mother and child--although Jade and I agreed that it's a pretty big baby.

Same Mother and Child as above, only they followed us around the corner--or maybe we followed them.

 And of course, another couple more monkeys here:

Love and Hugs.

Borneo: Climbing Mount Kinabalu

A couple of months ago, when I was first planning my trip to Singapore and Malaysia, my friend Jade asked me if I wanted to climb Mount Kinabalu with her. After some consideration, I thought 'The tallest mountain in Southeast Asia? Why not?'

The mountain from the Park check-in.

So it goes. Christmas 2015. No regrets, but man, was it hard.

We were so positive and excited at the start.

In order to climb the mountain, you need to book trough the mountain's website because you must climb with a guide and they only allow a certain number of permits a day. There are two main options for the climb: 3 days/2 nights or 2 days /1 night. We went with the latter, slightly  cheaper option.

This meant we had about 6k up to the lodge the first day and then another 3k up to the summit before heading back down the next day. We were lucky to have really good weather. It only rained a bit around lunch on the way up. Considering it's a rain forest, that wasn't too bad. ㅎㅎ. The clouds moved in really fast though. We arrived at one lookout and had a stunning view of the mountain. But then in the time it took Jade to grab her camera, it had disappeared.

My lucky shot between cloud coverage.

Including our lunch break any other resting stops it took us about 4.5 hours to get to the rest point on Christmas Eve. We were exhausted but feeling accomplished.  So naturally, we got out the Christmas Tree. Jade insisted we bring it up the mountain.

Jade and I each with the tree. 

She also brought the hats.

It was only 14h00 and dinner didn't start until 16h30 so we spent the afternoon talking to other trekkers and playing cards. There were other Canadians, some people from the UK, Finland, and the US. A couple groups from Sweden, a Dutch family from the Philippines, and a Korean couple to name a few. It was a lot of fun meeting everyone and I almost didn't want to sleep to further enjoy their company, but morning was coming quickly.

...

1h30.
Is that my alarm? Did I even sleep?

2h00.
Feeling a bit nauseous, I don't really want to eat breakfast. Is this a bit of altitude sickness?

2h30.
Headlamp check. Time to go. It's dark and cold and there are so many stairs. I hate stairs.

Time unknown. Maybe 3h30... 4h00?
Something worse than stairs: rope. Stairs please come back. After scaling with the rope, we are gasping.  Our guide also starts to tell us we're going too fast and that we should slow down. Fast? Ha. I feel like a turtle.

~5h00.
We were too quick. There are only another 100 or so meters to the top but the sun doesn't rise for an hour. The wind tries to tear us from the mountain. We huddle together next to a large rock and sing Christmas songs to keep us warm.

~5h30.
Toes and fingers are so cold. I'm shivering violently and wishing I was back at lodge. Then guide tells us we can start going again. Back into the wind we go.

~6h00.

Wait for it...

Shabam! The sun rising between a couple of the peaks.

6h10.
Okay that's good. Time to go. Time to somehow go back down what we struggled up. It looks so much different in the sunlight. Stunning. Inspiring. Deadly.

When clouds are like the creamy design on a mug of coffee...

8h00.
Somehow arrived back at the lodge. That was hard. And we still have 6k to go. But first, second breakfast.

9h30.
We leave with the Dutch family and our new UK friend. Jade is in more pain than I, but we push through. Comaderie prevails. Were there this many stairs on the way up? Each step is jarring. Oh! Don't forget to wish Merry Christmas to everyone we pass!

12h54.
Huzzah! We finished. Can we sleep yet?

.
.
.

Was it worth it?

Love and Hugs.

Winter on Halla

... comes faster than I guessed.

Nearly two weeks ago, the heavens gave Hallasan white highlights.  While pretty from a distance, one of my coworkers told me that the Yeongshil (영실) trail leads to a stunning view of the peak and especially in the winter.  Naturally, I decided I had to go and on Friday morning, I set out.

Note: As with any of the trails that go up Halla, there is a time constraint and you can't start going up after a certain time (depending on the season).

Before I add my pictures, let me explain that the weather on Jeju has been around 10˚C (50 in Fahrenheit) and that all the trees around my school still have all their leaves.  While it's no longer short weather, the days are still nice.  And so going into my hike, I wasn't really sure what to expect on the mountain.  Sure, there was snow, but from my school, I can't tell how much--nor am I totally sure how high up it starts.  Plus, with it sweater weather down here, how bad can it be a couple hundred feet higher?  (Ha.)

My first warning came from another man at the bus stop.  On vacation from Seoul, he was all geared up for the hike.  After looking at mine and my friend's clothing, he asked if we would be okay on the mountain.  At that point, I honestly didn't know.  And then we got to the entrance.

This is the road leading from the parking lot to the trail head.

Snow.  Lots of snow.  More than I expected considering we were still a long way from the summit.

Shortly after starting up the main trail.  The surrounding woods were stunning.

It was also colder than I thought it would be. I wasn't freezing, but by the time we were done, my fingers were numb and all I wanted was a warm bath.  Too bad I don't have a bathtub...

As we climbed higher, the white world only continue to dazzle.  It was as though someone dumped paint on everything and huge globs clung to the bushes and trees while the rest fell to blanket the ground.

Close up of one of the bushes.

Looking up the trail and out over the snow-covered shrubs.

Me, a little cold, but happy to be in a winter wonderland!

This was my favourite tree from the climb.

 As the wind blows across the mountain's face, it sculpts and molds the snow covered statues into its own creation. My friend turned to me around this time and said, "Look at all the snow flowers!" and his description is so accurate.

The wind blows the snow into these petal like-shapes and they surround the rope like a flower chain.

While it was still a beautiful hike, the weather wasn't the best for the view.  Clouds clung to the mountainside like peanut butter on bread: thick and impossible to see through.  I felt as though I had jumped into the pages of an adventure story.  Sort of a strange mix between the trekking from Tolkien's LoTR and the Dark Island from Lewis' Voyage of the Dawn Treader.  It was both surreal and humbling.  As we broke the tree line, the wind began to blow something fierce and visibility only got worse.  Without the string running along the trail, we wouldn't have been able to go much farther.  As it was, we didn't stay on the top ridge for long and decided to turn back due to wind and cold.

The cloud cover lifted slightly on the way down.  Here are two pictures of the same tree.  The first was taken on the way up and the second on the way down.

View from a lookout on the way up.

View from the lookout about 1.5 hours later.

I long to go back sometime in the next couple of months better prepared and hopefully with clearer weather. Until then, other adventures await.

Love and hugs!

Snapshots from Gwangju - Mudeungsan

Home again, am I!  I returned last evening and while I really enjoyed being in Seoul, I was really happy to sleep in my own bed.  I have so many pictures and such to go through, but here are some of the shots that I took last weekend.  I'm not very good at taking pictures of city streets--I don't usually think of it until I'm writing posts like this--so they are mainly mountain shots. Ha. 

More on my vacation in Seoul later this coming week! 

Heading to Gwangju!!  Someone told me that South Korea has over 3000 islands.  It would take years to visit them all.

I find it so cool how different societies and countries structure their blocks of land in both a similar and different fashion.  Definitely makes the view interesting.

One of my first stops in Gwangju was exploring the Yangdong Market.  This picture doesn't show you how much there was to see in food alone. A lot of rich smells attacked me as I walked through the alleys.

A welcome view of the city as the sun set.

Hiking around the mountains with Nick.  He didn't do too badly for a novice. ;)

Stunning view looking back toward the city and the other mountains in the park.

Not quite the top, but one of the taller peaks.

And one last picture looking out over the mountains.  So pretty!  But it was also getting cold at this point and we turned to go back down.