April 5 Taiwan - South Korea Pohang

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April 5th

Today was my last day in Taiwan. So Mark one of my couch surfing hosts and i went to an American Diner for breaky. It was pretty sweet. I had a bagel french toast and some eggs all were very good and hit the spot. However the ride to the diner was the scariest of all my motor rides so far. Who would have thought it would have been on the back with an American driving. His seat was broken so instead of it slanted towards him it was slanted back off. So every time we hit a bump or he accelerated I was sliding off the back. I was needless to say holding on for dear life. I thought i was going to go sailing off a few times but we made it fine. After breaky i managed to jam a rock under the seat to support it. We were worried it was gonna come flying out and kill someone behind us. But later on after he dropped me off he got hit by a car and the rock stuck in so i guess it was a good fix for him haha.
After breaky i headed to Taipei 101 which is apparently the tallest or was the tallest building in the world. It was very big and impressive enough for me. The first 5 floors are a mega mall. I was crazy with very high end shops. What was more interesting was the New York New York mall was across the street complete with a small statue of liberty out front and oddly enough a sculpture of LOVE (in philly) out back. Then i hit another mall just to marvel at its design, which was a large ball/spaceship. This mall was weird as ... The out side looked like a massive basketball and even some of the inside was ball shaped. The weirdest part was the mid level escalators that spanned a few floors and lead into a hole in this ball shaped building. It was complete with lights flashing along the way. It felt like you were being take some some alien mother ship.
Later that night i met up with Man Ping and her friend to eat dinner in a night market. Which was awesome. They told me not to worry about anything just eat and pay, wow im set. It was so cool i felt like I was on one of the travel channel shows.
I started with some sort of tea that had tapioca balls inside. They call it Pearl tea or the slang big breast tea. Apparently they think the tapioca balls look like nipples, crazy people. The tea itself was good i wasn't very fond of the tapioca balls balls though. Then we of course picked up some more stinky tofo. Which was slightly better tasting than last time but not much. The girls kept asking me why i was eating it if i dint like it i responded" maybe it will get better the more i eat it" (it didnt maybe slightly more tolerable though) Then we got some really good steaks. They were covered in a pepper sauce and had pasta/noodles and a fried egg with it. Which if you know me anything with eggs is ok. The steak was thin and little tough, no fliet here, but it was really tasty. The sauce and the combo of things made it really enjoyable. By this time we all were getting a little full but the girls had noticed something else very popular and decided i should try it. I dont remember what they called it but you pick out the "meats" you want then they cook it in boiling soy sauce. It looked like a deep fryer but the girls assured me it as soy sauce and not oil in there. So the "meats" we picked were pigs ear, pig intestine, duck intestine, chicken heart and a few others i cannt remember and its probably better this way. Any way it was decent. It would have beet pretty good had the "meat" been some normal beef, chicken or pork but alas it wasnt. We managed to put down as much as possible and then went to a coffee bar for a drink and to let things digest. We hung out a while chatting then we said our good byes and i went back to the guys house to pack.

April 6th

After my about 2 hour nap (i was up packing and then had to be up around 3:45) i caught a taxi to the bus station and then a bus to the airport. Again i was there to early but better early than late. The flight was fine again a full meal on board.
I got to baggage claim and was starting to get worried my bag wasn't coming everyone was leaving and i was still there i walked around to see if some one put it on the floor some where. Then some guy came up to me and asked me if i was still waiting. I said "Yes" He said "Do you have knives or guns in your bag" I said "Yes Knives" He said" Ok your bag is coming now it needs to be cleared at customs" I said "ok" So finally my bag came up and it had 2 locks on it both had alarms ringing on them. "oh boy" I took it over to customs and they asked me what i had inside. I said "some knives" the guys said"no bullets guns magazine clips anything like that?" I chuckled and said "no". So I took out my knives and they ran it though again and this time he said "there are bullets in there." I was shocked and scared for a second but then i remember i had taken a couple of bullet shell casings from Oz when i was on the farm with Tom. They were going to be my souvenirs of my first shots with a gun. I pulled them out of my bag and apologized. They told me i couldn't bring them into Korea and asked why i had them. I explained why and apologized again and told them i have been to 5 other countries and no one said anything about them. He said "Korean Xray very good" we laughed. He said i could have them back when i leave but ill have to pay to keep them at the airport. Depending on how much it is i may pay for it. It will make a good story. haha I had to sign a few forms and was finally on my way.
I found there was a bus direct from the airport to Pohang. It was sort of expensive but it made things much easier rather than going to town and finding the bus station and getting the right buses. The bus was really nice it only ahd 2 seats on one side and 1 on the other and there were only 3 other people on the bus so we made good time getting to Pohang about 45mins early i think. We i got off the bus i was greeted by a 7ish year old boy. Who asked where i was from and my name then gave me a pack of gum, super cute kid. He ran back to his mom who was waiting for another bus. I thanked him and went out to find a payphone to try and call Dana but couldn't figure out the phones so i went back to the station and realized there was a terminal area so i wnet in there and there he was waiting for me. It was awesome to see a familiar face even though it must have been 3 or 4 years. We hopped in a taxi and headed for his place. He lives in a one room efficiency bed on one side kitchen and bath on the other side decent side though, its pretty sweet. I dropped my bags and we went out for dinner. We had some sweet BBQ beef that you grill at the table then wrap it with some garlic, onions, lettuce and some other side dishes it was awesome.
After dinner he was going to a bar to practice with his "band" so i tagged along. Even though they were rehearsing it was really good the lead singers both had great voices and they all managed to play well together. After that Dana and i got some beef soup before we headed in for the night.

April 7th
I woke up this morning and tried to see if i could pick up Wifi on my phone anywhere but i couldn't find my phone anywhere and had figured it must had dropped out of my pocket in the taxi last night. Dana tried to call his Korean friends to see what to do but they weren't very helpful. We were going to go to his work to see if they could help and call the police but no one gets there till late in the afternoon. So we took care of some things first. We did a cool body weight work out then went to the ferry to buy our tickets for our trip to Ulleungdo. After we got our tickets we went to play some ping pong. Wow were we out of our league. It was in a pin pong hall and the locals there were crazy good.
Then Dana wanted me to help him pick out a pack for traveling so we went to the local out door/travel shop and got him a pretty sweet one. Then we finally went to his job to talk to some one to see if they could call some taxi companies and the police. They tried but weren't very optimistic. Some of the taxi companies were closed by then and we could have been in a private taxi anyway. The police came and filled out a report but apparently there are a number of police stations in the area. Dana and i couldnt couldn't figure out if they were connected or not. I had one of his co workers type up some fliers for us to bring back to the bus station where we got the taxi. We then headed down there and passed a bunch out but they all seemed pessimistic as well. It least i tired though. we decided to walk around downtown's walking area after that failed attempt. Then we got some BBQ chicken and headed off to bed.

April 8th
Today we did another cool body weight work out then we hopped on his scooter and headed up to coast to check out the beaches and a mountain. We took the ocean road on the way up it was pretty scenic and with very clear water. We stopped in some town and had some sort of seafood dish complete with small fish to octopus. It was decent but the fish were bony and the stew had a strong seafood fishy taste. We drove around a while and couldn't find this national park, we took many wrong turns but finally found it. Unfortunately it was getting late we only got to hike four about 2 hours or so but we got to see some beautiful waterfalls. One of them was really cool it was tucked behind a cliff, which Dana climbed up. I ran around the other side where the trail was because i wanted to bring my camera up which was worth it because it had some beautiful views from the top. Like i said we arrived late so after a few waterfalls we had to head back to make sure wed make it out by dark. When we got back to town we had a sweet pork dinner. The meals area really cool here you get tons of sides and just get to combine whatever you want its really good. Everything is surprisingly expensive well for me at least i had no idea what to expect coming here especially coming out of Vietnam. Most dinners are around 8-10 bucks and lunches are 3-6 bucks. So its not as bad as the states but its a big jump from my less than dollar meals in Nam. Korea seems very modernized its clean in comparison to south east Asia however no one speaks English, not menus or anything, some street signs and public transit but not much other than that. Places that dont have English menus generally at least had menus with pictures but they don't even have that here. Guess there isn't a big enough tourism industry here mostly just Korean tourists.

April 9th
We woke up early did a plyo work out and then head for the ferry to Ulleungdo, which was a 3 hour ferry ride. When we arrived we walked around the small town a bit and found a place that had a pumpkin pizza, which was awesome. It had pumpkin in place of sauce and had some small veggies inside peas corn ect. It was really good and was really nice to have some cheese a rare find over here. After lunch we walked from Dodong-ri to Jeodong-ri a 2km walk on windy mountains roads. When we got to Jeodong we found a hotel threw our stuff down and then hiked up part of the mountain to a beautiful 3 tier waterfall. Then we headed back over to Dondong to take the cable car ride to one of the small peaks on the ocean's edge. It had some spectacular views of the city below completely tucked into the cove. It was apparently an old pirate town and it defiantly had that feel because it was so protected from the surrounding mountains and only had a small opening to the sea. At the bottom of the cable ride there was a mineral spring that is apparently safe to drink. We both tested it it tasted like a acidy, tonicy, citrusy, mineral water. It was also staining the water way orange so who knows what was actually in there. Down a little further there was a out door rock wall which we bouldered around for a while before we got to tired and headed for some food. This meal was some stir fry squid and pork. It was surprisingly pretty good. The squid was decent not to chewy this time. Then we headed back to the room chilled and went to bed.

April 10

Today we got up early to conquer Seong-inbong mountain. We caught a taxi to the base of the hike which turned out to be a cool but expensive taxi ride. The road was a massive spiral road they didn't have enough space to do switchbacks so they just made a massive spiral road like in a parking garage. It was really cool looking. Anyway we got to the base of the hike and were off. With in the first 10 mins we had saw a few groups of old women hiking this mountain. Now its not the biggest mountain but it was incredibly steep at parts and i know Dana and i were huffing and puffing along the way in ares. These women were my heros true champs. I hope to be able to do that when im that old they were loving it too it at least it seamed. It took us just over 2 house to get to the top where we had another interesting encounter with locals there was a mob of around 40 people or so at the top. It was crazy apparently hiking is there past time and the countyy is full of mounaitns and people go all the time and oddly enough it tends to be old people. Our ferry over was chock full of old people. We had a snack lunch on the top then hiked down the back of the mountain which had a ton of stairs making it very easy. When we got down we had a proper mountain meal Bibimap which consisted all of mountain greens and veggies. It was very tasty. Then we caught the bus back around the island to our hotel where we showered up and went to a local Sauna. Apparently thats the thing to do in Korea they love their saunas with mineral water. It was very relaxing but because there is a guy and girl sections they go in the buff which makes it a bit more interesting. After our realization we went for some dinner which we thought was going be some grilled chicken but it turned out to be friend chicken with a duck like glaze on top. Which i was totally ok with it was like honey barbq wings at the egg. After dinner we walked around town a bit then turned in for the night.

April 11th

We decided to just relax a bit today and sleep in. After we had breaky we headed over to the rock wall where we played a bouldering game for a few hours then grabbed some lunch before we caught the ferry back to Pohang. Where we had to shower up and eat a quick dinner because Dana had to go met his band to practice before their gig tonight. I walked around down town a while they were practicing then went back to watch them. They are really good as i stated earlier but this time they were on their game and everything sounded great. I was hoping to steal the songs from them but the guitarist accidentally deleted the tracks when they finished. The bar was good as well full of foreigners all teachers. Apparently anyone who neededs money or lost their job back home comes here to teach English. Their room is paid for and they apparently make good coin. Some guys were telling me they do private lessons for 45-50 bucks an hour but most people work in a foreign language school and say its super easy and only work about 20-30 hours a week and still can send home a grand or so a month seems pretty plush.

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