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Published: December 22nd 2006
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A belated Happy Chuseok to you all... We hope you had a nice Korean Thanksgiving.
We've had a great few weeks. By virtue of a shift change, we managed to get ourselves a sweet little 12-day break...perfect timing, one might say, for a visit from the parents! Hoorah!
Gareth's Mum and Dad arrived on a Friday evening, and we introduced them to Korea by getting up at the crack of dawn to explore the Demilitarized Zone and to step into North Korea. It was quite the surreal experience, with much propaganda and posturing from both sides of the world's most heavily fortified fence. Part two of their introduction to Korea was our arrival "home" at English Village, the second most surreal place in Korea. We spent a couple of days relaxing around the village and stumbling into a Korean military training exercise on a local hike (Check out the photo of the parents and the big guy with the big gun!)
Then began the real Korean experience...we ran ourselves ragged around Seoul for a day...a huge palace, our favourite artsy-crafty street in Seoul, and massive Namdaemun market, the likes of which Aussies just don't see at home.
Dabotap
1500 year old stone pagoda Another early morning saw us on the train to Gyeongju, Korea's ancient capital. We filled our 2 days there with more parent-exhausting activities at temples, nunneries, mountain grottoes, grassy mound tombs, big carved Buddhas, endless rice fields, bike riding and a 3.2km uphill hike (we didn't tell them there was a bus...oops). The day we left was the height of the celebrations of Chuseok...which meant that NOTHING was happening in the streets. Never have we seen Korea so eerily quiet. Everything was closed, and we couldn't even buy a coffee. With little other option, we planted ourselves beside a grassy tomb and planned to play cards, despite the wind. As it happens, we didn't even get the cards out of the bag as we were delightfully entertained by a gorgeous family who descended upon us with cute, hyped-up kids and questions and food and drinks and gifts. The kids were all wearing traditional clothes and they looked beautiful. In dribs and drabs, the older members of the family were brought out to meet us. Two of the dads sat down for a chat, mum brought us a drink of rice juice stuff, Grandma swung by to say hi. This encounter
Grass!!!
Ancient Silla Royal burial tomb was all beautifully orchestrated (of course ), and it became a highlight for all of us.
The last destination on our trip was the traditional village of Hahoe. Except for the hoardes of visitors attending the International Maskdance Festival, it's a lovely, peaceful little place in the bend of a river, where all the buildings and homes are traditional mud huts with thatched roofs. This meant the place we stayed at had no beds, no indoor plumbing, and much discomfort for those who appreciate creature comforts. But on the upside, they had real ondol (underfloor heating). It's pretty cosy to sleep with real fire right underneath the floor you lie on...and a little exciting to think how dry and flammable the house might be. So we took in a few dance performances, took lots of photos and rested up a little. We had a 2am train to hang about for, so after a pretty but unspectacular fireworks show, we managed to make it on the last bus out and whiled away our spare hours at a jjimjilbang. The thought of french toast and real Canadian maple syrup courtesy of Ben & Kim kept us sane on the Red-eye Special
home.
Mum & Dad's last day was spent exploring and shopping at the market again, while taking in the news that North Korea had tested a nuclear bomb. We all had a teary farewell at the airport the next morning, and we resigned ourselves to probably not seeing our family again until we make it home from the Bonza Adventure for Christmas next year.
We don't know what kind of coverage the North Korea thing is getting back home, but it's on CNN all the time here. In case you're worried, check out the last photos of our latest lot. This is the South Korean military on high-alert. We've been teaching 500 military guys...from privates to pilots, infantry to intelligence, conscripts to career guys. It was a reassuring time to meet them. They're not worried about North Korea, and even if something does happen, they convinced us of their ability to deal with it. There was a very amusing presentation competition in which many of them spoke about their role in the military (or "How to pick up girls in night clubs" or "How to be an English Village teacher"). One branch have to march 400km in a week with 30kg backpacks...without sleep and doing the last 100km in one hit, without even a break. They might hold hands often and dress up in drag occasionally, but they're pretty tough guys. We were duly impressed.
We went hardcore hiking yesterday, hauling ourselves up and down metal cables on sheer granite peaks, ridges, and crevasses ("Look, mum! No ropes!"), and Mel is feeling it now, despite all her hard work in the gym of recent times. The autumn leaves we pretty nice, but we hear there's an "autumn drought" happening now, which means that because of the lack of rain, instead of the leaves changing colours through the whole rainbow (as they're famous for doing), they're just drying out, turning brown and dropping off. Boo! Still, we're hoping for rain before some more hiking on the east coast next week. We love our 3-day weekends!
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