Week5: HikingKorea!

Inspired by my adventure to Seoul alone, I wanted to do something the next weekend too. During the week, I tried to find out if i could do some trekking here, and I found that, according to this website, Seoraksan would be the best place to visit. But since I didn’t have any company, I was asking people if anyone is going and was told by a friend that there is a club which goes trekking on weekends, called adventurekorea. I searched, and just as I had feared, the trip to Seoraksan had been done the previous week itself. Damn. So I just googled for trekking and seoraksan and found www.hikingkorea.com. This website said there was a hike to Seorak that weekend, on friday night. It didn’t seem too expensive. Contact mail id of a club member(Changdae Kim) was given on the site. So, i mailed him, got a reply same day saying I was welcome to hike with them. Well, that was easy. So, on thursday, I called him up and confirmed that I would be coming. And on friday night, left at 8.30 for the subway station from where the trek was about to start.(Hyehwa staion on line 4,Daehakro street station). I arrived there and met the gang. There were 3 Americans, and 3 Koreans for the trip.

Don: After initial introductions, I was talking to Don, a friendly American guy who, just 2 mins after I’d just met him, started talking about Indian food!!! He knew all about vegetarianism, he told me he had had Indian food once, that it was the best food he’d ever had. It seems he had gone to an Indian family’s house(his sister’s prof) in Philadelphia. He said he loved the masala dosas!! I couldn’t believe it. After this he told me that Indian food has the best spices, and that, though he eats a lot of meat, why indians do not need to eat non-veg food(bcoz of all the spices) and how our spices are the best and how we have been exporting spices to the whole world!!!
Damn, he just spoke my mind. I was shocked to see an American who knew and appreciated Indian food and culture so much. After that, I met Michael, another American, who didn’t know about Indian food and vegetarianism and I guess that made the whole thing real and believable.

Back to the story, we got into the rented van at 11.00, it was a four hour drive to Seorak. The initial plan was to start trekking right away, but had to be changed because it was raining outside. We got into a hotel room at 4.00 and got some rest. At 10.30 we woke up, had some noodles and kimchi and left for the hike at 11.00a.m. The weather was clear by now, and as we entered the national park, we saw a beautiful view of the mountains around and a big Buddha statue.

The hike was quite easy, there was a brook running close to the path, there were stairs inserted wherever the climb seemed a little steep, which was a little annoying, coz whats the fun in climbing stairs? but it was helpful in some places when there were bridges over the brook. After a while, we came to what seemed to be a Stairway to Heaven, as in, very steep stairs leading to the Mist Above.. well, a little exxaggerated, but see for yourself.

The climb was a little tiring, but, amidst the mist, we got to the top. The view from the top looked like this.

It cleared up a little after a while, but that was pretty much all we could see. We sat down for a while, had Don’s grapes, Steve’s dried mangoes, and some dry fruits. We even fed a little chipmunk.

After a while, we came down slowly, during which time, I had an interesting conversation with Changdae about Indian and Korean cultures. They were shocked to hear that I was a 23yr old virgin. Sigh. They were very interested to know about the caste system in India. They respect India a lot for Gandhiji and Peace and Religion. We then sat down at a hotel next to the brook, and while Don smoked his cigar, had some traditional Korean food and drank Makoli. It was bitter, and I didn’t like it. After a while, we went back to the car, went to Sokcho city nearby. There we took some pictures near the “East Sea” and then went to a hotel to have SUSHI! Thats right, I tasted raw fish(2 mouthfuls!! that too with a chopstick) for the first and hopefully the last time in my life. It tasted bland and was too chewy. While the others enjoyed it, I even had some soju. After this, they ordered some fish soup. I avoided the floating fish peices and took only the gravy, had it with rice. It wasn’t all bad. After we came out of the hotel, I found out from Changdae that the fish we had eaten looked like this.

Disgusting!! Damn, I was hoping it would atleast look eatable. But Changdae also told me that the uglier the fish, the tastier it is. ahem….

After taking a few more pics next to the East Sea, we started back to Seoul. We reached Seoul at around 10.30 and I took a subway back to Suwon.

Week1: Whatta place!!

My first week in Korea has been fun..
I came here by Thai Airways, it is supposed to be bad but I liked it because it was my first time.. Nothing special though.
The stops were in Bangkok and Taipei. Those airports were really awesome! Huge! (I hope Devanahalli Airport will be half as good some day.)
We landed in Incheon Airport in South Korea on Sunday evening…
My office there is close to “Suwon”, a satellite city of Seoul. Its an hour and a half from the airport. But the distance is far more than u’d expect. Awesome roads! not a single “road-hump” or pot-hole and till I reached my guest house, the bus stopped in just 2 traffic signals.
The weather is a little hot here. Worse than Bangalore. Reminds me of Surathkal. It seems it will get better in Sept. I hope it does..
The guest house we live in is run by Koreans, who also know how to make great Indian food. I’m shocked that the food here is as good as any good hotel in blore!!
The accomodation is fine. The room comes with a computer and internet at blazing speeds. I can’t believe the download speeds here. I could download 700MB in 40 mins.!!

Work: Samsung offices are HUGE here. There are lots of them spread around. The place where I work is as big as the entire Bagmane tech park, and the office holds the entire memory division, starting from Fabrication to software!
In office, for lunch, we have to take a bus to another Samsung office which serves Indian cuisine. The food is ok. Not as good as the guest house food.
The food that the Koreans eat SUCKS!! It stinks whenever we enter the cafeteria. Even my teammates who had thought they would try all kinds of food have stuck to Indian food after seeing their food. Its so bad.
The Koreans have a strange habit of brushing their teeth in the office. Some do it in the morning, but all of them do it in the afternoon right after lunch. Strange!

We went walking around the guest house the first day. On monday night, we went to a mall close-by called CGV. It was a small mall with a multiplex at the top. We watched Fantastic 4 and the rise of the Silver Surfer. It was not fantastic. It was arbit. And the only reason I watched it, Jessica Alba, was not looking pretty. It was 1 p.m when we got back home.

We went to Young san market on Independence day. (It was a holiday here too. Guess why.) That place is famous for its electronics market. We took a metro train there.(which is super efficient obviously) The market was right in the station! It looks like…imagine National Market in Forum Mall. Thats how it looks. I bought a Nikon camera. Lot of bargaining. But they can’t understand English, so we have to type the money on a calc.

And on saturday, we went to a shopping mall called Galleria in Suwon. It was like Bangalore Central, although a lot less crowded. The place closed down at 8.30 sharp!
Then we went to a bar and my friends had beer. I had french fries. (the only veg item on the menu). My friends said the beer was damn good, that it also tasted good, and kicked like vodka!
They had 5 liters. Hmmm… I had a sip. Yuck! as usual.
The bar gave us all free mugs as a gift. To drink more beers??

Thought for the week:
The Koreans started from scratch after world war II. And look at them now.
We’re not even close. Now tell me why, oh why, did we get left behind???
What the hell went wrong??
We discussed a lot about this. Bad government, politics, constitution, leaders?? or is it something about Indians in general that we cannot get asses to work hard enough??

I don’t have an answer.