The
time has come the Walrus said, To talk of many things: Of shoes--and ships--and sealing-wax-- Of cabbages--and kings--And why the sea is boiling hot--
And WINTER IS COMING!
And WINTER IS COMING!
 |
| With all our winter warmies on! |
Yes it is, NOW it is, this morning I woke up on this sun sun
sunny day and thought “I want to go climbing at the climbing wall”. After a
long 20 minutes on a freezing scooter we realized that if our hands were this
cold to start with, climbing would be a painful and dismal endeavor and instead
we ended up coffeeing in a coffee shop hiding from the cold. The cold is
slowing me down- more movies, less sports, more food, less activity. I feel my
body starting to grow as I eat more and run around less, wallowing while my pasty body enlarges with gluttonous laziness.
I have been thinking of winter for so long; on every summers
day it has brooded softly in the back my head, this dark force that would stretch into
all the trees of Korea and strip them, leaving them lifeless and leafless and so immensely unpretty. Where no beauty is found but grey and the streets will fill up
with litter that will not be picked up by the old people of Korea for even they, are too cold. A Korean
winter is a terrible thing. But let’s not fear for the future but rather dwell
on a gorgeous past, that is, the end of a heavenly summer.
I went to the Philippines. How cool is that? For 3 days,
well 5 days kind of but 2 of those days were traveling days and tiring at that.
How can I be so spoiled as to be able to go to the Philippines for a few short
days? Yes I am, I did. And even though at the back of my mind and the bottom of
my stomach I kind of regretted spending so much money on just a glimpse of a
country, now i can proudly say I couldn’t have not regretted it more than I don’t regret it. After a
delayed and very hungry journey through China (my Korean Visa card wouldn’t
work at the airport for some reason) there they were- my family well 50% of it)- my parents and
my sister Sarah- looking tanned yet tired and happy to see me. 
We had a rather messy arrival in Manila and a night in a rather dodgy looking motel/hotel
place where I slept on a bed almost skinnier than me yet we set off the following
day on a very comfortable bus and the country exploded into colour. Tropical
trees and plants burst all over, on the streets were all sorts of vehicles such
as their taxi-like “jeepnies”( which kind of looked like those big old rolls
royce’s and were painted with such imagination), the little shops filled with
little things were all characteristic and the people ,wow the people were so
lovely. And warm. And they spoke ENGLISH, or at least a mixture of it.
We took that bus and
then a jeepnie all the way down to a lake and inside that lake there was an
island and inside that island there was a volcano and inside that volcano was a
lake and inside that lake was another island (well large rock that they call an
island). My father asked our friendly Jeepnie driver to find us a place to stay
and I don’t really know what happened but soon we were transported to this
fabulous place owned by our new friend Joe.
Now friend Joe and friend Joe’s family owned this whole
place complete with fighting cocks , a few bungalows to sleep in, boats to take
tourists to the island-lake-island-volcano thing and it seemed like everything
that we needed could be provided by some relative or other. We needed fruit from
his aunt’s fruit shop, fish from his uncle’s fish shop, his sister would cook
the meal, his brother in law would take us on the boat to the island and friend
Joe would supply us with any information about the region or about the politics
of the country. A true family affair, we were the only people there and he gave
us rooms for the equivalent of R50 ($7) per night and the family made food which was
food that would stay in my stomach memory forever. 
The volcano-island-lake-island-lake-island or Taal Volcano as it's really name is was pretty
rad too. Thanks to my sister’s extensive research we decided not to take the
sad-looking-underfed donkeys up the mountain but instead use the legs that have
been given to us instead. What a good decision! As I ascended the mountain that
was almost ruined with huge ruts walked in from the "horses" and seeing the fat
tourists bump down 70 degree slopes I was so happy to be on my feet without a
guide whipping the tiny pony to go faster and faster down a precarious slope. The
hike was beautiful and hot and sweaty and after a while I saw some smoke
billowing out in the distance. Wondering why people would be making a fire on
this hot day we came closer only to smell a rather unpleasant smell. “Ah yes”,
my mom reminded us “we ARE on a volcano” and the smoke was the sulphur coming
out and the rock was hot hot hot to touch. It was y first hike on an active volcano- WOOP!
The top of the volcano was gorgeous and there they had t-shirts,
drinks and what not to sell and a peculiar amount of Philippinos renting out
golf clubs per the golf ball so one could hit the golf ball off the top of the
volcano and try to hit the tiny “island” (more like a large rock) in the
middle. We convinced my dad it was his duty to hit the golf all off the top of
the volcano (though I wasn’t sure about how environmentally friendly the whole
thing was). I don’t think he got the golf ball too far but the Philipino lied to us
about how far it went (well maybe she was just being encouraging) and we continued
down the mountain to a ridiculously exquisite fish-vegetabley dinner cooked by miscellaneous
family member number 7. 
We were sad to leave
the happy haven of cheap accommodation, family minded Philipinos and rickety
streets with no foreigners but I needed to see some colourful fish underwater.
So we set forth (lugging all of their millions of bags in crowded low ceilinged
Jeepnies) to Anilao which is supposed to be one of the best diving places on the
island of Luzon. After some rather mad cajoling for accommodation we ended up
with another hospitable Phillipino at a diving place. Now we were comfortably
there next to the ocean with our snorkeling boat ride organized for the
following day, we needed food. My mother and I and the hospitable Phillipino
then got onto a trike which is a motorbike attached to a sidecar (my mother in the
side car and me on the back of the motorbike) and got a ride into town where we
spent small amounts of money on tons of vegetables and fish for the following
day. 
So the next day dawned beautifully and we got on this fast
boat and jumped into clear waters filled with colourful colourful fish! Wow I have
never seen such things, so any different colours swimming in and out and around
wherever you are, I dived and swam and exalted in the warm waters and the
things my eyes could see with the luminous rocks and squishy anemones
stretching far and wide. Lunch came upon us and we went to this special beach
to cook lunch. We waited for our guides to cook us lunch (such spoiled
tourists) played charades when the rain decided to come bucketing (and I mean BUCKETING)
down all around us. Strangely enough it was a game my parents hadn’t played much
before and was a good time waster until all the yummy yummy food came out. Also
the beach was absolutely strewn with the most vivid dried corals and we
searched for the most intricate ones to take home )probably illegal but no one
was stopping us). We decided that although snorkeling was an under-water
activity, being on a wet cold boat afterwards wasn’t exactly the vibe so we
sped back to our resort singing pirate songs to ward off the unpleasantness of
rain pelting into our eyes. 
After resting and listening to the rain and another good
supper and some packing we went to sleep only to wake at 4am, say a sad farewell to my lovely sister and to start the trek
back to Manila where my parents and I would go to KOREA! It was a trike and then a Jeepney and then a bus and we were in
Manila earlier than expected with the rain still pouring down! Manila was
covered in all sorts of water, people were making wooden walkways over flooded
streets for tips and a taxi to the airport was near impossible to find. Finally
we saw one but only after my father had to practically force the taxi driver to
let some VERY VERY wet tourists into his nice dry car, did we got to the airport.
I bought some Phillipino Rum and got onto my flight to return to Korea.
And then KOREA...
Well that was a rather whirlwind of 2.5 weeks. They were
living in my bedroom and I was kind of living between there and a friend’s
house, trying to complete all my commitments, go to work and show them as much
as I could. They wanted to relax after the Philippines so the first few days
were involved with sleeping and washing their clothes and then it was onto
Gyeonjiu and Frisbee matches for me and them enjoying the ambiance of the
oldest town in Korea. Many kings are buried there and it’s full of beautiful temples.
We had rather huge plans to go to the Andong mask festival that night (3 hours
away) and I somehow was going to get back for my Frisbee match the next day but
instead we decided not to and they decided to camp next to the river that I had
played Frisbee on that day and the next day they set off to go camping and
hiking in another part of the country. 
I really wanted to show my parents the charm of
Korea. It’s a very strange country and not really a tourist destination so
it's difficult for travelers to get around confidently. However, when my parents
came back from their little camping trip in the mountains they were only too
happy to tell us about all the Koreans who tried to help them even though they
didn’t know a word of English and how everyone stopped them to share some sort
of food or other with them. My dad was also given raw squid to eat though of
course he just said thank you, bagged it, and cooked it when he had a stove-
not the Korean way but the best way to do anything in this country is to take
what they give you and adapt which I felt they did quite well.
My parents also came to an animal birthday party where my mother
dressed up as a giraffe and gave everyone a good giraffe impression on the
stage (there was a performance and the party was after)- much to the Pohang foreigner community's delight. We also visited an island on the south coast of
Korea. And went hiking up this mountain past many waterfalls where my mother immediately
dived into the icey water- I couldn’t let her beat me so I had to dive in too!
Wow it was icey but it’s embarrassing when your 60 year old mother is more
adventuress than you. We also took a trip to the Eastern most point of Korea
for the sunrise. There is a statue of an open hand in the ocean and it is a great
place for a photo (or 74) with the sun coming behind it making it look like the
sun is in the hand. The hand faces another hand on land and these 2 open hands
are meant to symbolize harmony and coexistence.
I also took them for a visit to Jukdo market which is the
biggest outdoor market in South Korea and it is full of all sorts of wacky
things- dried squid tentacles, bondegi (silkworm pupae) all sorts of strange
edible roots, eels, fish on a stick and more. Most of the things you have no
idea what they are and I’m sure some of them don’t even have English
translations. We bought some vegetables including “tomatoes” that were not
tomatoes but fruits called persimmons and my parents practiced bowing at all
the many shop vendors. 
On their last night we played my favourite board game and I took
my mother to a Jimjilbang or a Korean bathhouse. We dipped in all the pools and
my mother as usual stood under the freezing cold waterfall wowing all the Korean
women with her fearless embracing of the cold. My father did not join us as he
was not too interested in being naked around a whole bunch of other Korean men.
The following morning they went off to Seoul and I said goodbye, happy to have my
room back but sad to say goodbye. I’m glad I got to show them a little bit of this funny
country, especially when the weather was so glorious and sunny every day. Now
things are changing and I have closed my windows and I shriek when I come out
of the bathroom after a steamy shower. I will be strong though and not give in to
putting my heating on until it is really uncomfortable- the button does look so
tempting at times! However, I did get an email a few days ago saying my ski
season passes are in the mail and I am ready to spend my weekends flying down
mountains on a snowboard once again. 
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