South Korea is brilliant. I have now been here for ten days and I'm having a really good time. I've been couchsurfing with an American called Kevin who seems content for me to stay indefinitely. I'd feel guilty about imposing upon him if I wasn't saving so much money.
I arrived in Busan on the morning of the 24th. The sleeping quarters on the ferry contained the familiar five-foot mattresses so I stayed up all night chatting to a couple of Kiwis. I spent my first day in Busan exploring the subway system, which runs all under the centre of town and is populated with hundreds of black market stalls, and the evening with fellow couchsurfer and genuine Austrian Isa. She introduced me to gimbap (meat, vegetables and rice rolled in seaweed), makgeolli (a milky rice wine) and 'scheisskopf' (a card game that has a rude name in English). We were supposed to meet Kevin in town 'about three-ish' but I hadn't slept since Japan so didn't really fancy it.
Over the next few days I saw most of Busan; Hae-undae, an average beach billed as a 'tropical paradise'; Guemjeong, a beautiful hiking route with panoramic views over the city; Beomeosa, an impressive temple that has been around in one form or another since the 7th century; and Gupo Market, the place to go for all your dogmeat needs. I personally have no problem with eating dog - I can't really see a moral distinction between a dog and a pig - but the conditions that the animals are kept in are appalling. Six-by-six foot cages piled on top of one another, each containing around ten adult dogs. I also visited Hurshimchung, the largest hot spring complex in Asia. It is absolutely huge...there must be over thirty different water baths, inside and out, all themed differently and at different temperatures (I walked past an elderly chap sizzling in 72°c water!) You can even bathe in mud or various fruit juices including cherry, grapefruit and citrus. A Korean man expressed an interest in my naked form and began to defend the comparitive 'smallness' of his nation's menfolk. Although it was an uncomfortable discussion I discovered an interesting fact; all Korean boys are routinely circumcised in late childhood, though the practice has no religious or traditional roots and has only been prevalent for around fifty years. When the man actually took hold of my penis to "show his friend" I made my excuses and left.
On my second night in Busan I went out with Swedish couchsurfer Jonatan to try dogmeat (this was before I went to the market) and jeon (savoury pancakes with spring onions and ridiculously spicy red peppers). We met three middle-aged Korean businessmen and shared our soju (a vodka-like spirit) with them. Despite the fact that they spoke very little English, and we spoke absolutely no Korean, we continued onto a bar. Most of the night's conversation consisted of them trying to correctly pronounce my name (in the end we had to settle on 'Chow') while knocking back soju, berry wine and pitchers of beer. I spent the next couple of nights with Kevin watching crap horror flicks and eating Korean biscuits.
On Wednesday evening I flew to Jeju, a self-governing island off the south coast of Korea. I spent the night in Jeju City in a jjimjilbang, which is a large public bath with mattresses for sleeping, and the next morning I hired a bike to go to Manjunggul. I cycled about five miles before the handlebars started to wobble and slipped out. I had to walk all the way back to bike shop and, as I no longer had time to cycle, asked for my money back and hopped on a bus. Manjunggul is a lava tube - an underground cave formed from a lava flow millennia back. Unfortunately there had been a small collapse so only 400m of the usual 3km was open to the public. I was also surprised to find that visitors were allowed to smoke in the enclosed cavern; it's odd to be in a UNESCO World Heritage Site that smells like a French café. In the evening I returned to Jeju City and had an amazing dinner; a vat of boiling water was placed on my table and I was given different ingredients to drop in - vegetables, noodles, raw pheasant, chicken and octopus...and even Nepalese-style momos! That takes me back!
I decided to stick with the bus system so the next day I climbed Seongsan Ilchulbong, a peninsular ending in a stunning volcanic crater. It is beautiful from ground-level but I wish they offered flights overhead as the aerial photographs look incredible. There was a woman halfway along the walk who tripped UP a step and screamed as though she had fallen over the edge. I wonder if over-reaction is a Korean trait - when I was on the subway in Busan a woman ran up to the train as the doors were closing. She was just too late so started to shriek and punch and kick the side of the train...another one was due in three minutes! I spent Friday evening in Seogwipo (Jeju's only other town) watching a live election campaign. The most prominent candidate is the very cheerful 'Orange Man', so dubbed not because he looks like David Dickinson, but because he sports a bright orange jumper...plus I don't know his real name. The campaign posters show him grinning innanely with a child kissing each cheek. There is even a poster where, as you walk past, his eyes twinkle. He has an enthusiastic entourage, also dressed in bright orange jumpers, who dance for hours on end in the middle of the street, often obstructing cars and pedestrians. If there's one way to win votes...
On Saturday I went SCUBA diving. A small group of us sailed to 'mosquito island' just off the coast of Seogwipo. The dive was quite shallow compared to Okinawa (we only went down to thirty feet) but we saw some really interesting things. On the way out I grabbed onto a rock covered in sharp barnacles and ripped the tips of my fingers to shreds. It was ridiculous how much blood came out of me - it took over two hours to stop, during which time I must have lost at least a pint of the stuff (the rock floor was painted red). I stayed the night in the 2002 World Cup stadium, as the lower floor has been converted into a jjimjilbang.
On Sunday I was up early to go to Hallasan volcano - the highest point in South Korea. I was surprised how little time it took to climb - less than two-and-a-half hours from Seongpanak (750m) to Beongnokdam (1950m). It made me realise how unfit I was when I tackled Ben Nevis a few years back...only another 150m but the ascent took at least twice as long. When I got close to the summit of Hallasan I began to realise why everybody was wearing a thick coat, hat and gloves. I'd previously assumed they were just overreacting like the Japanese (who take trekking poles, down jackets and ice-picks on cross-country hikes) but it was absolutely freezing - I had actual icicles dangling from my hair. The irritating thing was that the visibility was terrible, so the crater lake that is supposed to be the highlight of the hike was nowhere to be seen. On the way down I started to feel quite ill. I had developed a cold a few days before, with an increasingly aggravated cough, and the icicles probably hadn't helped matters. I also wonder whether I picked up an infection from the cuts on my fingers. I caught a bus back to Jeju City and was asleep in my jjimjilbang by 7.30pm. However I woke up several times in the night with a fever. I also went a bit crazy; more than once I sat bolt upright convinced that I had to get up to attend the Rio de Janerio carnival. At one point I actually got out of bed and walked halfway into the communal room before it dawned on me that I probably wasn't in Brazil. I think it was the sheer number of Korean people that threw me.
Yesterday I caught a flight back to Busan and I've spent the time since relaxing and trying to recover. As an aside: I've noticed that I have been whinging about being ill quite a lot - it just seems to have been a theme of the trip for some reason. From now on I shall keep any maladies to myself. So tomorrow I shall visit Gyeongju, the old capital of South Korea.
That's if I'm feeling up to it.
Joe x
PS. Kevin was telling me about an exercise he was doing in his English class today, where the kids had to write a statement about something they like and the reason why. One girl offered "I like kittens because they are cute". Another followed up with "I like puppies because they taste good".
PPS. I thought I should attach some photographs of what I could have seen on Jeju if (1) the rest was open (2) it wasn't December (3) I was taller.
(1) - Manjunggul
(2) - Mt. Hallasan
(3) - Seongsan Ilchulbong
