Day 9

Annyeong haseyo!  Greetings from Korea!

For those who don't know, I'm currently in a town called Chuncheon in South Korea.  I took a job teaching English to kids at an after-school academy, so for the next year I'll be calling Chuncheon home.

Chuncheon (pronounced "CHIN-chun") is the capital of the Gangwon province, which is the green area in the map above.  It's a relatively small city with a population of roughly 250,000 people.  I live on the outskirts of town, which is nice because there's not much traffic and I'm close to some lovely hiking trails and scenic walks.  There's a train station a few blocks away and a bus system that I haven't figured out yet.

The main city of Chuncheon.  It's surrounded by mountains and very pretty!  Click to make bigger.

Chuncheon is known around Korea for a dish called dakgalbi, which consists of spicy marinated chicken, cabbage, scallions, sweet potato and rice cake.  They serve it raw and cook it in front of you.  It's delicious!

Once it's all cooked up it's red and delicious.  I didn't get a picture of the cooked final product because I was too hungry!

I've also had the pleasure of trying a few varieties of kimchi.  There are hundreds of varieties and it seems the only requirement for something to be called 'kimchi' is that it incorporates a fermented vegetable of some kind.  I've tried cabbage-based kimchi and liked that okay.  Here's a picture of 'summer kimchi,' which is just radish in a cold sour, pickly kimchi juice.  I didn't like this very much.

Summer kimchi.  Good if you like sour, spicy things.

My apartment is actually in the same building that I work in, which is convenient when it's raining.  The basement and first two levels are classrooms, the third floor is where Mr. and Mrs. Boss live with their kids, and I live on the fourth floor in an itty-bitty apartment.  The apartment has three rooms: a bathroom, a kitchen, and a bedroom/living area.  It's so small that there's not even an eating area.  BUT I have an oven, which is a bit rare in Korea, so that's something!

My kitchen.  To the right of the stove is a fridge and a sink.

My first impression of Korea was that it's very mountainous, which is gorgeous at this time of year when everything is lush and green.  The cities are very colorful too, lots of signs for restaurants and shops.  But as I started walking around, the thing that really caught my attention was this:

If you've got a very keen eye for vegetables you will recognize that as a zucchini plant.  Once I started looking, I saw them everywhere--on the side of the road, on roofs, on fences, everywhere!  And it's not just zucchini.  There's peas, peppers, pumpkins, corn, lettuce and who knows what else, all growing on the side of the road!  Apparently people just start farming on any land they can, whether or not it belongs to them.  What's crazier is that there isn't much problem with people stealing their produce.  

That ain't weeds.

It's hard to make it clear just how common this is, but about 80% of the land I see on the side of the highway is being farmed, and most backyards are mini-farms too.  Greenhouses are everywhere.  Korea apparently grows almost all of its own produce, which is cool and eco-friendly and whatever BUT also seriously limits the variety of produce.  The produce section in the grocery store is the same size as that of an American grocery store, but has about half the variety.  (Don't worry, a full post dedicated to the grocery store will come soon.)

There's no shortage of signage in Korea.  Pity I can't read any of it.

So apart from getting trained to teach my classes, I've done a little exploring.  I went out Sunday morning with the full intention of getting lost, but there's enough distinctive, high-profile structures that you can't get lost if you're paying an iota of attention.  

I climbed a hill and trespassed on an apartment complex.  Nobody minds you if you're a foreigner.

I ended up in the ghetto for a while, which was surprisingly calm and safe.  For a country that has experienced such growth and prosperity in recent decades, the living conditions of some residents are simply abysmal.  I walked about 12km/8 miles through the city, and not once did I see a decent food supply, just a few convenience stores.  I also saw apartments that made mine look downright spacious.

That's a bed on the right, and there's a sink on the left.  No fridge.  The bathroom is behind the bed.
This is the entire apartment.  On the plus side, they get a better breeze than I do.

I eventually made it away from civilization to the lovely walking trail that goes along the river and up to some hiking trails.  I didn't have a map so I winged it, and ended up on a lovely trail with some nice wildlife and excellent vistas.

Look at this bird, it's so yellow!

A quick google search reveals the species: Oriolus chinensis, also known as the Black-naped oriole.

Cute little thing, isn't he?

And in case you thought there wouldn't be any spiders in this post:

This is Argiope bruennichi, also known as the Wasp Spider.

This gorgeous spider is EVERYWHERE.  Seriously, you can't walk five feet without seeing one.  Not that I'm complaining!

Appears to be Nephila clavata, also known as the Joro spider or Jorogumo.  So pretty!

The hiking is lovely, but I don't know how extensive the trails are here.  Fortunately it's pretty easy to get to other towns, and some of my fellow foreign teachers enjoy hiking too.  I'm not terribly interested in the urban metropolis of Seoul, but I plan to visit many smaller towns and historical treasures in the rest of the country.  South Korea is roughly the size of Michigan's lower peninsula, so there's no excuse for me not going everywhere.

Yep, same scale.  South Korea is very small.
Also, I'm roughly 30 miles from the Demilitarized Zone.  Bit closer than I previously thought.

I'm looking forward to my year here and I'm excited to start a new adventure!

Cheers,
Ashton