I thought this was a pretty clever non-smoking ad. Rock, paper, scissors is HUGE here. It helps make decisions or settles almost any dispute, be it who will pay for ice cream to who gets to go serve (and talk) to the foreigners. It's very popular among my students, but I've seen Koreans of all ages using it.

A friend asked me the other week what these were called in English. All I could think of was "concrete jacks" as that's what I think they resemble. Koreans use these as part of their sea walls, and since Korea is always trying to reclaim land, they're everywhere. They're quite large, as from what I've seen only two can fit on the back of a flatbed truck. They interlock fairly well and look better than a solid concrete slope, so I vote we start to use them in America.

There's a burger place towards the other side of Busan which we go to occasionally. The food is pretty good, but the menu spelling is atrocious. We've counted over 30 mistakes, some of which are quite humorous. But my favorite part of the menu is this section. I guess if you're not vegetarian or a beautiful woman, you can't order these items. Reminds me of a pizza place whose slogan is "For the love of women."

Ok, I guess I should try to get back on track with the picture a day thing (until I leave at least)


Recently, I ate at a beach here on Yeongdo. There are many little tent restaurants which serve fresh seafood caught close by. The food was amazing!

Roadtrip Map

(click for a bigger image)
Legend:
-Dark blue was heading up.
-Red squares were stops
-Red circles were overnight stays
-Light blue was our route home

We pretty much went almost the farthest you can go in Korea (only longer if you started in the Southwest).

Roadtrip-Day 3

We spent the night in Sokcho at a nice hostel with a definite European vibe to it (even though we slept on the floor Korean style). In the morning we headed out to Seoraksan. As was the norm for the trip, visibility was not high due to haze.

Of course, what's a national park without a giant Buddha?

We decided to hike up to Ulsanbawi. The first half was a nice hike through the woods.

Our destination

After some steady climbing we reached the base. Now to go up via what is claimed to be 808 stairs (at least the metal stairs).

Notice how the poles aren't actually in anything...

The group at the top

Looking down the "spine"

Heading down

After lunch we hiked up to a waterfall. It was in a narrow valley with lots of pools.



We headed home on Saturday via the inland highways which were faster. Andy counted 22 tunnels and we passed over numerous tall bridges as well. Quite the feat of engineering in mountainous land.

Roadtrip-Day 2

The second day we headed north up the coast towards Samchok. Our first stop was Jeongdongjin (a few miles south of Gangneug) which is the location of a N. Korean infiltration back in 1996. They have the N. Korean sub on display as well as an old navy ship (US WWII era, given to the Koreans in the 70's and used until the 90's).
There's also a hotel that looks like a cruise ship.

The N. Korean submarine. They had 25 guys in there...it must have been really cramped.

We had to wear hardhats. At first I laughed, but I'm glad because I hit my head several times in the tight confines. I think we were bigger than most N. Koreans.

The navy ship. For size comparison, Andy is standing by one of the rudders.

After that we headed up the coast past Samchok towards the DMZ. We stopped at what used to be Kim Il-Sung's summer house. The only original part left are these steps. The plaque is where Kim Jung-Il sat as a kid in a famous picture.

The reality that we were getting close to the border was evident in the increase of military vehicles and obstacles like the dragon teeth in the river bed.

They also had these concrete blocks which could be blown onto the road to block it.

It definitely wasn't the clearest day, but we could still see N. Korea from the Goseong Unification Observatory. Pretty much past the little peninsula there is the DMZ and the mountains are over the border. You can see where the road just ends too. We were essentially the farthest north a civilian can go in S. Korea. Apparently on a clear day you can see N. Koreans walking around without binoculars.