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Cherry blossom fail, Lake Hotel for the win

April 15th, 2010

Some experiences are more difficult to explain/describe than others. This seems especially true the further away (in time and space) I get from home and thus common ground with those for whom I am writing. This was one of those experiences. But perhaps those reading will understand more than I realise. Here is the story of Cheongpung.

Jecheon is a town in the middle of nowhere. My guidebook doesn’t even mention it, although it appears on the map so that you can see that it’s in the far right corner of Chungcheongbuk-do (ChungCheong province, north), which puts it somewhere near the middle of the country. It’s so far off the beaten track that only the very slow ‘commuter’ (Mughangwa) train goes there. The train does actually stop there, which is an improvement on some of the smaller farming settlements nearby.

Cheongpung is 30 minutes outside Jecheon. To get there, you take the Saemaul or KTX train to Daejeon (1-2 hours) and then change to the slow train to Jecheon. A couple of hours later, you walk out of the station onto a dusty street-side area, complete with deserted roads and faded buildings. It is technically a city (140 000 people), but in Korean terms – where people cluster in huge numbers (like termites) – it’s virtually a small town. There are no signs in English and no flashy new information offices. You know you’ve left the beaten track. To get to Cheongpung, you take a bus or a taxi. The buses are cheaper but there is absolutely no English so you may end up rather a long way in the wrong direction.

Of course, the taxi drivers don’t speak much English, either, so you’re likely to find yourself sitting in the taxi with a nagging premonition of being lost, anyway. If you’ve gone to Jecheon/Cheongpung for the spring flowers, you’ll also be watching in anticipation, hoping all the time that they’ll appear soon. If you’d followed the information on various usually reliable internet resources this year, and gone last weekend, as we did, you’d be disappointed.

There were no cherry blossoms. As our taxi drove on and on, we watched, in dismay, the bare branches of the hillside trees. All that travelling, all that waiting, to see flowers that weren’t there. And it didn’t even begin there. My morning had started with sneezing, my cold feeling nastier than ever, rushing to the station and discovering that all the tickets for the next three trains were sold out, leaving me twiddling my thumbs at Dongdaegu station while my travel companion cooled her heels in Daejeon. There are only four trains from Daejeon to Jecheon each day. The train I finally found  to Daejeon (buying first class because it was the only option) was due to arrive 15 minutes before the train to Jecheon left. Cutting it fine but the only option. The train was 5 minutes late. Luckily my travel companion had bought tickets. I ran from one platform (up one set of stairs and down another) to the other and only just made it. And then the uninspiring Jecheon station. And then the taxi driver and the fear of being lost. And then no cherry blossoms.

The weekend could have been a total disappointment. It almost should have been a total disappointment. Instead, it turned out to be a lovely couple of days in a place I would quite happily have stayed.

The taxi trip took about 30 minutes, giving us ample time to enjoy the spectacular views of the lake from the winding roads (in between worrying about being lost). We were headed for Cheongpung Resort, the only hotel we’d been able to find on-line that was definitely in this area – as opposed to being in Jecheon itself. It was more expensive than most accommodation but we wanted to be sure we’d see the cherry blossoms. This turned out not to be an issue, of course, but the choice was a good one nonetheless. It turned out the driver knew exactly where we were going. As we got near to the hotel, he asked if we were booked at the ‘hills’ or the ‘lake’ hotel. We said ‘lake’, figuring we could go to the other one if we needed to. He drove up to a huge hotel overlooking the blue-green water and dropped us off. In the 9 months I’ve been in Korea, I’ve seen plenty of love-motels, a few backpackers, a ‘youth hostel’ on a ski resort and some ‘tourist hotels’ (which tend to be expensive and particularly ugly). I haven’t seen a ‘normal’-looking hotel for a while. We walked in through the main door and went to a professional-looking reception desk. They confirmed our reservation, polite and friendly (if not all that fluent in English) and handed us our key to our room on the 8th floor.

Every room in the hotel faces the lake. From our 8th floor balcony, we looked out across the beautiful expanse of water towards perfect mountain peaks. All around, the lake stretched away to mountains in the distance, finger-spreading into valleys. To the left, on the same side of the lake as us, we could see a huge crane-like structure which turned out to be a bungee platform. To the right, small jetties stretched into the water. On that afternoon, mist and low cloud rested on the mountains, giving the whole place a mysterious, storybook quality. A fountain came to life spraying high into the air. It is one of the highest fountains in the Asia, reaching 162m.

Our room was great. A real, proper hotel room. With a bath. I don’t think people who have never lived in Korea (and possibly other Eastern countries) truly understand how glorious baths are. On Sunday morning I had a bath which was, absolutely seriously, the first bath I’ve taken since I arrived in Korea. It was wonderfully luxurious. So, so good.

For now, though, we went down to the hotel restaurant. In the midst of late trains and worrying about getting to the hotel, we hadn’t had lunch yet. We sat at a table against the huge windows looking out at the lake, and drank beer and ate steak and duck and revelled in the view and felt like real grown-ups.

After lunch we went walking. We spent the rest of the afternoon and early evening wandering along the roads and paths around our hotel area, taking in everything, returning each time we turned a corner, to the stunning views of the lake. We saw so many things. At one point we tried to stop at a wonderfully quirky and cute wooden restaurant/bar but they didn’t want to serve us outside, so we moved on. We stopped on a gravel road looking across a dusty field in winter colours and with rusting soccer posts towards our hotel. The other hotel (’hills’ not ‘lake’) stood white against dark, craggy mountains soaring towards the sky. We walked along a wooden board-walk down and up the side of a mountain, climbing steps and strolling along wooden walks, all the time watching the different-coloured lights on either side of the path. We stopped to look a huge climbing wall and the night-time lit up, multi-coloured bungee platform. We watched colour-changing lights reflecting off pine trees. Back at our hotel, we watched the evening go by with a cold beer and good conversation. From what looked like a tiny performance stage near the bottom of the bungee platform, out a little into the lake, drifted Korean music throughout the evening, music that was aptly dubbed by my travel-mate, Anna, the Korean Neil Diamond. It wasn’t unpleasant and it added a uniquely Korean feel to the evening. Anna thought the place looked a little like Guilin (in China) “but the Korean Neil Diamond version”.

By the time we decided we were hungry (after our late lunch), the restaurants had closed, so we got a take-away pizza from the bar and ate it upstairs, more than happy to combine reasonably good pizza with an awesome night view. The pizza was ‘combination pizza’, which, it turned out, meant whatever was left over, ranging from ham and plenty of cheese to shrimps that kept surprising us. By midnight we were crawling into hotel beds complete with crisp, white sheets and down duvets.

Sunday morning breakfast was a hotel breakfast buffet. Between 2003 and 2008, I spent an awful lot of time in hotels. The hotel buffet breakfast is something that is familiar and a little bit comforting (as odd as that may seem). This buffet didn’t disappoint. It had all the usual standard options: cereal and milk, muffins, croissants, pastries (all of which were miniature), watermelon and fruit salad and hot breakfast. Of course there were differences. Most breakfast buffets I’ve experienced don’t include rice, kimchi, bulgogi, seaweed and rice porridge. Anna decided to try them out. I stuck with the traditional. I even had bacon, sausage and chips. All finished off with coffee and tea. It wasn’t a cheap breakfast but it was so good that it was worth it. In fact, that was pretty much true of the whole weekend.

After breakfast we went to the reception desk and asked when the ferry rides started and where we should go. Here we ran into a problem (exacerbated by the lack of a common language between the desk staff and ourselves). It turned out the ferry departure point as not within walking distance. “Well, can we call a taxi?” we asked. Apparently not. Since we’d arrived, the idea of a ferry on the lake had wormed its way into our plans. I had my heart completely set on it. But what could we do. Just as we were deciding whether we should set off walking anyway, even if it took us hours and hours, the hotel staff graciously offered to drive us there. Thrilled, we threw our stuff into bags, checked out, and rushed out to the hotel mini-bus.

We were early for the next ferry departure. We bought our tickets and wandered around looking at the curios until the overwhelming smell of bondeagi drove us outside to enjoy the water and the view of the bridge. The weather was overcast but the clouds were high and there was plenty of light.

The ferry arrived and everyone rushed inside to get a seat. We were very happy (if bemused) to let them rush indoors and found ourselves a spot near the back from where we could watch the stunning scenery with the wind in our faces and the splash of the water below us. Boats are another wonderful way to see the world. The scenery we passed was stunning. Above the water-line, all around the lake, there are layers of exposed rock in various colours, starkly clear and exposed between the start of the trees and the water. In some places, similar rock was visible in huge, strange formations higher up the hills. Sometimes the rocky cliffs reach the water. The waves from our boat splashed against the rock.

We travelled between high mountains and hills and passed small villages and roads twisting along hillsides. We passed under bridges and commented on traditional buildings. At the end of the ferry trip, we walked up to the top of the hill and looked out across the blue-green lake at the hillsides and mountains. We were at the start of some of the trails in Woraksan National Park but there was no time for hiking. Before we knew it, it was time to get back to the ferry and return to our starting point. The ride back was even prettier than the trip there because the sun came out and sparkled on the water. We stood at the back of the boat, enjoying the water and sunshine. It seemed an appropriate moment to open a beer. An older man sidled up to us and offered us some rather disgusting chips. We accepted them. In Korea the act of ‘offering’ can sometimes be rather forceful. Just then, after looking around to make sure no-one else was watching, he surreptitiously opened his coat to show us a bottle of soju tucked in his pocket. We declined as politely as we could in our limited Korean. In a last ditch attempt to persuade us, he whipped out a cucumber and offered it to us triumphantly. He eventually found someone else to share his drink and they sat tossing back soju shots from paper cups as the boat sped on.

The hotel staff really went above and beyond for us and when they dropped us off had given us a number to call so that they could fetch us. They even refused payment and then organised for us to go back to town with the hotel’s shuttle bus. Our experience of the hotel was definitely one of the most positive I’ve had at any place in Korea and I’d recommend Cheongpung Resort (Lake Hotel) to anyone. Plus the setting is just exquisite: blue water, sweeping hills, pretty fountains and the ferry. The kind of place you may only see once but you know that looking back you’ll always – even just a little – wish you could return.

Some experiences are more difficult to explain/describe than others. This seems especially true the further away (in time and space) I get from home and thus common ground with those for whom I am writing. This was one of those experiences. But perhaps those reading will understand more than I realise. Here is the story of Cheongpung.

Jecheon is a town in the middle of nowhere. My guidebook doesn’t even mention it, although it appears on the map so that you can see that it’s in the far right corner of Chungcheongbuk-do (ChungCheong province, north), which puts it somewhere near the middle of the country. It’s so far off the beaten track that only the very slow ‘commuter’ (Mughangwa) train goes there. The train does actually stop there, which is an improvement on some of the smaller farming settlements nearby.

Cheongpung is 30 minutes outside Jecheon. To get there, you take the Saemaul or KTX train to Daejeon (1-2 hours) and then change to the slow train to Jecheon. A couple of hours later, you walk out of the station onto a dusty street-side area, complete with deserted roads and faded buildings. It is technically a city (140 000 people), but in Korean terms – where people cluster in huge numbers (like termites) – it’s virtually a small town. There are no signs in English and no flashy new information offices. You know you’ve left the beaten track. To get to Cheongpung, you take a bus or a taxi. The buses are cheaper but there is absolutely no English so you may end up rather a long way in the wrong direction.

Of course, the taxi drivers don’t speak much English, either, so you’re likely to find yourself sitting in the taxi with a nagging premonition of being lost, anyway. If you’ve gone to Jecheon/Cheongpung for the spring flowers, you’ll also be watching in anticipation, hoping all the time that they’ll appear soon. If you’d followed the information on various usually reliable internet resources this year, and gone last weekend, as we did, you’d be disappointed.

There were no cherry blossoms. As our taxi drove on and on, we watched, in dismay, the bare branches of the hillside trees. All that travelling, all that waiting, to see flowers that weren’t there. And it didn’t even begin there. My morning had started with sneezing, my cold feeling nastier than ever, rushing to the station and discovering that all the tickets for the next three trains were sold out, leaving me twiddling my thumbs at Dongdaegu station while my travel companion cooled her heels in Daejeon. There are only four trains from Daejeon to Jecheon each day. The train I finally found to Daejeon (buying first class because it was the only option) was due to arrive 15 minutes before the train to Jecheon left. Cutting it fine but the only option. The train was 5 minutes late. Luckily my travel companion had bought tickets. I ran from one platform (up one set of stairs and down another) to the other and only just made it. And then the uninspiring Jecheon station. And then the taxi driver and the fear of being lost. And then no cherry blossoms.

The weekend could have been a total disappointment. It almost should have been a total disappointment. Instead, it turned out to be a lovely couple of days in a place I would quite happily have stayed.

The taxi trip took about 30 minutes, giving us ample time to enjoy the spectacular views of the lake from the winding roads (in between worrying about being lost). We were headed for Cheongpung Resort, the only hotel we’d been able to find on-line that was definitely in this area – as opposed to being in Jecheon itself. It was more expensive than most accommodation but we wanted to be sure we’d see the cherry blossoms. This turned out not to be an issue, of course, but the choice was a good one nonetheless. It turned out the driver knew exactly where we were going. As we got near to the hotel, he asked if we were booked at the ‘hills’ or the ‘lake’ hotel. We said ‘lake’, figuring we could go to the other one if we needed to. He drove up to a huge hotel overlooking the blue-green water and dropped us off. In the 9 months I’ve been in Korea, I’ve seen plenty of love-motels, a few backpackers, a ‘youth hostel’ on a ski resort and some ‘tourist hotels’ (which tend to be expensive and particularly ugly). I haven’t seen a ‘normal’-looking hotel for a while. We walked in through the main door and went to a professional-looking reception desk. They confirmed our reservation, polite and friendly (if not all that fluent in English) and handed us our key to our room on the 8th floor.

Every room in the hotel faces the lake. From our 8th floor balcony, we looked out across the beautiful expanse of water towards perfect mountain peaks. All around, the lake stretched away to mountains in the distance, finger-spreading into valleys. To the left, on the same side of the lake as us, we could see a huge crane-like structure which turned out to be a bungee platform. To the right, small jetties stretched into the water. On that afternoon, mist and low cloud rested on the mountains, giving the whole place a mysterious, storybook quality. A fountain came to life spraying high into the air. It is one of the highest fountains in the Asia, reaching 162m.

Our room was great. A real, proper hotel room. With a bath. I don’t think people who have never lived in Korea (and possibly other Eastern countries) truly understand how glorious baths are. On Sunday morning I had a bath which was, absolutely seriously, the first bath I’ve taken since I arrived in Korea. It was wonderfully luxurious. So, so good.

For now, though, we went down to the hotel restaurant. In the midst of late trains and worrying about getting to the hotel, we hadn’t had lunch yet. We sat at a table against the huge windows looking out at the lake, and drank beer and ate steak and duck and revelled in the view and the sense of being real grown-ups.

After lunch we went walking. We spent the rest of the afternoon and early evening wandering along the roads and paths around our hotel area, taking in everything, returning each time we turned a corner, to the stunning views of the lake. We saw so many things. At one point we tried to stop at a wonderfully quirky and cute wooden restaurant/bar but they didn’t want to serve us outside, so we moved on. We stopped on a gravel road looking across a dusty field in winter colours and with rusting soccer posts towards our hotel. The other hotel (’hills’ not ‘lake’) stood white against dark, craggy mountains soaring towards the sky. We walked along a wooden board-walk down and up the side of a mountain, climbing steps and strolling along wooden walks, all the time watching the different-coloured lights on either side of the path. We stopped to look a huge climbing wall and the night-time lit up, multi-coloured bungee platform. We watched colour-changing lights reflecting off pine trees. Back at our hotel, we watched the evening go by with a cold beer and good conversation. From what looked like a tiny performance stage near the bottom of the bungee platform, out a little into the lake, drifted Korean music throughout the evening, music that was aptly dubbed by my travel-mate, Anna, the Korean Neil Diamond. It wasn’t unpleasant and it added a uniquely Korean feel to the evening. Anna thought the place looked a little like Guilin (in China) “but the Korean Neil Diamond version”.

By the time we decided we were hungry, the restaurants had closed, so we got a take-away pizza from the bar and ate it upstairs, more than happy to combine reasonably good pizza with an awesome night view. The pizza was ‘combination pizza’, which, it turned out, meant whatever was left over, ranging from ham and plenty of cheese to shrimps that kept surprising us. By midnight we were crawling into hotel beds complete with crisp, white sheets and down duvets.

Sunday morning breakfast was a hotel breakfast buffet. Between 2003 and 2008, I spent an awful lot of time in hotels. The hotel buffet breakfast is something that is familiar and a little bit comforting (as odd as that may seem). This buffet didn’t disappoint. It had all the usual standard options: cereal and milk, muffins, croissants, pastries (all of which were miniature), watermelon and fruit salad and hot breakfast. Of course there were differences. Most breakfast buffets I’ve experienced don’t include rice, kimchi, bulgogi, seaweed and rice porridge. Anna decided to try them out. I stuck with the traditional. I even had bacon, sausage and chips. All finished off with coffee and tea. It wasn’t a cheap breakfast but it was so good that it was worth it. In fact, that was pretty much true of the whole weekend.

After breakfast we went to the reception desk and asked when the ferry rides started and where we should go. Here we ran into a problem (exacerbated by the lack of a common language between the desk staff and ourselves). It turned out the ferry departure point as not within walking distance. “Well, can we call a taxi?” we asked. Apparently not. Since we’d arrived, the idea of a ferry on the lake had wormed its way into our plans. I had my heart completely set on it. But what could we do. Just as we were deciding whether we should set off walking anyway, even if it took us hours and hours, the hotel staff graciously offered to drive us there. Thrilled, we threw our stuff into bags, checked out, and rushed out to the hotel mini-bus.

We were early for the next ferry departure. We bought our tickets and wandered around looking at the curios until the overwhelming smell of bondeagi drove us outside to enjoy the water and the view of the bridge. The weather was overcast but the clouds were high and there was plenty of light. The ferry arrived and everyone rushed inside to get a seat. We were very happy (if bemused) to let them rush indoors and found ourselves a spot near the back from where we could watch the stunning scenery with the wind in our faces and the splash of the water below us. Boats are a wonderful way to see the world. The scenery we passed was stunning. Above the water-line, all around the lake, there are layers of exposed rock in various colours, starkly clear and exposed between the start of the trees and the water. In some places, similar rock was visible in huge, strange formations higher up the hills. Sometimes the rocky cliffs reach the water. The waves from our boat splashed against the rock.

We travelled between high mountains and hills and passed small villages and roads twisting along hillsides. We passed under bridges and commented on traditional buildings. At the end of the ferry trip, we walked up to the top of the hill and looked out across the blue-green lake at the hillsides and mountains. We were at the start of some of the trails in the Woraksan National Park but there was no time for hiking. Before we knew it, it was time to get back to the ferry and return to our starting point. The ride back was even prettier than the trip there because the sun came out and sparkled on the water. We stood at the back of the boat, enjoying the water and sunshine. It seemed an appropriate moment to open a beer. An older man sidled up to us and offered us some rather disgusting chips and then surreptitiously opened his coat to show us a bottle of soju tucked in his pocket. We declined as politely as we could with limited Korean. In a last ditch attempt to persuade us, he whipped out a cucumber and offered it to us triumphantly. We declined again and tried not to burst out laughing at the sheer oddness of the situation. He eventually found someone else to share his drink and they sat tossing back soju shots from paper cups as the boat sped on.

The hotel staff really went above and beyond for us and when they dropped us off had given us a number to call so that they could fetch us. They even refused payment and then organised for us to go back to town with the hotel’s shuttle bus. Our experience of the hotel was definitely one of the most positive I’ve had at any place in Korea and I’d recommend Cheongpung Resort (Lake Hotel) to anyone. Plus the setting is just exquisite: blue water, sweeping hills, pretty fountains and the ferry. The kind of place you may only see once but you know that looking back you’ll always – even just a little – wish you could return. .

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Posted in Adventures, travelling in Korea

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Return to Seoul: traditional village

March 24th, 2010

After an evening in Itaewon, we woke up slowly on Sunday morning; slow but insensibly cheered by the appearance of the sun. I used to find it strange that people from places like the UK talked so very much about the weather. These days I do it myself. I still think it I a bit odd, but the weather, and particularly the lack of sun, is such a big part of life here in Korea (especially in Daegu). It also mean that a little sunshine is enough to make any day better, even if it’s still fairly chilly.

We set off to do some more exploring. We caught the bus to the city centre area, getting off at the Sejeong Performing Arts Centre. This central area of Seoul is more open than most of the built-up areas because there are open, ’square’-style areas. There are also magnificent (and sometimes bizarre) statues to the leading figures of the country, alongside luxury hotels and financial centre buildings. It really does feel like a modern city centre capable of competing with any other city centre in the world. From here, we caught a cab to Namsangol Traditional Korean Village.

The concept of a traditional or folk village bothers some people because they feel like it’s all fake and just created to get money out of tourists. Apart from the fact that most of the folk villages in Korea are free and set up to educate Koreans as well as foreigners, I quite like the attempt to represent the everyday lives of people who lived in a very different time. I suppose the attempt to represent social history accurately appeals to me. It’s probably also particularly important in a country that has modernised so quickly it would be very easy for the old ways to be lost forever within a generation or two.

Namsangol Traditional Village is not in fact a recreation of a village that existed or a ‘typical’, hypothetical village that could have existed. Instead, five residences (including houses and outhouses and sometimes servants quarters) were all relocated and restored here so that different social strata are represented and also that the homes represented are those of real historical figures. It is a different approach. I haven’t seen enough of the other approach to be able to compare. For now, it was just great to be able to get a closer look at life during the Joseon period through the lens of these five households.

The first house was that of Sunjeong Hyo Empress Yun’s parents. This is the home where the future Empress lived until she was 13, when she was designated the wife of the crown prince. It’s always a jolt to be reminded of how young marriages happened in the past, and even in the not so distant past : this was in 1906. The house was beautiful. Each room was set up with beautiful old furniture, brightly coloured bedding and polished metal. I particularly loved the wood – the doors, the cupboards, the tables. I’ve always loved old wood but wood is particularly important in Korean homes because it is reasonably plentiful on the peninsula.

The second house was a residence built for the 27th king of Joseon by his father in law so that he could use it when he came to pay respects to his ancestors (as is part of the Korean tradition). The father in law built it when his daughter was designated a second wife of this king. Around the back of the house, as well as what looked like an outdoor oven, what looked like a Teepee made of straw. When we looked closer, there were three of the traditional brown, shiny storage pots (what I tend to refer to as kimchi pots) buried up to their necks inside the hut. Of course, there were no information boards to explain why. We’ll have to keep wondering.

The other three houses were those of the husband of a princess, a military commander and a regents chief carpenter. In each, we saw bedrooms with beautiful wooden dressers with bedrolls stacked on top of them, clothing hanging on bars from the walls and stunning old lamps. The floors of Korean houses are raised so that there is space for the heating fires under the floors. These kitchens, however were deeper, to provide access to the fires of what looked a lot like aga-style stoves (except less fancy). Large black pots and kettles in unfamiliar shapes sat on stove plates. Garlic and dried plants hung on the walls. Piles of wood waited to add to the heat. Unexpectedly (at least for me), what looked like half-calabashes hung on the walls. In a bedroom, we saw rolled up straw mats next to a high table with ‘ancestor chair’ and the small tables used by those sitting on the floor on cushions all hung on the wall for storage. Definitely an original way to store tables you don’t know what to do with.

In several of the houses, there was a real person dressed in traditional clothing working on some aspect of traditional art and willing, for a small fee, to show everyone else their traditional writing, traditional music and traditional clothing. We didn’t stop to try any of these out but we did enjoy the addition of live models to the quiet old houses. In the central area, we walked past families playing traditional games, several of which I’d seen at the Daegu museum and several of which also reminded me forcibly of some of the traditional games back home. There was even a game where children run along with a bent piece of wire (which is a specially made tool) and a metal ring, trying to keep the ring going. Watching them, I couldn’t help but picture African children in tatty clothes with a stick and an old tyre running along dusty roads. I suppose some things really are universal.

We wandered the park area for a while and also saw the Seoul time capsule. The time capsule, containing 600 items representing current life in Seoul, was buried in 1994 to mark the 600th anniversary of Seoul as the capital of Korea. It is rather ambitiously designed to be opened in 400 years time on the 1000th anniversary of the same. Unfortunately, it’s not particularly impressive to look at and the idea that Seoul will still be Seoul and still be capital in another 400 years seems a little optimistic to me, but perhaps that has to do with my South African view of how long things last. The rest of the part was prettier and we particularly enjoyed the combination of pine trees and water features. We also found a little gazebo-type place made of wood that reminded me so, so strongly of church pews in far-flung farm churches in the Eastern Cape in South Africa. I stopped to take some pictures and run my fingers along the smooth wood surface. Strange associations from two Eastern Cape girls 10 000 miles from home.

By this stage, we were a little cold and definitely hunger so we found a Chinese restaurant – my friend  has a very useful knack for finding Chinese restaurants. After a late lunch of shrimp-fried rice, fried meat dumplings and the most delicious pork and vegetable spring rolls, my second trip to Seoul was almost over and after we chatted for a bit more before I headed off to the station.

The final little bit of my trip took an unexpected turn. The economy tickets for the next KTX to Daegu were sold out. I debated waiting for a later train but I was fairly tired and not in the mood for sitting around so I took a chance and checked the price of a first class ticket. It was definitely more expensive but not completely unreasonable and I figured I could chalk it up to experiencing something new, so I bought one. The KTX train is a fairly luxurious train experience. It feels a lot – from the design of the stations to the seats – like a modern plane, except with more leg-room. There are even ‘cabin attendants’ who could very easily work on planes. Given this, I should probably not have been surprised that the first class is very much like a the first class on a plane. The seats are huge, with ridiculous amounts of space to stretch out and relax. There are only three seats in each row – one on the left and two on the right. Next to me was a huge window with blinds and curtains to block out whatever I didn’t wish to see. Of course, it was evening so there wasn’t much to see anyway, especially with the lights within the train reflecting on the windows. The amount of space was excessive and I wouldn’t have paid the extra if it hadn’t been for getting home earlier, but it was nice to enjoy a little luxury for a bit.

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Posted in Adventures, trains and train stations, travelling in Korea

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Return to Gyeongju: museum without walls (part 1)

February 4th, 2010

A few months ago, I spent a delightful day in Gyeongju with some friends. Most of the time was spent riding bikes (with accompanying reversion to happy, childhood days) and it was most fun. Towards the end of the day, we shivered our way around a few of the historical sites for which the town is famous before rushing home in an attempt to get warm. After my (mostly) failed trip to the Daegu museum last weekend, what better way to satisfy my still lingering craving for museum time than to go back to Gyeongju and spend a day in a place which markets itself as a ‘museum without walls?

Gyeongju was the capital of the Silla Kingdom for almost a thousand years. This included the ‘three kingdoms period’ and the early part of the era of a unified Korea, the Unified Silla period. After political control passed to the Goryeo dynasty, the capital was moved elsewhere and this area fell out of favour with kings and rulers for many centuries. It was largely restored in the 1970s and 1980s and also protected from the rapid development which was overtaking the rest of the country at the time. As a result, it remains a smaller city but one which more truly resembles and celebrates a Korea of earlier times, rather than just any other rapidly developed Asian city.

Last time we went to Gyeongju, we didn’t leave Daegu until after 11am, which meant that the day was quite short before the sun set and the freezing began. This time I was doubly pressured because I had a function in the evening, so I decided to take the early train (9:43am). The downside of this is that it required me to get up early. Because I only start work late and don’t finish until late in the evening, my days generally do not start before 10am, so getting up at 7am (to have time to get ready and get all the way to the train station in time to buy a ticket, etc.) was a struggle. I almost gave up and went back to sleep. Luckily, ‘museum-fascination’ proved too strong and I dragged myself out of bed and I got to the station in time. In fact, I got there with 25 minutes to spare, so I wandered around and bought a hot dog for breakfast. Several people are probably judging me right now for choosing a Western food over a Korean one for breakfast. Sorry, but, while I may be able to handle kimchi and rice at most times, they’re too much for me first thing in the morning.

It was a chilly and partly cloudy day in Gyeongju when I arrived, an hour or so later. Cloudy not in a solidly overcast way. Instead, there were streaky, high clouds bringing with them the icy winds. There were a collection of overly-friendly taxi drivers at the station exit but, armed with my map, guide-book and a determination that this time I would not get lost, I set off on foot. As I walked along, I was struck again by what an incredible difference it makes not to have sky-scrapers everywhere. Part of the effort to restore and preserve this city in the 70s and 80s involved height restrictions on buildings near historically important places (i.e. most of Gyeongju), so most buildings are one or at most two storeys high. They also almost all have traditional Korean roofs, which are attractive, although the roofs on bus stops and electricity boxes are a little quirky.

I walked all the way past Anapji pond to get to the museum, having decided to start the day’s exploring at a distance from the station and then work my way back. It took me about 10 to 15 minutes of gentle walking to reach my first destination: Gyeongju National Museum.

The museum is one of the main attractions in Gyeongju as is apparently one of the best in Korea. And museums make me happy. The collection of this museum spans almost two millennia but is richest with regard to the Silla period due to two great sources of artefacts: the tombs of royals and noblemen which dot the whole of the area, the most prominent of which are gathered in the Tumili park and Anapji pond. This pond, or man-made lake, was completed in the year 674 and is valuable not only because it is pretty and is an important palace site but, and perhaps more importantly from a knowledge perspective, because when the lake was dredged in the 1970s, thousands of artefacts, ranging from metalwork and statues to a whole boat, were discovered.

Entrance to the museum is free. Having now seen the size and scope of their collection and having some sense of the work that must go into researching and preserving it, I am very impressed that they can manage to run as a free facility. Wherever they get their funding from, it must be somewhere or someone significantly large and significantly committed to history.

The first thing I stopped to look at after picking up my free ticket and heading inside the grounds  was the Divine Bell of King Seongdeok, part of the outdoor exhibition. This 18ton bronze bell was cast in 771AD, stands 3.75m high and is the largest Korean bell ever to be preserved. It was made in honour or memory of King Seongdeok (702 – 737AD). It also carries a stranger tale. It is said that when the bell was first cast, it would not ring. This huge bell, cast in honour of a great king, would not make a sound no matter what anyone tried. Eventually the bell had to be melted down again and  recast. But this time, so the legend says, a young child was sacrificed to give a sound to the bell and the bell rang out for the first time. It is said that the echo of her cries can still be hear when the bell is rung. Because of this it is also known as the ‘Emile’ bell, ‘em-ee-leh’ resembling the traditional word for mother. When I heard it rung later in the day, it did have an eerie echo, which, for the more factually minded, may have something to do with the sound-tube at the top of the bell – apparently a unique feature of Korean bells. Pure historians who object to the mingling of myth and fact may want to stop reading now, as this is a crucial part of a social history approach and one of my slight dissatisfactions with this museum in general, but more on that later.

After wandering around the outdoor exhibition a little more, I headed inside. Before entering, however, I stopped to look at a replica wall of rock art outside the main hall of the museum. While my own country does not have as many castles and ancient tombs as some others, rock art is something with which I am fairly familiar. I was fascinated by this particular piece however. I have never before seen whales in rock art. It was bizarre. Most of the figures were fairly standard but there were distinct drawings of actual whales. A reminder, I suppose, of just how dependent the people of this area have been on the sea ever since they settled here.

As I walked inside, still chuckling at the unexpectedness of the whale rock art, one of the most annoying things possible happened: I was approached by a nice-enough-seeming Korean man who spoke English and eagerly offered to help me. When I politely refused his help, he admitted that he was a Jehovah’s Witness and tried to hand me a ‘watchtower’ pamphlet. I very firmly, and somewhat less politely, handed back his pamphlet and walked off. People are welcome to believe whatever they want but I object to being accosted by JWs in a museum of all places.

The main building or ‘archaeology hall’ of the museum is divided into four rooms. The first room contains artefacts dating from prehistoric to proto-three-kingdom times. These include pottery and weapons and basic implements for living. It’s not a vast collection but there are some interesting pieces. Given Korea’s recent (last few centuries) reputation as a ‘hermit kingdom’, for example, it was fascinating to see and read about the extensive interaction they had with neighbouring countries and kingdoms in their early history. Grey earthenware pottery, for instance, was first introduced very early on from China.

The second annoyance of the day began at this point. By some unpleasant twist of fate, I had apparently picked a day to visit the museum that coincided with the visits of at least one – but what felt like many – school trips. By school trips here I am not referring to groups of quiet, studious high-school learners. My meandering around the museum was accompanied by lines of small, loud, uninterested children, accompanied by a few adults who themselves seemed remarkably disinterested in what they were seeing. One of the reasons I love museums is that they tend to be quiet, peaceful places where one can think and contemplate and relax. This one was not. Instead, these lines of kids were rushed past each display case, moving too fast for any of them to really understand what they were seeing, while simultaneously forming an impenetrable wall which made it impossible for anyone else to see the displays at all. Added to this noise and chaos were several other Korean family groups who had also brought their small children to see the museum. I do not understand why people feel the need to drag small children around the main exhibits of a museum. This one, like many museums these days, has a whole children’s area full of interactive displays and high-tech learning opportunities. There is no reason for them to be dragged around the static displays they will not understand for at least another 10 years and which serve only to bore them to the point where they start running around and almost knocking over the glass cases of 1000 year old treasures.

Luckily, I am a determined museum-er, so apart from the slight, throbbing headache – the result of loud children and echo-ey rooms on top of limited sleep – I was able to patiently ignore them and, with some pushing and refusing to be moved by the seemingly inexorably lines of kids, see everything I wanted to see.

Two of the museums main rooms are dedicated to the Silla period and contain a range of artefacts mostly discovered in the excavation of various of the tombs in the area. These include jewellery, pottery, gold and silver and bronze cutlery and crockery and ornaments and particularly fascinating bits and pieces of glass and metal-work. Gold crowns, belts, crown ornaments and ‘chestlaces’ (which is apparently a word now) were clearly the fashion at the time, too. According to wikipedia (yes, I know, not the most reliable source in the world) there are only 10 fully gold crowns in the world, 8 of them from Korea and six from the Silla Kingdom. The most spectacular of these is a large crown and belt of gold with decoration of blue glass beads and comma-shaped jades (another definite favourite of the times – they were everywhere). This crown is large and spectacular and is given a whole alcove with special stand, background and lighting to show it off perfectly. It is of course also one of Korea’s National Treasures, although I still haven’t managed to figure out if it’s 191 or 188. It also appears to be fairly similar to/the same as the crown used in a hugely popular 2009 Korean TV series about the Silla Queen Seon-deok, making the crown itself and this museum more generally even more of a tourist hot-spot.

The crowns and crown ornaments (and gold caps and silver caps and gold chestlaces) were  fascinating but I was also interested in some of the other artefacts. One display included about 20 gold rings from the 5th or 6th century – mostly fairly plain rings that have survived beautifully and could so easily be wedding rings today. I loved the bronze three-legged pot which just made me want to imagine a group of Silla people making a potjie and watching rugby on a Saturday afternoon. Some of the pottery was also fascinating. One long-necked pot with little figures of snakes and frogs and people and animals (National Treasure 195, stoneware) from the 5th or 6th century, was particularly impressive. I was also intrigued to discover that the Silla rulers imported Roman glass.

A second room of Silla relics covers the later Silla period. The pottery and burial items begin to be more sophisticated here. There is also a wide array of slightly more complex weaponry and armour and horses seem to become particularly important. The armour even included armour for horses. This is also the period when burials became more sophisticated. Jar tombs were on display here – large clay jars for children’s or bone-burials – along with small funeral items and, a little heartbreakingly, what must have been children’s toys. I finally got to see some bronze and iron mirrors – I’ve always wondered about them – although I still don’t see how they worked as mirrors. There were also several figurines, including one of a man (civil-figure, male was all the explanation given) that looked exactly like a tiny gnome. There were of course also exquisitely made figures of the Chinese zodiac and a wealth of other bits and pieces.

As I was leaving this room, I passed through a small temporary display to celebrated the year of the Tiger. Lunar new year is in about two weeks and the new lunar year will be, according to the Korean calendar, the apparently auspicious ‘Year of the Tiger’. This was a very small display but included a few masks and a sculptures, as well as a beautiful blue and white porcelain jar from the Joseon period (18th century) with tiger and magpie images. There was also another rock art replica, this time including tigers as well as whales.

The final room of the main hall is dedicated to a collector who built up and later donated to the museum a collection of over 600 artefacts from this region. Some of them were stunning, some a bit random and some funny. There were daggers and hilts from long, long ago – in stone and later metal. Full sets of metal cutlery – chopsticks plus spoon. A very obviously duck-shaped pot/jar in grey earthenware from the proto-three kingdoms period. A particularly well-preserved and unique national treasure: a horse-back-riding-warrior-shaped double-cup. Horses were a prominent theme. There were many bits of horse-riding gear, horse-shaped buttons, a wide variety of horse-bells and even some ‘Lacquered stirrups’ – also a treasure (one level below national treasure). There was also a ‘pillow’. Made of steatite and from the Unified Silla period, this block of stone, with some faint carvings and perfectly straight edges had me giggling as I pictured what a good night’s sleep it must have given the people who owned it. There was also a lovely display of jewellery, that would have looked equally appropriate in any modern jewellery store window, and a display and explanation of roof tiles – I think I finally understand how Korean roofs are put together now.

Many of these artefacts  fall within the periods of the other rooms, but are kept separate because they belong to this specific collection and I imagine also because many of them are not accurately dated and do not have exact information about where they were found. Which brings me to my minor issue with the curators of this museum. I recognise completely the value of archaeology and the scientific assessment of artefacts. I feel, however, that sometimes the focus on science in the study of the past can go too far. I loved the collection at this museum. They have a huge number of really stunning pieces, all of which are well-maintained and documented. What was completely lacking for me, was any attempt to present the historical and particularly the social context of these pieces. With a fairly active imagination and a basic knowledge of the past, I was able to reconstruct some of how things might have happened, but without a more detailed understanding of the social structures and the manner of interaction between people and peoples at the time, it’s really hard for a visitor to turn these individual pieces into anything more than ’some pretty art that’s kind of old and a few bits of bent armour’. This makes me sad. I think history is fascinating and I fully believe that a large part of the reason so few people are interested in it is that it is often presented badly. The display cases at the Gyeongju museum are all beautifully constructed and everything is elegantly-lit and appropriately labelled but it could just as easily be an art gallery as a museum.

I had the same problem with the Anapji hall, where I went next, although there was at least some effort here to visually show where the artefacts were found. The difference between the main building of the museum and the Anapji hall is that the majority of the artefacts in the former were excavated from burial sites, and so are probably things associated with the afterlife or treasures of royalty and noblemen, while the Anapji finds were gathered from the bottom of a lake, and so are more likely to be everyday items from the period. The lake or pond was part of a pleasure garden attached to the palace of the crown prince, where foreign dignitaries and important people were entertained, so it’s the everyday life of royalty, but it still represents something closer to the ordinary lives of people (and thus social history) than the burial finds. The period also spans several hundred years as the pond was created around 700AD and used until the mid-to late 900s. The artefacts range from toys and horse-wear to small statues and roof tiles and even some iron scissors which are thought to have been used in some superstitious ritual, although – frustratingly – no further information is given about this. I had a lovely time wandering around and imagining in a hall slightly less full of children than the previous one had been. It also made my later visit to Anapji pond all the richer.

After this, via a short walk around some impressive stone water-troughs and well-stones outside, I walked through the Art Hall. I know very little about Buddhism but was still able to appreciate the detail and effort that went into making some of these exquisitely crafted pieces. The displays were also great and a little more appropriate to the art than they had been to the artefacts in the previous two halls.

The guidebooks and the Korean tourism website suggest that you should allow at least an hour to see the museum. I spent just over two hours there and would probably have stayed longer, had it not been for the children. The collection is definitely worth visiting and, in spite of my issues with manner in which things are presented, it made me very happy to be wandering through history again.

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Jump on a high-speed train

November 3rd, 2009

This weekend, for the first time, I experienced the phenomenon of the high-speed train. In the past 6 or 7 years, I’ve spent plenty of time in South African airports and on planes but other distance public transport systems in SA are not very well-developed and there are certainly no high-speed trains. I’ve caught a train here in Korea once before, when we went to hang-gliding in Changwon but then I was with people who had already figured out the train system. This time I was alone, nervous and determined – I really needed to get out of town and a weekend with an old friend was calling. So, on Saturday morning, I got up early and headed off on a new adventure.

Early is a relative terms when one works hours as odd mine (3pm to 11pm). It was after 8:30am by the time I left home. Daegu was waking up on a crisp, overcast autumn morning. I was quite glad of my coat. The morning was also little misty and as I walked down to the main road to catch a taxi I passed children on their way to school and people starting to move through the hazy misty morning . I caught the first taxi I could find and headed to Dongdaegu station.

At the station, I headed straight for the automatic ticket issuing machine. The train stations in Korea also have the option of buying tickets from actual people at ticket counters but the machines have English and it’s easier to use a machine with English than to battle through the inevitability of miscommunication with a ticket salesperson, particularly when one is impatient to get going. After one or two tries, I managed to work the machine (which isn’t complicated – I just entered the wrong information or pressed the wrong things once or twice) and reached the confirmation screen where they showed the ticket they could offer me. There were no tickets in economy facing in the ‘forward’ direction. I wasn’t exactly sure what that meant but they did have one available facing in the ‘opposite’ direction. I decided to buy it. The ticket cost 38 600 won. I fed in my four 10 000 won notes and got my change and ticket.

I had about 10 minutes to find the track and get on the train. For those who have travelled with me before, the idea of me cutting it this fine will seem improbable. I am one of those people who tends to arrive at the airport at least an hour before the flight ‘just in case’. This time I recklessly took a chance. I’m quite familiar with the subway stations in Korea which all have English signs (along with the Korean and pictures) directing travellers to the platforms (’tracks’ the signs say). The train stations do too. I went through the doors to the area where the platforms are, crossing the sign painted on the floor indicating that I was entering the ‘paid area’ and followed signs that informed me that the 9:05 KTX train to Seoul was leaving from platform 9.

I got to the platform with two minutes to spare, just as the loudspeaker crackled into action and announced that the train I was taking would be 3 minutes late. They really do measure time in minutes here – imagine a world where you know when the train will arrive to the last minute? I studied my ticket. All the writing on the ticket is in Korean. Although I can read some of this now – or at least figure out what the word sounds like – it didn’t help me figure out which carriage and seat I was looking for. I knew from the last time that the tickets usually show the coach and seat numbers, just as airline boarding passes do. I found something that looked like a ticket number (1D) but the only other number I could find was 9, which I assumed was the platform number. In the absence of any other information, I decided that this must actually be the carriage number, too, and the platform number wasn’t shown.

Just then the train arrived. I rushed to carriage 9 and got on. I always feel a little out of my depth when travelling on a new kind of public transport or a new kind of train or plane, especially when everyone around me knows exactly where they’re going and I’m just getting in the way trying to figure it all out. This time I was lucky: my seat was just in front of the door where I entered. I had a window seat tucked in the corner, which was perfect for me. I quickly stowed my backpack, coat and scarf and settled down.

As I watched Daegu station slide away, I was filled with excitement. I love travelling and trains make me particularly happy. My seat was facing in the ‘opposite’ direction, which, it turned out, meant that my seat faced the back of the train. I was a little worried that this might be a bad thing given that I am prone to motion-sickness, but it was fine. The person in the seat next to me was an American – I suspected when I saw him and then he got a phone-call and I heard his accent – but thankfully not someone who felt the need to engage in conversation. So I was able to enjoy the trip in uninterrupted wonder as I watched the scenery pass by and to be peaceful for a bit. I think that is really the joy of travel for me – the quiet moments of uninterrupted peace while watching the world pass by.

I tried to take pictures, too, but it turns out it is really difficult to take good pictures through the window of a train when travelling at 300km/h, especially when facing backwards. The KTX trip to Seoul is remarkably brief. Until the KTX was built, the ‘express’ train used to take four hours. The KTX takes around 1 hour 45 minutes. I suppose that is a little like taking just under 2 hours by train from Johannesburg to Durban. Both flights (Joburg-Durban and Seoul-Daegu) take about an hour but thinking about the waiting time and the need to be there early, it’s pretty much equivalent. I’d say the KTX and flying are equivalent for comfort – the seats could be airline seats, with perhaps a little more legroom (I find the legroom on planes sufficient so don’t notice it much) and there are bathrooms and the like. The KTX also has the option of buying snacks from the snack and drink carts that come rattling down the aisles, just like (at least budget) airlines. The sense of speed and distance is similar, as is the time taken. The view makes me happy on both, although they are slightly different – on a plane, I adore watching the world pass below me but am occasionally frustrated by cloud cover and the that flying so high makes it difficult to see contours and definition; on the train, I loved the close-up views but was sometimes frustrated by tunnels and barriers next to the rails, particularly on bridges. Perhaps the greatest difference between the two is that the KTX is cheaper and there are none of the delays and irritations of the extensive security checks of modern airports. Also, perhaps because of the KTX and because Korea is a small country, flights are few and far between whereas the trains run extremely regularly.

Arriving in Seoul station, I disembarked and joined the crowds walking up just one set of stairs to the arrivals area. Seoul station is spacious and feels a lot like my favourite airports, so I felt immediately at home and went off with a smile to find my friend.

The return trip was just as easy. We got to the station at about 12:55 and found the auto-ticketing machines. I bought a ticket, this time costing 38 000 won and facing forward. My friend was a little shocked to realise that I’d bought a ticket leaving at 13:15 (it was now 13:05). I would normally have been shocked, too. In fact, in the past I’d have been in a panic. But somehow it seemed normal this time.

A quick goodbye and I headed for the platform (ridiculously easy to find) and boarded my train. This time I was seated right in the middle of the carriage. This carriage – perhaps all of them, I didn’t look before – had half the seats facing in one direction and half facing in the other, with the middle two sets of seats facing each other over a little fold-out table. I was in one of these middle seats, which was lovely and spacious. I was in the aisle seat but there was no-one in the seat next to me or the two facing me, so I felt a little as if I had four seats to myself.

On the trip up to Seoul, the day had been quite misty and overcast but Monday was crisp and clear so I could see for ages and ages and had a perfect view of farmlands and towns and wooded hills and mountains, with the usual temple complexes dotted in between. It was another opportunity to confirm that train travel is a lovely way to enjoy the view and get to know a country. I arrived back in Daegu at 15:02 (exactly on time), with just enough time to pop home and drop my luggage before heading off to work. I’ve always been a fan of train travel but I’m now particularly enamoured with the quick, comfortable and plane-like experience of the KTX and am already planning my next quick trip on a high-speed train.

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Learning to fly

October 2nd, 2009

Ever since I was a child, I’ve dreamt of flying. Not in the sense of someone determined to be an astronaut or a pilot but in the childlike sense of imagining how amazing it would be to be able to spread my arms and take to the skies. I vaguely considered sky-diving when I was at Varsity but somehow I never got around to it. Yesterday, I realised a dream.

It was also the first time in my life that I’ve done anything adventure/extreme-sports-ish, so I think quite a bit of the stiffness and exhaustion, now, is related to nerves and tension rather than the actual paragliding itself.

A lot of people plan this sort of adventure for weeks in advance. In this case, it was rather spontaneous. A couple of friends were supposed to be going to the Philippines for Chusoek (a major national holiday – harvest festival – when all Koreans return to their ancestral homes, which is accompanied by a long weekend). Unfortunately, a typhoon hit the Philippines, leaving over 200 people dead and causing major flooding. They cancelled their trip and decided to replace it with activities right here that would be fun and exciting. One of these – for which I joined them – was the paragliding. So instead of weeks to prepare, this all happened in the last 5 days.

We met at Dongdaegu station at 08:30 on Thursday morning. I struggled to get to sleep the night before with last-minute waves of concern that I may have spontaneously agreed to something completely crazy. My mother’s reaction when I told her (completely justifiably) was, “Who are you and what have you done with my daughter?” I was also excited – especially after chatting to one of the people I was going with who had also never done this before. I still woke up in plenty of time, had a shower and some breakfast and headed off. I could have taken the bus but I hadn’t done much planning (to figure out which bus to take) and I wasn’t even sure how often the buses would be running on the Chusoek weekend, so I settled on the more expensive option of a cab.

I arrived early and wandered around the station looking at things and waiting for my fellow travellers. It’s the first time I’ve been to the train station in Daegu and the first time I’ve taken a train (apart from the subway) in Korea. In fact, it’s the first time I’ve left Daegu since I arrived, which made it all doubly exciting. Dongdaegu the station is modern and well-equipped and feels a little like an airport – which probably makes sense given that regular, high-quality train travel is the most effective to get around in Korea because the country is too small to make regular flights viable. We bought three tickets from the automatic ticketing machine (which it turns out functions in English as well as Korean) and, after grabbing something to wake us up, headed to the platform to await our train. None of us was entirely sure whether we were in the right place and on the right platform. To be honest, I’ve very glad I was there with the other two, who have travelled before; I’m sure I would have missed the train otherwise. When it did arrive (on time at 09:06), we rushed to get on (we were almost in the right place) and found our comfortable, padded, spacious seats. We were on the slow train (Mugunghwa) – the slowest and least luxurious of the three main Korean train-types. It was still pretty luxurious and we settled in to watch the scenery and doze for the short 1hour 40 minute ride to Changwon.

Because it’s the first time I’ve left Daegu, I was glued to the window, in spite of my tiredness. We passed towns and small settlements (which would be huge compared to what I know as small towns) and agricultural lands stretching across the valleys to the foot of the mountains in every direction. Sometimes we’d pass a temple complex on a mountainside, with ornately-decorated buildings in traditional style. I wondered how they could be peaceful with the railway line running so close. There were many tunnels, short and long, passing right through the hearts of the mountains. Our ears all got blocked every time we entered a major tunnels as if the pressure had changed as it does when you’re flying or driving and you suddenly change altitude. Most of all though, I was struck by the way that the countryside, at least of the area we were passing through, could be easily characterised by the three picturesque dominant features – mountains, rivers and bridges.

Looking at this world from the window of a train was a joy. I took some pictures but I’d like to go back and stop in the small towns and spend time walking around and exploring the rivers and mountains and bridges. On the front wall of the our railway carriage were some pictures which appeared mostly to be adverts for the KTX (the super-high-speed Korean trains). One of them, for some reason, seemed to show the KTX following the Trans-Siberian Railroad. Sitting on a train, looking at the amazing view and thinking about the Trans-Siberian Railroad was a wonderful reminder of the Trans-Siberian adventure I have planned for sometime in the future.

Today’s adventure, however, was drawing ever nearer. When we reached roughly the time we were supposed to arrive, we gathered our belongings and waited for a station to appear. It soon did and we hopped off and headed across the pedestrian covered bridge to Changwon station and a day good day to fly. We were a bit early so we found a seat to wait the short while until our instructor  arrived. The guy we were going paragliding with is an experienced instructor who, along with many paragliding-specific achievements, has apparently climbed Mount Everest twice. He is also the instructor that other friends of ours went with a few weeks back, so we knew a little of what to expect and had the reassurance of knowing that they’d made it back in one piece. We left the station and he took us to his ‘office’ (a long room full of paragliding equipment and awards) and offered us coffee and tea – which we gratefully accepted. We wondered if we were there to get to know him a little and perhaps watch a safety video (there was a VCR and TV) but it turned out we were waiting for the other instructor, who may or may not have been his brother. I should perhaps mention at this point that what we were doing wasn’t ‘real’ (solo) paragliding. That takes a whole series of lessons, a licence and far more money. What we were there for was a tandem jump with an instructor – who would do all the work while we simply enjoyed the experience.

As soon as we finished our coffee, we (by which I mean they) loaded up the mini-bus and we headed out of town. The site we were heading to for the jump was about 30 minutes out of the town in a rural-ish area. We drove to the bottom in the mini-bus, at which point the instructor got out,  planted a wind-sock in the ground and suggested we leave our bags behind. We were a little reluctant to do so (and not sure we understood), so we took them along and all climbed into the cab of a truck to go up the mountain on one of the most winding, hair-pin-bending, half-tar, half-dirt roads I’ve seen in a while. At some point I really thought the driver was going to go off the edge, but by now the anticipation was really building and we were pretty much exclusively focussed on the fact that we were about to jump off a mountain. Not focussed in the sense of sitting quietly and preparing for the event, partly because we didn’t know what to expect. We chatted all the way up and laughed quite a lot but it was all about the experience that we were about to encounter together. Exploring alone has it’s advantages but you forget the joy of anticipation and excitement mediated and amplified through sharing and conversation. I’m glad I had people to share this rather spectacular experience with.

By the time we reached the top, everyone was pretty psyched to jump/run off a mountain. The instructor informed us that only two people could jump at a time (I assume because they only had two tandem canopies), so I waited while Stephanie and Christina got ready to jump first. Actually, the way it turned out to work is that you run as fast as you can straight down a very steep slope towards the trees below you and at some point before you reach them, if all goes according to plan, you take off. The preparation involves standing there feeling a little useless while the instructor straps on knee-pads and elbow-pads and helmet and then puts on the harness and straps you in firmly – or at least supposedly firmly, one of our number had a particular flight that could have ended a little less pleasantly because the instructor didn’t tighten the straps enough. Once your harness is attached and you’re all padded up, you move into position and the instructor attaches himself to you and the canopy to both harnesses.

Then it’s time to run. Christina went first and, at the signal from the instructor, which almost seemed to take her by surprise, rushed down the mountain and looked like she was going to hit a trees or fall down the hill, when, all of a sudden, she and the instructor miraculously took off and floated through the air. We watched them until they drifted out of sight around the mountain. No time to contemplate as the team hustled Stephanie into position and the other instructor hooked her up. For each take-off, a group of several other men, none of whom were introduced but who all seemed to be paragliders or at least to know an awful lot about it, helped to get everything ready, untangling lines, checking straps and then lifting the canopy into the air as the jumping pair started to run.  Stephanie and her instructor started running down the hill but the canopy must not have inflated evenly (we surmised) because the team stopped them and they went back for a second try. On the second run, they got it right and headed off into the air. I felt a thrill as I watched them fly away.

And then I had nothing to do but wait for them all to return so that I could take my turn at flying. In the meantime, I wandered around taking some pictures and watched a few solo paragliders take to the air, with far less fuss and difficulty than our group had experienced, and head off into the distance. It was amazing to watch them lift off and fly away. Watching the experienced paragliders, I could see how carefully they steered their canopies and used the air currents to choose a direction and to go up and down and it made me just how much control they have and that their flying is not at all random. I also walked around a bit and stood looking down the hill you have to run down in order to take off. In retrospect, this might have been a mistake.

I didn’t have all that long to wait before the jumpers returned. They said their flight had been good but we didn’t have much time to chat before the instructor bundled me off to strap on masses of gear. I handed my camera to the other two and did as I was told as I was strapped into harnesses and padding and canopies. My mind by this stage was in a whirl – I was about to jump off a mountain. I was given simple instructions but I’m not sure how much I really took in: “When I say run you run really fast”, “we’re just waiting for the wind to be right”, “when I say ’sit’ you push down hard on this strap”, “are you ready? No wait!”. My mind was racing and I was trying to breathe deeply. And then we were running down the hill in an unsuccessful attempt to take flight. I think I may actually have mis-stepped as I tried to run-but-not-fall down the very steep mountain slope. We tried again but I still wasn’t running fast enough. I think my brain was reluctant to let me rush down a hillside in what seemed like an inevitable rush into some bushes or possibly down a mountain. On the third try we rushed down and then suddenly someone was pulling me from the front and we were hurtling to the left and into some trees and then suddenly we were above them and my whole body seemed to be a mess of nerves and sensations as I realised I was flying.

The instructor said “sit” and I pushed on the straps and found myself sitting in the air high up above the tall pine forests as we rushed and floated around the mountain. I was taking deep slow breaths and there was a solid knot in my stomach. It’s hard to describe the sensation – I was aware of everything and nothing and it was so much sensation, almost sensory overload. The physical memory is so strong that just describing it I feel like I’m reliving every second. I could see into the distance to what felt like forever, right into the next valley and the next, to the mountains so blue in the distance. At the same time, I fought the thought, looking down, of what would happen if we fell into that forest. At one point we turned a little sharply and I had a momentary passing thought of mortality. We soared around for what felt like ages and just a moment. I was aware of changing scenery below me. We turned back towards the mountain and I could see how far away we were from the take-off point. At some point the instructor held out a camera and took a picture of us in the air. Below me were rows and rows of fruit trees. I felt dizzy as we turned around a few times and vaguely wondered about motion sickness. We turned again and flew out over farmlands. The sensations are like a multi-dimensional sensory recording – like the whole-body sensation version of a movie, the images like frozen stills. The strongest is the picture of a moment when our shadow passed over an old Korean man in a hat tending his vegetable garden far below. We got closer to the ground and I became aware of the power-lines and flowers.

We seemed to be up there for quite a long time. It must have been about 10-15 minutes but it’s hard to sense time when your brain is simultaneously dealing with all senses being magnificently alive,  the views of forever, meta-thoughts about flying, thinking about mortality and trying to avoid thinking about the possibility of dying (which is hard to do at the same time), noticing every moment passing and just relaxing into the experience. After what seemed like forever and not nearly long enough, the instructor simply “we land, you run” and I found we were heading to the open spot where we would finally be landing. It’s strange to think you’re travelling so far and so fast but the wind is quiet enough to talk up there. I had no fear as the ground got closer but I found myself focussing less on the scenery and practising running in the air – perhaps to remind my legs what  that meant. We came down and I think ran one or two steps and then came to a stop sliding and sitting. Somehow in the landing I grazed my knuckles, possibly as we slid and finally stopped. I must have stood up – I don’t remember it – and the instructor untangled the strings of the canopy which had landed in front of us and took a photo of me holding them. He unstrapped me and set about folding it all up and moving us away with efficiency.

I didn’t know whether to scream or to sing or to cry or to sit down and contemplate. Christina and Stephanie were still at the top and there were no other English speakers, so while we waited for other people to land and everyone to organise themselves and pack up their equipment, and while other people arrived and things happened, I stood around and, mostly, looked out at a nearby dam and tried to re-engage my brain and figure out the feelings. I think perhaps the experience left us all a little in shock. I know that the time I spent at the landing area I wasn’t really all there and I didn’t really manage to think anything. At some point I picked up a piece of straw and broke into into equal-sized pieces.

And then I was climbing back into the truck for the trip back up the mountain, surrounded by what seemed like a lot of Koreans chatting loudly and masses of equipment. By this stage bits of my brain were again working sufficiently for me to be a concerned that the truck was overloaded. I was in the cab. It was a double cab. I was very aware of the hair-pin bends and the rather precarious road. I spent most of that nerve-wracking ride back up the mountain wishing for a Nissan Hardbody or a Colt Double-cab or any proper bakkie to replace the somewhat flimsy Korean double-cab-truck substitute. I have no doubt that I wouldn’t have been the least concerned about taking that road in a proper double-cab, even with all the luggage and the people, but Korean vehicles always seem to me a little like tin-cans-on-wheels and this truck was no exception.

We got to the top and I hurried off to find the others but it was somehow not possible to have a real conversation about the experience. I suppose it was all too new. They did say I seemed to have been gone for ages, which was confirmed when the instructor came up and said that I’d been in the air far longer than either of them. There was just enough time left for two people to go again and he suggested, because I’d had a much longer flight, that the other two should have a second go. I could definitely have gone again but I think the longer first flight was part of the reason my experience was so amazing, so I’m not at all unhappy that they got to go again. I wouldn’t have exchanged that for anything.

This time Stephanie took off first time and headed off for her second flying opportunity. Christina had a slightly more bumpy start; while they were running down the hill all around her people were shouting “go, go, go”, but given that they had previously been shouting “no, no, no” when they thought it was a bad attempt, everything was a little confusing. We heard when we all reached the bottom (me in one of the vehicles) that her whole flight was a little terrifying and the landing resulted in the instructor falling on her. But Stephanie’s second flight was better than her first so I suppose perhaps things balanced.

After that, we waited around for what seemed like ages, while the instructors and all the many other paragliding people chatted and packed up and made plans and waited for other people. By this stage all three of us were tired, thirsty and hungry and not really in the mood for waiting. I was glad that I’m so very used to African time and waiting around for people; I think it bothered me less than the other two. We were also aware of the time, though. My jumping-off-the-mountain companions were supposed to get back for a dinner so we needed to get an early enough train and it was by now 15:30, with the town was a good half-hour away.

When we eventually did leave the mountain of paragliding, that still had to wait, but the stop was a good thing that made us all feel better. About 5 minutes away from the place where we’d been, we stopped at a Chinese Restaurant for a late lunch. Of course the language barrier became a problem in ordering and the three of us ended up getting fried rice with vegetables in a garbled attempt at understanding. This started with spicy soup and then a large stack of rice topped with egg and mushrooms. It was fairly yummy, although partly because it was ’seasoned with hunger’. We were sorry, however, after he let us taste some, that we hadn’t ordered the sweet-and-sour chicken one of the other guys had – it was really amazingly delicious.

After lunch we headed back to town, stopping briefly at the office to pay our money and returned to Changwon station. By the time we got tickets, we had just 20 minutes to wait. We were also, by happy coincidence, on the medium speed train (Saemaul), leaving at 17:06, so we would arrive back in Daegu by 18:30. The train was rather full but we found our seats and watched Korea pass by as we sped on to Dongdaegu station, where we caught cabs and headed home.

The two friends I’d gone with went out last night but I was too exhausted, both physically and emotionally, even to consider doing anything. I’m eternally grateful to them, though, for the amazing opportunity. I don’t think I would ever have considered, never mind actually done, something like this on my own. In fact, I don’t think I’d ever have thought that it might be something which was a) possible and b) not prohibitively expensive. Many of the other vague ideas I’ve had about flying have been dismissed because the cost was exorbitant. This was very reasonable at 70 000 won. In fact, the whole trip was relatively inexpensive: 70 000 won for paragliding, 15 000 won for train tickets (6000 won there, 9000 won back) and 5 000 won for lunch. A total of 90 000 won, which converts to less than R 600. There are some things that weren’t perfect. I would have preferred a little more information about safety procedures before we took off, and perhaps to have had a better idea of exactly what to expect. It might also have been easier if the instructors had had a little more English. And the second instructor was definitely not nearly as competent or friendly as the first and flying with him not as good an experience. Other than that, however, the experience was good, none of us was injured in any way, the equipment was obviously well-maintained and, apart from the trip up the mountain in the tin-can truck, I didn’t feel in any way unsafe. Changwon is just an hour or two from Daegu so it’s also relatively close. So, all in all, the cost was minimal, the inconvenience limited and the disadvantages manageable. And the experience of flying, realising a dream, soaring through the air so incredibly alive? Well, quite simply, priceless.

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