All posts by Claire

About Claire

Wandering (and wondering) development professional and aspiring aid worker. Contact me on anticipationofwonder[at]gmail[dot]com

Cherry blossom fail, Lake Hotel for the win

Adventures, travelling in Korea, , , , ,

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. .

An energetic Saturday

Daegu,

A plan to go picnicking under the cherry trees on Saturday had to be put off due to a dental emergency but the day still dawned sunny and relatively warm (or at least not freezing) and I wanted to take full advantage.

After a gentle start to the day, I headed off to Mangu Park. Mangu is one of the parks I haven’t seen yet. I’ve tried to find it before and been unsuccessful, as it turns out because I got off the bus too soon. This time, I had checked the bus route map properly and had a better idea of how long I’d need to wait. I took the 814 bus. It was around midday on a Saturday, so there were lots of people on the bus. After a couple of stops, I found a seat and watched the world from the window.

After a while, we reached the park. There are different types of parks in Daegu. Some of them, like National Debt Repayment Movement Park, are small parks set up for people to sit in pleasant surroundings (and listen to piped elevator music). Some are bigger parks with more serious walks and sporting activities like Duryu Park. Mangu Park is not a huge park. In fact, it’s a bit of an odd shape, stretching across a main road. Some of the space that it does have is taken up with trees and lawns sloping down hills and benches where people were peacefully sitting and chatting or reading. The rest is taken up by monuments of various sorts.

The most fascinating is the Daegu South Gate. This is, quite literally, the old South Gate of the city of Daegu or Yeongnamjeilgwan. Daegu was first fortified in 1590 (Joseon Dynasty). As usual in Korea’s history, the Japanese invaded within a few years (1592) and destroyed it all. The walls and gates were eventually rebuilt with stone in 1736 and stayed in place until 1906. In 1980, this gate was rebuilt and moved to Mangu Park, where it looks out across the Geumho River. The information board suggests that this structure is based on the original gate but is larger. I’m not sure how exaggerated the current structure is but it is certainly imposing. The two story wooden structure with typical Joseon roof, colours and designs, sits atop a stone (brick?) fortification. There is a tunnel under the middle of the ‘gate’. I walked into this tunnel and did a double-take when I looked up. On the ceiling, there was a fascinating, and huge, mural of two long, thin dragons twisting between clouds and other designs. Western dragons are a lot more solid than Eastern ones. These ones looked like snakes with dragons heads and spindly arms and legs. At the end of the little tunnel – it wasn’t even really a tunnel, just an opening under the gate – were two huge wooden doors and then a view down a hill to a river valley. I love the huge wooden doors. I think they may be my favourite part of traditional Korean architecture.

Beyond the gate, I wandered along paved paths. Along the edge of a path was a fence covered in golden-yellow forsythia flowers. An Asian spring seems like it should be all about cherry blossoms and they are around but so far the forsythias have been far more prominent, painting the spring with swathes of yellow flowers.

Across the bridge above the multiple lanes of fast, flowing traffic, there were more flowers. A few cherry trees proudly showed their spring glory. There was another plant, the name of which I haven’t quite figured out but whose beautiful, creamy-white flowers are some of my spring favourites. In the flower-beds, the city has recently planted flowering pansies in all sorts of beautiful colours – from yellow and deep red to bright purple and velvety dark blue. I considered walking down along the river, but decided to stay on the top of the hill and take a look at the monuments.

The first was a horse and rider statue dedicated (I think) to General Kwak Jaewoo who was apparently the first militia leader to successfully resist the Japanese during the 1592 invasion (although, I’m not sure how successfully given that they seem to have invaded anyway, but what do I know?). The horse and rider reminded me a little of the statues at Rhodes Memorial in Cape Town. There was also a monument-thingy on the back of a particularly scary-looking turtle. Often these turtles that hold up monuments are fascinating and quite pretty. This one wasn’t.

The main monument of the park on this side of the road, and the one that fascinated me the most, is an alter (read: a high tower rising from a hexogon-shaped structure with picture panels) holding memorial tablets for volunteer soldiers who died fighting the Japanese between 1592 and 1598. The monument is fairly modern and fancy. Part of me wonders if this is something that organically exists or if it is part of the ongoing attempt to build the pride of Korean children in their nation  (which, for the record, is spectacularly successful to the point of being a little scary). It was also bare and stark and the panels were beautiful. Whether it is a memorial that is visited by families and that matters to people or is simply a political project of nation-building, a monument remembering those who passed away in defence of their country hundreds of years ago is a little awe-inspiring.

I could have wandered the park for longer, but I had seen most of it and gotten some nice pics – and been reminded how much of a difference natural sunlight makes to pictures – so I found the bus-stop and headed home.

I didn’t stay home for long. A friend and I had made a tentative plan to go for a mini-hike just across the main road from the area where we live. I’d never tried walking on that side and for one reason or another, nor had she. From the road, it looked like it would be a short, simple walk but with just enough steep hills to make it a bit of a climb. It turned out that we had significantly underestimated how many paths there were and how far they twisted into the hills. It will probably be even lovelier when the trees are in full, summer leaf, but I liked it as it was. Because there were fewer leaves, it was possible to look out across the valleys. It felt free and out of the city, even though the city still sprawled below us. We walked along paths and around corners and took turns and twists and tried out some of the exercise equipment randomly scattered around the forest. Eventually, we found ourselves over the hill near the back of the Children’s centre, where we stopped and spent a little time going up and down the mini-obstacle course before climbing back up the hills, to the bizarre accompaniment of a helicopter flying over and playing the sound of a whistled tune. I realise this sounds odd. It was odd.

We walked for almost an hour and a half and did some climbing and got some exercise. I really enjoyed it. I’ve never been the hiking type. In fact, I’ve never really been an outdoorsy person, but it appears the lack of outdoors in Korea is rapidly driving me in that direction. That’s okay. So far it has been fun.

For now, I’m heading off to work, somewhat bitter that I’m working on Easter Monday when everyone in South Africa is mid-long weekend, but I’m simultaneously a little bit excited about the prospect of a Cherry Blossom festival next weekend, so there are definitely silver linings.

40th Busan International Kite Festival

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

I have a soft spot for kites. In fact, it’s somewhat of a family thing. They’re pretty and fun and watching them is a great way to while away an hour or two. So, I was pleased to discover there would be a kite festival happening in Busan this month. I was even more pleased when I discovered that they’d moved the dates so that it no longer clashed with my trip to Seoul.

I got moving a little later than expected but decided to go anyway, figuring that getting out of town and seeing a new part of Busan would be fun either way. The KTX from Daegu to Busan takes just over an hour and winds through beautiful rivers, hills and farmlands. A cursory search of the internet had suggested that there were two ways to get to Dadaepo Beach for the festival – bus or subway and bus. I chose the latter because I was a little worried about time. I was struck again by the contrast between the Daegu subway, new and shiny and modern, and Busan’s more down-to-earth, slightly run-down version. I bought a day-pass (3500 won) and went down the stairs to the dimly lit and 70s-looking platform. The station was the last on the line (Sinpyeong). The carriage slowly emptied stop by stop until it was just me and a mother and son. I felt the familiar tingle of nervousness at being in a completely unfamiliar place as the train emerged from the subway and we disembarked.

I was still not at my destination but 20 minutes on bus number 2 got me to the Dadaepo Beach stop. I stood on the pavement at an unfamiliar bus stop in an unfamiliar city with no beach and no kites in sight. Nine months in a foreign country is a great way to learn not to panic. The trick, I have discovered, is to pick a direction and start walking. Along the road and around the corner, I spotted a brightly coloured kite fluttering in the distance. I crossed a road and found a policeman directing people and traffic, which seemed a lot of security for a kite festival but what do I know? It made more sense when I noticed a temporary stage set up on a paved square with a sound-check going on. Beyond that, down a hill and along a slightly muddy road, I found the beach.

The number of kites flying above the beach wasn’t huge. This may have been because I arrived rather late – there wasn’t all that much activity around the tents on the beach, either. There were some huge octopus-like kites soaring in the breeze, however. They were beautiful. Blue and pink and multi-coloured giants fluttering above us. In between, smaller kites bobbed in the breeze. Some were birds, some just shapes. My favourite was a full, rigged, pirate-type ship. Some were anchored in the sand, like the big kites. Others were flown by adults or children. I loved looked at them and seeing all the colours and shapes. As I was walking along the beach, looked at them all, someone started flying a 2-stringed, 3-story triangle-shaped kite with two long, long tails. I couldn’t see who was flying it through the scattered people but he or she was good at it. The kite twisted and circled and danced in the sky.

There didn’t seem to be a lot of this type of competitive stunt-flying going on, but there were groups of men standing around who I gathered from the whistles and the tension were involved in competition. It took me ages to figure out what they were doing. The kites they were flying were fairly ordinary looking pale squares, each no bigger than about 50cm square and with a round hole in the centre. It wasn’t until I saw one of these kites flutter down without its string that I realised they were kite-fighting. Anyone who has read The Kite Runner will have some idea of what I’m talking about. The two kite-flyers battle it out as each tries to cut the other person’s string with his line, without getting trapped and his own string cut. It was fascinating (for a while at least) to watch the desperate silent battle high in the air.

On the other side of me, a far younger and more modern crowd were harnessing the wind in a very different way. In the shallow sea-water where the river meets the sea were the kite-surfers. I haven’t seen anyone kite-surfing in ages. There is something about the power of the wind and someone flying across the water under that power that is particularly beautiful. Behind a dark grey layer of cloud the sun was tilting towards the horizon and the light shining on the water silhouetted the surfers and their kites against a silver sea.

I walked along the beach towards the rocky hill at the other end, enjoying the light and the water and the ordinary, precious moments: the man standing on the sea-shore with his little daughter, a Saturday afternoon beach-soccer game, a couple walking along the sand. Against the rocky hill at the end of the beach there is a wooden boardwalk. I climbed the stairs and walked along the boardwalk, enjoying the views. The beach is in a little bay, so there are no real expanses of the open water, but the views are still beautiful.

As 5pm approached, people were starting to pack up and leave, although the kite-fighting matches were still going on. As I walked back towards the road, there was increased activity in the direction of the stage. In the open area down the hill from the stage, I noticed that the single police bus that I’d seen on my way down had been joined by three others. Food stalls had been set up and a crowd was starting to gather. In the open square area, where the stage and chairs were set up, I sat down to change my camera batteries. Once I was sitting down, I saw that there were many more people in the square. To the side, I saw an ambulance parked. People were milling around in front of the stage and being moved back by volunteers in orange vests. I saw men in suits and women in high heels and people wearing blue sashes over their shoulders. There was something about the energy that was so familiar – I could almost feel the adrenaline of eventing coming back to me.

And then I saw a photographer. In Korea, people wandering around with large, expensive-looking cameras are a dime a dozen. Everywhere I go, there seem to be people taking pictures of each other, sometimes in groups and sometimes in amateur photo shoots. This wasn’t one of those. Over one shoulder, he carried a fancy tripod, over the other a particularly large and impressive looking camera. Instead of taking pictures of pretty Korean girls or family snaps of the groups of people, he was walking the area, trying to see the stage from different angles. He obviously knew what he was doing. After looking at every possible angle, he wandered off to the side and had a cigarette. Thinking about it now, I do hope he didn’t notice me watching him but his presence and the way he was acting were a clear sign to me that something important was going on. I decided to stick around and see what happened.

I didn’t try and get a chair, most of which were already full of Korean families, with children running around and mothers pushing prams and grandparents getting settled. I sat off to the side and just watched. A group of people in sleeping bags arrived and walked the open area in front of the stage. Ok, not actual sleeping bags but the kind of puffy long winter coats that make the person look like he or she is wearing a sleeping bag.

Before long, the sound of drums and gongs started in the distance. A group – I assume the same people who had been wearing the sleeping bags – were marching onto the square in a procession, all in traditional outfits. The front person carried a flag and all the others had drums or gongs or cymbals. They wore white with black waistcoats and yellow and blue and red sashes and the strangest white hats that looked as if they were wearing bundles of candy floss on their heads. They processed past the chairs and into the open area in front of the stage and dancing and playing their instruments. In all my time in Korea, one of the things I haven’t managed to see is traditional music and dancing. It was great to find it by accident today. The music was so different. It is strange to think that traditional music using the same instrument (drums) that I’ve known for so long, can be so different to what I’ve known. The dancing was different, too. I’m so glad I saw it.

After the dancing, a swing band played lovely music. Just as they started, the sound system distorted badly and two people, obviously the ones running the show, tore across the square to fix it. I had a moment of nostalgia for my days of running events. I listened to the band for a while but the evening was getting colder and I had a long trip home and increasing activity of the police and volunteers and people in suits suggested that the evening may shift quite rapidly to speeches and other things in Korean, so I headed back to the bus stop. The bus took ages to get back to the station, but I had a lovely time looked at all the things in the city. I may not have been paying that much attention because I definitely thought I saw a chicken shop called ‘Syndrome’, a bakery named ‘Alientots’ and a bus stop for the ‘Korea Cast-Iron Pig Refinery’. Also a sign for one of the suburbs (Gu) of Busan which has taken the tradition of each place acquiring a trite and often inappropriate adjective (‘Dynamic Busan’, ‘Colourful Daegu’) to another level, calling itself ‘Nice Jung-gu’.

A trip back on a particularly smart-looking KTX and I reached Daegu feeling tired and hungry after the sea air but still managed to stop and pick up a lemon meringue cupcake before taking the bus home. Kites, beach, silver-sea and traditional dancers – a good afternoon. Oh, and the cupcake was delicious.