I ate my first live baby octopus today!

So it happened. After volleyball at my school today, a big blue truck pulled into the school yard and dropped off a styrofome container. In the magic white box was about 30 live baby (smallish) octopi. Of course, seeing this, I ran to my classroom to get my camera in hopes to catch it all on tape. Remembered the camera, forgot the batteries!

Imagine this if you will: 15 teachers simultneously jamming live squirming octopi into their mouths. Me, doing as I'm told, and slowly, first the head, then leg by leg, eating the whole octopus. I kindly declined a second helping.

What an experience! Another experience where you find yourself thinking; "Wholly crap, I'm in Korea". If only I had 2 double A batteries!

We conquered Wolchulsan!

Well.. maybe not conquered, but we survived it! And that is a feat! As part of our ongoing push to see all we can of Korea before the winter shuts us down, we decided to hike the 809 meter Wolchulsan this weekend. Wolchulsan (Wolchul mountain 34°46'4.71"N 126°42'17.46"E) is a good 1 hour from Mokpo by bus, and after a solid Friday night at the bar, the 8am wake-up call was not a happy sound at all.

After losing a few of the wimpier memebers of our climb team (isn't fresh air good for hangovers?) to the festivities of the previous night, 15 of us started the trek around 10:30 It wouldn't be until just before 2pm that we would reach the summit and not until shortly after 5 until we would leave Wolchul National Park.

Now, coming from Southern Ontario, I hadn't expected a climb like this. I had heard rumours that the hill was tough to start with, but wasn't all that rough after that. This was wrong. From a gradual and steady dirt incline, to rocky "trails", to steps braced with logs, to rubble with strategically placed "handrails", the climb seemed to run straight up and besides the suspension bridge half way up, it never let up... for 3.5 hours.

The Koreans, for the most part, were decked out in full mountaineering gear and walking sticks, and pulled off the trail regularly to have little picnics. Every once in a while, you would find a 70-80 year old person resting on the side of the trail. All I could think was: "How did they get here? I barely made it this far! Am I that much of a pansie? Are those guys up ahead doing shots of Soju? You've got to be kidding me." One Korean, forever to be known as "The MAN", beat us up to the peak of Wolchulsan with a baby on his back, and his 4 year old at his side (special mention to the 4 year old, who walked the entire 7km on his own!)

The view at the top was incredible, and the weather couldn't have been better. Once to the top, everyone plopped down to enjoy the view and a snack. On dead legs, we all headed down the other side of the mountain, being sure to stop and soak our feet in a stream beside the trail. Unlike the way up, the opposing side of the mountain had a trickle of hikers (probably because the trail was too easy for the superhuman Koreans!) Exhausted and starving but buzzed from the accomplishment, we headed back to Mokpo for a well deserved lest (rest).


Here are the amazing pictures from our day!
Here is Virginia's story when she went up the mountain!

These guys rock!

Jeff and Debbie are two of our awesome friends from back home.


What makes them our favourites is that they sent us an amazing package in the mail! It was even turned back by customs once!!! The box was jammed full of Canadian chocolate (We miss Reese Peanut butter cups!), candies and a bottle of wine!!! Needless to say we devoured the whole box of goodies in 2 days...

Ain't that cute!

Yeah, I know what you are thinking. "Awe, one of Brent's students drew him a picture! Maybe it was that 6 year old in kindergarten, or that cute kid who was held back a year."

Actually, it was drawn by my friend Kristin. Kristin is 26, turning 27 October 17th (which reminds me I have to send her something), and she is 6 months pregnant with her first child. While she is a great person, she is no artist. Not at all.

I asked her for a picture of her in all her pregnant glory, and she thought it would be funny to send me this picture.

Well, you know what I think is funny Kristin? Putting your scribble on my blog! Ha!

KL and Home (sweet?), home. (Vacation part 4)

We arrived in Kuala Lumpur in the middle of the afternoon. KL, like many Asian cities, is building at an amazing rate. The one thing they aren't building fast enough, is the regional bus terminal! The bus station, and the roads leading to it, were so clogged with traffic and so poorly laid out that every passenger from every bus was jumping off 3 blocks early, grabbing their bags and walking to the Puduraya terminal in order to sidestep the queue of 20 – 30 buses waiting admission to the terminal. Lucky for me, I was with Steph, and she had again pre-booked a hotel across the road from the terminal (I know… what is it that I bring to the relationship? I’m the bodyguard!)

The Katari (3° 8'46.04"N 101°42'3.84"E)was an oasis amidst the chaos, and I do mean chaos. People were everywhere, wandering aimlessly, looking for taxis, looking for tour buses and generally not too sure what they were doing. To KL's credit, there were an equal number of people trying to show the wanderers the way (out of their money).

Virginia wasn’t too fond of KL, and we could definitely see her point of view. KL has large pockets of chaos (normally around transportation hubs and its many markets), amazingly developed high quality zones (like the Petronas towers and Bukit Bintang) and large swaths of not-much in between. We quickly realized that as long as you stick to its amazing elevated light rail system, KL has a lot of amazing sights.

We spent our three days there shopping, shopping and shopping. Oh, did I mention the shopping? Besides the Chinatown market and the little India bazaar where I almost bought a $3500 Tag watch for $60 (how long would that watch run for?), we spent a huge part of our time at the amazing Kuala Lumpur City Center (3° 9'27.92"N 101°42'41.95"E. The two amazing towers were accented by a giant 5 story mall and a giant public park. We tried to visit the suspention bridge spanning the 55th floor of the towers and the Patronas theme park on the 5th floor of the mall, but were thwarted each time (too busy or too closed!). Instead, we visited the KL Aquarium (which was cheaper and better than Singaopre's), the KL Tower(3° 9'10.13"N 101°42'12.74"E), which gave us an amazing view of the city, and the Independence square, where we accidentally caught some fireworks as part Malaysia's independence week celebrations. Independence square sports the tallest flagpole in the world and Malaysia's supreme court, as well as a huge open field and some great water fountains (3° 8'51.88"N 101°41'35.88"E).

We spent the rest of our time gorging on as much India, Chinese, Malay, Thai and Western food as we possibly could. One night we dined in this amazing underground promenade of upscale restaurants (which were still dirt cheap by Canadian standards)in StarHill Gallery, at an Arabic place. The Hummus, Baba Ganoush, fatoush salad and pita bread left Steph and I waddling home. Another time we found a place that served Hummus and Indian food! It's amazing how much you yearn for that multicutured food selection when you can't get it.

Our last day came quickly and we had to leave for the airport at 5am. After a series of stupid moves on my part (I'm dumb in the morning, and Steph is grumpy - a bad combo), including convincing Steph to give her subway pass, and trying to take a cab to the airport, only to realize I didn't have nearly enough money, we finally make it to our plane. The trip back to Busan was an uneventful one, and we took the KTX train back to Mokpo as soon as we could. I realized, as soon as we got out of the airport, that my Korean cough was back. Awesome. Although we were a little happy to be home, we felt a little less charmed by the cool stares of the many Koreans we passed. Had the Singaporian and Malaysian hospitality and warmth spoiled us? Or was this a little "post trip depression" setting in. We will find out soon enough.

Paradise and Melaka (Vacation part 3)

It took us around 3 hours to drive from Singapore, across the border to Merasing by taxi. It was clear that there were about 100 times more cars heading into Singapore than into Malaysia. Miles upon miles of Palm trees lined the windy road, part of Malaysia’s biggest export – Palm oil. After waiting 1 1/2 hours for our ferry to leave Mersing, we quickly arrived at our new favourite place in the world; Rawa. People always say that pictures never do justice, but here it has never been truer. Two brothers once ran a resort on the island, but after a dispute on how the resort should be run. They split the island and each brother took half to run, as they saw fit. Le Club Rawa is owned and run by Juan, and is the most laid back place in the world. The hammocks everywhere, white beaches, wide array of cheap food, great music, clear green water and a beautiful coral reef just meters away from the shore made us feel like we were dreaming. After being there for only a couple of hours, Steph turned to me to say; “Let’s stay a third night”. Done and done!
Sadly, all good things must come to an end. Taking Virginia’s great advice, we abandoned our original plans to continue up the east coast and venture off to Melaka. Unfortunately, that meant ditching a trip to Taman Negara, Malaysia’s famous rainforest with tree-top tours and caving expiditions. It was a good choice though… if you like shopping! Melaka had been christened Malaysia’s cultural centre. Floating from Spanish to Dutch to British rule, finally obtaining independence in 1963, Melaka had plenty of food and shopping with a couple of touristy sites sprinkled in between.

St Paul’s Church in the Dutch area gave Steph some time to rub elbows with some kind (are there any other types) Netherlanders. We ate Indian food with our hands (a liberating experience), visited a long forgotten “Crocodile amusement park”, a city forest jam-packed with wild monkeys, night markets and a giant, brand new shopping mall. They must have known Steph was coming because they were having a month-long “MEGA SALE”! Before you could blink an eye, she had two new purses! (don’t they get jealous?). I did pretty well myself.

We even fit in a rickshaw ride with a 62 year old man who seemed extremely excited to get us into his cart, before he realized how big we were. It would have been a far more romantic ride if he didn’t almost die pushing us or tell us his incredibly sorrow-filled story. Thanks buddy!

After 3 days in Rawa and 3 days in Melaka, it was time to head for our final destination: Kuala Lumpur. Malaysia supposedly has the best infrastructure in South East Asia, so grabbing buses anywhere is a breeze. They are more luxurious than the ones in Canada and the 3-hour trip cost less that $3. Feeling that we “had done Melaka”, we took off.