Downtown, Countrysides and Mountain Climbing - Dec-4-2009

Korean Cultural Trivia

Ondol - Koreans invented the heating and cooling system for building floors in the early Goguryeo kingdom (37BC-669AD). Basically under the wooden floors, there would be stones beneath them with soil and sand covering them, seperating the rocks and the floor (most commonly where people sleep). The rocks would then be heated through fire to keep warm during winter and be left unheated during the summer. Today, modern ondol is done by electricity with a control panel in each room to adjust the floor temperature.

Yangban - The noble class of Korean society in the olden days. Often remembered as wealthy snobs who had the money to do whatever they want. They mostly cared nothing for the middle and lower class people, usually looking down on them for not being on the same level as them and their peers.

I met up with my friend Eliza so she could show me around downtown. Here I saw a bit more of the modern side of the city even though it wasn't the main downtown area. The sites were actually pretty cool and looked like something you'd see out of those Asian advertising magazines. The roadside strip plazas mainly consisted of clothing stores, restaurants, karaokes and pc rooms. They all looked pretty fancy and from what I saw they offered some pretty good merchandise at a very good price. We also went to Lotte Mart, think of it as a better Walmart. It's really cool that instead of escalators, they use these bands that they use at the airport to walk the hallways, but it's elevated. If you have a cart, the wheels of the cart are magnetized to the track and you can let go of it to give yourself a rest.

I think I already mentioned that bus tickets cost 1000 won (a dollar) vs the 3+ dollars that I had to pay over there. I also took a cab back home from her house and it cost me 2700 won ($2.50). I also must mention that the public transportation here are just flat out ridiculous. Speed seems to be their number one priority, so the driver's waste no time getting people from one stop to the next. Hell buses here cut off more people than cars do in Canada. The cab drivers are just insane, they go through tiny ass alleyways doing like 70km per hour with cars parked on b0th sides. It seems like they won't even care about some drunk idiot jumping out to the middle of the street. Much better than the cab drivers here don't you think?

About a day after I went to the countryside to do a bit of touring. The plan was to visit my mom's hometown city Ham-pyung-goon(함평군) which is located right outside of Mokpo city (think of it as a county). We also visited her childhood home and coincidentally bumped into her oldest brother who was on his way to work on his motorbike. She showed me her family farm and I also got to meet her cousins and the lifestyle that she had back in the 60's. There was also a giant stone monument which was dedicated to my grandfather. Apparently he was a wealthy and generous man who did a lot of good deeds for the people. For doing that, the local community had it made in his honour and it was pretty cool to see it. Some of it was in Chinese letters so I got my parents to read it to me.

While in the area we took the time to visit the area's most famous restaurants. Arriving at the place, there was no giant building like any typical restaurant. Instead it was around 5 mini-buildings in the shape of homes. These small buildings were designed in the fashion of the old Joseon dynasty (1397-1910) of Korea. The dining area was like a giant bedroom with every guest taking their shoes off at the entrance and walking in to about 8 tables nicely organized. The floor was also fitted with the ondol system and all the food was served in stone pots all made over a fire (now that's old school).

Unlike Chinese cuisine, Korean cuisine commonly has soup mixed with rice into this porridge meal. It's probably because Chinese soup isn't nearly as flavour and spice filled as Korean soup.  The place was apparently legendary in status for their gook-bap (lit. soup-rice) meals. And holy shit it was the best soup-rice I have ever eaten. There are many types to choose from, I got pig intestines (gop-chang). It might sound nasty, but once you eat it, you'll realize what a delicacy it is. Feeding me and my parents cost about 28 000 won (28 dollars, remember there's no such thing as leaving tip in Korea =D), pretty expensive by Korean standards but very cheap by Western standards.

We also visited my family burial grounds, starting with my paternal side. They were located on mountain bases on the countrysides. We literally had to go through someone else's backyard just to climb up there. When we got there, we cut an apple and a yam, along with a shot of soju and laid it in front of each mound we paid our respects too. We had to do the Korean bow twice by saying "______ I have returned to visit you" then stand back up. During this we have to think in our heads of what we would say to them had they actually been alive. It might be a bit sacriligious, but I just thought "hey.. I don't remember your faces... but nice to see you". After that, we walk around the mounds, pouring the leftover alcohol as we circle it (one bottle per mound). After we did great grandparents, gramps, uncle and aunt, we went to the maternal side.

My mom's side was pretty fancy for a burial mound. Stones with personal art circling the mound, dedication monument statues everywhere. Apparently if you come from a noble class (yangban) family, it was very affordable to do this. Because they were Christian and were not drinkers, we did the same rituals skipping the alcohol related parts. We then left for home.

 

Today we climbed Yudal mountain (Mokpo's ™ mountain). My parents were feeling exercisy so they told me that were going to walk there, scale the mountain and walk back home. The walk to the mountain was pretty short, about 15-20 minutes or so. While it isn't the tallest mountain, it's a hell of a climb to get up to. A famous monument that I saw along the way was this giant stone perched on the side facing towards the sea. About 500 years ago, Admiral Yi Sun-Shin used it to scare of the Japanese invaders by making the rock seem like a place where the main ground forces were waiting to repel the invaders. This forced the Japanese to turn around and attack from the Eastern coasts instead, where the main navy was waiting for them. Near it was an old statue of the admiral made of bronze (I think) and an epitaph made in his honour.

The climb itself wasn't that bad, but it felt like an eternity. The stairs (old and new) were extremely small and very steep at some points. The old stairs were steps that were carved into the mountainous rocks that are there and you could see that it's starting to wear down. Instead of just going up there were many side routes you could take that would lead you all over the mountain. So we decided to explore all of them and I must say, the views were out of this world. We spent about a good 3 hours on the mountain and it had a lot of small padogas where the yangban nobles would do their recreational activities (usually singing folk songs, playing games, eating food and of course drinking.) We got down and walked to a local restaurant in the street markets. There we sat at a restaurant and ate stuffed pig intestines (fucking awesome), pig head meat (fucking awesome), juhn (Korean pancakes) and drank about a litre of Korean rice wine (yes, the original sake). 13 000 won by the way, whereas in Canada it would be like 30 000 won.

All in all it was a pretty enjoyable half a week, I haven't done this much walking or mountain climbing since the last time I've been here. So thanks for reading and I'll see you guys next time.