Category — Korea

Ddeok – Korean rice cake

This particular ddeok (celebrating Chuseok) is filled with a sweet sesame concoction. The outside is compressed rice, very gelatinous. They are traditionally made with lots of spit.

As we were climbing Taebek-san we met a family of Koreans at one of the peaks. The daughter spoke English very well. She has studied in Boston AND her English nickname is Kate! We had a nice little chat and her mother gave us their bag of Chuseok Ddeok! They were the least thought ddeok I had tasted . . . so probably more pit in this one than the ones we had at school!

Bellow is a little video on the top of Taebek-san, Chad is describing the ddeok.

Two weekends ago Kate and I had a long weekend (5 days) for the Korean holiday of Chuseok. We decided to do some traveling over the break so we went to Taebaek City to go hiking with two of our friends Melanie and Michael. Taebaek is about an Hour from Samcheok by bus and it’s up in the mountains so there is a lot of great hiking.

Michael and Melanie – from Colorado – so they also like hiking… Michael has done about half of the 14ers! – (I’ve done… 5…. We got to Taebaek on Saturday night and found a place to eat that could accomidate the herbivores then went bowling! (Wandering around a new unknown city that is all in Korean is kind of hard, but we entertained ourselves pretty well). We stayed in a “Love Motel” which is.. well exactly what it sounds like, but they are the “normal” hotels in Korea – with the cost being about half that of a “Marriot” or some other chain hotel, everyone uses them when they travel. It was pretty nice actually – only odd thing was the foggy glassed bathroom and red light over the bed… but eh.. for only $45 a night we couldn’t complain.

We went hiking the next day in the Taebaeksan (Taebaek Mountains)

The terrain was surprisingly difficult! Which was good, and because of the humidity and heat we were all sweaty and tired by the top. (A good hike On our way up we stopped at a Temple a few hundred meters from the trail –

It was very cool – but it had be renovated for the mountain winters with nice windows and other amenities. The monks were chanting in the distance celebrating their ancestors – after all this was Chuseok – the Korean Thanksgiving day. We kept hiking and got to the top in about 3 hours.

This is a monument/temple at the top where people go to pray. It was quite busy because of Chuseok – and because this is one of the holiest mountains in Korea.

On our way down we found this amazing tree.. so we went in

Hey look – a Cliff! I will go peer over it Sorry mom… IT wasn’t that bad.. I promise.
We found the Sword in the stone!!

It was a great hike and a great trip. We even bought CHEESE at the E-Mart in Taebaek. (Very exciting!) We came back on Monday and still had Tuesday and Wednesday off to clean and relax before school started again. Hooray vacations in your 3rd week of work

We have Mosquitoes, Ants, and ginormous spiders in our apartment. It’s pretty bad I wake up with new bug bites every morning. I can’t wait until it cools off and the bugs disappear for a while! There was a Huge spider in our bathroom the other day and now… he’s gone … not sure about that. His name was Lord Malfordom or something like that. Anyways.. that’s my rant for the evening.

We taught at Geundeok today and it went pretty well. It’s definitely pretty obvious that we have never taught before.. but eh.. we’ll learn. The Kids seem to like us so far. Tomorrow is our first “Camp” day — 3 hours with one grade level all morning. Eek. Should be interesting – 15 first graders.

I better get some sleep – will need a lot of energy for “If you’re happy and you know it clap your hands..”.

(I’m already sick of Children’s songs. this is a bad sign

Gnight,
Oh, and.. Go buy some stocks…. then go register to vote… then go tell all your liberal friends to register to vote. Then read this because it’s great.. NYTimes – Obama and Bartlett

Hope all is better than the news makes it out to be over there. Miss you all,
-Chad