7/28 Today I'm posting from Gangneung. http://www.carolinaadoption.org/images/South%20Korea%20Map.png

It is the city inㅅthe north east. My keyboard randomly switches to korean every once and a while so ignore the ㅇㄴ람앎ㅇ junk if you see it. These keyboards are the standard querty keyboard but with mini scrips that are korean syllables that activate by themselves when you type.

So anyway, it's been a while since my update. I've been keeping a video blog also but I forgot my cords today (they're back at the motel; I packed light for the hiking today) so I can;t upload them today. I'll probably come back tommrow and post them since I've negotiated a price (my spelling is goign ㅅ 새 to be bad since they don't have a spell check on this internet browser and I'm trying to type all this before my time expires and they make me leave.

Oh, by the way, all these computers are top of the line and loaded with games.

http://img510.imageshack.us/img510/5711/tmpgt9.png

Ok, so from Seoul to this city was really really tough. I had to take the subway for the second time. The subway is really complicated (google seoul subway map); you'll see that it has many many many lines and transfer points. The real kick is that if you are on let's say line 1 going north, and you realize that you should have been going south (think marta) and you want to get to the other side of the rail to go the opposite way. Well at Marta, you walk under or above the station and just go to the other side and hop on the train. Here, you're screwed. This happened to me twice so far. I had to go back and buy a new tix since I had to go the other way.

After the long subway ride (the entire city is conviently in both korean and english for a majority of the places 65% or greater, street signs 100%, stores = hip english words are posted so you get a sense of what it is) I arrived at Express Bus Terminal.

So I got out of the station and climbed out to the blue skies above. I look left, I look right, no express buses..... I just thought, just great no buses.

Side note, I've had tons of people throughout my trip help me when I look lost, and I must look lost at the right times since people who speak fluent english come to my resuce (lots of australian accents)

So the Express Bus Terminal; I end up walking around for 1 hour and find a Hyatt (the hyatts here are super super nice, like 5* maui class) and I ask someone at the counter where the express buses are. She says ooooohhh, express bus, 8,000 won. You buy ticket here.

I start thinking....too good to be true, I need to find an honest to goodness scrungy place that sells bus tickets, this must be the wrong place, it don't trust places that look real clean and polished for common people to travel from.

So I leave and find a mini mall, 30 minuets later and two banana stands later (I eat a lot of bananas since the freeze dried squid doesn't exactly suite my tastes) I find the place where they vend tickets.

I find someone get 1 wrong ticket, explain it was wrong, then get my ticket to the city Gangneung.


So now I get here, find a tourist information center, get a map, bus schedule and find a place to stay inside the city (30 minuets away from the beach) at a price of 30000 won a night like ~28 USD. Real nice deal compared to twice that to be by the beach.

So for food I eat sandwiches from the convience store and milk and oj and bananas and for lunch I get local food.

Let's see, VISA, it's everywhere you want to be. That's sooo true. I use that VISA card everywhere I go. I also have a good amount of local currency ~600usd that I keep with me, but I try to keep it credit wherever I go so if I hit a small city and have to pay with cash, hotel prices add up really fast. I did the math and calculated how many days it would take me to be flat broke using only cash and with hotels how they are, it wouldn't be long.

But that's not a problem since I have my VISA and my handmade balance sheet so I can keep track of costs (credit vs. cash). I'd hate to think what I'd do if I wasn't a business major and didn't have any accounting/finance knowldege... At least I can safely predict my cash outflows in comparison to my reserves.... but enough with that!!! ㅏㅇㄹㄴ마ㅣㄹㅇ나ㅣㅇㄴㅁ럼ㅇㄴㄹ;ㅏㅓㅁ호;ㅣㅏㄴㅇㅅ하;ㅣㅁ허ㅣㅏㄴ엉마ㅣ

Ok that's enough hangul too haha....

BAM

Beach time, so I figure out how to use the buses and take 202 over to the beach (thanks to tourist info center they told me what i needed to know)

The beach is really cool and it's is kind of like panama city beach without the highrises on the beach.

It's more of a drive to the beach park on the road and go! But there were tons and tons of people. The fun thing was that they have raft rentals (like whitewater park rafts) so the ocean is covered in yellow doughnuts. It's pretty funny.

I walked down the beach and found a bunjee jump tower that is right on the water and watched some people jump. It was pretty neat.

The water was cool, about as cold as bills pool in early summer and the sand is granular (yeah i know it's a pretty scientific term, but that's there for my friend whose a geology major and still pees his pants.. haha)

I had some pork on a stick from a street vendor, then ran around the beach (lots of spongebob stuff there including a mini kids place with inflatable slides, etc. that kids play in).

The music there was a mix between techno (with english singers) and alternative american rock (green day, no doubt, then some beach boys and bob marley)

So later that day I was walking down the strip at the beach and met a korean guy that knew english. we talked and he invited me to have a beer with him.

So we went to a little place on the beach and he orded three beers and....you guessed it....fresh squid.

So I hit his glass with a big cheers! Drank the entire glass, then hoping that I'd be ... well I have no idea, but I took another drink before trying the squid.

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2

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And I hit my chopsticks together grabbed some tentacle and BAM

In my mouth it went!!

It was the toughest most chewy thing I ever have had. I must have spent like 3 minuets chewing and drinking more beer to make it go down. haha.

It wasn't too bad though ..... (if you cover it in wasabi hehe)

So we talked and he invited me to go drink soju with him later that night (he really enjoyed being able to practice his english with me)

So he gave me his card with his # on it and we parted ways.

Later that night I tried to call him but his phone keep ringing (like when you have call waiting and you don't ever answer the other line)

So I gave up on it after a few calls and got a sandwich and called it a night.


So today I decided to go more north of the beach I was at. I saw on my map that the pier was a windsurfing spot since it has pictures of a few sailboats and windsurfers going around the lighthouse.

So I took the bus to the beach I was at yesterday and started walking. OOOO man it was a long walk, my dogs were barking like carnivores.

Oh I got lunch at that beach too, but as you'll see in the video, it was absolutly horrible. It was like chewy bread dough smothered in hot and spicy sauce. But the pineapple soda was excellent!! yeah!!!


So I hiked for 2 1/2 hours up to the pier. I got there and was let down when I didn't say any windsurfers in the water (and it was actually blowing 10=15~!!!)

So feeling a little let down, I kept walking to the pier and watched the boats bring in their catches. I was starting to get hungry so I found a little place to eat at.

I walked in and said "yo!" haha. Then I found she knew the word menu and she gave me the menu. This place was expensive! But I found a meal for 10000 won. I' was ssooooo starving that I was just like, yeah! I want this one pleeeeeeeeeeease!~

So she sat me down and the brought out my food. There were 5 or 6 plates of food (I have the pic, but you'll have to wait until tommrow for me to upload it) and a big fish.

It was definatly a fine meal. I even got free refills on any plate I wanted (though I just thought she wanted to move them out of the way and not give me brand new ones with food on them.)

It was the biggest meal ever...haha o yeah, in the pic you'll see some green stuff in a soup like bowl. That defiatly tasted like kelp... yeah...so I kept thinking I was a sea cow when I ate it. Haha.. I didn't even chew it since I didn't like the tast at all. haha... So the second I put it in my mouth I'd just down it. Kind of like how I still do with asperagus.


My clothes are turning out to be a good selection. I washed most of them in the sink with some detergent I bought (it'll probably suprise the cleaning lady that I gave me key to today....hehe) so I have a fresh aresenal.


Oh yeah. I saw a tank that was disguised so it couldn't be seen from the sky. That was pretty cool. I also saw a lot of soldiers (South Korean) on the beach in their barraks which were walled and barb wired in on the beach. A few of them were carrying machine guns.

I also met 3 of them on the walking/biking (I was stupid and didn't rent a bike to travel north....I'm still kicking myself in the butt for that one) trail I was on and they were being forced by their superior to carry large amounts of wood on their back back to the barracks. They were pretty cheerful though and said Hi! How are you! to me when I passed by.


Email questions::

Did you get a new sim card for your cell phone?
havn't looked into that yet, I'll wait unil I'm back in school. but I may be able to figure out the payphones here since they dial international.

Were you able to exchange your money okay?
yep!

It just figures that your PC would default to Korean language.
Yeah it's pretty rough when I hit the wrong button and it goes all ㅁ알낭ㄻ남;히ㅏㅗㅁ새ㅑㄷ쟈ㅓㄻㅇ ㅇㅁ란ㄹㅇㅁ나


Well, now you're in S. Korea! I hope you're having fun. Did any of your friends go with you or are you on your own? I'm traveling on my own.

Your Mom said you would be backpacking at the beginning - where all are you going? I'm going to the east coast then traveling south down the coast then westward towards the west coast and back up the the north west to Seoul (the capital city where the college is)

And what are you studying?
I'm studying negotiation (they spell it negociation for some reason) international business and two other classes (my time limit at this pc is about up; 7 minuets)