travel ideas and biking through the rice paddys

So now that I've got my next gig lined up here, I have made 2 goals for myself in my second year in Korea.
First, is to make a real effort to learn the language. Considering how different it is from English and how little I knew about it before I came here, and the fact that i haven't really tried, I'm pretty proud of the progress i've made. However i'm the first to admit that I have a long way to go. So this time I'm really going to try.

My second goal is to actually get out and TRAVEL. I am somewhat ashamed at how little traveling i've done so far. Granted, at my current job I have virtually no vacation time, and the longest holiday weekend was in my first month when I had no money. But this time I have plenty of money. I've already tentatively planned out my trips. Of course they will change. But I think it will help me to actually go places if I actually start planning them.
There are two 4-day weekends in the next year. So for those I want to travel to foreign countries that are nearby.
Originally I thought that I'd obviously go to Beijing for the Thanksgiving weekend in September. But then I pulled out my handy-dandy world map and saw Vladivostok. Now I can't get that out of my head. So now I am thinking I will go there in September for a few days. It's only a 2.5 hour flight. And it's Russia. Most people working in Korea go to China or Japan or Thailand or something. You never hear of anyone going to Russia. So it's kind of like 'Hipster Asia'. So that would be kind of cool to check out. Then for Lunar new year in January I can go to Beijing. Yes it will be cold BUT it would be cool to be there for the Lunar New Year. I bet there are lots of things going on then. Like the Dragon parade thing, maybe? I don't know. But somehow I will go there, that's for sure. It's also only a 2.5 hour plane ride away.

I'm also thinking of doing a temple stay in Busan in the fall, and find some other cool things in Korea to explore during a few 3-day weekends coming up. Luckily my new city is really close to a Bullet Train stop so it won't be difficult to traverse the country on any normal weekend.

Finally I have those 10 days between my contracts at the end of August this year. What to do for that time? I don't know how the visa transfer process works so not sure if i"ll be free to leave the country during that time, or at least not the whole time. If i can, i'm thinking i'll take a ferry over to Fukuoka, an island in the south of Japan. If not, maybe i'll just go to Jeju and hang out on the beach for a week. Either of those sound mighty appealing.

Plus i'll have a summer vacation next summer...a real one! So I can go to Vietnam or Thailand or the Philippines or something cool then. I've already decided to go to the States for my winter break...which seems kind of boring in comparison to all these other Asian countries on my list. Of course i'm really looking forward to seeing my family again, but Minnesota in the middle of winter just isn't as exciting as a weekend in Russia now, is it?

So, i'm looking forward to planning some interesting trips abroad and in Korea. There's so much to see and do!

Today I rode my bike to the Cafe Brunch intending to read my book and eat some French Toast. I found Tony there and i joined him, and I ordered a Gargonzola pizza. which was AMAZING. it was on very thin, crispy crust and just melted cheese on top. And a cup of honey to dip it in. SO good.
So, we were discussing what to do that day. I was thinking of going to Home Plus and he was going to go hiking at a mountain on Gangwha island. Ever since I read about the archaeological sites on that island i've been wanting to go there, so i agreed to join him. We were waiting for the bus for a long time when we decided, screw this, let's go have a beer at the Family Mart. On the way, i let him ride my bike and he was so excited to be on a bike again! He mentioned wistfully how he wished he had one. i said, so why don't you buy one? There's a bike shop by the family mart. So we went there to check them out, to see if there were any cheap ones. The guy showed him one for 180,000 so he decided to buy it. Because we are rich in Korea and have a lot of disposable income, so a bike is not an unusual impulse buy.

So the guy souped up both our bikes a bit and we were off! We found some rural roads that meandered through the rice paddys and we enjoyed riding on them and seeing actual wildlife and plants! Then we found ourself in Incheon and we sat down at a family mart for a soda. Then we headed back. On the way out my chain kept falling off so by this time I was dirtier than i've been in a long time...very sweaty, and muddy, and bike grease all over. but it was glorious. luckily my chain didn't fall off anymore on the way back. We saw several signs for something that we didn't know what it was, but it was only 2km away so we decided to follow it. It turned out to be dolmen tombs which date to the neolithic era. I was excited, because, archaeology!

It was a good day, and luckily the rain held out. Although by the time we got back to Janggi it would have been welcome, because we were SO dirty. But that's one of the best parts of summer:getting dirty.
We've resolved to go camping sometime soon. If only we can figure out where.

This is me coasting down a hill



As you can see by the big grin on my face, i was having a blast


Tony and his new bike in the rice paddys




We found an aquaduct! Their irrigation systems here really are rather impressive.


This is a flock of birds we saw in Incheon. Seriously, literally the largest gathering of wildlife I have seen in Korea. There don't seem to be many animals here at all. I saw a squirrel once. Tony never has.



Tony climbed a tree. We felt like we were in middle school again.



So here is the plaque about the dolmen tombs and a picture of said tomb. The plaque is written in Konglish so I suggest just doing a wikipedia search to read more about the dolmens of Korea. It's actually quite interesting. And really old.




This is a cemetary. They are traditionally/usually on hills and they use burial mounds.I'd really like to learn more about the burial practices here.


This is a view of some of the rice paddys we were biking through. I'm also really curious about these. How the heck are they harvested? How old are these irrigation systems? I'm really interested but none of the Koreans i've met know or seem to care. I guess agriculture is really looked down on. But i wanna know!