Jeju Marathon 2008

Last weekend, we went to Jeju-do, an island about 4.5 hours by ferry south of Mokpo for the Jeju Marathon. Last year, this was my first 10k race ever, and I was psyched to go back. I had even entertained thought of training for the half there (lack of time on the roads and some minor injuries made me rethink the wisdom of that one).

Sloane and I took the afternoon ferry on Friday, and got in at about the same time Vanessa and Monique landed (they flew from Gwangju). We all met up at the airport where we picked up the rental car (and really? Get the car. It is far and away the best way to get around the island.)

The next morning, we started off pretty slowly - Sloane and I went to the gym across the street (which, compared to were I work out now, was SWEET) and then we went off for brunch and met up with my friend Dan:


who went with us for a drive along the coast road on our way to the lava tubes. We stopped when Dan noticed that the haenyeo, the lady divers of Jeju, were out working and we got out to watch for a few minutes. They are pretty famous in Korea, and it was something I had wanted to see. I felt a little invasive just watching them work, but they ARE sort of famous for the work they do, and I'm willing to bet this wasn't the first time tourists had watched them at work.



We went to the lava tubes, which were actually pretty cool (figuratively and literally). In the center of Jeju is Hallasan, a dormant volcano, and the entire island is volcanic rock. Basically, the volcanic flows have formed underground tubes all over the island, and a section of the tube system has been declared an UNESCO natural heritage site. It has been lit (somewhat) and there are some signs (in multiple languages) pointing out certain features of the tube. I think I read somewhere that it was about a kilometer each way (out and back), but that seems kind of far for how long we were down there. While there are lights, they keep it dark to preserve the site, so unless Dan's fancy camera was able to see more than ours were, we don't have any images from inside the tube.

After the tubes, we headed to the beach:


We maybe watch a little too much America's Next Top Model.

The marathon was having a pre-party in what we determined was either a past or a current drama/movie set. There was going to be a dinner, but it wasn't going to start for more than an hour and a half, and looked like it was going to be an awful lot of raw fish and speeches in Korean, so we decided to take off for the Indian restaurant in town, after taking some pictures of the park.


We had to leave the next morning at 7:30 to get to the starting line for the race. We were maybe not too happy about that:


And maybe got a little lost along the way.

We got to the stadium with enough time to check our bags and get ready to head to the line, but I wasn't able to get in touch with a friend who ran the full, and I was pretty disappointed about that. Also, because of distance and time and our departures, there was no way we were able to make it back to the stadium and still make our ferry, and I'm still really bummed about that.

Anyway, the race course was beautiful, and I had a good run - there were more rolling hills than I remembered, but nothing overwhelming, and after the last race that was HARD, this one felt really nice. Monique took her camera along, so I have some shots of the course:
passing after Monique did the turn-around

Garlic drying on the side of the road.

Squid drying along the road.


I think Dan got a shot of my finish, which was a personal best time (still 1:09:04, but that is great for me, and the course was exactly 10k - 6.25 miles) but here is a picture of all of us:



After we finished, we walked over to a nearby beach and went into the (cold) water for a few minutes:


After, we went back to the hotel, showered, and then went for Mexican for lunch. We dropped Vanessa and the car off at the airport, lamented that we would be on the boat for 4.5 hours instead of flying, and then (after realizing all the flights were booked and there wasn't a chance of catching a last-minute seat) headed for the ferry terminal. On the way back, we had booked two business-class rooms and one lower-class seat. The rooms were a little small, but we thought we would have been fine if we had bought one room and two of the lower-class seats (just for future reference for anyone who has made it this far and might be taking a ferry to or from Jeju). It was like a little barrier between us and the soju-fueled revelry on the other side of the door, and it was worth the money, by far.

I have said this before, but our little running club has been such an amazing part of my time in Korea, and will miss the people and the experiences deeply.

weeble-wobble

The difference between me and a weeble-wobble?

Weebol-wobbles don't fall down.

I went out for a run today to explore an area of sidewalk with the rubberized running surface I found last weekend, and about 10 yards from the beginning of the good path, I tripped over the end of a pipe that was sticking out of the road, as if it had been a support of some sort embedded in the in the asphalt. I totally wiped out, skinning my knee, taking a layer of skin off the palms of my hands, and getting a couple little scrapes on my elbow. Basically, I look like a 7 year-old who fell off her bike.

Jeju

Me looking so dork-tastically happy that I finished my first 10k in Jeju.


Tomorrow I leave for Jeju for what I think is the last group race for our little running club. Monique leaves in a few weeks to go back to Canada, Carol has already gone home, and my contract is over in less than three months. Sloane and I may try to find a race before it gets too hot to be dealt with or the rains set in solidly, but it isn't looking all that great. So I'm looking at this as our last race together.

Presents!!

My new co-teacher is going to be such an awesome teacher, and is really really nice.

There are some miscommunications given her grasp of the content area she has been assigned to teach. But she is super-helpful as far as she can be, and just bought me the greatest little present ever!

I have been meaning to get one of the name-stamps that are sometimes considered more official than a signature here (you have to use red ink for it to be valid). I hadn't mentioned it to her, but she saw one on-line for a very good price and thought I would appreciate it and got one for me! Also, totally by coincidence (she told me later), the wood carving on the out side is of a crane. My school this year is 삼학, which translates to "three cranes" elementary school. I liked the symbolism. I know this probably cost a LOT less than the donuts she brings in for the other 6th grade teachers, and it means so much more!!

Ultimate

This weekend, a friend organized an ultimate frisbee hat tournament in Mokpo.

Let me back up a second - in Ultimate Frisbee, there are all kinds of games, from pick-up (what we play - a group of folks gather, divide up into equally matched teams, and play for a few hours fairly casually) leagues (what it sounds like - set teams that play for a given length of time) tournaments (like the one I went to in Jeju a few weeks ago) and Hat tournaments, where people register, state their ability level, and then teams are drawn up that are hopefully pretty equally matched. Sort of like drawing names out of a hat (hence the name), but the goal is to make sure that there is a balanced number of experienced players, new-ish players, and beginners.

For this tournament, there were a bunch of us from Mokpo, a fairly big group of people from Seoul, some folks from Busan, and then a handful of others from all around. About 45-50 players made it out on Saturday (a handful less were able to make both days - a few people fell victim to the Saturday night party), and it was a great time, both in terms of learning a lot in a short amount of time, and in getting to hang out with some neat people.

I also feel lucky that there are so many really cool, mellow folks in Mokpo. This weekend introduced me to some folks who approach games a little more... intensely, for lack of a better word... than I'm comfortable with, and I appreciate the vibe of the people who play here have even more. One of the things I've learned from this new-found interest in athleticism is that it is great to be competitive, awesome to see improvement, and fun to win, but at the end of the day, you are really good at throwing a frisbee. Or climbing a rock. Or running for a long time. Or lifting heavy things and putting them back down again. All of these things are great, but in terms of degree of importance? Maybe notsomuch. If you aren't having a good time, aren't making friends, aren't having fun, what's the freaking point? Granted, I'm the girl who was picked last in gym class, so my humble opinion should probably be taken with a very large grain of salt.

The abandoned school and maping programs

(this is mostly for the Mokpo folks)

Most Sundays a group of folks gets together around 2 to play Ultimate Frisbee. Lot's of fun, but it can be a little hard to find the abandoned school where we play.
here is a link to a Google maps-like map of the area.

For taxis, you can say "Yudal Oo-che-gook" (that's a phonetic, not transliteration spelling), which is the closest landmark, then tell the driver to go up the hill, turn right, then turn left. Or you can be daring and say "Gu Mokpo Jeil Yoja Godung Hakyo" - old Mokpo Girls High School. I usually mention "yudal oochegook" just to make sure that I don't end up in Hadang at the current girls high school, and still the drivers often try to take me to the middle school down the road. If you don't go up a hill into a small neighborhood and end up at an obviously abandoned school, you are at the wrong place. Emphasize the "Gu" part of the location.

Once there, walk around the building to the right, go up a set of steps, and you are at the field. If you are on a bike (motor or pedal), you can go to the left and go up the ramp to the field.

Also, the link above is to a mapping site where you can plot courses for walking, running, or giving directions. One that I like even more (and which JUST upgraded so I can see Korea - use hybrid view) is Map My Run. The main benefit to the Map My Run program is that it has an out/back feature for plotting routes, and you can click and drag the map around more easily.

Boseong

Last weekend was a 10k race (for me and Sloane) and a 5k for Carol, Vanessa and HangBin (and Vanessa's first 5k race!) in Boseong, a small town on the east side of Jeollanamdo. Boseong produces about 40% of the green tea consumed in Korea, which is a heck of a lot of green tea. The small town's other claims to fame are its proximity to Jirisan (the Jiri Mountains), Daewonsa (Daewon temple), that it is Hangbin's hometown, and that it is where Vanessa spent her first two years in Korea.

Sloane and I left Mokpo on Saturday afternoon to make it to town, grab a hotel room, and then to go see the tea fields.


We then ate green tea ice cream and went to meet Vanessa for dinner in town. Carol was coming down with an evil cold, so didn't come over until the morning of the race. But how rock-star of her is it that she still ran!?

The next day, we did the race. It wasn't my best run and I felt tired through the whole thing - not sure what was going on. The race DID have more hills than I'm used to running, but I don't think they were as bad as I thought they were. It felt like most of the first half was downhill and I kept dreading the second half of the race. At the end of the day, it wasn't as difficult as I thought it would be and while I was faster than my training times, I'm pretty sure it will be my slowest 10k to date.
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After the race, we went to the Green Tea Spa just outside Boseong, where I had my first scrub. Basically I paid a burley Korean woman to scrub about five layers of my skin off, and it was kind of awesome.

That night, we stayed at a cottage owned by Hangbin's family near Daewonsa.
HangBin picking lettuce from the garden for samgyupsal: . The air was clean, there were almost no people around, and it was great to be able to hang out with good friends.

Monday was Buddha's Birthday and we went to Daewonsa for the celebrations. Daewonsa is one of the temples I like the most here, so it was really nice to be able to go there for the celebration.

It got a little crazy at one point with some photographs turning all paparazzi on us. Imagine this, but aimed at us instead of the performers, and (I think) more photographers:


Yes, we stand out. I get it. But instead of taking a snapshot and moving on, there were many people pointing these high-powered cameras at us. We tried to ignore them, but every time we looked back there were more! Finally, HangBin told them to leave us alone (in Korean), and they at least moved back.

The only downer about this weekend is that it was Carol's last race with us. Monday she heads back to Canada for a few months before starting as a teacher in Kuwait! Without putting too fine a point on it, these races have been a really important part of my time in Korea, and it has been so exciting and inspirational to run with this awesome group of people. Carol, you will be missed.

The next race is June 1st, in Jeju. It will be the anniversary of my first 10k race! I can't believe that it was almost a year ago!! Yikes.

Ultimate Frisbee

About a month ago, a group of about 15 of us went to Jeju for the 4th International Jeju Ultimate Frisbee tournament. We formed two teams - 18 Puppies (my team), which is a play on the translation of some pretty foul Korean words, and Snatch, which refers to grabbing a frisbee intended for someone else. And, er, I'm TOTALLY sure that is what they meant with the name, and there weren't any alternative meanings of the word implied, and there were no jokes made AT ALL. Just like there were no alternative meanings to the team named Rooster Candy. If you need that spelled out, send me an email.

We didn't have enough people for two full teams from Mokpo, but we had too many people for one big team, so we divided and pulled in some players who registered as individuals (instead of as a team) and we TOTALLY lucked out with the quality of the people we picked up for our team. Basically, while the people on our team were reasonably athletic (and, as an aside, I'm still sort of shocked that I get to count myself in the "reasonably athletic" category, albeit the slightly-slow-and-lacking-in-hand-eye-coordination part of that category) our frisbee-handling skills, well... Let's say there was a pretty good reason we were playing in "C" division. The two people we picked up were awesome, and they taught us a lot and, in all honesty, really sort of carried us. I mean, we were there to have fun and would have been competitive in our division, but let's just say (as someone on another team pointed out) we didn't have many people in cleats on the field. The fact that it was windy as all get-out actually worked to our benefit, as we were able to run a reasonably effective defense while our ringers new teammates had enough experience to work with the weather conditions. We were advanced to the "B" division for the second day of the tournament. Where we got spanked by the team that got knocked out of the "A" division.



Part of 18 puppies (including one the people we picked up - the one second from the left)


The whole team


Rich making our super-fancy tee-shirts


There were teams from all over Asia, including multiple teams from China, an all-women's team from Japan who were AWESOME (well, almost all women, as they had one guy because this was a co-ed tournament, but he didn't see a lot of field time), Thailand, the Philippians, Taiwan, as well as a bunch of teams from Korea and some other places I think I'm missing. Also, Jeju is just flat-out awesome. It is almost like taking a break from being in Korea.

Next weekend is a "hat" tournament here in Mokpo, where everyone enters as an individual, says what their experience level is, and then teams are drawn up. It will be interesting to see how many people make it down (or up, in the case of the Jeju players) and should be a pretty awesome time.

Bloodletting

A few months ago, I twisted my ankle pretty severely. Overall, its been doing better, but if I do too much it hurts a lot still. So, since I have had next to no classes this week and needed to get out of school before I went stir crazy, I went to the traditional medicine clinic this afternoon. I really thought about bringing my camera with me, but decided that was too much, even for me.

After a conversation that was mostly in Korean (of which I understood maybe about 20%) and a few questions in a mix of broken Korean and broken English, the doctor drew a couple marks on my ankle and told me I would be treated with cupping, acupuncture, and physical therapy. Since he didn't mention being injected with bee venom (which some friends have had there, and they said it hurt like all get out), I was good to go.

First, they put suction cups on my ankle for less than a minute. They took some sort of pricking tool and basically stabbed the site a few times (it felt bigger than a tattoo needle, but wasn't TOO bad) and put the suction cups back on, drawing out blood. (I wasn't exaggerating about the bloodletting in the title) I'm not sure how long they left the cups on - maybe 5-10 minutes or so.

After, the doctor came in to place the acupuncture needles. The only one that sort of hurt was the one he put on the side of my big toe. These he left in for 20 minutes with a heat lamp aimed at the ones on my ankle. I'm not sure why, but when he took out a couple of the needles they stung, whereas others were basically painless. Anyway.

Next, the assistant came and strapped a couple of what looked not-unlike crash cart paddles that were hooked it up to a machine on my ankle. Basically I was given a massage with electric shocks. Bizarre, but not bad.

The doctor wrapped my ankle with something that looks sort of like an ace bandage with adhesive on the back. They finished by taking me upstairs and letting me hang out in the massage chair for while. Only it was sort of the Cadillac of massage chairs, and it was awesome.

Total cost was less than $5.

Right now, my ankle actually feels a lot better - to the point where I'll for sure go again to get my knees and both ankles looked at in the near future, even if it is just placebo effect. Also, I asked about preventative migraine treatment, but he didn't seem to quite understand what I was saying. If nothing else, I will probably try to get acupuncture before taking the heavy-duty migraine drugs the next time I get a headache.

t-shirts and teaching

I tried to explain to the cute young guy who works in the vice-principal's office why his "I love my hooker" t-shirt both shocked me and made me laugh, but I wasn't able to explain it in either Korean or English ("hooker" wasn't on long list of occupations I was supposed to memorize at Ewha - THAT I probably would have remembered) and I just wasn't willing to use interpretive dance for that one.

Also, I like the younger kids, but the novelty wears off pretty quickly. They cry. They cry when they get answers wrong, they cry when they get answers right and someone makes fun of them for it, they cry when you move them because they made someone cry. I think part of it is because it is a special day for them, so there is just a lot more excitement about coming to my class. Or, you know, they just tend to cry.

One of the things that is really great is that even though my newest co-teacher speaks next to no English at all, she really will be an awesome teacher once she gets her own full-time classroom. She engages the kids who have trouble keeping up and the kids with special needs, she adds a lot of ideas to the textbook boring-ness, she is great with the cry-ers, and she has no problem coming down like stack of bricks on the 6th graders when they are being annoying. SHE GAVE A DIAGNOSTIC. Awesome.

Well, at least there's that...

I got my wallet back today, less the money that was in it. It still just makes me so freaking angry, but at least I don't have to deal with getting a new alien registration card.

I also got out of playing volleyball for the school. I don't know if I've explained this, but there is a big thing about playing volleyball every Wednesday - "teachers' sports day" - and there is also the city-wide tournament. I was supposed to play hitter/blocker for my school's team, but with the problematic ankle and my lack of desire to stay after school to practice, I had been avoiding it. I went down yesterday and told the person who organizes everything (who is also my co-teacher from last year) that if there was a Korean teacher who wanted to play, I didn't want to take her place. All of this stuff somehow is related to status in the school and in the eyes of the principal/other teachers, so I'm opting out. (I'm pretty sure she knew, as she had plugged someone into the position already...)

AARRGGHH

After more than on incident with my wallet being "borrowed" in the past few months, I've been pretty careful about only bringing it to school when I know I'll need it for something. This is annoying, but effective. And when I do bring it, I'm pretty careful to make sure that I don't leave it alone.

Today I had to pay for my gym, so I brought the wallet with me.

Guess what happened?

I'm so angry I could spit. The only time it was not in my possession was when I put my bags in the teacher's room when I went to the restroom after school on my way out.

I have taught in some tough places. This is the first place where I have ever had things stolen.

More Busan

A couple weekends ago, friends and I ran the Busan Race For the Cure (called "Pink Ribbon Love Marathon" here).

+ I ran the 10k, and had my best 10k time ever. (1hr, 9min, 3sec)
- I'm pretty sure the race was somewhat shorter than 10k (according to my running watch, it was only 9.6, I think).
+ so in reality, my race time is staying pretty consistent.
- However, the half marathon will not be happening - I'm just not getting the distance in during the week, and my ankles and knees don't like the running and the playing of frisbee and volleyball.
+ I'm going to try to bring my 10k speed up
+ We will still be running in Jeju in June
+ We have registered for another 10k - in Boseong, an area near here that is known for their green tea fields. We'll also go to Daewonsa, a Tibetan Buddhist temple in that area
- my bet is that Boseong will be hilly.

We weren't in Busan for very long, but we had a great time. Amazing food, great friends, beaches. There are lots of great things about living in Korea, but sometimes it gets a little exhausting. Visiting bigger cities is almost like have a break from the overwhelming Korean-ness of living here, as there is more diversity of food and foreigners aren't quite such a novelty.

They have grass in Busan!


And people wear high heels on the beach:


The four runners on the beach on Saturday afternoon.


After the run:


I still love the picture from the previous post - these races have been a really amazing part of living here, and I can see the happy in it.

Busan

Last weekend some friend and I went to Busan to run the Race for the Cure. In Korea, they call it the Pink Ribbon Love Marathon.

I have bunches of pictures, but I am getting ready to leave to go to Jeju to play in an Ultimate Frisbee tournament, so one picture before I head to the ferry:



Carol, Sloan, Monique and I have run several races together, and these trips will be one of the highlights of my time in Korea.

Field Trip

Last week my school went on a "picnic" by which they meant "field trip" that ended up being "run around in a field and torture geckos" and "try to shake the snake out of the tree" (that last one isn't cute analogy for anything - there really was a snake in a tree).

Before we left for the trip, I was told that it would be something about planting trees, which I interpreted as perhaps an Earth Day sorta thing, or at least something with a bit of structure. The entire school went on the trip, and because of the number of kids going, the buses had to make two trips to the site. So I took a bunch of pictures and hung out with the kids while we waited.

The Kindergarten and part of the students lined up on the schoolyard.



One of my favorite students. She has special needs, and last year would wander in late, sit in the back, and refused to engage with me at all. This year, she sits in the front, participates, and will at least talk to me in Korean. I give a lot of credit to her homeroom teacher and the student she sits next to (who I bribe and compliment the heck out of for being nice to her). I could talk a long time about the way kids with intellectual special needs are treated here, but to put in all in a summary, NOT GOOD. Anyway, love her.


v-line


This student is a boy. He thinks he is extremely attractive.




What actually ended up happening was that kids sort of ran around all morning in a "park" that was near a major ship-building area. There were a gazillion geckos (which the children enjoyed torturing) a snake in a tree,


and games. And more games. And then a few more games. Including the always popular, make boys look like girls game. Think I'm joking?

Dear school

Dear school,

Hi, how are you? I'm good, but there were a couple of things I thought we should talk about.

First of all, I know that you want me to be more involved with things, especially volleyball. I think it is great that you let me play now that you have a tournament coming up and you need someone tall enough to block. It would be nice if you would set my direction in the actual games instead of ONLY setting to the male players, but I long ago gave up hope for anything remotely non-sexist, and you are just as offensive to the other strong women players. Still, it would be awesome if you didn't waste my time, then tell me how much you want me to stay late to practice with you.

Just so you know, I'd be a lot more likely to WANT to hang out with you if you weren't so totally and completely offensive. For example, while I don't know enough Korean to understand what you were saying about me yesterday, I DO understand MY OWN NAME. For example, when you say, "CHESHEKA, momomomo, heh heh heh" I know that you are talking about me, and the dirty old man chuckle gives me an idea that you wouldn't have said it in front of me if I could have understood. But more than the fact that you were saying inappropriate things, I'm offended by the fact that you weren't smart. Here's a tip - if you don't use my name, I don't know that you are talking about me. I know you feel it is your right to view me as a non-person, but I don't really like that and very soon will loose my ability to not tell you how horribly I think you act.

While we are clearing the air, can we talk about food? I'm really happy that you have stopped trying to force me to eat octopus by almost shoving it in front of my face. It would be great if you didn't hold out the still-wriggling legs out to me when you already know I won't eat it, and really, no matter how many times you tell me how delicious it is, or how good for health it is, I'm still not going to change my mind. Thanks for making the beef soup for lunch at the field trip. I really liked how the meat was cooked, and how I didn't have to see you put the still-alive octopus in the pot. It was interesting how you were able to work octopus and/or seafood into almost every single dish on the table - impressive, really - but thanks for at least not putting it in with the rice.

In all honesty and without a trace of sarcasm, thank you for letting me hang out with your students. Seriously, I have an almost ridiculous amount of fun watching them go goofy for stupid counting games, or listening to them sing silly English songs, or taking silly self-camera pictures with them. Seeing the little tiny kindergarteners in their little matching outfits, the third and fourth graders who want to talk but really only know "hello-my-name-is," the maybe crazy fifth grade boy who wants attention so badly he often just sticks his head in the room and growls. You make me laugh every single day. Thank you.

Sincerely,
J

A few more...

Looking at the last post, I realized that there are a lot of pictures of me by me. My name is Jessica and I am a selca (selfcam) addict. The first step is admitting you have a problem.

So here are some pictures of other things.

Dr. Fish is one of the newer trends in Seoul. Go into a nice, comfortable lounge, have a cocktail, and put your feet into a pool of warm water. That is filled with little fishies that eat the dead skin off your heels and toes.

I knew it would be ticklish, but I had NO IDEA it would be THAT ticklish. I was able to force my feet into the water for a few minutes at a time, but couldn't take it for very long at all! Euughh!! But how often do you get to say you had a glass of wine while fish ate your feet?



One of the things that I have deeply mixed feeling on is the more traditional markets. In the small towns, it is mostly old women with grains, vegetables and fruit in bowls and on blankets spread on the streets and sidewalks. You also have the same thing for fish, seaweed, octopus, and "I don't know, comes from sea." Even in major urban areas, sometimes a market springs up on a street corner, not far from a grocery store which everything neatly wrapped in plastic. This was on the streets of Seoul:

(the first few things are peanuts and candy-coated peanuts. As you move down the line, I think it changes more to the grains that are often mixed into rice)


I am completely addicted to the mandarin oranges you can see on the right. They are fading out of the markets now and when you do find them, they aren't as good. It makes me sad.


More kinds of kimchi than you could imagine. The smell was powerfully bad.

I really like the old markets for vegetables and fruit. When it comes to meat and seafood? Maybe I'm just a princess, but I would prefer to buy things that haven't been sitting out in a bucket on the side of the street. But maybe that's just me.


This is the picture I took of the Seoul subway map because I kept losing the pocket maps I had. I was incredibly proud when I could navigate around the city using only the Korean version.