My New Home: Hanseo University

I write this now as my latest period of unemployment is coming to an end. I will soon be starting a new position as "English Professor" at Hanseo Univeristy. I use quotes because it doesn't seen really appropriate to call me a professor.

But, it is a really nice job to have. I signed my contract recently for 30 million a year. Thats right, 30 million, no need to ask what currency that is in. That salary is for two semesters of teaching 8 or 9 90 minute lectures plus four office hours per week. Plus, I get one day off per week for "research," and months of vacation per year.

One thing I love about this job is the location of the university. Hanseo University can be translated as "Korea West" University, and it is nestled nicely in the middle of some mountains in the Western part of Korea. It's not really located in a city, but a nearby town called Haemi is about 5km away; and Seosan (my previous city) is about a 20 minute drive from the campus. It seems to be a great location if you really love hiking, though not such a great location if you like partying.

I'll get to some pictures, anyway:

the gate to Hanseo campus

A nice mountain next to the campus area

this is the view from the top of the mountain in the previous picture

the architecture building, where my office will be located

a pagoda housing a bell located at the top of the campus

a sculpture garden

a nice woman playing cello, in the woods

a horse

The campus is really littered with sculptures. I heard that all of the sculptures located on campus are by former students, thought I haven't confirmed it. There are a few really nice ones, but there are a LOT there that range from mediocre to eyesore territory. Oh well.

I hoped you like the tour of campus, I'll take more pictures as spring comes and keep everyone updated!

The Great Korean Road Trip of 2012: Part 3

And now the grand conclusion of my Chinese New Year road trip around Korea. Well, it's not really that grand because we just kind of screwed around and drove around in some mountains for the rest of the time. Here it is, anyway...

After leaving the crazy crab vilage, we continued North. We wanted to make it to a Northern city, and found one called Samcheok right around the time we got sick of driving. We spent the rest of that night looking for a chicken barbecue place, but didn't find one. Instead, we had some pork barbecue and some whisky. We also got the bright idea to ask people "how does a cat speak" in Korean. The joke for the rest of the night was to ask this, and it actually worked. The best moment was when we were in a bar. The three of us had a rock scissor paper contest to find out which one of us would have to approach a table of 7 Korean girls and ask them the question. I eventually lost, but it worked out well. All 7 girls laughed and meowed. Some of them made a little cat scratch motion with their hands.

After getting some rest, we were on the road again. We were driving out of town, and near the edge we found a nice place to stop near bridge. This allowed for some planking:

And there was this great little bay. We ventured down and had to cross trough this bamboo forest to get to the rock ledges in the picture below:

The bamboo forest:

After setting out again, we found ourselves in some pretty serious mountain country. We found this city called Taebaek, which was a small Korean city, but spread through some mountains. It was actually a really great drive, and for me it was a highlight of the trip.

We made a stop at a little convenience store at the top of a mountain. Here is the view of the mountain road:

The place had these nice little outdoor rooms, which I assume were for drinking in the Summer time:

Driving out on the mountain roads, I developed my skill for taking photos through the windshield while driving. Here's one picture:

At one stop, these little dogs came and started barking at us. I got a good look at this one little dog who had a face that looked like a horror movie monster. Does anyone know what kind of dog this is?

Another driving shot of this rock tunnel we drove through:

We made one last stop before heading to Seoul, near this altitude sign:

I don't have any pictures from our night out near Seoul. We had a nice time hanging out near Nick Slater's school in Yongin. That was our last night before the other guys would have to work, so we left Nick in Yongin and headed back to the Seosan area. Here we are driving into the sunset:

All in all, it was a great trip and we covered a lot of Korea. Tracing it back full circle, the trip looked like this:

We didn't make it as far North as I would have liked, but we definitely had a great time. I guess a Northern trip can be saved for a later blog post...

The Hidden Valley Ranch

So this post is actually about a valley next to my town, not the delicious salad dressing. Did I get anyone there? Ha. Lame.

One of the best things about living in my town is that we have mountains (actually more like hills) to the north, and there is a really beautiful valley in those mountains. I had found this valley on a route from my apartment a while ago and was planning to post about it, but two weekends ago my friend Daniel showed me more of the valley near his apartment. It's actually much bigger and better than I though.

I'll just get to the pictures since there's not much more to the story than that we walked around for a while.

On the way there were a few huge praying mantis' in the road, which are common in Korea. These are some of the coolest looking bugs I have ever seen, and this one allowed me to get nice and close for a photo.

There was also this junkyard on the way with this fence around it and some of the biggest spiders I have ever seen. Look a the markings on that guy. Does anybody know what type of spider this is?

This is a tunnel where we walk under a highway to get to the valley. The guy is Daniel.

This is basically what the valley looked like. Just farm after farm in this expansive, beautiful land.

Here is some kind of a lake in the valley. The tiny white objects are people.

This is just a photo I liked with some rice paddies in it.

So this is a giant rock face at the top of a hill. If you look closely, there is a roofline down and to the left from it just a little ways. My friend Daniel went up there a week later, and it turns out that it's actually a Buddhist temple up there. When he went there was a lady there and she served him some tea. I really want to go sometime.

Having something like this valley makes me glad to live in a town with at least a hint of easily accessible natural landscape to explore. I'll post again when I make it up to the temple.

The View from the Top

Hi everyone, I thought I would use my extra time tonight to write a blog post. I had a class I didn't have to teach and I'm really happy about it because they are all apathetic middle school kids who I hate trying to teach. Otherwise things are going well at school, I just finished my evaluations for this month and the week is almost over. Wow, three months. This Friday we actually get a day off for Korean thanksgiving, which is awesome.

So Korean thanksgiving, or Chusok, is apparently the like a Korean Christmas in terms of how big it is, but we got really screwed because it fell on Saturday. If it would have been on Thursday we would have gotten Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday off. But here we are, anyway, I'll just enjoy my one day. I haven't really gathered what happens on this holiday except for the fact that they all travel to see their family and then eat rice cakes or something. It means that the roads will be ridiculously congested, too. My student was telling me that if it takes three hours to drive somewhere you can pretty much expect it to take eight or so. Ha ha, have fun Korea.

So anyway, about this post. I had made this hiking trip about a month ago to an observation tower that is located in our town on a hill that borders it. It kind of got pushed on the back burner for other posts and other life activities I guess. Right now is as good of a time as any though, I think.

I made the hike by myself on a Sunday afternoon. It was pretty muggy at that time, so I was really sweating my ass off.

The observation tower from below

Its a really nice hike, and not too long either. It probably took me about fifteen minutes to walk there and then about fifteen or so to walk up the hill. At the entrance of the flat area on top of the hill is this sign:
So I don't really understand why it's called a mountain fortress and talks a lot about a wall and a walled city. Hmm, some great blog writer I am.

Anyway, when I got to the clearing at the top of the hill, there was a huge work out area. It included some hula hoops, a padded running track, plenty of apparati (is that the plural for apparatus) for doing crunches, push ups, pull ups, and some other zany exercises which are kind of like an elliptical machine, a giant ship steering wheel, and a small rotating platform so you can twist your midsection. I'll do a post on Korean workout parks before winter since they are everywhere and they are pretty hilarious.

The park. I think the red logs are balance beams.

The observation tower from directly below

So after climbing up the 40 or 50 steps to the top of the observation tower, there's a breathtaking view of the city. It's easy to see that the city isn't huge or anything, but it's definitely not tiny. The town is basically bordered by this long strip mountain/hill or whatever and then on the other sides it's mostly fields of rice paddies.

Looking southwest

Looking south

Looking southeast

So that's basically the town I live in from above. You can kind of see where I live in the picture looking south but it's not too easy to describe, and I'm lazy. Oh, the last thing I'll put in here is this crazy sign I saw in the workout park at the top of the hill. I think it's something about keeping healthy.

Brown Town

This isn't completely intentional, but today this blog is taking a turn for the brown. It happened, though, so I have to write about it.

Last saturday I was out around town trying to explore more of Seosan. I walked toward this large green hill which borders one side of the city (actually called a mountain here). This was extremely scenic, the hillside is lush with green trees and plant life. As soon as I was a good portion of the way up the hill, I felt this rumble in my stomach. I think we all know this rumble, the one where you know your bowels are a ticking time bomb of disaster, and I knew I had about 7 minutes. Luckily, I was near the town hall and cultural center, and I knew of at least one public toilet around.I didn't have to walk far to find this little oasis, a lifesaver. I was really about to try to find a secluded area on the hillside to do the deed and wipe up with money from my pocket.

Once inside, it wasn't all good news. I encountered this little porcelain hole in the ground, lovingly called a "squatter" by some fellow foreigners. Well, long story short, I managed to get it done and come out of this situation clean.

Now, I was free to explore this hillside complete with cultural center and park. This statue is an entrance leading up to a shrine.

This shrine is for the founder of Korea. I managed to scare the crap out of some guy who was peacefully walking around this courtyard when he came around a corner and saw me.

This is a sign outside of that shrine telling about the (real?) history of the Korean nation. It's a little hard to make out on this website picture, but it says:

"Enshrined in this shrine at the foot of Puch'un-san Mountain are the portrait and memorial tablet of Tangun, the founder of the Korean nation.

According to Samguk Yusa (The Memorabilia of the Three Kingdoms) by Buddhist Monk Iryon, Tangum was born of Hwanung, the son of Hwanin, the heavenly god, and a woman transformed from bear in 2333 B.C. Tangun founded Tangun Choson and ruled it for two millennia. Asadal (now Pyongyang) was the capital of the first Korean nation."

The park also had this nice pathway which led to a rock rotunda where it looked like a water fountain show happens along with a nice workout park.

This area also provides a nice view of the city from above. It's really great to live in a part of Korea where its not just mile after mile of city streets (Seoul) and I can get a little bit of nature. The beaches are also pretty close so I'm going to check them out soon.