Category Archives: Korea

December 9, 2013

The Sky in Korea in Fall

I should be posting a story here, but it’s not ready. So, inspired by fellow blogger and new friend Nia’s post, I decided to share some photos I’ve taken this fall in my comings and goings. All these were taken with my phone and the nice thing about having a camera on you at all times is you can grab those perfect scenes, and then weed out all the ones that didn’t turn out as well as they look in real life. As you may know, I really like the sky and clouds. So that’s the theme of this post.

In the city in Korea, it’s hard to get away from the outline of high-rise apartments.

Sunrise, from my kitchen window.

A man on a scooter stopped me to ask why I was taking this picture. I thought it was obvious.

My beautiful little Ajung stream, near our house.

9 Comments | tags: clouds, Jeonju, Korea, outside the tower, photograph, sky, South Korea, sunrise, Wanju | posted in Korea

November 26, 2013

The night I was a ghost – a true story

By David Stewart

I am now a legend of terror, a whispered story that will be told over and over in bars or around the dinner table. I am talking about myself now, David Stewart. This is a true story, after all.

It all started because my wife wanted to see a ghost. I’d like to see one too, if they exist, which I’m not entirely sure of. I have an open mind though. In any case, when I heard about a ~~reportedly~~ real haunted house on the east coast of Korea, my wife and I rented a car and drove four hours across the country to the rural area of Youngdeok, right on the coast of the East Sea (or Sea of Japan. I don’t want to get involved in that controversy).

I had seen another video about people who had gone to explore the house, but they had gone during the day. Bah! We like to go at night. Actually, we meant to arrive around sunset, but it does get dark earlier these days and it was pitch black by the time we arrived.

The last abandoned house we explored was out in the middle of nowhere but this one was right next to a vacation condo on a busy highway. We walked up the road on the condo side and set off two geese and a dog who were standing guard. A man came out and we thought he was going to yell at us, but instead he just told us to go up the other side.

The graffiti says variants of “ghosts” and “evil spirits”

The house, being famous, was quite vandalized, with graffiti all over it and broken windows. But it was also nice and creepy. We were looking for the basement, especially, since that was supposedly where people had heard ghostly voices. While we were looking around, a car stopped at the bottom of the hill. At first, we thought they had seen our flashlights and were coming to yell at us, but we quickly realized they were just there to see the house too.

Suddenly, we were in the position of being in a haunted house at night with other people coming to see it. What would you have done? Well, what we did was stand without moving in the front room with our hoods up and wait for them to come. Honestly, I had no idea how they would react. They walked up, shined the flashlight in and…

…screamed like banshees. They kept screaming and ran all the way down the hill to their car and drove away while my wife and I laughed and laughed. I would have explained and apologized but they never came back. Oops. So, that is why there is now even more anecdotal evidence that this house is haunted. However, if you hear any Koreans tell about how they saw a ghost in the window of the Youngdeok house, feel free to explain (or not).

By the way, we finally did find our way down to the basement but we never heard any voices. And we still haven’t seen a ghost. Yet.

Here is the video of our explorations. Go to 3:21 to see the part where the other people come.

144 Comments | tags: adventure, creepy, Creepy Korea, Ghost, Haunted house, Korea, night, Tales from the Tower, Youngdeok, Youtube | posted in Korea

November 21, 2013

The Midnight Snack Hawker

By David Stewart

It is closer to midnight than 11 and the world is slowly settling down into that warm, blankety zone of sleep and relaxation. Then, from the darkness outside my window comes a melancholy, undulating cry that rises and falls over and over in dreary repetition. Clearly it is a crazy person. Someone, call the police, there is a madman wandering the neighborhood, yelling at the top of his lungs at midnight.

I’m too ~~nervous~~ lazy to call the police, but the man keeps wandering around. Ugh, fine, I’ll go talk to him. Putting on my coat, my shoes, picking up an umbrella as an afterthought in case he attacks me. Down four flights of stairs.

Me: It’s almost midnight. What are you doing?

Apparently Crazy Man: I’m selling chapssal ddeok. Do you want to buy some?

chapssal ddeok: made of rice with red beans in the middle. AKA: mochi

Me: Why on earth would I want to buy ddeok at midnight?

Apparently Very Enterprising Man: I don’t know…maybe you’re hungry. Maybe you want a midnight snack.

Me: Well, do you sell anything else?

Man: No, just ddeok. Now are you going to buy some or not? I have a lot of people to wake up and annoy.

Me: No, go ahead.

Man (taking a deep breath and walking away): Ddeeeeeoooook!!!

I go back upstairs, the man’s caterwauling farther away now and muffled by the neighboring buildings. I open the fridge. Nothing appetizing. Hmm, I would like something to eat. If only I had some fresh ddeok…

(This fictional story is based on actual events and this is a real thing in Korea. Below is a video I shot last night of the man walking past our apartment after 11pm.)

10 Comments | tags: culture, ddeok, Korea, late night, mochi, Tales from the Tower, Tteok, Youtube | posted in Korea

November 19, 2013

Why Korea Feels Colder than Canada

By David Stewart

In general, I like cold. I grew up in Newfoundland, in northeastern Canada, where the daytime temperature during the winter is around -10 Celsius, dropping down to about -20 at night. At times, it can get down to around -40. It’s no fun waiting for the school bus in that, let me tell you.

In Newfoundland, we call this May. [Source]

In Newfoundland, we call this May. [Photo]

In Korea, it’s not nearly as cold. Wikipedia shows the average temperature in January to be between 4 and -6 degrees. Cold, but not crazy cold. Houses here are heated by a system of under floor heating called ondol. It’s wonderful to walk around on, or just lie on, although you have to remember not to leave any chocolate or meltables on the floor.

Public buildings, including schools, however, are not heated that way. Some are not heated at all. Many small schools use nothing but space heaters to heat the classrooms. The students and teachers both where their coats all day long.

The bathrooms also are not heated and most don’t have hot water. Also, the hallways aren’t heated and usually the doors of the school are open all day long.

This is the front door of my main school. Most schools keep their doors open like this all year long.

Why on earth would you keep the door open all day in winter? It’s not masochism, I swear. The reason is ventilation. Koreans love ventilation more than heat, it seems. I had a class once in the library, which was in the back building and didn’t get any sunlight anyway. The principal would come in in the mornings and open all the windows in the middle of winter. It took about 3 hours to get it back to a liveable temperature.

When I was growing up, I never really felt cold, unless I was outside for hours and hours and my gloves got wet. But in Korea, I’m cold most of the day in the winter. I used to like winter a lot more too. I realized that cold is only fun if you can get warm afterwards. Nobody wants to go from cold outside to cold inside. And that is why Korea feels colder than Canada.

(P.S. One unexpected thing that Korea does have a lot of is heated toilet seats. That at least mitigates things a bit when you have to wash your hands with cold water.)

16 Comments | tags: Canada, heating, Korea, Newfoundland, school, Underfloor heating, ventilation, winter | posted in Korea

October 29, 2013

Fall Streets in Korea

By David Stewart

In Korea, there are several indications that it is fall, besides the leaves and temperatures changing. One is that roadside pungeo-bbang (붕어빵 or taiyaki in Japanese) stands start popping up again. Literally, “fish bread”, they are pancake-like cakes shaped like fish, with red beans inside them. They are perfect when you’re walking home in the cold and want a quick snack.

Because they are hot food, a lot of them close down during the summer (when people would rather eat patbingsu anyway). They are often surrounded by a sheet of clear plastic to keep in some heat for the poor person working there and for the people who stop to buy things.

Another change in the roads are the things that are spread out to dry on them. This is more common in the countryside, where farmers spread out rice to dry on tarps, but in the city too you can see hot peppers and other things spread out wherever there is room.

As you see, rice often takes over the sidewalk or a lane of the road. The farmers rake it to get it evenly dried, then go along with a machine to scoop it into bags. This shows the communal nature of Korean society: although I’m sure some crime exists in this area, people don’t go out at night and steal all this rice.

Here is several thousand dollars worth of rice spread out overnight in the provincial capital.

There are other foods too that are spread out to dry. Like melons,which I saw a few days ago.

When we were on Jeju, the semi-tropical island south of mainland Korea, there were lemon peels laid out to dry by the road, I guess to make lemon tea out of.

Don’t you love fall? I realize that in a country with only one or two seasons, there might not be fall like this, but if there is, what other little touches do you see in your area that show that the seasons are changing?

20 Comments | tags: autumn, fall, Jeju, Jeonju, Korea, pungeobbang, rice, street food, taiyaki, Wanju | posted in Korea

October 1, 2013

Happy Surprises: Gosu Cave

By David Stewart

Don’t you love accidental discoveries and happy surprises?

A few weeks ago, I took a trip across Korea by myself. I’m kind of an introvert anyway, but another reason I like traveling alone is the total freedom to do random things when I want. On the first day, I had just gotten off my second intercity bus of the day in the small rural town of Danyang in the deep mountains of central Korea. It was about 4:00pm and when I checked the bus schedule to see what time the bus would be leaving in the morning for the national park I was going to, I noticed the word “cave” in one of the destinations.

I had not known of any caves in the area, but I hadn’t known of anything in the area, and there are few things that get me as excited as caves. I looked it up on my phone and found it was only a kilometer away. So I started walking. And I got there just before it closed.

It was called Gosu Cave and was pretty amazing for something I had never heard of before, after almost nine years in Korea. It was a limestone cave with some stunning features.

Another amazing thing about it was although it was very high, it was also incredibly narrow. This meant that as I walked through it, I was very close to everything. You could even reach out and touch some of the formations, although I felt guilty doing that, after years of warnings never to do that (the oil in your skin can damage the stone and prevent the formations from growing.)

There was almost no one there since it was almost closing time. Interestingly enough, the two groups that went in at the same time as me were Americans. They were some of the only non-Koreans I saw the entire trip.

There were two courses, a slightly shorter one that was more for families and a longer one that included everything open to the public. It took about 45 minutes to go through it.

The longer route featured a formation called Lion Rock, which looked like a lion’s roaring mouth. Unlike some rock formations (like the bear that I could kind of see), it was pretty clear. You can see it here:

However, this cave was not for the claustrophobic. Some places I had to squeeze through, it was so narrow, and even if I didn’t have my big pack on my back, it would have been difficult. In a few places, I had to get down and crawl for a few feet because the ceiling was so low.

I guess it’s true that we don’t necessarily regret missed opportunities all the time, since we don’t know what we missed, but I am glad things worked out to go here. There was another cave up the valley from this one that I tried to go to the next day, but it was a national holiday (Chuseok) so the cave didn’t open until 12:30 and I couldn’t wait that long. I’ll just assume it wasn’t as good as this one.

Just to prove that I didn’t get these pictures off the Internet.

12 Comments | tags: caves, Gosu cave, hiking, Korea, photograph, travel | posted in Korea

September 21, 2013

The Green-Walled Church

By David Stewart

I was wandering around Daegu today and came across this church. If the Green-Walled Tower ever had a church attached to it, I’m sure it would look like this. (Plus, if I ever start a theological blog, I’ll have a good image for it. 🙂 )

7 Comments | tags: blogging, church, Daegu, green-walled tower, Korea | posted in Korea

September 19, 2013

Being Home for Chuseok

By David Stewart

I remember our first year in Korea, long ago in 2002. We came in late August and a few weeks later, we found out that we had a few days off, for a holiday called Chuseok. I remember that a Korean woman at church was arranging a trip to an amusement park for a lot of the foreigners because, she said, “it must be so hard to be away from your family on Chuseok.”

A traditional Chuseok scene. The message says: “Wishing you a Chuseok as bountiful as the full moon.”

Hard to be away from my family on Chuseok? Not particularly, since I had just found out about the holiday a few days before.

But for Koreans, Chuseok is a big deal. It is one of the two biggest holidays of the year, along with the ~~Chinese~~ Lunar New Year. It falls on August 15 (according to the lunar calendar) which means that it always coincides with the full moon.

There are several traditions at Chuseok. The main activity, like Thanksgiving, is to get together with family and eat a lot and hang out. For this reason, men and children love it, and women usually dread it. They see it as a time of pretty much non-stop cooking, which it is for them.

People dress up in hanbok (traditional Korean clothes: see the above picture), sometimes play traditional games, and also give gifts. Gifts are usually given between families, however, or to co-workers, and are usually gift sets of food or other things.

The other traditions are cleaning the graves of ancestors, along with memorial rites. As well, the whole family gets together to make songpyeon, which are steamed rice cakes with sugar and sesame seeds inside. They are steamed with pine needles, which gives them a bit of a different taste (although not much).

Songpyeon made by hand are not this neat, usually.

For me, as a foreigner, the main thing I notice about Chuseok (besides the days off work) is the traffic. It is getting better these days with better highways, but still Chuseok traffic is usually a nightmare. I took several buses over to the central part of Korea yesterday and got to the bus terminal several hours early to make sure I could get a ticket.

The thing about the traffic is that because of the geography and population distribution, the traffic is usually only horrendous in one direction. At the beginning of the holiday, everyone is trying to leave Seoul and go south, so if you go north, it’s not that bad. At the end, everyone is trying to get back up north to Seoul, so it’s reversed. Luckily, we live in the south, so we can usually avoid the worst of it (I saw on the news that two nights ago in Seoul, there were hundreds of people waiting for buses and the buses were delayed up to 3-4 hours).

In any case, Chuseok for us is just a time off work, to relax, and travel, perhaps. I hope you have a happy Chuseok today as well.

11 Comments | tags: Chuseok, culture, Family, holiday, Korea, Seoul, Songpyeon, Thanksgiving, travel | posted in Korea

September 16, 2013

Tales from the Tower begins!

By David Stewart

Back in March, I announced that I was starting a Youtube channel that would be connected with this blog. I did a poll to find a good name and most people liked the name Tales from the Tower (actually, the suggestion was Stories from the Tower, but I changed it a bit.) My idea was that I would film myself telling various of my stories in appropriate locations.

A lot of problems arose, specifically with finding a good video camera. In the meantime, I have decided to expand the concept. Yesterday, I posted about visiting an abandoned farmhouse near Seoul. So, here is the video I shot of it: the start of a series I call Creepy Korea. I like creepy things and now, with my wife, I am going to go out and find more haunted or spooky places to look around in.

As well, now that I think I have all the technical issues worked out, I will try to film some of my stories and post those as well, like my original idea. Stayed tuned.

13 Comments | tags: abandoned house, creepy, Korea, scary, South Korea, spooky, Tales from the Tower, video, Youtube | posted in Dark, Korea

August 31, 2013

Korean Place Names in English

By David Stewart

Generally, in North America, we don’t think about what place names mean much. Either they’re in English (e.g. Grand Falls, Red River) or they come from French, Spanish, German, or any number of native American languages, and often very corrupted from the original language.

In Korea, however, all major place names can be written with Chinese characters, which makes it easy to look up the meaning. The notable exception to this is Seoul, which cannot be written in Chinese characters. I have made a map of Korea with the meanings of all major cities on it in English. (In case you’re wondering, the name “Korea” comes from a former kingdom called Goryeo, which means “high beauty”.)