Panama

The past week has been crazy! Mel and I found Andreas, Gudrun (his girlfriend), Louie and Jasmine and then went to Panama and found Lane. Holy-jeez that is a lot of friends. We spent three nights in the Ngobe (natives of panama) village where Lane lives. He is officially the first of my friends to own a house outright, although the $400 price tag may have played a part. The seven of us spent time hiking, playing cards, telling tons of stories, and entertaining the Ngobes with our cameras at a Christmas dinner of pork stew. Highlights included, poisonous coral snakes, more scorpions, a mud slip-n-slide and lots of hammock time.

Andreas and Gudrun parted ways leaving the five of us on the Carribean beach of Bocas del Toro. Today we went kayak surfing and tomorrow we are going snorkeling. Life just does not get much better than this.

Happy new year to all! Go Beavs! And, check the MY PHOTOS link to the right for tons of pictures.

I really have a thing for these yellow churches. They are photogenic.

After 30 hours of driving and four border crossings, we have made it to San Jose, Costa Rica. It feels nice to be back here. Lou and Jaz get in later today and I have to find that fuzzy haired German friend of mine, he is also here somewhere.

Korea Update

The news from Korea regarding our payment is grim. The Korean labor Board has said that it can not get our funds for us so we have to sue if we want the money. Pretty much, there is no chance that we will get paid. Guess who is getting a job when he returns to the states?

On a traveling note, we are headed to Costa Rica tomorrow to meet up with Louie, Jasmine, Andreas, and Lane! How much fun will that be? I am so excited!

Quest for the Tree of Life

My dad was in a picture similar to this one 27 years ago.

My parents travelled to Guatemala the winter of 1979-1980, and since I was born in October of 1980 it comes as no surprise that I was conceived here. My mom thinks that it happened on Lago Atitlan and gave Melanie some photos taken near their camp. One is of my dad swimming in the lake and another is of my mom washing clothes. Both photos have distinct mountains in the background as clues. The other bit of information was that the conception occured under an avocado tree.

We set out in kayaks on this quest for the avocado tree from San Pedro because we believed it to be the closest town. The kayaks turned out to be very nice because the road is far from the beach in many places and separated by resort properties. What we planned on taking an hour or maybe two ended up taking 4. We paddled about 5 miles across the lake to a cove near Santiago Atitlan and I got a bad sunburn. The photos matched the mountains perfectly but we could not find the tree. I suppose it has changed a bit in 27 years. We settled on taking pictures of me in the same place as my dad 27 years ago. That was really cool. I wonder if the tree my placenta is buried under is still alive?

Public Transport in Guatemala

Chicken Busses

Guatemala has the best public transportation I have ever encountered. There is an individually owned fleet of retired American and Canadian school busses. When they are deemed unsafe for America's children they are sold to Guatemalans. Here, they proceed to give them sick paint jobs, roof racks, bumpin sound systems, chrome grills, Jesus stickers, naked women, disco balls, and other bling. The thing that often remains is the sticker that says, "Your children's safety is our business." Which is totally bogus because they drive like maniacs. It is really a twisted combination of Nascar and timber-sports. Nascar for obvious reasons and timber-sports because of the bus-boy, who can do a 20m. dash, climb a ten foot ladder, and throw 30 kilo bags like nobody in Albany. And, Yes!, there are chickens.

Two weeks later...

I love Guatemala and I don't know why. It is not the most beautiful or the most anything. Mel and I have been travelling around and having a splendid time. Kyle and Garrett we parted ways as they went on to Mexico. We headed to the secluded mountain town of Nebaj well off the gringo trail. It was a rewarding experience with good hiking and insight into non-touristy daily Guatemalan life. We hiked through the poorest neighborhood I have ever seen or imagined. The inhabitants were Mayan Refugees struggling to survive after decades of oppression and genocide.

Now we are at Lago Atitlan on the opposite end of the touristy spectrum. I soon begin the search for the avocado tree under which I was conceived...

Out of time, check my photos.

Tajulmulco

Garrett on the summit of Tajulmulco

Friday afternoon we finished Spanish lessons in Xela. At 5pm we planned to meet up with Garrett and Kyle Dickman to attend a pre-trip meeting for our weekend ascent of Tajulmulco (4,250m), Guatemala's highest peak. They stumbled in near the end of the meeting wondering, "What's the name of the volcano we are climbing?" It was great to see familiar faces and tell stories over some beers and dinner.

Saturday morning we got up at 4am for a day of riding chicken busses and hiking in cold, soupy fog. Our group of 32 could only go as fast as it's slowest member which led to half an hour of sitting around freezing for every 15 minutes of hiking. We chose to pass the time, in typical Dickman fashion, trying to determine who in our group was weirdest. This eventually let to closed ballot voting were we each listed our 5 top choices. Instantly upon reaching camp it began to rain and the evening culminated in undercooked, burnt pasta. Ummm. At least the conversation and card playing was good.

In the morning we awoke way too early for a clear morning of hiking. We made the summit about an hour before the sun and spent a bit of time shivering. The hike out proved to be wonderful!

Learning Spanish....a little bit

Party of the facade of the church in San Andre Xecul

Today is the third day of Spanish classes here in Xela, Guatemala. We are staying with a host family that is super nice and both enjoy our teachers very much. Our room has a beautiful vista of the volcano Santa Maria, which we plan to climb soon. My Spanish is still awful, and I feel sorry for my teacher Carolina because she has to suffer through five hours a day of listening to me. Monday afternoon we visited a small village with a bizarre technicolor church and yesterday we climbed a smallish volcano, La Muela, with a great view of the surrounding countryside.

I love Guatemala. It´s dirty, cheap, the beer is fine, the food is good and the people are friendly. The public transportation is the best I have ever seen, although not necessarily the easiest for a foreigner to figure out. More on that later. And my favorite attribute of all, everything is so colorful (see photo).

My Left Foot

I brought one pair of shoes. One right shoe and one left shoe. I almost always take my shoes off and relax on long flights, and the red-eye from LAX to GUA was no exception. We land and I go to put my shoes back on except there is only one shoe. The right shoe. The left shoe is nowhere to be found. I looked, I looked some more, then I made Mel look. Sometimes I can be blind. She couldn't find the missing shoe either. The tears in her eyes from laughing so hard could not have helped. Who loses one shoe on an airplane? ...Me! Who takes only one shoe? Maybe it was in an aisle and a steward picked it up while I was sleeping. Nope. There was no turbulence during the flight that could have launched my shoe into the lavatory. "Why is that gringo getting off the plane and going through customs with only a right shoe?" I can't help but think how much it will suck to cruise around Guate at 5 in the morning with only one shoe and wait for the shoe store to open. I did find my shoe. It migrated four rows back from my seat and gave me quite a scare in the process. I love traveling.

I keep saying that I will chill out and stop trying to do so much, but this has yet to kick in. Before we left I decided that it would be fun to watch the Civil War...in Reser Stadium. Jake and Molly snuck me in and I stayed for the first half. I was pretty pleased to leave with a 20-7 lead. That was totally squandered by the time we got to the airport and we watched a very exciting 4th quarter in the Eugene airport. I got some dirty looks for cheering too loud in the airport bar.

After a five hour bus ride this morning we arrived in Xela. We plan to stay here for the next week and learn Spanish, climb volcanoes, drink coffee and generally settle into a routine.

First Raft Descent?

Becca and Jake drop into one of the warm up rapids on Opal Cr.

Tuesday of this week, we went rafting. It was awesome. One of the best river trips I have ever been on. Jake, Melanie, My sister and I went and ran Opal Creek. This is actually a 4 mile section on the Little North fork of the North Santiam. The class IV canyon was spectacular with numerous fun drops and interesting rapids. We R2ed in two rafts and I think there is a chance we were the first rafts ever to run this Northwest classic. I have been asking around and nobody else seems to know of rafts on this stretch. Maybe the one mile hike to the put-in and the heinous portage around Big Fluffy keep the rafters away. We actually ended up running the last class IV, Thor’s Playroom, in the near dark after a long day on the river.

Off to the Civil War

Becca, Mel and Pa around the Thanksgiving dinner table. I ate so much.

I am on vacation, at least I am supposed to be. It sure does not feel like a vacation, hopefully that will change soon. Mel and I leave for Central America today. We will be flying into Guatemala and making our way down to Panama where we will meet up with Louie, Lane and Jasmine. I am so excited I can hardly contain myself.

We returned from Korea 6 weeks ago and I have hardly sat down since. It has been a steady stream of friends, family and travel. There was the 55 hour trip back to Korea. We still have not seen any money. Mel and I briefly thought we had each been paid $168.03, but it turned out to be from the Korean Pension Service and not Epark. Darn. Still no money, but we remain optimistic. Then there was the whirlwind trip to Montana. It was so nice to see my sister and road trip with my mom, but holy crap was it a lot of driving.

To continue the epic adventure, I am going to try to see the Civil War game before getting on my flight this afternoon. Go Beavs!

Montana

The travel marathon continues. After returning home from Korea, Mel and I got a good night's sleep and hopped in the car with my mom. We ate dinner at a wonderful Basque restaurant in Boise to break up the 15 hour drive. The three of us are now in Bozeman visiting my sister at college. It has been so nice to spend time with my mom and Becca, although the 3 on 1 situation means that I am taking the brunt of their teasing. I think it is good for me to be on the receiving end every now and again.

Today we are headed to a cabin that my mom rented in Yellowstone NP. I have never seen a geyser, although I'm not sure that streak will end today because it sounds like a bunch of the roads are closed. Oh darn, I guess I will have to come back to Montana.

Korea by the Numbers

1 Number of papers I signed today
2 New stamps in my passport
6 People filing against Epark
23 Hours in Korea
30 Days Mr. Ha has to pay or be arrested
55 Hours car-to-car
80 Movies to choose from on Singapore Airlines
12,182 Miles Flown and frequent flier miles gained
8,400,000 Amount we hope to collect in Korean Won

Fall Rogue Trip

It is tradition to put pumkins in cool places along the Rogue in October.

I can not express just how happy I am to be back in Oregon. We had a nice three day visit with Mel's mom that included canoeing at Summit lake near Diamond peak and a trip to the Oregon coast. After June departed, we made a quick trip up to Portland to take care of some business at Patagonia and visit with Graham and Greta. Graham gave us an awesome tour of his place of work. Precision Castings makes jet turbines and other incredibly-difficult-to-manufacture-giant-sized-awesome parts in vacuum chambers. This tour was just as cool as going to Boeing to watch the 777 get assembled. We finished the evening with a nice Mexican dinner and a new game called Settlers.

The five day Rogue trip was great! We took day-two as a lay-over 4.5 miles from the put-in so we could wait for Jake to run in. We finished out the remaining 30 miles over three days with sunny skies and great food the whole time. We saw tons of wildlife including; river otters, tons of deer, bears, salmon, bald eagles and a nice 4-point buck. The most notable part of this trip is that Cota came with us. He loves camping, but is not too keen on the boating part. Mel feared that she has lost her beloved dog forever when we let him out to portage Blossom Bar and he was lost in the bear infested wilderness for a couple of hours. I got to play the hero when I brought the wet and shivering Cota-Woda back in my arms. I would also like to add that I won the pumkin game after spotting a record 24 pumkins. There were upwards of 70 of the little buggers lurking in the most unlikely places.

Next up... Back to Korea! We are leaving Sunday morning to fly back to Korea for a quick three day trip. We have to attend a labour board hearing that will hopefully result in us getting our money. As soon as we return it is off to Montana to visit my sister for a few days. Whew! We have been busy.

About Time for a Happier Post

Oregon kicks ass! I am so happy to be home. I have loved living in Korea and travelling in east Asia, but Corvallis is awesome. Two dollar micros, my family, good friends, great food, clean air, sane driving, and traffic-lights with sensors are some of the things I have been enjoying most. Cota was stoked to see Mel when we arrived at the airport but she has had a kidney infection since we have been home.

Mel's mom is currently visiting here in Oregon. She had her first time on an airplane today, but she seems to be doing fine. Tomorrow, we are planning to canoe up at Summit lake with my parents.

My head hurts

We were supposed to get paid today. We didn't. The office was locked and the boss man didn't even have the decency to tell us. It is now a legal proceeding and we have to be present if he does not pay in the next two weeks. We are coming home, so we will fly back to Korea if it comes to that. Being screwed out of $8,000 is tough to take.

Happy birthday to me.

Back in Korea

I have always thought this would be a fun job, until the whole washing part started.


Mel having fun posing for tourist photos along the waterfront in Shanghai. This particular pose was very popular among Chinese tourists, so Mel decided to give it a try.

Well, we made it back to Korea and we still have not been paid by our school which is not particularly surprising. Tomorrow we are headed to the Labor Board to see if the government can make them pay us. We ate kimchee for lunch and realized that we missed it quite a lot. Might be hard to find good kimchee when we get home. I guess I will have to learn to make it.

The remainder of our China trip was great, mostly we just settled into Shanghai and ate a lot of really good food. We had some great Thai, good Indian, funky cool fusion in a place that was impossible to open the front door, and Chinese vegetarian that was made to look exactly like meat. The veggie place was so good we went back. And yes, we ate at some great hole-in-the-wall Chinese places too.

Aside from shopping, eating and riding around on old bicycles we really enjoyed the Shanghai Museum. Their collection of jade was up to 7,000 years old and they have the oldest discovered bronze at around 4,500 years old. They also had a really cool exhibit on Assyrian culture on loan from the British Museum.

Shanghaied

Any city whose name doubles as a verb must be cool. Here are some pictures from the past couple of days:


Chairman Mao buttons for sale in the Dongtai Lu market.


After dinner drinks on the patio at Sasha's.


Rooftops near the Yuyuan Bazaar.


Bridge over a canal in Suzhou, the Venice of the East.


Baskets for sale at a market.

Progress Report

Since the wedding we have had a blast! Yesterday Ronnie's translator and his family took us to dinner at a very nice restaurant. Some of the highlights were the shark-fin soup and watching Mel tear into some of the smallest crabs I have ever eaten. Today we headed about an hour and a half away to Yixing (Navigate to "Teapot Info" for a little reading) which is basically the epicenter of traditional Chinese teapots. I think we saw upwards of 200,000 teapots today. We somehow managed to come home with only a couple. Tonight for dinner we just had to go back for some more street food. We are taking the train to Shanghai in the morning


Mel and Ronnie picking their kebabs from the greatest street vendor this side of Thailand.

Found an old photo...

Brian Vogt took this shot of Dana and I running Double Drop on the Truss section of the White Salmon in March '05.

Ni-Hao from China

Today we went to a Chinese wedding. It was interesting, there were fireworks inside, a smoke machine, bubbles, snow, dry ice, confetti and a soundtrack by Queen. The highlight was getting in a minor fender bender on the way there. Later in the day, Mel and I got foot massages right down the street from the apartment. Our masseurs were two twenty year old kids that had great smiles and were super eager to try out their English. I think they had as much fun as we did and they made us promise to come back tomorrow for the full body experience. For dinner we ate street vendor style from a cart with more vegetables on skewers than I have ever seen. You choose your skewers and they put them of the BBQ. Between four of us we ate about sixty skewers of garlic, 3 kinds of mushrooms, eggplant, green beans, potatoes, huge Anaheim peppers, cauliflower, shrimp, pork and chicken and we didn't even put a dent in their selection. Total cost for the meal including two pitchers of beer was equivalent to seven dollars.

Lots of Bicycles

Mel and I made it to China without any trouble, exept that I showed up at the airport and they told me my ticket was cancelled. We got that worked out and the rest was easy. Melanie's dad met us at the airport with his driver and now we are hanging out drinking beer at his really nice apartment.

Graham - That chess move was totally unexpected and really put an end to my master plan!

New Chapter

Right after I bought my plane ticket to China, Epark announced that the school is closing effective today (Friday). Today is my last day of work at this shady, sheisty, terrible, horrible, no-good hogwan. I would be really excited, except we have no idea when or if we will be paid for our services. Tomorrow we are going to China and we will try to get our money when we return to Korea the week after next. In the mean time, we are just going to celebrate the completion of a year in Korea and have a great time in China. I will miss Korea, but definitely not Epark.

NO MORE Epark!

Headed to China

We now have less than three weeks left in Korea! I am so excited to be heading home. In the mean time I thought it could be nice to take a trip to China. I leave on Saturday for 10 days around the Shanghai area with Mel.

Shit Morning

Jenny left Korea this morning. She was one of three people I care about in this whole country. Corey is another, he leaves Friday. That leaves Mel.

Jenny's final hours in Korea were an adventure. Last night we stayed up until 2:30 playing cards, drinking wine and talking. This morning Jenny woke us up at 4 saying she needed to go to the ER 'cause she had a urinary tract infection. Why they deemed it necessary to insert a catheter for a UTI is beyond me. It certainly caused Jenny a great deal of pain. She got some pain killers and antibiotics and we headed for the airport a little late for Jenny's flight.

At this point Jenny is feeling a little better and we are nearing the airport. We are our last bit of fun together singing along with The Flaming Lips. Then Pedro (the van) makes a sudden popping noise.
Jenny asks, "What was that?"
Keith (driving) very matter of factly states, "Pedro died."
Mel from the backseat, "what's going on?"
Keith, "We're coasting."
To make a long story short, the timing belt broke a week before we planned to sell the van. Timing belt replacement is expensive, but Jenny made her flight. To complicate matters, I insisted that we hop on the wrong bus and have one of those public transportation nightmares that make living in another country so much fun.

A round trip ticket from Korea to China is even more expensive than a broken timing belt which is absurd because it is only a two hour flight. So, I likely won't be joining Mel on her China trip in early October.

The Beach

Doekjeok-do was amazing! Definitely the nicest beach we have found in Korea. Beautiful white sand backed by a hundred year old pine grove. Great camping and hammock chilling with a store that had lots of cold beer. I read a book, got a sunburn, and went skinny dipping at night. The nocturnal swimming was extra cool because of the bio-luminescence in the ocean that glowed all around while swimming. Now I am relaxed, but back at work.

Tree riding a bicycle in Seoul. 

Pay Day News

Many of my readers are aware that the school where Mel and I work has been experiencing financial difficulties. Earlier this week all the Korean staff was asked to resign or else they would not be paid the two months wages owed them. The Korean staff happily left, got paid, and many now have new jobs. The boss man also announced that the school will be closing at the end of the month leading to speculation that we would be coming home early. This has since changed. We have been paid and are currently planning to arrive home in mid-October as previously planned.

All of this has the end effect of making the school totally chaotic. We kind of need the Korean staff to run the place since we are just teachers and don't speak much Korean. The student/teacher ratio has doubled along with our work load. Certainly, enrollment will drop at the end of the month when parents re-sign their kids and the future of the school remains very uncertain.

At least we got paid and supposedly they paid our apartment rent.

Disaster Avoided

Car buried in flood debris at Jangsudae near Seoraksan. This was our favorite place to climb and camp in all of Korea.

Three weeks ago we had a long weekend and planned to go climbing in Seoraksan. The forecast looked iffy, a bit of rain and a bit of sun. We decided to hold off our decision for heading until Saturday morning. It was raining and we decided not to go. We thought this was the end of the story, but actually it was the beginning of a story we could have been involved in much more directly.

This past weekend we decided to head back to the same climbing area now that the rains are over and the the flood damaged roads have been repaired. We knew that 15 people had died in the area that that there had been some landslides, but we were not prepared for the magnitude of the destruction. Actually, there was no damage until we reached the valley that was our destination. Apparently just this one valley was hit with an extraordinary amount of rain. I figure about a meter of rain in a matter of a couple of hours. The road was simply gone in a dozen places, the whole river was littered with flood debris, houses had boulders on them. It was totally insane. We slept in a parking lot that was little affected near the climbing area and woke in the morning to a clear picture of the destruction. The car in the picture was 50m from where we usually pitch our tent to camp.

We met some climbers that were there the weekend we planned to go. They were stranded in heavy rain because the road was out in both directions and had to hike out over a mountain because the search and rescue folks showed up and said, "You are climbers, take care of yourself." They had come back to get their cars, because the road had just become passable again the day before. They still seemed shaken up about the incident and did remark that some people they had seen didn't make it.

News

Ok, So the last couple of weeks have been really wet. We can't get to our favorite climbing area this weekend because everything is flooded. Some areas got 2 ft. of rain in 1 day! This is not the nice rain like Oregon. This is the sticky hot tropical rain. At least it is supposed to be clear this weekend. Back to Insu-bong

I am also really upset that Korean TV does not show the tour. I want to SEE Landis kick ass, not just read about it and watch little half hour blips in Chinese via the internet at 3am two days after the stage. The biggest bonk followed by the biggest comeback perhaps in the whole history of cycling. Simply amazing! A lot can happen in the next two days, but I predict (after predicting then not predicting) that Landis will wear yellow in Paris. That man has mojo, serious motivation and a giant motor.

Also, stoked on ski season. Tentatively, Mel and I are leaning toward Kicking Horse in Golden, BC. It has 4,000+ ft. of vert. (4th only to Jackson, Big Sky, and Whistler) and 4000+ acres of awesome terrain. Plus, weekday passes are around $300US. Think Jackson when they first put in the tram! Mel is stoked on her new tele set up, K2 Schi Devil w/ G3 Targa Roxi and I am excited for my new Garmont EnerG. Finally the 4 buckle tele boot I have been waiting for.

The Shit vs. The Fan

So, yesterday was payday, but we didn't get paid. We are in a pickle. They say we will get paid on Friday and we have no choice but to believe them. We could not show up, but then we will never get paid because they will go bankrupt.

On a more positive note: I rescued a giant dragonfly on the bus yesterday. It was freaking everyone out and people were trying to kill it. I caught the dragonfly and it sat on my hand while I opened the window.

Also: Went climbing on Sunday. Got midway through the 4th pitch of Chiounard A, just above the 10a crux, and it started raining. Neither Corey or I had a rain jacket and we were sloppy wet by the time we got back to the car an hour later. I was bummed to have not finished the climb, but excited to have led the 10a move on gear. Indian dinner tasted really good.

Bong Adventures

Rick (from Oregon) Belayed by Corey 'Bro' on the Chiounard B (5.8 200m) at Insu-bong.

Oh yeah, bong means rock. 

Beavers win College World Series!!!

I can hardly believe that Oregon State won a National Championship for baseball. How exciting is that? I have to go to the PC-Bang and stream ESPN to watch the games. This morning Mel and I were nearly kicked out because I was cheering so loud. It was a really stressful game to watch, and frankly I am a bit surprised that we won. Heck, I was really surprised that we came back and won game two against UNC. And golly, I was even more surprised that we won four straight in the losers bracket to qualify in the first place!

On an unrelated note: The weather here is rainy, but I did get out to climb just a tiny bit last weekend. After staying up until sunrise to watch Korea be eliminated by the Swiss, Corey and I made an evening trip to Insubong and climbed after the crowds thinned out. We did the fun pitches of the Chouinard B route and rapped as the light faded.

Beavers in the College World Series!

Really cool that the Beavs shut out Rice twice to qualify for the College World Series. Way to come out of the losers bracket! This just means that I have one more sporting event to get up and watch early as hell in the morning.

Online Photo Album

I have been debating on starting an online photo album for quite some time. I finally took the plunge.

Check it out....

http://picasaweb.google.com/pearen

40 Hour Birthday

Exciting News! We just got our plane tickets home. I get the wonderful birthday present of arriving home on my birthday. We leave here at 1:50pm Sat., Oct. 14 and arrive in Eugene at exactly the same time!

The New and The Old

I awoke at 5:30 this morning to the sound of thousands of people cheering as Korea scored it's equalizer against France in the world cup. This draw was a big result for Korea and gives them a chance to get into the round of 16. While being rousted from bed at such an early hour was amazing, it was nothing compared to the fanaticism a week ago when Korea beat Togo. They also went nuts when Australia came back spectacularly to beat Japan (they hate Japan). On the American side of the coin, we can make it through the "Group of Death" if we beat Ghana and Italy beats the Czech Republic on Thursday.

This past weekend Mel, Corey "Bro", and I ventured to Seoraksan to hike our new favorite trail and climb at a crag we recently found out about. The hike was great and the new crag is awesome. Best climbing we have found yet in Korea. Two beautiful golden granite walls soaring 2000' out of a steep creek. While climbing we ran into an older Korean who was missing all the toes from his left foot, his two biggest toes from his right, and bits and pieces of his hands. His name is Um Hong Gil. At work today I have been doing a bit of research on this legendary (for a variety of reasons) climber. He is the 9th person to climb all 14, 8,000 meter peaks (this is still disputed due to lack of evidence). It seems that throughout his career an extraordinary number of his climbing partners have died (even for a high altitude climber of his experience) and he may be partially responsible for the rift between the N. American and E. Asian climbing communities. It has been interesting to climb here and view the climbing culture (along with the Japanese) that has such a reputation on the world stage for a lack of safety.

4 Months Left....In two days

We had a rainy weekend here in Seoul. All of our guests have gone home and life is back to the same old routine. We have been eating and drinking really well! We ate great Mexican all week. Graham and Greta brought black beans and we found some cilantro and avocado here. The avocados are more expensive than Alaska, which I did not believe possible. As far as the drinking goes, our numerous guests brought us homebrew beer and Oregon/California wine. Everything has been off-the-chart great. We savored a wonderful bottle of Jaz & Lou's homemade port last night!

Saturday morning we left for climbing, but shortly were sitting in traffic in the pouring rain. Thinking sucky depressed thoughts we turned our attention toward a wild goose chase. When we were at the tea plantation in Boseong with Josh and Ashley we found an incredible tea set for way too much money. On Saturday we hoped to find the creator of the wonderful tea set and a similar set for way cheaper. After an amazingly quick search we found the creator, but no tea sets. Our consolation was an incredible 15 piece bowl set for about $45. The creator is going to call us when he makes more tea sets!

Also, Watch World Cup Football! The rest of the world goes nuts for football and Americans pretend it's called soccer.

One More

 Cool bridge and entrance to Sangwangsa temple. 

Amuzing Video

Koreans use the teeter-totter a bit differently than Americans. They stand on it and try to launch their partner as high as possible. Josh and I attempted this with little success.

More Pictures

Josh, Ashley, In Soo, Melanie and I posing in the field with the monk's tea plants.

Tea plants

Road Trip!!!

Old grain mill.


Summit Crater of Mt. Halla. The highest peak in Korea.

Josh, Ashley, Mel, Pedro and I just returned from an awesome week long road trip around the Southern part of Korea. We visited Jeju island which was advertised as the Hawaii of Korea. Pedro endured the 5 hr. ferry ride with only minor sea sickness and was stoked to circumambulate Jeju upon our arrival. We drove to the southern most campsite in all of Korea and set up camp for three nights.

We befriended the slightly deranged caretaker of the campground Kim In Soo. He served as our impromptu guide for a couple of days. In Soo had the amusing habit of blaming every weird American or English language related thing on Gogie Bushie (Gogie means penis in Korean). Somehow Josh's name also translates into Korean as Gogie. The first day was spent on a fifth class ecology hike that culminated in drinking tea with a monk and stealing plants (In Soo wanted them for his mini garden things) from the temple. Later in the day we went skinny dipping, ate sushi on the beach, bought some oyster cross abalone things from a hanyo (female diver) and ate those raw on the beach too. They tasted mediocre and were more chewy than my mountaineering boots.

The second day was spent climbing Halla-san, the highest mountain in Korea. We saw virtually no one except the ranger that yelled at us on his megaphone for being in a closed area. In Soo claimed to have a permit, but I am guessing that he didn't by the rate we skedattled when we saw the ranger. It was really nice to hike in an alpine environment without tons of other people. The next day we bid our farewell to In Soo and meandered back toward Seoul. We saw some beautiful tea fields, ate lunch with monks at an awesome temple and drove through beautiful valleys where they still were planting rice by hand.

It was a great road trip!

Off to Jeju

My mom sent me this picture of Pedro. When she was here I drove the van through a big puddle and he died. We got towed.

Josh and Ashley arrive later today and next week I will be off work for a trip down south to Jeju Island. It has Korea's highest mountain and is supposed to be the Hawaii of Korea. 

My Sick Day

Graham and Greta hiking along the fortress wall in Bukhansan.

Yesterday I called in sick to work and went for a nice hike with Graham and Greta. We got a late start due to some card games, 4 belated Mother's Day phone calls, and the fact that I lost my bank card in Seoul (my stupidity) over the weekend. We finally got hiking around 3pm, but managed 10ish awesome miles before dark. Graham actually enjoyed the hiking, which I did not believe possible.

Dana Goes Off

One of my hardest boating partners, Dana, made a first raft descent of Vallecito Creek. Check out his trip report here.

I can't wait to start boating again!

Tons of Friends!

Allison was popular with the Korean kids.

Friday night Graham, Greta, Allison and her dad all arrived in Korea. Al and her dad have moved on to Mongolia and Graham & Greta are hanging out with us for another week. Saturday we putzed around Seoul and ate great food. Sunday, Corey joined us for a wonderful day of climbing at Ganhyeon.

Next stop....Central America!

Mel and I got tickets for our next adventure! We are flying to Guatemala City November 24th and coming home 10 weeks later on February 2nd. We are hoping to spend time in Guatemala, Belize, Costa Rica and Panama. The best part of all is that we will get to spend time with Jasmine, Louie and Lane! Time to start studying Spanish.

A bit more about our long-term plans....
After a brief sojourn to China, we plan to be back in Oregon from Mid-October (my birthday) until Thanksgiving. After Central-America we plan to ski-bum it up for a couple of months at a ski area yet to be decided. We are open to suggestions, especially if it includes a free/cheap place to stay! Come spring we are going on US tour... Coming to a climbing area or couch near you. Summer is set aside for pushing rubber (river guiding) in Bend. After that, we'll count our pesos.

Adventures with Mom

Cool hat man doing a sweet aerial at the Suwon Folk Village.

My mom was here for a wonderful 12 day visit and just left this morning. Of the 12 days that she was here I only had to work three, which made it all the better. We ate a ton of wonderful food and consumed ourselves with a whirlwind of activity. Besides getting to see me, my mom loved checking out all the Korean crafts especially in the Suwon Folk Village. Mel and I had never visited the folk village and had a great time checking out the performances, handmade homes, and drinking the dong-dong-ju. After the 동동주 Mel took a trip through the haunted house and came out snorting with laughter.


Lanterns at the parade in celebration of Buddha's birthday.

Another interesting event came on a rainy Saturday when we decided to drive Pedro (the van) into Seoul. A short ways from our house I decided it would be real fun to drive through a deep puddle. Pedro died. I tried to restart, but to no avail. So we are stuck at the edge of this huge intersection with hundreds of cars honking behind us. We decide to wait for the next green and push for the gas station on the other side. We were a little slow off the mark and made it across 4 of the 10 lanes of traffic before the light turned red. So here we are slowly pushing a broken down van perpendicular to honking busses and trucks that are confused between the horn and the brakes. I'm certain that they thought we were playing 'chicken' and were happy to oblige. We made it, but it was close. The adrenalin subsided about 3 hours later.

Did I mention that when we went camping my mom for got her tent?

Mom Visit

I have not been doing a good job on my blog lately because my mom is here and we have been having a great time doing so much. So far the highlights have been a lot of great food, a camping trip where my mom forgot her tent, and lotus lanterns on Buddha's Birthday. Today it is pouring down rain and tomorrow we are heading to the traditional folk village near Suwon. We are having a great time and really enjoying my mom's company.

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How big is Seoul?

Some of my readers have recently been enquiring as to just how big Seoul is. My standard answer is '10 million,' but numbers that big have a tendency to loose all meaning. For all intents and purposes 10,000,000 = infinity.

In all actuality, my answer of 10 million is a bit outdated and only for Seoul itself and not the entire metropolitan area. The current population of the Seoul metro area is 22,300,000 people. This is the third largest city in the world after Tokyo and Mexico City. Wow! New York is close behind Seoul as the fourth largest city in the world.

You can view my data source here.

Korean Driving

Driving in Korea is just sane enough that it is possible to be lulled into complacency. Once out of Seoul the freeways are pretty similar to home but with a bit more traffic. Sure, we get passed on the right by cars going twice as fast in the break-down-virtual-lane and Koreans are horrible at merging, but that's not so bad. Most Americans suck at merging too and I wish it was cool to pass on the shoulder at home sometimes. General rule of thumb for driving in Korea, 'Expect every other car around you to do something crazy.'

The things that quickly snap me out of any sort of dream that Korean roads are normal:

1) The pedestrian that died outside of school shortly after we arrived here.

2) The delivery guy laying in a pool of blood with oddly contorted leg that I tried to help.

3) The accident I saw two weeks ago that is possibly the worst accident I have ever seen in my life. Two cars collided on the freeway and exploded. Both were nearly unrecognizable as cars and there was a steaming crater melted into the asphalt. I am certain that no person survived.

4) The hundred or so other accidents I have seen since my arrival.

5) The number of deaths from motor vehicle accidents annually in Korea is 28 per 100,000 people. This compares to 11 per 100,000 in the states. Notoriously dangerous driving countries like Thailand and Colombia are in the low 20's. I could not find a statistically more dangerous country than Korea.

6) Two of our teachers are hospitalized for two weeks because they were in a bus accident over the weekend.

More Visitors!!!

Now Graham and Greta are also coming to visit us in Korea! This is so exciting. My mom will be here in 26 days followed by Graham and Greta just three days after she leaves and their trip overlaps with Josh and Ashley's visit! We are sooooo looking forward to having all this company. Some are worried that we have too many visitors, but I say "hell no!" It will be so nice to see people that we care about. You can all come visit and stay the rest of the year and I would be happy. I miss my friends and family.

Other stuff,
A big hooray to Lane for not getting mugged in Guatemala. (Good April Fools though!)

I am also pleased to report that I have completed my taxes (+ Mel's) and have successfully reclaimed all of our money from George Bush and his dumb war. We still proudly support the State of Oregon.

My dad cracks me up. He returned from three months in Fiji and NZ only to announce one week later via Email, "All's well because 2 jobs cancelled, I have my taxes done so I am off to Hawaii 'til the end of April. I miss the beach and Spring hasn't kicked in yet. So its a good excuse to take off."

Hiking Club

Melanie on top of some mountain in Bukhansan with students (from left to right) Daniel, Brian and Jane.

Spring is in the Air!

Spring has finally come to the country of Korea! This is great news because winter was cold, dark and miserable. Friday night we had a wonderful sushi dinner at our local sushi place followed by a wonderful nights sleep. Saturday we went to Ganhyeon with Corey and climbed hard for as long as I ever climb hard for. It felt great. On the way home Corey directed us the the best restaurant he has yet found in Korea. Everest is the name of the place and it has the bomb Indian, Nepali, and Tibetan cuisine. We were hungry and ate until we could eat no more. Sunday we took three students from school hiking in Bukhansan and had a great time with them. One was a chill 13 year old girl that had no problems, one was a spazoid 10 year old boy that ate it constantly and the third was an out of shape 13 year old boy. It was fun and we got paid a bunch of overtime. This morning I made eggs n' taties for breakfast and now I am at work again. It was a great weekend of eating and playing outside.

Our new friend Corey roadside cragging in Ghanyeon with Mel belaying.

Cheeju Ramyeon

Here is a simple culinary delight from Korea that you all can enjoy in the comfort of your own home. Why we never figured this one out in college is beyond me. I know is sounds a little weird, but try it.

2 cups water
1 pack of ramen (Get the good stuff from the Asian foods market. Mushroom pictures are a safe bet.)
1 egg lightly beaten (Josh, omit this ingredient)
1 slice of American cheese
1 finely chopped green onion

Boil water with flavoring packets from ramen. Once a full rolling boil add beaten egg, then add ramen noodles and onion. Cook to taste. Serve with slice of American cheese on top.

Seonunsan Weekend

Melanie with our frisbee friend Park Young Chal.

Friday night we loaded up Pedro de Pacas and headed south for a weekend of climbing. We gave rides to some climbers we met online at the KOTR forum. Corey is a guy from Boulder that we hit it off with straight away and Daniel is a 19 year old army guy from West Virginia that is stationed near the DMZ. Pedro delivered us safely to our destination shortly after 2am. We listened to a bunch of noisy ladies at a batchelorette party for a couple hours and woke up early to a loud jackhammer and cold misty weather.

The climbing was cold and wet on sharp limestone. It rained, snowed and blew. Late in the afternoon we bailed on climbing to play some frisbee. Corey, Amanda, Mel and I were throwing the disk around and this older Korean hippie walked up that had clearly never seen a frisbee before in his life. We included him in our circle and I non-verbally taught him to throw forehand and backhand. He started off like any novice, but by the end of the session he rocked both throws. He was super into the Zen of throwing frisbees. He did this meditation/visualization exercise before each throw that was super fun to watch. Maybe the painted fingernails and patched pants helped his performance. I liked Young Chal so much that I ended up giving him my frisbee.

We ate bomb ass Mexican and drank around a campfire. It was great. Sunday we climbed (I belayed) in the snow and drove home. Last stop before home was Indian food and a foreign foods market that Corey showed us. We got all sorts of great ingredients like curry paste, coconut milk, garbanzo beans, basmati rice, Thai eggplant, Thai sriracha, and paneer.

Frisbee
Frisbees
Frisbee's
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Rb
Rab
Rob
rib
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Chalk
Cal
Hal
Char
Chad
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Aral
Ariel
areal
Ariela
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DE
De
DEA
DOE
Dee
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Packs
PARCs
PCs
Paco's
Picasa
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Mo
mo
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oz
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bachelorhood
chlorate
baccalaureate
chloride
perchlorate
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Mo
mo
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oz
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Frisbee
Frisbees
Frisbee's
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Mo
mo
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oz
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Frisbee
Frisbees
Frisbee's
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Mo
mo
Oz
oz
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non verbally
non-verbally
nonverbal
nonviable
nonvocal
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Mo
mo
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oz
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taught
tough
toughed
fought
toughs
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in-line
online
aniline
incline
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Frisbees
Frisbee's
Frisbee
friezes
foresees
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Mo
mo
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oz
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visualization
visualisation
visualizations
vitalization
visualization's
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Cal
Hal
Char
Chad
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Mexican
Mexicans
Mexicali
Mexico
Marxian
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Rb
Rab
Rob
rib
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Indian
Indiana
Indians
India
Andean
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Ariel
areal
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basalt
bast
barmaid
baseman
basest
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Rb
Rab
Rob
rib
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Thai
Thia
Thain
Thais
Thar
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Ariel
areal
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Thai
Thia
Thain
Thais
Thar
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scratch
scratchy
screech
stretch
Zurich
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mo
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oz
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pane er
pane-er
Pawnee
pane
pannier
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Mo
mo
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oz
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