The Great Wall

On our last day in Beijing, we hiked the Great Wall. The wall is almost 9,000 kilometers long, so there are a number of different paths tourists can take while hiking. We signed up for a tour through our hostel described as being less touristy and featured more of the older parts of the wall; somewhat of a "backroad." I was completely unprepared for what was to come. First of all, it was totally breathtaking. It seemed like it went on for eternity. Not to mention walking on something with so much history is somewhat overwhelming. Here are some pictures, they definitely do not capture the experience, though.







(Insert awkward tourist picture here)



Another aspect that really took me by surprise was the "hiking" part. I thought that walking the wall consisted of a long, but mostly leisurely, stroll on a path that had some rolling hills. Yeah, no. We began the journey with a climb and I knew I was in for a real treat for the next 6 hours. Many of the parts were almost completely vertical, with stairs coming up to my hips. This is no exaggeration. I was panting and sweating the majority of the time.







Did I mention that I fell? Because I did. I kept thinking that the path was a lawsuit waiting to happen because it was full of loose rocks, divets,steep ups and downs, basically anything conducive to injury. I don't really know if that applies in Communist China though...
I may have acquired permanent knee damage, but hey, at least I got a good glut workout in.

Beijing

I can't really write anything about my trip to Beijing, because anything that I say will just not do it justice. It was incredible. My prediction was correct, I am head over heels for the city. Something about the spirit of the place...it's indescribable. Anyway, here are some pictures of the adventure






Above is Tiananmen Square and the entrance to the Forbidden City, featuring a tacky picture of the Chairman Mao









The Forbidden City (above)







The Temple of Heaven (above)

Did I mention that our mode of transportation on this particular blistery day was bikes? Our hostel rented out bicycles for something like $3 for the entire day. We repped Korea by sporting the animal hats the majority of the day. My polar bear was the best, no doubt. Anyway, biking around was really fun until the sun went down and I lost all feeling in my toes.




This was only part of Sunday. Much more to come!

Cephalopods

As promised, I got access to the videos and pictures from the "octopus experience," i.e. eating it live. There really is not much to say about it other than the fact that I watched Andrew Zimmern do it, thought it was badass, and wanted to claim it as my own. Well, I talk a big game. First of all, there are apparently two ways to eat live octopus: baby octopus, in which you literally eat the entire creature in a bite, eyeballs and all. The other way is to eat a larger one's moving tentacles. We walked into the restaurant and were told the the only way this particular place served it was the tentacle way. I kept saying to my friends, "yea, yea...no, that's okay. That is fine with me...let's just do the tentacles," trying to play it cool as if I just didn't feel like going somewhere else. A full baby octopus? I just don't know about that. So if we're going to get technical here, what I ate had just been killed, but still moving.

Anyway, it came out and chills shot right up my spine. I did not expect to have the bodily reaction that I did. I felt like I was taking a final exam or something, I had butterflies just looking at these slimy things slithering around in front of me. In fact, you can hear me say "I'm seriously like, nervous" in the video. So the anticipation built even more as I could not pick one up. They are feisty little guys and suck to anything. I finally just picked one up with my hand. Eating it was no where near as bad as the buildup. It was chewy and tough, as expected. What was a really odd sensation, though, was having it move around in my mouth, sucking to my tongue or the side of my cheek. We had to be sure to chew it for a long time. Apparently people die from swallowing the tentacles too early, and they will suction right on to the throat, choking the person to death. What a way to go, eh?



After a while, the dish settles down. But once you agitate them such as poke the plate with a chopstick, or place it in sauce, they start wiggling around again. This is what it looked like swimming around in some gochugang. It looked "especially weird," to quote myself from the video, in that red thick sauce.



Anyway, I really did eat it, if that is hard to believe. Official photo documentation below:




Notice I only had to use one chopstick. It suctioned right on.

As mentioned before though, I am off to China in a day. I can only hope that I get to do things that are 100x weirder. We are ringin in a new (lunar) year, folks.

A Quick Stream of Consciousness....

Oh, it has been a while. Here are some reasons why. First, my students are driving me crazy, and it has caused my brain to malfunction. Therefore, I have consistently forgotten my camera any time I do anything, and a lack of pictures just makes these posts uninteresting. I don't blame you for skipping over this one due to a lack of imagery. Second, I have been extremely busy with testing, the end of the term, and these awful student reports that are being forced down my throat. They are due tomorrow...can you say procrastination? Third, my mind has been too busy obsessing over the enigma that is LOST. No one watches it here and it is killing me.

I ate live octopus this weekend but am without video/pics. I will steal a video and pictures and will have more on that later. It was an experience, to say the least. More importantly, I am headed to Beijing this weekend for Chinese New Year. We have a long weekend, so I will be jam-packing the ultimate Chinese experience in 4 days. When I fly into Korea from China I actually have to go almost straight to work. That should be a real treat. I'm trying not to think of that, though, and am focusing on falling head over heels for China (for some reason I have a strange feeling I am going to be obsessed). I know for sure that things are going to get weird....

Beijing, here I come! (If I can reattach my head and remember to document the trip, I'm sure I will have more than enough visuals to stimulate the senses)

I Like Ya, Honey

On Saturday, I went to Insadong, which is a touristy area full of various food stands, trinket stands, independent shops, and tea rooms.



Right outside the main strip was a park with gazebos built in traditional Korean style. In the park there was also a stone monument inside glass (to preserve it) that was part of an original palace, dating back to the 15th century.




We walked around and sampled a bunch of street food, all of which were delicious. Spicy chicken and vegetables on a stick, rice cakes filled with bulgogi and sweet potato, as well as other things that I cannot explain because I do not know what they were. They looked and smelled good, so I ate them.





The last picture is one of those that can't really be described because again, I have no idea what it consists of. It was some sort of seafood and cabbage mix, I believe, on the inside, coated in a crepe-like batter with something similar to a plum sauce on top. A ball of goodness....that's all you need to know. What really took the cake though, was the honey candy--referred to as Dragon Beard candy--that Insadong is actually known for. It is honey stretched so thin that there are supposedly 16,000 or so strands within a piece. The strands were so thin the candy was hair-like (you can hear the men making the candy say so even). Inside are seven different types of nuts, consolidated into a nugget by the honey. The construction of the treat is quite a process and there are several workers basically putting on a show at the counter for the tourists. It was totally entertaining:



It was really cold on Saturday so our tourist adventure did not last long before we went into a tea house to warm up. A cup of tea is not cheap at these places: around 7,000 won/cup. The warm room combined with the warm delicious Jujube tea that I ordered was well worth the cost in my mind. It was much thicker than regular tea, Jujube chunks and flakes were floating in it. It tasted a bit like sweet potatoes and spice. The decor of the place was pretty interesting:



Lots of new food=weekend success.

Adventures in Food

On Friday night, I went to dinner at a place that we thought served various types of chicken dishes. We randomly ordered two dishes on the menu. A few minutes later, we were presented with what we had ordered: ta-dah! Intestines! They actually looked quite appetizing, accompanied by noodles and some vegetables along with two different types of sauce. The one dish was actually pretty tasty, and that particular intestines' texture was not so bad: a bit chewy, but good. The other dish was doused in a spicy sauce. The sauce was delicious, but the texture of this dish was much tougher, and took quite a few bites to get down. The overall flavor was good, but after a while, chewing that much just got old.

Saturday night rolled around...different place, same story. We attempted to order spicy boneless chicken. Out comes spicy boneless chicken FEET. Oops. These, too, were not so bad but did not have the most appetizing texture. They were fairly fatty and strangely chewy. I was not in the mood to put the effort in to break down this food, so I ordered something else. An experience, if nothing else.

No pictures sorry, don't know what I was thinking.

Ski and Sing

Last weekend I went to Kangwon-do with my entire branch to ski for the weekend. I hadn't skied since 8th grade in the ski club Trolls, in which case I "taught myself." A more appropriate way to put it would be that I threw a pair of skis on and flew straight down the mountain. Oh right, and Wilmot, the place we went every weekend for ski club, was no mountain. I actually think it was a landfill with manufactured snow on top of it. I mostly did it for social purposes. Needless to say, I was a bit intimidated by some of my coworkers who were practically expert skiers. My boss walked me through the first run just to ensure I didn't kill myself. He was extremely helpful and I felt comfortable within about 5-10 minutes to go off on my own.






The last picture is actually from the top of the mountain, which took about 45 minutes to get to. I am so hardcore.

Later, we went back to our condo and rested a bit before dinner. Koreans tend to encourage separating sexes in social situations, so at dinner, myself and the 4 Korean girls sat at one table. They taught me some new drinking games that I had not learned yet. I decided it would be a good idea to teach them how to play flip-cup. We slowly recruited the boys over, and in the end, had the entire staff playing an intense game of flippy cup. My coworker, Kyle and I, are the only two fresh out of college so we totally thought we had this game in the bag. Well our cockiness got the best of us, and our team ended up having to pay for the Noraebong later as penalty for losing.

The Noraebong was right inside our hotel. I sang" Bohemian Rhapsody" and "Don't Stop Believing." I am incredibly predictable. The last time I went, I sang these songs as well. I took a video of my boss singing some sort of love song:



I'm not sure if this is only funny to me because I know my boss, or if it is just universally good. Nevertheless it sums up a lot of my night.