Christmas in Korea

Our first Christmas in Korea is proving to be interesting.  We are the only ones who are still at the school...all of the students and the other teachers have left for their vacations.  It's a little weird...almost like the Shining...but hopefully I won't turn into Jack Nicholson!
Tomorrow we are leaving to go to Thailand for our vacation. Bangkok for four days and Phuket for six...it will be amazing!!  Lots of picts and hopefully some interesting stories as well.

Yesterday I went for a little hike on the trail that is by our school.  I've done this many times in the past when the weather was warm but this is my first experience winter hiking.  It was pretty amazing...the weather was cold and clear which was awesome.

The biggest challenge was climbing and descending the trail on ice and snow.  But I managed to make the the entire three mile treck without falling on my ass once...woohoo!

Winter in Daegu

Officially, Winter doesn't start until December 21...however...today we had a good sized snowfall in Daegu.  It really was quite beautiful.

Here are a few shots from the school...

After the students were dismissed, they went crazy running around in the front courtyard, making snowmen and having a giant snow ball fight.  Needless to say, they took out some of their math frustrations on Mr. Cross!  All in good fun, right??

It's been 30 years (maybe more) since I've spent an entire winter in the cold...this is gonna hurt!

Jeju Island - Part 1 SFW

Nancy and I had a long Thanksgiving weekend so we decided to take a trip to Jeju Island.  Jeju is a volcanic island of the southeast coast of the Korean peninsula...it reminded us of the Big Island in Hawaii.   It is a big tourist destination in the summer...not so much in November.  Despite some chilly weather, we had a really great time.  We hired a taxi driver to take us from the airport to our hotel on the opposite coast and also to take us on a tour of the island the next day.  The driver's name was Mr. Kim and he was awesome.  He spoke fractured but mostly understandable English and was not hesitant about taking us to the destinations that he thought we needed to see.  That would include a Tea Museum, the woman's diving museum (I think they were all lesbians) and various other interesting and semi-interesting locals.  In addition, he had some incredible music playing during the trip (on CD of course) that added to the experience...how many people can say they have traveled through Korea listening to Skeeter Davis sing "End of the World"?  Not many I would say...

Jeju has many natural attractions including 3 UNESCO World Natural Heritage Attractions.  We visited all 3 and they were pretty incredible.



Mt. Hallasan National Park - the highest mountain in South Korea.  We had a short visit and trekked up a little bit.  Next time I'm summiting!

Manjanggul Cave - the longest lava cave in the world  The open area we traveled was 1 km long!!






Seongsan Peak - a dormant volcano crater off the eastern coast of Jeju.  Gorgeous views from the top.

She did NOT move from this spot!

Near our hotel on the southern coast is an amazing natural coastline called Daepo Coast Jusangjeollidae (did I spell that right?).  It is a lava coast with natural geometric shapes...rectangular and hexagonal prism formations!  WTF!!

Even if you are not a math geek it's hard to not be impressed!!

First Race in Korea

Nancy is the one on the left

Those of you who know us know that Nancy and I are runners...well kind of.  We used to be pretty decent and won our share of age group awards and did a number of marathons (I did 8 and the wife did 18 because she is an overachiever).  We pretty much suck as runners now but despite that, we still do the occasional race just for the humiliation factor.  That was how we decided to do our first race in Korea a 10 K in Gyeongju.  It was part of the  Gyeongju International Marathon and it was a pretty awesome event.  There were probably a couple of thousand runners in all of the events including some Kenyan marathoners who were absolutely astounding.

The weather was perfect, the course was great, awesome Asics shirts and we both ran pretty well...I finished in 40:30* and Nancy ran 1:07.  Not too bad.  But there's a couple of "other" things about the weekend that are really more entertaining than our race...

The street in Gyenjongju with the Love Hotels.

In many of the cities we've traveled to in Korea (including Daegu) there are a hotels that are known as "Love Hotels".  They can be rented for an hour or a few hours and are used for...well I think we all know what they are used for.  But these are not sleazy, Motel 6-like establishments.  They are very nice with clean rooms, wi-fi, flat screen TV's...and thoughtful "gift bags" that are provided when checking in.  So we ended up staying in one of these "Love Hotels" for the race.  It was awesome.  Not only do you get the "gift bag" complete with toothbrushes, shampoo, massage oils and condoms, but you also get CNN and soft core porn...what else could you possibly want?

Artwork on the outside of our L.H.

 In Gyeongju, there were a large number of Love Hotels near the bus station (go figure) and I would say that if you are ever in a place where you have a L.H. option, you should absolutely go for it!

Who doesn't love Mr. Pizza???

Don't even think about asking for a second bowl!

It's can be pretty challenging for us to find food that we can eat (and that we like) in Korea so when we saw a Mr. Pizza in Gyeongju, that was our ticket for dinner,  We have eaten at Mr. Pizza's in Daegu and in Busan so we know that the pizza is good and they have a pretty decent salad bar.  So we went there and ordered a cheese pizza and two salad bars and figured we were set.  There was a bowl and two small plates on our table so I took the bowl and Nancy took one of the plates and we got our salads.  Right after we sat down and started eating our waitress rushed over with a horrified look on her face.  Pretty soon another waitress sprinted to our table and both of them were frantically trying to tell us (in Korean with a word or two of barely understandable English) that it was completely unacceptable to use a bowl AND a plate for our salads.  We were expected to share one bowl and eat our salads in tandem.  This was reinforced when they brought us the waters we ordered...one glass, two straws.  And they insisted that we pay for the meal right then.  Those crazy Americans...wanting TWO bowls...

Despite the Mr. Pizza incident, it was a fantastic weekend.  We have another 10K in Daegu on November 4.  Probably won't be quite as interesting as this one...but you never know!

* Ryan Adjusted Time.  Actual time may be 40-50% slower than R.A.T.

DC in Beijing - Final Thoughts

So it's a bit of a tossup when it comes to our feelings about the trip to China.  I will never forget the visit to the Wall...there's no way to describe the awesomeness of that experience.  We thoroughly enjoyed going to Tiananmen Square, Forbidden City, and the Chinese Acrobats Show.  All of those were amazing and I am so glad that we experienced them.

On the other hand...the crowds, the smog, the aggressiveness of many of the people was off-putting to say the least.  And no Facebook, Twitter, YouTube or Blogger?  That is crazy shit Dude...it was like being on the Brevard Public Schools network.  That's a joke, OK??  Just in case I have to go back...God forbid...

I can't picture us returning to Beijing.  There are other parts of China that would be great to see...Shanghai, Guilin, and other Sanya Bay...but most likely not a return to BJ...

Did you get the Jerry Springer reference in the title?  I only hope to be as insightful and articulate as the great JS...probably won't happen...ever...

DC in Beijing Part 3

There are a lot of interesting and historic places to visit in Beijing...if you can get to them.  We happened to visit during National Holiday Week in China (Oct 1 was the 63rd anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic) and it seemed as if the entire country was in the city...OK slight exaggeration but it was crazy crowded everywhere we went.  We did manage to go to the Forbidden City, Tiananmen Square, the Silk Market, and the Chinese Acrobatics Show.  Here are some pictures to prove that I'm not lying...

Iconic picture of Mao outside of the Forbidden City

Forbidden City - we spent a couple of hours there and it is pretty amazing.  The buildings are among the oldest wooden structures in existence   They have names line The Palace of Heavenly Purity, The Hall of Mental Tranquility...just like the names of buildings in the States.  It is a gigantic complex of courtyards, palace buildings and other structures.  We were able to visit the museum that housed the vases and pottery from the Ming Dynasty and earlier Chinese Dynasties. Hard to believe that they were producing such high quality art pieces more than 200 years before the founding of America.

Moat surrounding the Forbidden City

Posing in front of the Moat

A beautiful park outside the Forbidden City - I didn't catch the name...sorry

So cool...

Tiananmen Square - right across the street from the Forbidden City is Tiananmen Square.  It is a huge public square where the famous student protests in 1989 occurred   Nothing so exciting when we visited but it was a great experience to see the square and remember the events that happened there.

Crowds of people everywhere

Monument to the People's Heros

Gorgeous flowers in the square

Nancy Cross in the Square Yo!

Doublecross on the Great Wall

 The Great Wall at Mutianyu is one of the best preserved areas of the Great Wall and is relatively close to Beijing.  We took a tour there and these are just a few of the pictures from the 2 hours that we spent on the wall.  Utterly indescribable experience...you really should go!

This is me making my way up to one of the towers.  These are the questions you ask yourself as you endlessly climb up.  How on earth did they construct this thing?  And how in the hell do they run a marathon on it???



Once you get to the top this is the view from the tower.  Awesome!!

I'm Nancy Cross from Cocoa, FL... 
As typical "ugly Americans" we had to eat at the Subway at the Great Wall!!