the dmz

Last Saturday Paul, Aubrey, Ruthie, and I rented a Hyundai Sonata and drove to the far western part of Gangwon-do, about a three hour trip to check out the fall colours and sights of the demilitarized zone that separates the two Koreas.
After a quick stop at McDonald's in Chuncheon, none of us had had and egg mcmuffin for a year, and a couple slight detours we finally made it up to the border and the start of the security checkpoints.
After clearing the first checkpoint we made our way to where we could go into the main security area but were turned back by the soldiers who told us that we needed to obtain a permit first. We almost gave up and were driving around a little when I saw a sign for the town where said permit could be obtained and, when we realized it was pretty close, we headed over and were able to join that days last caravan heading north.
After checking in and having our passports checked and copied we joined a long line of cars and headed into the forbidden zone.
If there is one thing about the D.M.Z. that is truly amazing, other than the high security, the feeling of being watched, and the thought that all around you are thousands of tanks and artillery pieces, it is that everywhere you look you see all kinds of wildlife. Cranes, ducks, and geese filled the fields and the skies as they ate their fill of grain that they gleaned from the empty fields after the harvest.
The tour we were on passed through rice fields and small hills with many trees on its way to the first infiltration tunnel.
The D.P.R.K. has built many of these tunnels under the D.M.Z. to facilitate troop movement during and invasion. While four of them have been discovered there are supposed to be upwards of ten more that have not been.
After heading down some very steep stairs we finally reached the end of the tunnel, going down a long shaft with dripping water everywhere. While it was not really cool we were only 300 meters from North Korean soil.
After leaving the tunnel we went to an observatory to overlook the D.M.Z. Again, not much to see but soldiers and guns but across a line of trenches and barbed wire was the D.M.Z. and very close, so close you could almost touch it, was the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea
pictures
1. Very near the border, about seven miles from the D.P.R.K.
2. Getting ready to go through a checkpoint into the forbidden zone.
3. Deep in the tunnel a sign lets you know that the war is not over.
4. The entrance to the second infiltration tunnel.
5. That line of wire marks the southern boundary of the D.M.Z. and that little road is the only way in.

fall colours

On our Saturday drive we got to check out some amazing fall colours, these will most probably not be the last pictures of changing leaves that I will post.

driving at night

The first night that we had the car Ruthie and I headed out for a little night drive. It was kind of a special trip for us because we could get out and see things in Sokcho that we would be unable to find and look at closely without a car.
First we headed up into the mountains above Miseryong tunnel, the main road to Seoul to a little observation platform that overlooks our town. From up at about four thousand feet we could see the entire plain of Sokcho, the lights blinking in the distance and the sea a black quilt reaching out from the shore, where the lights ended, it was pretty cool.
From there we went down the mountain, a very twisty winding road, and headed over to Hwamsaa Temple, a place that I had been many times before but which takes on a new beauty during the night when no one is there.
After some quick pictures and a close look at the usually closed bell pavilion we decided to end our trip at a small building built on a low hill overlooking the sea.
1-3, These are pictures of the bell tower at Hwamsaa after I had figured out how to work my camera
4. The pavilion by the sea, the lights change colours from red, to blue, to black.

sorak festival

Well its festival time again and in between the m
Mushroom Festival and the Salmon Festival is sandwiched the Sorak Festival. I had been to this festival last year and won some North Korean soju shooting at targets in the shooting gallery and really wanted to duplicate my feat this year.
The festival started on Thursday and ran through Sunday but it was on Saturday that Ruthie, Paul, Aubrey, Rachel and I headed out to enjoy the festivities.
We started out strolling through all the concessions, doing the shooting gallery, and checking out the vast array of stupid shit for sale for a dollar before setting down to the nights cuisine, roast pork done on a spit, awesome!
After that we headed through the fire walkers, some sort of clowns, and screwed around watching the fortune teller before heading home through the bonzi trees. Well some of us headed home, Ruthie and I went out for cocktails but that is a whole differant story.
Pictures.....
1 and 2 some very cool banzi trees
3. I am getting pretty good with my new camera. Here is a picture of the fireworks that I took just by accident.
4. The view from my roof at night
5. Paul pontificating about the rather poor performance of the fireworks.

The Salmon Festival

I love the salmon festival, good times, fish, crazy girls, lots of drinks and good food, I mean what can possibly go wrong? Well, this year, unlike last year, it can get really fucking cold.
Saturday dawned windy, clear, and chill, perfect weather to wade into an ice cold river and catch large fish with your hands. Despite a minor setback or two the fisher people managed to get ready and registered for the four o'clock dunking and after that we had a few hours to head out and check out the festival.
First on the order of business, at least for me and Ruthie was to head over to a tent we spied earlier selling cold beer and big steaming bowls of mussels. After eating and drinking for a bit we headed out and saw a very amusing musical act doing some weird Korean version of classic Abba.
Finally, after kicking it around for a while it was time for the real event to start, the fishing.
With a bang on a pot, the crowd of people surged off of the gravel bank and headed out to the river, towards the rippling ribbons of water where the dorsal fins of scores of salmon cut through the windswept water.
It was over in a few minutes. I am proud to say that the first person to cross the bridge connecting the rocky starting point with the river bank was my girl with the biggest fish, and after her straggled Paul, Aubrey, and Toby, with everyones fish getting progressively smaller.
After we went to the tent to have their fish inked and pressed on to rice paper, a priceless memento, we headed back to Ruthies where I got to clean three very nice salmon. A great day.

Pictures-
1. If you are to lazy to catch a fish you can buy some pre dried
2. A little boy watching the fish
3. A happy crew with their catch.
4. Ruthies salmon getting ready to be pressed
5. Babi with the band

Lantau Island

One of the many places Greg and I went to Hong Kong was Lantau Island, a fairly large peice of land off of Kowloon. Truely great and a piece of Hong Kong that I did not know exist, a rural farm community.
When we were out on the island we had time to take the bus out to a little fishing village in the middle of nowhere.
After being on the bus for awhile, heading thourgh verdant mountains and meadows, with the sea almost always in site we came to the village of Won Tai, a very traditional village built on stilts over a tidal river.
The village was really cool with mixes of ancient chinese and colonial architecture. Unfourtantnly, soon after we got there darkness began to set in and the heavens opened so we did not get to rummage around the town to the extent that we wanted, but oh well, it was a good time and the ferry ride out and back was pretty cool even if they didnt serve us any beer.
1. The village of Won Tai built on stilts over the water
2. Dried shark anyone?
3. Another picutre of the houses on stilts. The tide here seems to come up pretty far.
4. Everywhere you go in Asia you can check out a little endangered species bbq. Here are some dried seahorses, no not the ones you get from the back of comic books, these are real.
5. The hand painted door at a very old temple that unfortuantly was closed by the time we got there.

Hong Kong One

I have wanted to go to Hong Kong for years. I don't know why, maybe the same idea that the British had to come to Asia flows in my veins. I do know now that Hong kong is an incredible place, full of not just shopping but incredible views, and if you are really lucky you can head out to the relatively unspoiled outlying islands and see a part of Hong Kong that you never knew existed, that of the rural Hong Kong.
While Greg and I were in the city we hit all of the tourist high points. The golden mile, filled with shops selling immensely expensive watches and clothes for the newly rich of China, the peak, with its stunning views of the city below and its equally stunning views of the homes of the old British elite that litter the peak, an oasis of cool in a place where the average humidity level while I was there was around ninety percent, the night market, filled with every bit of junk and suvioner that you could dream of buying, surrounded by the food of the bountiful sea that has feed Hong Kong for a thousand years, and the old quarter of Hong Kong island, distinctly different from the the hustle and bustle of Kowloon, with its old colonial buildings and the grim court of final appeal.
1. Pork, chickens, and ducks, the ubiquitous Hong Kong street food.
2. Old and new, a two hundred year old brick building huddled under an ultra modern sky scraper.
3. A view from the peak. Hong Kong island is just below and Kowloon is across the water.
4. Dragon fruit
5. Jade and amber scattered across the table.

Hong Kong Two

Some more, crappy pictures of Hong Kong, thanks to a camera that was on its last legs and was replaced a few days later.
1. Hong Kong Island from the Star Ferry
2. Hong Kong island at night
3. A sidewalk shrine
4. Kowloon at night
5. Piggy piggy piggy!

Hong Kong Food

I was really amazed at the wide range of different foods and ingredients on display in Hong Kong. Everywhere you looked there were different markets and stands selling all kinds of exotic and not so exotic fruits, vegetables, and meats.
On our first day in Hong Kong we found this little Vietnamese place right by our hotel that had good, cheap, food and friendly service we quickly made it our own and had breakfast there everyday, trying out the menu.
After eating our fill of pork cheeks, Viet sausage, and rice we would head out for the day, stopping at various times to sample fresh fruit and other delicacies like this incredibly moist pork that was served over rice.
I did not eat anything really weird and made it through my entire time in Hong Kong without ever tasting dim sum, but it was a lot of fun to eat our way through the culinary mishmash that is Hong Kong cuisine.
For me the best meal that I had was in the night market where there were trays of seafood set out to pick from. After hemming and hawing over the huge shrimp, scallops, and many kinds of fish I choose little clams with chili paste and Greg got scallops. We had this with a huge plate of fried rice and ice cold San Miguel beer, totally awesome, especially when eaten out on the street amongst all the people shopping and sweating in the Hong Kong heat.
Pictures-
1. Fried pork with green onions, really succulent and crispy
2. Our appetizer in Macau, stuffed mussels, chorizio, and sardines.
3. One of my absolute favorite dishes, pork cheeks with green onions and noodles.
4. In Macau, pork and clams, not great but not bad, the sangria however was top notch
5. This is a three buck meal, rice, succulent roast pork and crispy pork skin, vegetable soup, and a cold Tsingtao

Macau One

Some more pictures of incredible Macau!
1. Kim Jong Il, the leader of North Korea, banks here.
2. Cones of incense hanging from the temple ceiling. These cones will last about twenty four hours before they are finished.
3. Just a hallway in a five hundred year old Buddhist temple.
4. The Wynn Macau, the coolest casino that I have ever been in
5. An alter for offerings in a temple

Macau Two

Macau, the peice of Europe that was dropped in amongst the sprawl and humanity of Asia. Founded before the British even thought of Hong Kong and given back after the Brits gave Hong Kong back this is a little piece of colonalism that time has forgot. It has long been a backwater but with the rise of casino gambling it is reinventing itself as a destination resort in Asia and next year work will start on a bridge linking Hong Kong and Macau.
I am pretty glad I have gotten here before the bridge was built as I think that the influx of Hong Kong tourists will change this tiny little enclave of imperialism for the worse.
All I could think as I was walking around in the rain was how much this remains me of the other Spanish and Portugese colonies that I have visited. Even though the Portugese langauge is being replaced by English there is still an old world feel about this place. Everywhere you look, from the four hundred year old cobblestone streets to the churches and main plaza you felt like you were back in Lisboa or Bilbao.
1. In the main plaza where life is still contemplated in the old Iberian tradition, slowly.
2. The main plaza, each building here is over four hundred years old.
3. Looking down the steps from the ruins of St. Pauls
4. The ruins of the cathedral of St Paul, never rebuilt after the fire of 1813