My Birthday in Seoul

Pictures
1. The riot police and their bus full of fun, on guard against any trouble in one of the nicer parts of town.
2. Just a monk walking down the street. A five thousand year old religion on a modern metropoli Edit Posts s.
3. All dressed up in neon in one of the many red light districts in Seoul
4. Three Seoul rookies with cameras ready to go.
5. The round bed of love that I got to sleep in for two nights, incredibly hard.

My Thirty Third

18 February 2007

Well finally it was here. After waiting thirty-three years I finally had my 33^rd birthday. Yippee.

I had been planning to meet my friend Greg, who is working my old job done in Pohang, up in Seoul for some well-deserved R.R. for a while now. In fact we had both been looking forward to getting together for quite awhile and finally the big day came when we thought we would be partying with around fifty million Koreans, all celebrating my birthday.

Well not really celebrating my birthday, they had another reason to celebrate, along with a fifth of the world’s population. You see, by a total quirk of fate, this year my birthday happened to fall on the biggest celebration that will hit Asia in 2007, the Lunar New Year.

This year is the Year of the Pig here in Asia and millions of Asians are looking forward to it.

The Year of the Pig, which comes around only once every twelve years, according to the Chinese zodiac, is the best year to be born. According to the tradition every animal in the zodiac has a purpose, a sign and the pig is the symbol for good fortune and prosperity. To have your birthday on the actual day of the lunar New Year, well that is probably the best luck you can have. Millions of people have been waiting for twelve years for this moment alone and birthrates here in Korea, and Asia, are sky rocketing as people are using every means available, including fertility treatments, to have children in this, the most prosperous of years.

Getting to Seoul was pretty easy as most people in Korea look at this holiday as a time to be home with their families. Much to my disappointment there would be no celebration in the streets, no fireworks or spitting dragons to delight the crowds. This holiday would in fact be pretty quiet, a time for reflection and family instead of a massive party. That is for everyone but us.

I met Greg in the train station, he had taken the KTX high-speed train up from Pohang, and we immediately started shopping and celebrating.

After checking into our hotel we hit the electronics mart and the foreigner district where we met some friends, had beer and some Indian food before heading out on the town.

And that, because my mom reads my blog, is where it all ends.

Inje Ice Festival

pictures
1. Ice fishing, Korean style. This little plastic hut they use to cut the wind would last about ten seconds on a Minnesota lake.
2. Being that this is the year of the pig, fitting we should see a bunch of ice blocks in the shape of the wonderful animal.
3. Rack upon rack of drying pollack.
4. So this was kind of wierd. On the river ice was placed a giant pool into which were relesed a kind of trout or salmon, I never could get a straight answer. The brave men in the pool hunted around, scaring the poor fish into the corners and then kicked them to death with their boots, charming.
5. Just a random child with his little faux animal hat.

Inje Ice Festival

25.2.07

On a cold brisk day in the middle of January we decided to head up to the Inje Ice Festival. I know I know, it is not the type of ice festival that those of us in Minnesota are accustomed to, in fact it was pretty lame compared to what we are used to. What we think of as ice, huge sheets covering lakes and rivers to a depth of several feet, safe for cars where people have little huts on where they spend the short winter days and long nights fishing and drinking, well that is just unknown here, in fact, ice like that would probably scare the Koreans out of their wits, but it is the only ice we have and we were determined to enjoy it.

After a long bus ride, longer than it should have been, up to the mountains high above Sokcho, and a walk through snow on a sunny but cold day, we finally came to the site of the gathering.

A patch of river had frozen, in itself quite a surprise considering how warm it had been this winter, and there, in the bright sun of a midwinter’s day, the festival was in full steam.

Well, not really. As far as festivals go in Korea, this one was pretty damn small.
On the sheet of ice were drilled a few holes with some little plastic windbreaks were some people were fishing with handlines, for what I do not know. The river seemed pretty small, too small to hold anything but a few small trout, and I never did see anybody catch one in the short time I stood in the wind watching them.

After a short while I headed downstream, or upstream, I don’t really know, past the fairly large crowd of people using incredibly sharp stakes that they were driving into the ice while sitting on sleds to push themselves along. Because I was in a fairly dark mood, angry at almost all things Korean I longed to see someone, while they were jabbing their modified ice pick into the frozen river, instead pierce their foot, it was a dream left unfulfilled.

Moving further along the ice I did marvel at the wonderful site that the city of Inje sits in. With jagged peaks all around, Inje sits in a high pass, the site of the road to Seoul. It is very narrow; at this point there is barley enough room for a little town and a small two-lane road. Stretching up the flanks of the mountains were pine trees, and above the tree line, you cold actually see good, solid snow, like what should be down in the valley where we were if we had had a good winter.

A little farther along, really at the midpoint of the festival grounds was the oddest, actually the most gruesome part of the festival. A small type of swimming pool had been placed on the ice, kind of like a little kiddie pool but bigger, and in it were four grown men, stomping around, splashing and kicking. I moved closer through the crowd to see what all the excitement was about.

What I got to see was an example of animal cruelty that I have not really seen for quite awhile. Into the pool were released some fish, a kind of trout or salmon I presume, I never really did get to see them clearly. As the crowd egged the men in the pool on, or at least I presume they were egging them on, I don’t know enough Korean to decipher what they were saying, the men pursued the fish in the confines of the pool, driving them into the corners where they proceeded to kick the fierce animals into submission.

A Late Winter Walk

pictures
1. A graveyear, Korean style. Each mound contains the body of an anscetor. The living members of the family are responsible for taking care of the grave site.

2. A bunker of recent vintage, probably used for war games.

3. Old and new. An ancient wall lines a lane through a village while modern houses are behind it.

4. Conner being Conner near a sign warning of danger near some new road construction.

5. Rice fields with mountains in the distance.

A Late Winter Walk

25.2.07

This past Saturday I went for my first big walk since the winds and light snow of winter had finally stopped in my part of Korea, making it possible to go outside without completely getting geared up like I was going out for a polar expedition.

After a late night out I was able to convince my good friend Conner, a nice Irish lad who cracks us up on many occasions to head out around 12:30. To be honest, it was Conner who was more than able to get up on time and come bang on my door, but well, that’s a different story.

Because I really enjoy walking around the north side of town, up in the rice paddies, with a view of the mountains, we headed north, looking for a cool place to get off and start exploring.

After cruising through a couple of small villages we reached the ideal spot. There was a small fishing village on one side of the road, a few houses scattered around a long breakwater with a few fishing boats in the water. Along the narrow semi-circle of beach that was not enclosed with the omnipresent barbed wire that one sees on almost every beach in this country, to guard against the ever-present threat of attack from the north were scattered a few small hotels and chicken restaurants, there were a few people walking in the streets, carrying their shopping and doing errands but not many.

In the summer this place was quite different. I had been here a few times with my friend Chris to go fishing, and then the scene was much more lively. Then crowds of people from Seoul and Chuncheon flooded the area. All kinds of people crowded the little beach and filled the now closed fish restaurants that stretched along the edge of the small harbour drinking beer and eating fresh caught fish, but now there was nothing. The town simply was waiting quietly for the two months of the tourist season to make a little money.

On the other side of the main hi way, route seven, was the country we wanted to explore.
The countryside all back to the mountains was the dark brown of winter. Spring has not yet come to this land so there is almost no green to speak of. The fields and the trees are all a uniform brown colour.

We started out our walk heading up a small tar road, past a closed factory of some kind and then turned left and went through the rice fields. Going through the paddies is quite easy now that they are not flooded or planted like they will be in a few months.

For quite awhile we totally neglected the paved roads that threaded through the fields and stuck to the dikes themselves, the dikes, these round lines of terrace that we walked upon, who knew how old they were. They had probably been here for five hundred or a thousand years, making the fields that have fed a nation since time began.

Even though spring will not come to these parts for another three weeks, there are sings that soon the landscape will change. A few of the fields where we walked had recently had last years rice stubble burned off and had witnessed the blade of the plow coming to slice up the rich earth. Where the tractor had been the earth was not the dry dusty brown of winter but the rich brown colour of dirt that was until recently hidden, gathering moisture, awaiting the chance to again grow the crop that sustains Asia.

After walking awhile on this pretty, yet cloudy day, we crested a low ridge and went down into a broad plain filled with rice fields. Negotiating the dikes and paths we passed through an area that had seen heavy combat during the war and was still used by the army for war games.

We were parallel to route seven; the main road going north and south, in other words the main route for any type of combat that would take place here and the area was full of the debris of older and more recent war games. Passing along low hills we passed by a few bunkers, firing and observation slits pointing toward the road and the fields, the only open places that tanks and trucks could ever come south on this part of the peninsula.

Coming to the end of our stroll we passed through a new landscape, almost Mediterranean in appearance. Here the land changed from limestone to craggy rocks that littered the foothills of the mountains rising to peaks in the distance. Passing through a small village we got to see a few of the older buildings that are becoming rarer and rarer in Korea as modernization takes hold and the rural people are thrown into the new century.

The Philipines

The Philippines-

People have asked me what the Philippines are like since I came back. What can I tell them?

The Philippines, even though I only saw a small part of the over seven thousand islands that make up the country, are beautiful beyond belief.

Everywhere you look you see huge patches of green, bright and emerald. All over the place are flowing palm trees laden with coconuts and bananas and flowers everywhere. The whole country seemed to be in bloom just for us, and it was winter, pretty much the dead time for things to be in bloom. I cannot imagine what it would be like in the summer!

The water was incredible too. From the deep, milky, green of the Loboc river with its silky smooth feel to the incredibly clear salt water that welcomed us to the shore of Pamlican Island it was all just, well, awesome.

Besides the sights, the sounds, and the smells, the real pearl of this undiscovered, often overlooked gem of a country is the people. Never, in all my travels have I met more people who were, well, just genuinely friendly. I have never waved as much as I did as I traveled throughout Bohol and Manila. Even though many of the people I met have probably never used a computer or even had running water in their homes they were all happy, I never once heard an angry word or saw a fight the entire time I was in the country. Every time I asked to take a picture of people or things I had to take two or three to fit everyone in who came running towards the man with the camera. I have never met people so willing and wanting to have their picture taken!

I would also like to thank the people that I had the honour, the privilege of traveling with. Kelsey Anderson, Helen Dainty, Kirsty Prior, Saun Casey, and Kelly Hardy. A truly great bunch of people who made my holiday in Bohol and Manila probably the greatest nine days of my life, thanks to all of you.

Last but not least, to the people of Nuts Huts who catered to our every need and were so incredibly helpful with advice and local knowledge, thanks guys.
Finally I would like to say this. For all of you who read this who go to Thailand or Malaysia, think about the Philippines, it is the most undiscovered, untravelled, wondrous part of South East Asia! Don’t wait, just go and buy your tickets now!

What follows is just a little selection of the over five hundred pictures I took on this trip. If anyone wants to see more just give me an email at jonofragusa@yahoo.com and tell me what you would like to see more of and I will send you some more pictures.

Pamilican Island

Pamlican Island

What a place! Pamlican island sits about a mile or two off of the south eastern shore of Bohol Island proper in the middle of the deep blue and greens of the Bohol Sea. It has long been a centre of the whaling and dolphin hunting industry in the southern Phillipenes, but with a ban on whale and dolphin hunting in 1998 by the government the people have had to look for other ways to make money and the chief one is whale and dolphin watching excursions.
The island itself is fairly low and accessiable only by boat it is home to around sixteen hundred people that belong to around two hundred and fifty families and consits of a few houses grouped around the beaches. There are no docks or anything, the boats are simply drawn up on the white sand beaches that go almost all the way around the island.
The water is almost perfectly clear and covered in bright corals. Huge brain corals and delicate fan coral litter the ocean floor up to around two hundred yards off the island where the sea floor drops off in a wall of coral to about a hundred feet.
We were lucky enough, after our very successful dolphin watching expidition, to go snorkling along the drop off. The boat and our guides took us out about a hundred and fifty yards off shore were we donned masks and hit the water.
The clear, blue green water was incredibally crystaline. When I first splashed I thought I was only in about five feet of wet stuff becuase it was so clear but in reality the ocean floor was about ten feet down. All around me I could see fish of all kinds swimming around.
It looked like a veritable aquirium down there. All manner of fish were swimming around, fish whose names that I did not know, stripped and spotted with all differant colours. As I hovered on the surface I saw groupers and sea snakes moving with total freedom through the warm water. As I moved over the wall of coral twoards deeper water I could see huge schools of tuna and other fish that did not come into the shallows with the smaller fish. This was truely one of the greatest experiences of my life.
After snorkling for a couple of hours we went on shore to eat lunch and explore the island.
Lunch was laid out on a table under a small roof, tuna steaks and salad were on the menu along with some chicken soup, excellent.
After lunch we were able to explore the ruins of the three hundred year old Spanish fort that once watched over the Bohol sea and hung out with the locals for a little while before heading back up the Loboc river and home to Nuts Huts.

Pictures-
1. Dolphins are incredibly hard to photograph, the little bastards keep bumping and moving through the water and appear when you least expect them to. I took a lot of shots of the dolphins and this was the best I could get. If you blow the pictures up you can get a better view of the four dolphins in front of the boat.
2. I took this picture while treading water in about ten-twelve feet along side of the boat. Probably one of my most favorite pictures taht I took on this trip I really likeit for the simple view of the ocean.
3. The ruins of the three hundred year fort that used to guard these waters against threats against the Imperial Spanish empire.
4. A shot of some of the residents of Pamilican Island.
5. Gerald, a mute boy that hung around us as we were eating lunch.

nuts huts

Nuts Huts

What a place! Nuts Huts is the name of the collection of huts where we stayed on Bohol. It sits in the middle of the jungle along the valley of the Loboc river.
You can only reach Nuts Huts by walking down a long dirt track and then down the longest staircase in Bohol.
The huts themselves are really simple, jsut a bed, fan, and a cold water shower along with a mosquito net that is designed to keep most of the critters off your body.
What the huts lack in modern comforts they make up for it with exquisite scenery and wonderful people. Owned by a Belgian family that switches off operation of the huts during the on and off season it is a haven for both backpackers and people just looking for an out of the way place away from the constant influx of drunken tourists.
As you walk down the staircase you are struck by the incredible beuaty of the place. Every where you look are coconuts, bananas, and flowers all interspaced with huge swatches of green. When I would sit on my veranda after everyone went to bed, reading my book, I could hear the sounds of ripe coconuts splasing from the tops of the trees into the river.
The family who run the huts are incredibly garcious hosts. Alwasy ready to sit and talk and offer advice on things to see and do in Bohol they were truely great hosts. The fact that the entire stay was dirt cheap and had excellent food did not hurt things either.
My total bill for all my food, beer, scooter rental, everything, from nuts huts for seven days was about $130.00

Pictures
1. My room at Nuts Huts, complete with mosquito nets
2. One of the many animal visitors to Nuts Huts, a gecko
3. On our last night at Nuts Huts there were not alot of people hanging around so we spent the evening hanging out with Chris and Greta, the owners. Chris is in the red tank top and Greta is behind him in the white one. This is one of the few times that I saw Chris with a shirt on! The other people at the table are Saun, Kelly, Kelsey, and Chris and Gretels friends from Holland.
4. The outside of our hut. Kelsey and I had the room to the left while Saun and Kelly and the one to the right.
5. The four of us having some pre dinner drinks in the dinning room.

Manila People One

Manila
Manila is a city of grinding poverty with incredibly friendly people. Here are some shots of the locals.

1. When we were walking around China Town we passed a group of kids who were getting ready to do their dragon dance for the new year. When we walked by and asked what they were doing they asked us if we wanted to see their dragon dance, of course we said yes. Pretty soon the entire little area around the front door of their building was filled with kids and adults watching the impromptu show of the ancient Chinese dance.

2. Helen with her new friends of the Manila S.W.A.T. team who were enjoying a little liquid refreshment before tehy headed out on durty for the night.

3. Another shot of the dragon dance, these kids were amazing bouncing around with their paper dragon.

4. Kirsty, Helen, and I stopped for lunch at a little place and this boy and his sister sang Christmas carols to us while we ate pork and drank cold San Migs.

5. Kirsty with a new friend learning how to play the drums.