Danyang Lake, Gosu Cave, Halloween and Mt. Apsan....whew!

After an hour and a half of contortions and getting dripped on by stalactites, I was all spelunked out after our trek through Gosu Cave. But let me back up:

TaLK paid for our second "Cultural Excursion" trip, which turned out to be a visit to a beautiful lake up in some random mountains, an underground hike through a jagged cave system and then dinner at another lake with some unique rock formations.

Once again, the plan was to meet at 8 sharp at Daegok Subway station, which is a solid hour and 10 minutes from my apartment. That night, we had stayed out late at a foreigner ball called "Sugar Joes" to watch some live music from a band called "Adrenalin." It turned out to be an excellent evening because the band played a lot of soul and R&B. But the best part was the fact that one of the band-mates was a 14-year-old white lab who spent the evening begging for pretzels from the bar top. I rolled around on the dirty bar floor for a solid 20 minutes, getting licks and laughing over the pronounced "brain bump" on the back of his head (for all you dog owners, you know what I'm talking about. The knot on top of their heads that houses the peanut-brain ^.^)


We did not get home until about 2 a.m., so during the first 2 hours of our 3-hour bus ride to the mountains, I was splayed out over 3 chairs, dead to the world. When we arrived, you couldn't help but to be jolted awake when a blast of 50-degree wind whipped clear through you. The scenery was picturesque because the leaves are just beginning to turn; with all the trees a muddy mix of browns and burnt oranges. Being from Florida, I've never seen a true Fall, so Korea is going to be a treat.
Doing the Kimchi squat
This was REALLY high up!
These ladies were so thrilled by the cruise! Actually, the one in the middle gave us that container of popcorn when she saw me take a picture. Koreans do that all the time: try and feed me. Everywhere I go it's like sample day at the grocery store.

After the boat ride (including after some impromptu Norabang-karaoke- from the cruise's 70 and older crowd) we headed to Gosu cave. In any State or National park in America, the "Take only pictures, leave only footprints" decree is strictly enforced. I remember trying to snatch a pine cone from Yosemite and getting a tongue lashing from a park ranger, foaming at the mouth over my impertinence...my disrespect for the American Park system... However, in Korea, if you feel the impulse to snap off a chunk of limestone stalactite for a souvenir, the penalty may be a raised eyebrow and a grunt from the park coordinators. In Gosu cave I was flabbergasted to see tourists taking photos (the deadly, corrosive power of the flash!), empty water bottles tossed on to the ground and kids slithering across slippery rock formations like it was Mother Nature's slip N slide.
The unexpected singing and dancing on the boat ride. These people were breaking it down to some Korean jams from the 40s and 50s and subsequently falling down when we hit a rough patch of water. None of them could stop laughing as they kept tumbling over the seats and each other with each swell that rocked the boat.
Our lunch.
The first inklings of fall!
The entrance to Gosu Cave

I saw a dad give his son a boost up to these puddles so he could splash around in his rubber boots. Can you imagine getting away with that at Yellowstone?
A photo op station. These worked much the same as a roller coaster at a theme park. You came to a certain spot in the cave that was supposed to make you gaze up in wonder (going along with the analogy it was like the point where you hit a major drop in the roller coaster) and this hidden camera takes a candid photo of you. Whereas pretty much everyone is in the throws of screaming on a roller coaster, there were some HILARIOUS pics of people caught off guard picking their noses, pulling wedgies or just looking supremely bored. Needless to say,. I did not purchase the 20,000 won photo of me slack jawed, staring at my camera and deleting pictures. Not a Kodak moment.
Look Mom, a trumpet tree!Perhaps a neat-o audio cassette of a popular 80s one-hit-wonder as a souvenir from Gosu Cave?
Beneath our rather overwhelming Captain Morgan stance, there is a man dressed as a woman. We have no idea why he was dressed this way, we only know that his friends were laughing and taking photos, so we suspect a lost bet.
Posing in front of the aptly named "3 Weird Rocks". 3 Rocks. In the middle of a lake. We were there for 2 hours 0.o

Bored on the bus ride home, one of our Korean friend's decided to terrorize unsuspecting passengers. Korean Bugles for fingernails and a Scream mask she won at a balloon-popping contest held out in front of Gosu Cave.

For the past week, I have been inundating my kids with Halloween mania. I had Halloween Bingo, YouTube scary videos including THIS one, which made some run out of the room, a color-your-own haunted house game and tons and tons of M&Ms and Snickers to give away as prizes. It was fun to see what Korean children thought of Halloween, and I can boil it down to this: they think Americans are quite literally posessed by demons one night and terrorize the land and that chocolate is the only means of subduing this madness. Pumpkins are an everyday food in a typical Korean household, so carving a face on one and putting a candle inside was mind boggling. I taught the kids the names of all sorts of Halloween costume ideas (vampire, ghost, witch, mummy, etc.) but the funniest was their pronunciation of zombie: Jom-b. The letter "z" is mispronounced almost as often as the letter "l".
I wanted to test the counting skills of my 4,5 and 6th graders, so I made these little containers of M&Ms. Each one had over 200 pieces, and I wrote the exact number on the back of each pumpkin. The kids had to write their guesses on slips of paper and I gave the whole thing to the kid with the closest guess.

For Teacher Katy's Halloween, I decided to head downtown to an expat bar that was throwing a free Halloween-themed bash catered to non-Koreans. I went as a mummy...or at least I had the intention of going as a mummy. But somewhere along the way I was mixed up with a Greek Goddess/dead bride from the 80s. With no costume stores in Korea, finding something to wear definitely gave the creative juices a workout. I wanted a clever costume that cost almost nothing: thus my idea to be a mummy with gauze costing a little less than a quarter a roll.

The subway ride downtown was entertaining. Koreans do not celebrate Halloween at all...so there I was, wrapped up like a burn victim with crazy eye makeup, next to Amanda who was channeling Daisy Duke from Dukes of Hazard under the oh so unforgiving harshness of fluorescent lighting.There are already Christmas trees up in the subway!

It was a stellar night with some of the funniest and off-the-wall costumes I have ever seen. For example, there were the lost Canadian backpackers. They had these massive hiking back packs adorned with Canadian flags and kept pushing through the crowd, guidebooks in hand, asking for directions in Fargo-inspired accents. I also saw a guy dressed as Wolverine with metal chopsticks taped to his hands, MC Hammer (a token black guy with parachute pants), the entire bad guy lineup from Mortal Kombat and my personal favorite: the lesbian lumberjacks (pictures below).

Class class.

The remnants of my mummy costume at the end of the night.


SJ and I are quite the trailblazers. On Sunday, we decided to spend some quality time together and hike Apsan Mountain. I asked her what "Apsan" means, and she said it means the "nearby mountain". So, people in Daegu have nicknamed it the "close and familiar" mountain because it pretty much rests up against metropolitan Daegu.


Look at all the families nestled amongst the trees, picnicking.

Every day on the subway, when we reach Seongso (my stop) and I leave to go to the gym after class, SJ tells me to "Keep it tight." When I asked her what she does for exercise, she mentioned yoga because it helps her feel firm "and not squish." Now, many, many times when we talk I pick up on these hitches with the English language, but "feeling squish" was just too good to pass up. I explained that she is feeling "squishy" and it's now our power mantra during hikes. She was pretty tired when I took this picture, but like a drill sergeant I started shouting at her to "fight the squishy" so she jogged the rest of the way up with me. I am so proud!
54 degrees. brrr.
She says I am the devil because I make her work so hard.

This was impressive! This man had a monopoly on the popsicle market being that he is the only guy crazy enough to haul dry ice, popsicles and a backpack full of loose change up to the top of a mountain.

My schedule for November is jam-packed full of nonstop traveling, so the blog will be updated whenever I get a spare moment. Expect great things!