Hiking and Fall Colors

So we haven't written anything for a while... There has not been anything too amazing to report about. Everyday we just work in the daytime and come home and relax until we go to bed. We got ourselves in a good routine and eat a lot of delicious food...

Something we have done lately is hiking. We did three hikes over the past few weeks. The first one to report on happened near where we live. We went on a bus over to an area we had never gone to before and went hiking up one of the ridges to Bukhan San (북한산). I didn't know exactly where I was going and I think Jenna figured that out quickly. We eventually found a trail though.

As you can see it began up a pretty steep hillside. A little creepy... It reminded me of that staircase that Sam and Frodo climbed in the Return of the King. Parts of the stairs were carved into the granite hillside.

After ascending to the ridge line, we hiked up the ridge.



We got to the top after going up some pretty steep rock outcroppings. We saw a guy walk by us up this trail that did it all barefooted!

Here's the top. The city in the distance is about one-tenth of the city of Seoul.



And the journey back down...

Hike Two

Our second hike to report on occurred the day before Ch'useok (추석), or Korean Thanksgiving. We went to an old area of mine when I served as a missionary in the Korea Seoul West Mission called Geumch'eon (금천). There is a mountain I would hike at on my preparation days as a missionary that I enjoyed a lot. It was one of my favorite mountains I hiked in Korea as a missionary. We also met a coworker of ours named Mihye (미혜) who lives nearby this mountain.

At the bottom there is a Buddhist temple. Here's a picture of us next to one of the buildings where you can see a tree with its leaves changing color.


We climbed the mountain pretty quickly. You take a bus half way up the mountain until the apartment buildings stop and then hike up the rest of the way.

Here's Jenna proud of her hiking achievement.


A view of where the apartments meet the forested hillside.


Here's Mihye with Jenna atop the mountain with Seoul in the background. It was a bit smoggy that day...


We got the great idea to do this as well.



I don't know who the guy is in the picture, but I wanted to get a picture of what the top of the mountain looked like with Seoul in the background. This is still one of my favorite places in Korea...


After the hike we went to go get some food in the area. We then went to Mokdong for a movie and had burgers afterward with American friends.

Hike Three

Our most recent hike was last Saturday. It rained very heavily the night before and it was cold and clear the following day. We went over by Dobong San (도봉산) and hiked up one of the ridges. The beginning of the hike was kind of up and down, and the trees were pretty green still.


After hiking up the ridge a ways, we came across countless graves. These graves are maintained by the families of those who died that are buried up here. Most of these graves are pretty old. They are very distinct due to the mound that rests on top of the coffin. The picture below could quite be the best photograph I've ever taken...


A bit of a view...


Here's Jenna. Doesn't she look happy?


Here's me, equally as happy to be up here.


Here's a view of the northernmost tip of Seoul

This is Bukhan San off in the distance...one of the largest mountains in the area. The first hike we did was up one of the ridges about half way up the main mountain.

Now this mountain is Dobong San. We tried climbing to the top of it on our first hike in Korea...the one where we were pressed upon by the masses... No crowds on this side of the mountain that day.

Pretty, pretty, pretty...


The fall colors are starting to get more brilliant. Fall is the best season in Korea.

The not so mysterious happenings of Jenna and Matt Martinich

Well it has been a while, but there has not been too much of interest to report until recently. Matt and I are working 5 days a week, 8 hours a day for a total of 40 hours a week. That's pretty good if you ask me. It is our first official full time jobs and I think we have acclimated well. It really is much better than being in school and working. I have so much free time now I hardly know what to do with myself. I have been reading, writing in my journal, playing video games, and working on my cross-stitch. Matt has been researching church growth statistics as usual and he never gets bored or tired of it, so this he does every day in the evening when we get off work. The days go by without anything devastating going on. We are still alive and in one piece. North Korea has not attacked and we have not been run down by a crazy motorcyclist driving on the side walk, although there have been many close calls as to the latter. We go out to eat every evening, as our kitchen isn't much good for cooking as we have two burners, but only one pot will fit on our stove at a time, so we can't make much besides soup, or whatever we can fit in one pot. Doesn't matter anyway, the only things I know how to cook with over here are the eggs and the ramen.

We were able to go out and about a little bit about a week ago. We went to a large park nearby that consisted of several steep hills that Matt was trying to convince me were mountains. (I think he just really wanted to hike a mountain, but I refused to go back to the one we went to earlier as there were just too many people for comfort.) Here are a few pictures of our adventures there:

This last picture I like to call: "Well, you hiked to the top of the mountain and your reward is a lovely view of an apartment complex!"

We didn't do much else on the day we went to this park as Matt had to go to Inchon to teach English to a Korean family he knew in America.

Matt and I have been figuring out new challenges with how to deal with the children when they are not paying attention. I am trying to incorporate more games and physical activities into my lessons as they do not do very well sitting in one place for any length of time. They are more interested in the games anyway, but the activities can be difficult. Having them stand up is always a gamble. Sometimes they will really be into the activity, and sometimes having them stand up makes them go crazy and they begin running around the classroom. It's days like those that makes you feel like going crazy yourself because nothing gets done.

This last Saturday, we were able to visit Changdeokgung palace. It has been around for a few centuries and about 35% of it is the original buildings. The Japanese destroyed most of it during the Japanese colonization period. It begins with a bridge that separates the "outside" from the "inside" and is complete with a moat.

Once inside the palace there are three walkways. The middle one is slightly elevated and only the King and Queen can walk down the middle pathway, everyone else had to walk down the two sides.

After traveling a little ways we came to the audience hall where the King would have audiences with the people. There were also what I call "tombstone looking things" that are actually rank place markers. They alternated military, politician, military, politician. The highest ranking military officer was closest to the King followed by the highest ranking politician, and then went on down the line.

Inside the building you see above is the throne room. Interestingly enough there are large round light bulbs hanging from the ceiling. Matt and I thought that they were installed recently but surprisingly enough, the last King of Korea had them installed about 1908 and it is an interesting mixture of Westernization/modernization and the old traditional Korean life.

Along the way we saw several different buildings that were all extravagantly painted and decorated. They include the church, the King's quarters and the Queen's quarters.

This is a picture of where the King would cross over from his quarters into the Queen's quarters.

This is the Queen's bed frame, it extends further off to the left as I didn't get a good picture of it. The mattress is currently being "refurbished" and will be added to the display once it is finished.

Lastly we went to the Secret Garden where only a select few were allowed to go. Anyone wishing to go there had to ask the King's permission. It was my favorite place in the whole tour. It is a large place as we only were able to see 30% of the garden on our tour and there is a special "secret garden" tour that you can schedule and you will be able to see another 50% of the garden. Matt and I are thinking of doing that some day before we leave. There are some rather muddy ponds where the king would go fishing and boating. But mostly it is peaceful, beautiful, and smells really good. It makes you forget you are smack dab in the middle of the second most populated city in the world!

By the way, the middle picture of the tree, that tree is the oldest tree in the garden and it is 1,000 years old. The only branch still alive is the middle one.

Well, that is all the news. We will update again when some more exciting things happen!

Saturday: Up the Mountain and at the Seminar

Today was a busy day filled with lots of hiking, sweating, and sitting. We have been having a good but busy week at the kindergarden. We are working hard to learn all the children's names and to make classes fun. It is hard work as the children have so much energy and it can be dificult to keep up with all of them, especially when you get fresh classes every hour (or sooner like when we have morning classes).

Today was our second weekend in Seoul together and the principal already drafted us into going to a seminar about reading stories to children. When I asked her about it she said that it would be half in Korean and half in English... I don't think she knew what she was talking about as the whole thing ended up being in Korean and I asked myself why I was there and ended up trying to sleep through the whole thing... but that was later in the day! In the morning, Matt and I decided we wanted to check out the mountain that is near our apartment. It took about twenty minutes to get there by the subway. There were so many shops lining the street up to the mountain selling things for hiking. There were kimbop places (kind of like a sushi thing, only no fish, only rice and vegitables), numerous places to buy hiking sticks, pants, shirts, hats, bandanas, lanyards, backpacks, and anything else you could possibly think of. You could even buy something from the brand "Kolon sport" as you can see in the picture below. It is so close to the word "colon" that Matt and I found it halarious and we had to share it with you. Matt says he doesn't want to wear that brand ^^

The mountain is called Dobong San (도봉산). It was a hot and muggy day and the trails were steep so we were sweating quite profusely throughout the hike. I have never seen so many people on a hiking trail in my life. But I suppose that is what you get when you go to the most popular mountain in the second largest city in the world on a Saturday morning. There is no such thing at "hike at your own pace" on these trails. It is more along the lines of "go the speed of the pack or get trampled" type of hiking. Take a look at the pictures first of the people in front of us and then the people behind us:

Matt describes it as "The ants go marching!" If it were not for the people it would be a very beautiful and wonderful hike, but having so many people on the trail and being pushed around was not quite so fun as I had immagined. It was a very pretty area though as you can see from the following pictures:

The mountian side was also dotted with old Buddhist Temples. The first one we saw was quite elaborate and large. The gate was colorful and artfully decorated. I have never seen anything quite like it in my life! It was amazing architchture and lovely decoration in the way of paintings. Here are some pictures:

The last picture is of the ceiling of that entrence way.

After the hike we made our way back to our apartment, showered, changed, ate lunch, and hurried down to where we were supposed to meat the principal for this lecture. We arrived at the university a little before 1:30 which is when it was supposed to start. It ended up starting around 2pm. It ended at 5:30, and the whole thing was in Korean! Matt was having a difficult time translating as the speaker was talking so quickly and there were not any pauses in her speaking. He was having a difficult time keeping up, translating, and then picking up where she left off. I ended up with a general translation of what was going on. The whole thing was basically piontless and I don't know why the prinipal wanted me to go to it as I don't speak Korean!!!!! I nodded of a couple of times the seminar was so dang long. What a waste of an afternoon! But you have to make the boss happy. The only time I had fun was at the very end. There was a story in the pamphlet that we all received that was printed in English, I was able to read that. It was a folktale about how the sun used to roam around and would come and go. One day the creator of the Earth (forgot his name... it was a long name) decided to capture the sun so he made a giant net and the next time the sun came to the Earth he caputred the sun. But the sun was now too close and the Earth was getting too hot. So he decided to let the sun go if the sun promised to stay close to the Earth. No one could get close enough to the sun to release it from its bonds as it was too hot (why the roap didn't burn off I will never know). But the beaver was brave and chewed through the ropes that held the sun down and released the sun. Since it was so hot the beaver lost all his fur, and the creator thanked the beaver by giving him sharper teeth and a new coat of fur but the tail was left bare to remind all of how brave the beaver was.

Now I tell you this story so that the next part makes sense. We now had to create our own story and draw it out. The story had to be about a Beaver. Somehow I was stuck drawing our story (there were two other teachers with us). My drawing skills are not that great, especially when I have to draw something in five minutes. The story we created was largely Matt's invention. To modivate all those in the audience the group with the best story would win a prize. This was our story: Once there was a beaver who had a big bushy tail. One day the moon cam flying out of the sky and landed on the beavers tail! The sun felt bad for the beaver and took the moon off the Earth and banished the moon to the night. However, the damage had been done and the Beaver's tail was forever flat. That is why the Sun guards over the day and the moon is left to the night and the Beaver's tail is flat.

You wouldn't think it was that great of a story... but we won! Here are two pictures, one of me holding the picture we drew of our story and another which is a close up of the picture.

We decided our moon on the left looks more like a cookie and my beaver on the right (the far right was cut off) looks more like a peanut than a Beaver. Surprisingly I was complimented on my drawing skills... but I think they were just being nice. The prize was a little drawer which you can see on the top picture on the Left I am holding it. As I said to Matt "Well, I slept through the whole thing and won the prize at the end!"

We went out to eat with Mihe and the other teacher that came (don't remember her name) and we wore aprons to dinner! That was a new experience! Here are pictures. Mihe is the woman on the left.

And then we went home! I hope you are all doing well and I look forward to hearing from you!

Traditional Korean Buildings

Yesterday we went to see Youngbum and his mother. They took us out to eat at a great Korean restaurant. The food is prepared in the manner it was made for the kings. Here is a picture of Jenna outside the restaurant showing her approval.

Right before we had lunch together we stopped by some traditional Korean buildings. Some of these buildings are a hundred or two hundred years old! The one below is of the entrance to the king's palace.

Matt somehow managed to escape the grasp of this hideous art display by the restaurant we ate at.

Right before we left this area of Seoul we ran into a big independence day celebration. This day marks the end of the Japanese colonization period. Apparently Korea was preparing for if something should get out of hand. Notice the riot police sitting on their shields.