On the plane back to Canada

It’s 7:20pm Korean time on Friday, June 1, and we have been in the air for about ten minutes.  I chose to watch the sky map on my television screen.  It showed our little plane heading scarily close to the border with North Korea, but then we veered west out over the Yellow Sea and turned south before heading back east over the waters just south of Incheon.  We are now on our way to Vancouver.  The fact that most amazes me is that after leaving Korea at 7:10 local time on June 1, I will arrive in Kelowna at 3:45 local time on June 1.  I’m in a window seat, which I chose so that I could have a last look at Incheon for about 10 minutes after takeoff and then see the area around Vancouver for about 5 minutes as we approached for landing.  My first sight of Incheon was of its spreading sand flats traced in winter tree shapes by the receding waters at low tide, and that is what I saw again today as we flew out.  Having seen the statue of General Mac Arthur in Jeju Park in Seoul, followed the story of his Incheon landing in the Korean War Museum in Incheon and now actually seen the vast shallows of the shoreline at that point, I can appreciate why it took a lot of convincing on his part to get the others to finally accept the idea of landing there to cut off the supply lines of the army from the north which had pushed the south down to near Pusan.  In the time I have written this, we have flown to the mid point of the Sea of Japan, what the Koreans refer to as the East Sea as they refuse to accept any encroachment of even the name Japan on their territory.  We are heading to the west coast of Canada.

 I saw the white moon, about 2/3 full in the pale sky just before everything became shrouded in cloud.  I’ve been watching that moon grow since I first saw it as an orange toenail clipping from Jay’s porch where I sat with Min-Hee just over a week ago.   It was very hard to leave Jay and his new family; we lived together so easily.  All was not always smooth, but when you think that we didn’t even know each other until I arrived, we did well.  I am looking forward to the peace and quiet of my solitary life in the little house in Vernon and to making my own plans and being with my friends, but I will miss my morning talks with Jay, watching the girls dance and listening to them sing, although sometimes the endless repetition of certain songs either sung or played on the recorder or piccolo made me wish I were deaf, and eating with May, either the food she made or at the restaurants she chose, and I know that I will think of them every time I look at my watch, calculate what time it is in Korea and think of what they must be doing.  Jay, May and the girls gave me an early birthday party with presents and the first ice cream cake I’ve ever had.  I was completely surprised and sadly happy.  When the girls came in to say goodbye this morning and then I said goodbye to May, I was really moved and sorry to be leaving them.  Jay helped me get my luggage to his school and Dave’s wife Jo drove me to the airport. I was sad to leave Jay at the door of his school, but I ‘m happy that now I know where he works and lives, how he gets to work, the rooftop garden where he takes his breaks and who he works and lives with.  His friends in Korea are good people; they all helped to make my visit a wonderful one.  I had thought about this trip for ages and dreamed up enough possibilities to fill many moons, but, as usually happens to my best laid plans, many of them were replaced by better things that just happened because of who I was with and what seemed to be the right thing to do at the time.

Our family trip to Seoraksan National Park was a combination of all of the above.  It was the park I had most wanted to visit, and we went as an extended family.  May’s brother and his Korean girlfriend Ines joined us.  She had found us one of the last remaining pensions in the area.  It seems that most of Korea is on the move on Buddha’s birthday weekend.  Because of all the traffic, the bus trip on Saturday morning took 6 hours to go about 250km.  Fortunately, the bus was really comfortable and we were tired after getting up at 6:00 am, so slept a bit.  The first thing we did in Sokcho was to shop for food.  Then we got a taxi to the crazy little place that Ines had found.  It was perfectly placed between the seaside town of Sokcho and Seoraksan National Park and overlooking rice paddies.  Jay finally figured out that the tubular part of the place had been an enormous water tank, about 18 feet long.  This had been attached to a perfectly square little building that was stuccoed on the outside and had a flat roof surrounded with a castle-like trim.  It had a traditional Korean ondal floor, made of yellow sand covered with long layers of a type of linoleum.  Ondal floors are soft and when heated at night, very comfortable to lie on.  You just lay mats on it, cover yourself with quilts and all sleep together.  There was even a traditional squared log pillow, but they opted for the pillows we are used to which were also provided.  I, as the grandma, got to sleep in the bedroom in the tubular part on a real bed.  I was joined at times by someone who slept on the soft benches in the kitchen because the snoring of others kept them awake.  We used the usual Korean array of flipflops: ones for outdoors, others for indoors and yet others for the bathroom.  Traditional Korean bathrooms are wet.  They have a drain in the floor and the shower in a corner so that when someone takes a shower, much of the room is soaked.  It works well as long as there are always sandals there to put on as you enter.  Sometimes you have to dry off the toilet seat before sitting on it.  We had dinner in Sokcho on Saturday and a barbecue on Sunday that Jay turned into a campfire.  The girls loved collecting wood for it.  It was their first campfire, and we kept it going late with branches the owner of the place had put aside as he had cleared land for his garden of peppers and corn.  We had a great hike on Saturday in Seoraksan National Park and on Sunday played on the beach and walked around the town until we caught our bus at 4:30.

The last days of my visit were spent finally shopping for things to give people who had been so kind to me during my stay and for friends at home.  I actually enjoyed doing it because I went to a big market area in Seoul.  Another day, Dave took me and Jay to the Korean War Museum in Incheon and then to have a delicious lunch in Chinatown where I ate, among other things, the noodles with black bean sauce that were the staple food of the Chinese workers who built much of the port of Incheon.  Andy and his girlfriend took us on a drive and out to dinner at a wonderful seafood restaurant.  Watching all the ingredients of the seafood soup we ate be professionally cooked and cut by the waitress was as entertaining as the food was delicious.  Koreans eat things from the sea that I had never heard of or seen before.  I can’t recommend all of them.  Many are so chewy that they make squid seem soft.  The thing is that squid when it’s fresh, as it was in every dish I ate in Korea, is very tender, but some of the other stuff is not.  Some bits are even meant to be chewed on and sucked and then put aside.  But the soup itself and the side dishes were delicious.  The rice that is heated later in the big pot with what’s left of the liquid is so good that I was sorry it came at the end when I was full.  However, we carried on, and, as the meal took about 2 hours and the eating was interrupted often by cheers and the downing of soju, I managed to enjoy a satisfying amount.

I think Korea might be what it is now advertising itself as, ‘The best kept secret in Asia.’   

Jay at the door of our pension at Seoraksan National Park

Jin-Hee and May by the paddy fields below the pension

Jay and Min-Hee waiting for tasty cinnamon buns being made in a market in Sokcho.

The gang getting ready for lunch before starting the hike at Seoraksan.  

Jay and I in front of the Buddha at the base of the hiking trail

Jay at our resting place just below Heundeulbawi, the big standing rock by a Buddhist temple that is the  first sight on the trail.

Some of the 888 metal steps that you climb to get to the top of Ulsanbawi.  I turned back and finally we all did about 3/4 of the way up.  We weren't tired, just overwhelmed by the steepness of the drop and the fact that we were on man made metal steps  that had many many people on them.  We had heard 2 claps of thunder about 10 minutes before starting the steps.

The view I snapped just after turning around to head down.  The guys are on a ledge in the steps below me and behind and below them is nothing.

Jay when we cooled our feet on the way down

Jay, May and Min-Hee at the barbecue/campfire

The little ferry in Sokcho that is pulled by a man and anyone who wants to help across a narrow strip of water to an island

Jay at the Incheon landing

Incheon War Memorial

A crazy ride at an amusement park on the beach in Incheon.  It would never be seen in North America because it's too dangerous, but it's a riot to watch if you ignore that fact.  The man who controls the ride keeps up a commentary as he spins and bounces the kids (no adult would dare go on it) all over the place.  They fly in the air screaming, land on the floor and try to crawl back to their seats.  There are actually seats for the spectators.

Andy's girlfriend Judy at the seafood restaurant.  The gloved hands are those of the expert waitress who cut up and presented all the seafood.  The grabbers and scissors are an essential part of any Korean dinner whether its seafood or a meat barbecue.