Something new...

On Friday, my school changed the whole schedule around so that we could go on a hike in the afternoon. The typhoons that have been hitting Taiwan lately were decidedly uncooperative, and our plans were literally blown away. Instead, I got to see a new island, recently joined to the mainland by a big huge bridge (which has been on most Mokpo tourist maps for the past 2 years). This bridge system also means that all the Shinan Islands are now connected together.

The island that I saw... one two-lane road rolling along fields and open spaces, past tiny buildings... just made me want to go back and check it out at a later date. All we got to do on Friday afternoon was drive there and back. Kind of a waste of time. I think I would have preferred the hike.

There are dozens of islands off the coast of Mokpo, quite a few of which are visible from my apartment window. I'm assuming, by their shapes and the fact that they remind me a lot of my view in La Pocatiere (facing the mountainous Charlevoix region of Quebec) that they are probably the tips of an underwater mountain chain. This is just an assumption though.

The island that dominates the view from my apartment is, of course, Gohado. I teach there once a month, and I guess I've spoken enough about it that it warranted a weekend visit. I'd gone to Gohado as a "tourist" with Jens, Randi and Jen last year, and we'd been mostly bored. Now, however, that I knew more about the island, I was sure that we'd have a better day.

It's supposed to resemble a sleeping dragon, with "Yong mori" (the dragon's head) extending along the waterfront of Old Mokpo, past Shinan beach and almost to the Maritime University. I live across from the "dragon's hip"... "hip" is how Koreans translate "bum".

Here is a good pic of the end of Gohado and Yong mori.

Bright and early Saturday, after a late evening of soju cocktails and noraebang, Ty, Zach and I boarded the ferry to Gohado (Terry decided to sleep instead). This ferry takes about 3 minutes to reach the island.... unless you get on the ferry that we got on, in which case it take 115 minutes, only hitting Gohado after it makes its rounds to every other island in that area. Still, it's fun to ride on a boat, right?


Anyway... We got to Gohado, and I decided to show the boys around the, ahem, less touristy parts: the road to my school, the farmers, the dog-farm made out of doors, the frog pond.... before heading up to the touristy bit of General Lee's monument thing.




Sitting on a rock, under a tree, listening to birds while we ate our lunch... it was just a wonderful place to be. You feel so far away from Mokpo, even though you are only a few kilometres of water away.



Now, it was time for us to conquer the dragon. After a few false starts (which led us to an abandoned church, another dog farm, a very quaint house, and made us bump into the same Jehovah's Witnesses three times), we finally found ourselves on a very nice, well-groomed forest path along the top of the dragon.

My school is the long pink building to the left of the twig in the centre of the photo.
My apartment building is the white cube on the far right... I'm on the top floor.

Posing with Yong Mori (Dragon's head) behind us... we didn't make it all the way.

Yudal mountain

With only 2 hours to make the trip there and back (so as not to miss the ferry home), we had to rush along a bit. The trail was great though... no garbage littering the way, lovely views of rice paddies below us on one side and Yudalsan and my neighbourhood across the water on the other side. Unfortunately, we also had to turn back before we got to the dragon's head (let's say that we made it to the dragon's shoulder or something, okay?).


Dying of thirst, we went to the ramshackle house/restaurant/store and bought some water. The ladies inside recognized me as the English teacher, and gave us a discount on our water! Nice! Then, while we sat on the pier waiting for the boat to come, one of the old old old ladies came over to us. She complimented me on my mad Korean skillz (in Korean), then offered us a bowl full of fresh figs. Just a super nice way to end the day.

But, the day was not yet over.

On Friday, before my outing with the school, and clad in my official "school activity sportswear" (bright pink jacket, black exercise pants, sneakers), I had received a memo from the Mokpo Education Office saying that they had tickets to a Korean musical to hand out. So, I ran off to the Office, dressed like Rizzo from Grease, and grabbed 2 tickets. It occured to me that I hadn't been to the theatre in AGES and this would certainly be entertaining (and free) and a different way to spend Saturday evening.


So, back from our hike, Ty and I got ourselves all tarted up (I wore heels instead of flip-flops, he wore a tie!) for a night at the opera. I kept my fingers crossed that the music would not be traditional discordant wailing, and I was in luck! It was a full-on opera. It was like any other musical production (big voices, dance numbers where everyone is on stage running around, tons of set changes, insane costumes) and I loved it! Fortunately, Mr Kim, the director of the Mokpo Language Program was 2 seats away from us, and was able to explain the story to us at the intermission and after the performance. In case you were wondering, it's the story of a prince in Suwon, near Seoul, who becomes a great ruler for his people, even though his grandfather killed his father, or something... and there was a love story bit too.

Even though we mostly didn't have a clue what was happening on stage, it was just great to be out on the town, listening to amazing voices, looking at super costumes... Talking about it afterwards, I realized that I'd been going to see performances of all kinds since I was a little girl. In Saudi Arabia, we used to see plays and musicals all the time, as a teenager I saw Cats, Phantom, some Shaw productions and a few smaller theatre productions in Niagara Falls. In University, I remember seeing Miss Saigon, the Nutcracker, Othello, Richard III and some university productions too. La Pocatiere feels like a never-ending series of student productions, dance recitals, and community theatre productions, punctuated by Notre-Dame de Paris (twice) and other shows. I didn't realize just how much I'd been missing live theatre!

Sunday was a suitably lazy day... and now we're in another 4-day week. We've got a day off on Friday (to celebrate my brother's birthday, I think), and we'll be heading to Jinju to check out this lantern festival.