Ho Chi Minh City

I've just finally been doing my every-six-months update of my scrapbook and was going through all the 'scraps' leftover from my Spring Break vacation to Vietnam. Receipts, currency conversion tables, tickets, business cards . . . so many little bits pointing back to what was an amazing trip.

Ho Chi Minh is my kind of city - just enough chaos to keep you on your toes; packed with people, and yet full of quiet avenues; gritty and welcoming - like Cairo and Bangkok, only with its own special quirks. 

Quirks like motorbikes dancing around traffic circles in a choreographed symphony. I spent two mornings on the second floor of a Starbucks positioned over a big traffic circle, watching the motorbikes, lorries, busses, cars, and pedestrians whirl round and round.

Friendly faces were in every cafe and on every street - men smiling and laughing, sitting on tiny plastic chairs in groups on the sidewalk sipping sweet coffee much like men sat on plastic chairs in groups in whatever space was available sipping tea in Cairo.

As Vietnam is so big, and I'm getting too old to deal with the chaos of city bus terminals - of which I have never been a fan - this trip I booked a few day tours to mix in with the city wandering.

Les Rives took my friend and I on a fantastic tour of the Mekong Delta. The boat took our small group of 15 or so people down wide and narrow canals to a few temples, a market, a snake farm, and a few villages. The tour operators were especially keen on supporting the local people who live in the delta - passing out extra sandwiches from our breakfast to local children and families, paying delta families to show us into their homes or buying food from the families for our lunch or snack. The tour even included some local moonshine (which I sadly had to decline due to being sniffly) in a tiny shack-bar run by a little old woman.

Saigon Cooking Class took us on a Street Food Tour on the backs of scooters, which was both terrifying and amazing and included some of the best food I've ever had anywhere.

The tour also took us to a local flower market...

We also took a cooking class with the same group...with delicious results. I have a new found respect for Vietnamese fish sauce (but I still don't love Korean fish sauce, which is made with a different kind of fish and is quite fishier). 

There was also a bit of wandering around Ho Chi Minh - which is fairly difficult to just wander around - again, like Cairo and Bangkok, you sort of have to know where you are going and take a cab or walk with purpose and a map to get there because it's just so spread out. Of course, most wandering was in markets because FOOD!

I think Vietnam was one of the best vacations I have had in a long time and I hope to make it back to SE Asia at least once more while I am in Korea.

Three Seasons in Mudeungsan

Every few weeks in the Fall and Spring, and only once in the Winter (so cold, so slippery) my friend and I have gone hiking in Mudeungsan.

Here are some images of the shining seasons in Mudeungsan National Park: Gwangju, South Korea.

Autumn

November 2015

The Last Weekend Before the First Snow

Winter

February 2016

Spring

April 2016

The Last Weekend of the Cherry Blossoms

&

The First Weekend of Buddha's Birthday Celebrations

A Snow Day!

For the first time in 8 years of teaching abroad, I'm enjoying a snow day. So, I took a morning walk around the neighborhood - the snow made it all glitter a bit and it was a good opportunity to take photographs.

The school, where I live, is on the very edge of the boundaries of Gwangju - but the city is about to expand on behind us and the construction has begun. 

The shortest walk to 'town' is through the campus of a college which is adjacent to my school's campus. 

Between the campus and the shops is a small park called Ssagam Park. Every area has a little park with a walking track, exercise machines, and play areas.

There are mountains all around Gwangju, but often they are hidden in haze. With the crisp air, mountains have been appearing in sharp relief against the sky.

The edge of the nearest shopping district in my neighborhood (Cheomdan / Buk-gu) is a small Super Lotte grocery store, a Paris Baguette - where I buy all of my bread - as well as services, restaurants, and several coffee shops.

The roads are wide and usually very busy, but with the snow were fairly empty today.

The walk from home to Starbucks is 1.3 miles - a walk that typically is fairly quick, though with all the snow and ice, even without taking photographs, has been taking at least 40 - 60 minutes each way. Still, it's very very pretty.

Hiking the road less traveled is not as poetic as Frost would have us believe

Mudeungsan National Park is a stunning, and popular, destination for hiking in Gwangju. Just an hour by bus from my home on the other side of town (40 minutes if I take the 9 and leave before 7 am), I visited the park three times at the end of September and beginning of October to take in the change from Summer to Autumn. Now it's raining and my hiking plans for this weekend, to catch the changing leaves before they all fall, have been washed away, so I thought I'd catch up with a blog post about my adventures there.

The first weekend I went to Mudeungsan, my friend and I were overwhelmed by the beauty and lush green of late summer. Dew painted spider webs wove complicated trails from bushes to flowers to trees. Mossy stone paths led the way along a babbling brook through green woods and into small fields of purple and white flowers. It was quiet, peaceful, and with the exception of an occasional hiker, largely empty in the morning.

Then we came to a sign post. With the aid of a mildly confusing map, we decided to take the 'short cut' to a ridge a few kilometers away; unbeknownst to us, the path led STRAIGHT UP for about a kilometer, only flattening out for a small pine glen and a tiny glade of giant-leaved flowers. Luckily, the view from the top was stunning.

Unfortunately, the climb down was very crowded. Hiking is a popular Korean past-time, and the families we passed of grandchildren with their grandparents, healthy young men with their toddlers hoisted up on their shoulders as they hiked along, and occasionally young couples dressed in their Sunday best, were all heading up the 'easy path' that we had passed earlier in our hike and not taken. (note: because it was steps, and not just steeply graded hills, I likely would never have made it up to the top on this route).

The total hike was only a few hours, and sitting on the balcony at the Mudeungsan Starbucks (because of course there is a Starbucks!) looking back at the green hills of the park, it was hard to believe how many people were hidden by the trees.

On two subsequent visits, I have hiked to Yongsan Monestary (a short, easy hike; but all asphalt and sometimes dangerous with people zooming by in their cars) and again took the hike along the formerly babbling brook which was now a rushing river. My friend and I were aiming to make it to the Barajame Pass, where the leaves were due to be changing. Roughly one kilometer short of the top, we had to turn around because it had become too steep (all steps) and my knees were burning. When we turned around, we had to fight our way back down the mountain through huge tour groups headed for the top: It took twice as long to get back to the bus as it had to get from the bus to near the top.

Korea or Narnia?

Narnia or the Phantom Tollbooth?

The only changing leaves I saw

Mudeungsan is a free, and wonderful, way to experience the natural beauty of Korea. Now, if only it would stop raining so I could break in my new hiking shoes on the trails!