Lex's Trip

So I was lucky enough to have my nuna (Older sister) Alexa come over to visit me recently. It was great to see her and a member of the family for the first time in six months (yeah thats right im 6 months in, halfway through the contract). We had a great time as I got to see parts of Korea I hadnt seen before, eat barbeque most nights and have someone tell me they are impressed with my crappy Korean. I thought id post alot of photos of what happened and give a few details of some of the interesting parts of the trip.

As mentioned earlier, i loved being able to eat BBQ most nights. Over here, if you go to a BBQ alone, you still need to buy 2 servings of meat, so they are essentially made for more than 1 person. So even though its the best thing to eat here, I dont get to eat it often enough. Its also considered pretty weird to eat alone anywhere in this country, so it was good to eat out and not have people staring at me more than they usually do. She loved the whole BBQ experience, which involves all the side dishes and cooking it yourself (unless you look either retarded or foreign, in which case, it can sympathetically be cooked for you). Also because it had meat, and many meals over here dont have meat, which Lex aint a fan of. I did enjoy her commenting on how impressed (read: disgusted and shocked) she was that I can eat pretty much anything put in front of me. Another favourite of hers was Shabu Shabu which is a big pan of boiling water with stock in which mushrooms, veges and meat is placed. This is then followed with noodles. This is again chased with rice for desert. A massive meal but bloody awesome.



A highlight of the trip was the DMZ - Demilitarised Zone. This is the border between North and South Korea. It is the most heavily fortified and guarded border on Earth. The USO tour we embarked upon took as to the area where N and S Korea stand face to face with each other. It is completely eerie and scary the whole situation. At one point we were inside a building that extends into N.Korea, thereby meaning that you are actually standing in N.Korea. The only place on Earth where it is safe to do so. If you attempted to walk out the door that enters into the North, a scarily intense S. Korean (below) would prevent you from doing so. And with good reason. This guy by the way may have been a manniquin as he didnt move a cm, looked like he was made of some sort of thick synthetic material and dint appear to breathe. I assume he would have stopped us but im not entirely sure he could move. One of the more interesting and scary parts of the day was visiting one of the underground tunnels that the North have digged in an attempt to sneak into the South. 4 have been discovered in about 30 years and we walk through one that reached a few hundred metres into the south. The Border between the 2 countries is over 200 kms long. What are the chances there is another undetected tunnel along the border thats already halfway to Seoul?? 50%? 75%? 100%? How many are there?? Downright frightening.




While Lex was in town, Jinju had its annual "Lantern" festival on the Nam River. It is annual, however wasnt held last year because of swine flu. Basically, the lanterns are massive sculptures of random things floating on the river and lit up at night. Some of the lanterns seem to follow a theme of Korea and Korean History and the Jinju castle, and some of them really dont, for example, Santa Claus, a picture of some guy running the 100 metres in 9.99 seconds, and a Tiger with wings. Over 100 of these things stretch along about 1 km of the river near downtown. Quite pretty I must say. The river is also lined with stalls, food, shops, games and places to drink for about 2 kms. So its a pretty happening and cool event. It is also where I was finally introduced to bondeggi which is silkworm larvae. Ive been waiting to eat these things since I came because they have a reputation for being famously terrible. They definately lived up to the hype. Im sure Alexa has already thrown up in her mouth after reading the name and remembering the smell. The smell carries in the open air for over 30 metres. The smell compares closely to my ice hockey gear if I threw it the boot of the car after a game, then drove around for a few years in the desert to intensify the smell, then opened the boot and shoved my nose in a sock. Brutal.





Here are just a couple of other pics from Korea; one is of a massive temple in Seoul, the other one of the nicer beaches in the country Sangju Silver Sand Beach.

Was great to see you Lex!!!