What's Going on in Gohyeon?

Spring is here. We have seen so many beautiful cherry blossoms, rhododendrons, and azaleas. We wanted to send a couple snapshots your way which would give you a better picture of everyday life as we know it. Time seems to fly. We are counting our eighth week in Korea.

Our city is very good about maintaining and landscaping. They have a number of small parks scattered throughout town.

The other side of the story is that there was literally nothing but agriculture and fishing villages here on Geoje island until about 20 years ago. The area expanded rapidly and was built very quickly and efficiently, therefore fancy architecture was not a priority. We are now just beginning to see some interesting buildings spring up.

The cause for this rapid growth on the island is the shipbuilding industry. This is Korea's largest industry and they rank 2nd in the world for production of oil tankers, and container ships. Our town, Gohyeon is the home of the 25,000 employee, Samsung shipyard. Other nearby towns are home to companies such as DSME and STX.

We really enjoy hiking in to the mountains above the city and watching the boats come and go out of the harbor. It is also an excellent view of the shipyards. Jesse is working on getting a tour.

An interesting part of our week is always going to the fish market to buy veggies fruit, fish, eggs, nuts, tofu, rice cakes, plants, and other unexpected items. It is what one would expect a foreign fish market to be like, I guess? Lots of fish splashing in and out of their buckets, lots of weird foods, lots of deals and bartering going down, and the occasional scooter pushing through the people.

Of course there are the items that we don't buy too: giant jars of ginseng, many forms and flavors of kimchi, squid, octopus, mushrooms, shellfish......etc. We have tried many of these but, it's best to let the Koreans barter for and cook the weird stuff.

Its fun to watch the fish jump from bucket to bucket, or out of the bucket. The vendors are always busy putting fish back in the right bucket.

Veggies, Veggies. They seem to be in season all of the time. Many come from greenhouses on the island, and the oranges come from nearby Jeju, the Korean equivalent of Hawaii.

There are many older, local women who sell greens that they raise and clams that they catch. I believe that they all have their own garden behind their house.

Because it is not recommended to drink the tap water, we were buying bottled water. The other day while exploring different trails on the island. We found a developed spring water fill up station. We learned that the city develops mountain springs for people to use. The stainless steel box has a pump which kicks on when you begin to fill your containers, and the water is UV sterilized. There are a number of springs on every hiking trail which people use, but we only use the developed one.

There are many items which we cannot or choose not to purchase in the market and for these we turn to the 8 story Home Plus. If you are up for a chuckle check out their 30 second video which is played throughout the store: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37wQj4jNTGw&feature=related Home Plus is much like any other super grocery store, except in Korean. They do have an extraordinary selection of rice, soy sauce, and green tea products.

We have been inspired to do some painting. There are so many cherry trees in bloom right now. Our walls are rather bare as well. We bought some water color supplies at the tiny store nearby and painted one evening. Jesse used some bamboo and fashioned them into wall hangings.

School has been fun lately, we are still enjoying it. We are bracing ourselves for another chunk of monthly tests and evaluations this next week. I think that we finally have all of the Sallys, Charlies, Marys, and Johns straight now. Jesse found this sweet PANDA HAMMER in the teachers room this last week.

The kids love to get hit on the head with it. It squeaks each time a blow is administered.

Easter has come and gone. Although it is not commercialized here we still celebrated it. Chelsie and I still got baskets from the bunny. We received hard boiled Easter eggs at church last weekend too.

Gyeryongsan Hike

We wanted to give you guys some bearings as to where we are located. Follow the numbers in the following picture. South Korea is about half the size of Missouri, but is the home of 48.4 million people. This means that it is approximately 17 times more densely populated than our home state. No worries though, as the kiwis who teach here say. We are located in a more remote location further from the heavily populated Seoul, Puscan, or Incheon. We love it here.


The following is a picture of Goheon Port and city. It is a hub for one of South Korea's leading industries, Samsung Shipyards. (Pictures of the shipyard will come later when we hike to a better photo location) Here is a closer shot of the part of town that we tromp around the most. The orange arrow is our apartment building. The green arrow is a hike that we enjoy throughout the week. At the top of the trail there is a workout area with pull-up bars, sit-up benches, and a small bench press. There are also hula hoops for those who want to work out that core. The yellow is where we work, ECC Foreign Language Institute. The last is our church indicated by the pink arrow. As you can see it is rather easy to get around here by foot. A taxi is very inexpensive as long as you know how to communicate to the driver where you want to go! As you might have already noticed from the maps and pictures, we are surrounded by mountains here. This makes for great hiking at a moments notice. We have made friends with a number of other English teachers in the area. Hikes are a great way to exercise and get some fresh air before school in the afternoon.

This weekend we were able to hike a peak, to watch the sunset, which is just due southwest of our town. The elevation change is pretty really nice. I am guessing it to be about 1500 to 2000 feet. We call it the stairmaster.

This can be a confusing picture. It is about a 270 degree panorama from the peak. On the left is our town, Gohyeon, and on the right is Oksan, a small farming and fishing village. There is a bus which navigated the 15 square mile Island. It costs about 1000 won (about $0.80) each time you board regardless of distance. It can be crowed with standing room only, but you can beat the price. We can see the main terminal from our house. So convenient. The fishing and agrarian culture in the valley below.

We are told that the rice patties will begin to green as spring and summer come. Greenhouses!

Chelsie, Dan, and I at the summit waiting for the sun to dip below the beautiful, distant horizon spotted with nearby islands. (Thank you Lindsay for the photo)
Oksan village below.

Click on the photo.

Click on the photo to enlarge the view.

God's creation is beautiful (아름답다 = a-reum-dap-tta). We are always amazed.

(Thanks again for the photo Lindsay its nice to be in a shot occasionally. You guys are awesome.)

We have had some trouble getting our photos to enlarge when you click on them. We hope to solve this problem soon. Sorry.