Catching up - Boseong

The other night I was spring cleaning my computer files and realized (again!) that many of my Korea experiences have not been chronicled on this blog. Partly for readers out there, and partly because this is the only form of journaling that I do, I'm going to try (again!) to catch up.

Today's post is a brief re-cap of a trip to Boseong in spring 2010. Boseong is one of Korea's prime green tea growing locations. Although it's in Chollanamdo, the province I lived in the first time I was in Korea, I never made it to Boseong until last year (with my old roommate from Mokpo, who still lives there). I think we visited a bit early in the season; I've seen pictures of lush green tea fields, and as you'll see, they were still showing signs of winter brown when we were there. Regardless, it was a great way to spend a lovely spring day with a couple of friends.

We started our visit with green tea ice cream:



On the way from the parking lot to the tea fields, we walked past this beautiful bamboo forest.






Then we hiked around exploring the tea fields for a while.





And after all that walking around, it was time for another green tea treat: a surprisingly yummy green tea latte.

Winter Travels

It's May 6th today, so obviously it's a bit late to be posting about my winter travels. Late, but not surprising, right? That's kind of the way things work on this blog.

In January, after a snowstorm in Philly that cancelled my flight and a 6-hour wait at 30th Street Station for a train to DC, where I was finally re-routed after hours on the phone with American Airlines, I returned to Seoul. All that waiting ate up the 24 hours that I was supposed to have to sleep in my own bed, do laundry, and re-pack before leaving for Tanzania. My friend Michelle saved the day; she took the list I e-mailed to her, went to my apartment to gather what I needed for Tanzania, and met me at the airport, where I had just over two hours to unpack/re-pack my bags and take off on my next flight.

Then that flight was late getting to Doha, Qatar, which meant I missed the once-a-day flight from Doha to Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. This time it was my friends Crystal and Michael who saved the day; they live in Doha and picked me up and hosted me at their apartment that night.

Once I finally got to Dar and then caught my domestic flight to Moshi, there was one more hitch. Paul, the guy who had arranged our Kilimanjaro trek and safari, did not meet me at the airport as planned. I had written down the name of the hotel and just took a taxi there, so that didn't seem to be such a big issue. My cousin Kirsten and our friend Eric were supposed to arrive later that night; I waited and waited and waited and began to worry about what had happened to them, unable to check flight status as the Internet was down. When we finally did connect the next morning, I found out that Paul had also failed to meet them; the guy who claimed he was there for Paul took them to a different hotel, and they had no idea where I was. As there were two of them and I was alone, they were even more worried than I had been!

Anyway, all's well that ends well, right? It did end well - we all made it safely to the summit of Kilimanjaro, and then met up with our cousin Nathaniel for an amazing safari and a few relaxing days on Zanzibar. Here's the photo story:

Tanzania

In February, Michelle (the one who saved me at the airport in January) and I flew to Jakarta, where our friend Nancy is teaching. My friend Leslie flew in from the States the next day, and Michelle, Leslie and I spent a few days with the orangutans in Borneo (or Kalimantan, as they say in Indonesia). From there we flew to Bali; Nancy, who was then off for the Chinese New Year, met us there for several days of fun and relaxation - and lots of good food and shopping and spa-ing! Michelle and Nancy each returned home from there, and Leslie and I hopped on a ferry to Lombok, where we hiked to a waterfall and did some amazing snorkeling around the Gili Islands. Here's that trip in pictures:

Indonesia

"Responsible Tourism"

I read an interesting article in the New York Times this week that explores the idea of spending money wisely when abroad, especially in developing countries - a topic I brought up in my last post here. I don't agree with all of it, but both the article and readers' comments on it are thought provoking and worth a look. Here's the link for anyone who's interested: http://travel.nytimes.com/2011/03/13/travel/13prac.html

"You Work for Holidays; We Work for Food"

That's a quote from an interesting conversation with a taxi driver in Lombok, Indonesia a few weeks ago. It was near the end of an amazing trip with three great friends, and it left me feeling a bit sad and reflective.

I do a lot of my traveling in developing countries, and in those places I'm always struck by the inequality that exists in our world. Mostly at those moments I feel incredibly blessed, but there are also times when I sort of hate being the rich White Westerner. Sometimes that's because I feel a bit guilty for enjoying so much when so many others have so little. To be honest, though, it's usually because I'm being exorbitantly overcharged for something, which creates an inner dilemma: do I argue that I should pay the local price for the same product or service (like a taxi ride) that a local would, and do I try to avoid being one of the rich White Westerners who drives up the price for all of my fellow rich White Westerners to come after me? Or do I rationalize that the price difference (often a dollar or two, sometimes even less) wouldn't even cover the cost of a cup of coffee here in Seoul, but could buy, say, food for a day for an Indonesian taxi driver's family? More and more I find myself coming down on the latter side of that argument. I'd like to think it's because I'm becoming more compassionate as I grow older, but actually it's probably more due to the fact that I'm no longer a penny-pinching Peace Corps volunteer or grad student.

Obviously tourist dollars won't close the inequality gap, but I think they really do make a difference for those taxi drivers and market vendors who make a living that way. As we were preparing to leave our last campsite on Kilimanjaro (that's a topic for another post!), our guide thanked us for coming. He encouraged us to encourage our friends to visit Tanzania (and indeed, I encourage any of you reading this to go!), pointing out that visitors create jobs for people like him and our cook and our porters. After that, they all sang us this song:

Jambo, Jambo bwana (Hi, hi sir.)
Habari gani? (How are you?)
Mzuri sana (Very fine.)
Wageni mwakaribishwa (Visitors are welcome)
Kilimanjaro (Kilimanjaro!)
Hakuna matata (There are no worries)




(Thanks to fellow Kili climber Eric for the video and to http://www.museke.com/en/node/1125 for the lyrics and translation)

Return to Jeju

Jeju is an island province that lies just to the south of the Korean peninsula. It's often referred to as "Korea's Hawaii," and it was for some time the honeymoon destination for Korean newlyweds. As the Korean economy has grown I think the honeymoon market has expanded to places like Phuket and Boracai, but Jeju remains a popular destination for mainland tourists.

I went to Jeju twice during my first stint in Korea. I've never been to Hawaii, but I think that comparison raised my expectations a bit too high, especially with regard to beaches. There are a couple of picturesque waterfalls, some pretty coastal scenery, and unique lava tube caves on the island; there's also lots of grass, which you don't see much of in Korea. So it's not Hawaii, but Jeju does make for a pleasant getaway.

The second time a visiting friend and I did a bit of hiking on Hallasan, the volcano in the center of the island, but due to bad weather and closed trails, we couldn't make it to the top. Though I'd pretty much exhausted the other highlights of the island, that mountain was always there to draw me back.

Enter a short mid-semester break, a couple of colleagues who share my affinity for hiking, and really cheap plane tickets, and you have my return to Hallasan, which is Korea's tallest mountain (1950 meters/6397 feet). Some stunning fall colors were a bonus, but even without them, our two full days of hiking would have been a worthwhile third trip!

Here we are near the high point on our first day's hike. In the distance behind us you can see the outer rim of the crater that's at the peak.


The next photo was taken about three hours into our hike on day two, followed by a couple of shots of the view near the peak.





I can't seem to get these pictures to line up here, but this is an attempt at a panoramic shot of the crater at the top:




Most photos that I've seen of Hallasan show a bright blue lake in the crater; I guess it must dry up in the fall/winter. We'll see how much longer I stay in Korea, but maybe one of these days I'll have to make one last trip to Jeju to see the lake!

Arab Lite II - Falcons

One of the highlights of my trip to the UAE was a visit to the falcon hospital outside Abu Dhabi. It's a bit off the beaten path, but tours have been growing in popularity and some days there are large groups of visitors - so we were happy when we arrived to find we had the whole place to ourselves.

Arab sheikhs spare no expense when it comes to their massive month-long hunting expeditions (setting up huge camps in places like Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, for men only of course), or when it comes to buying or caring for their birds. The hospital takes care of falcons from all over the world, but mainly from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States; they offer veterinary services and boarding facilities (which are air-conditioned!).

Good hunting falcons are not cheap; this one, which belongs to the hospital, is at the low end of the price range: about $20,000.



We got to watch a falcon be anesthetized, then have its blood drawn and talons clipped:





Here's a falcon with a damaged wing, and another that had its feet bandaged:




The staff also explained how they replace feathers. They have a very carefully organized selection of replacement feathers (which need to be matched perfectly by size, type of feather, and position to achieve proper balance for flight - and by color to keep the owner happy).



The feather repair kit includes - no joke - Superglue!

Arab Lite - Part I

Except for Jordan and Israel, the Middle East has never been high on the list of places I want to visit. I have two friends living there though, and as I knew it would be fun to catch up with them - and that it would be warm and sunny in February - off I went to the United Arab Emirates and Qatar! Now that I've been there, of course, I want to see more. Lebanon, Syria, and Oman have been added to my wish list.

Yes, the trip was in February and it's May now. Rather than procrastinate any longer, I've decided to tackle the blog entries in bite-size chunks. Today's topic:

The Gulf
I always pictured the water in the Persian Gulf looking a bit like the ocean off coast of New Jersey - sort of brown and uninspiring. I could not have been more wrong! Here's a shot of Jumeirah Beach in Dubai:


And here's a city beach in Abu Dhabi:



Still to come: falcons, mosques and Muslims, the Empty Quarter . . .