We get a round...

a round.... BED, that is!!

In what has become a pretty routine occurrence this past weekend, Tim and I set sail for a Sunday morning race early on Saturday afternoon... just to avoid having to wake up too early on race morning. 


The Busan Half Marathon race was held in Dadaepo, a 'something else' kind of area of town that boasts a 2km beach and a majestically choreographed water/light/music fountain show. 
Although Dadaepo is technically part of Busan, it is far from central and took us 2 hours of travel before we arrived from the dong. (Bus-subway-bus anyone?)


The weekend I had envisioned - maxing and relaxing on a white sand and sunny beach - didn't really match the reality of arriving at the destination in cloudy, muggy weather with no sign of a love motel for miles. 


After searching for about an hour, the ever-dependable Daegugan, Adam (Coyote) McCue, showed up and led his disciples to a humble abode about a mile away from the beach.  


And so, my beach fantasy remained a fantasy, but nevertheless we managed to pass a very pleasant evening in Dadaepo with some new friends, new food, and familiar drinks.  

Race morning was on the brink of perfect - until it started to rain fairly heavily about 20 minutes before the guns went off.  The showers tapered just as Mr Collins and the half-marathoners busted out in search of PBs down the long, long, long, long stretch of highway-made race course. 


Not feeling up to doing much more than 'getting through it', I had a decent race and ran alone for most of it.  I saw no female competition ahead or behind me and didn't know my place until I spotted two women ahead of me at the turn around point.  Not thinking there  was any money involved, I coasted in for a 42:33 finish, a decent time for me especially considering my 42:50 PB that stood for a good 2 years before I finally broke through it last fall.  




A couple of newbies to the Korean race scene (but not to running itself), Sarah McBean and Svien Piene (another fellow Frederictonian in Busan!) came out for the race and did quite well: Sarah finished 3rd in the 5km race, and Svien .... well he lacked a solid race plan, so to say :).  I think, based on the prize money that surfaced in the race ceremony, it's safe to say that Svien will be coming to a few more races before he goes back to Canada this summer.  

Good ol' Coyote McCue did not disappoint in the men's 10km, though he did fail to show up and collect his prize.  Luckily his good friend/doppelganger, Mike, was able to slip onto the podium and go through the motions for him. 

on behalf of Mr McCue....

Yet another great weekend with friends new and old, from all over the world, including two who showed up as a last minute surprise.....

annyeong Ian and Kylene!

What do North Korea and Cirque du Soleil have in Common?

.......Nothing! 


Except that we got to see them both this weekend on our second trip to Seoul. 




Shortly after finishing work on Friday night, Tim and I set off on the bus/subway/train/cab journey to Seoul.  We boarded the KTX (Korean Train Express) at 9:00pm and arrived in Seoul at about 11:30pm.  Although the distance between the two cities is about 450km, the KTX travels at speeds of about 300km/hour making the trip a quick 2 hours and 30 minutes-including stops.  

bag of lotteria for the road.

It was a late night for us old folks (9:30pm is the usual bedtime) and we only got a few hours sleep in before waking up on Sunday to catch our tour up north.


DMZ
A very brief introduction to the DMZ:

The Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) is a 'buffer zone' between North and South Korea who have been separated since the quazi-end of the Korean war in the early 50s.  I say ' quazi' because the war never actually ended, but an armistice agreement was signed by both sides agreeing to stop fighting. 

I could go on about Korean War history but I won't. If you're interested, there's an excellent book covering everything imaginable called "Under the Loving Care of the Fatherly Leader" by Bradley Martin (2006).

The DMZ is the area on both sides of the North/South military demarcation line (border) and is 4km from North to South, spanning the entire width of the Korean peninsula. 
The area is patrolled by military on both sides (with US troops joining the South side) and is said to be one of the most heavily militarized borders in the world.  

map of the Koreas. we went to the line. 

schematic of the DMZ, the green area on the map. 

Though South Korean residents are not permitted in the DMZ (with the exception of soldiers stationed there, of course) foreign tourists are able to go on tours to certain areas of interest.  We used Kooridor Tours which is run by the USO based at Camp Kim in central Seoul.  


Our bus left at 8:00am and was 98% full (approx 50 passengers).  This is pretty amazing, considering we were on one of three tours the company ran that day, and there are several other companies who also run tours.  After ride of about 90 minutes, we stopped at the Joint Security Area (JSA) in Panjumon, the last village before entering North Korea.


At the JSA, we disembarked our tour bus and were transferred over a US soldier who gave us the next portion of the tour in the JSA. When we got off the bus we had to form 2 single file lines and wait inside the South Korean (SK) owned ' Freedom Building' where we were not permitted to take any photographs.  We were warned many times not to stray from the group, make gestures to any North Korean soldiers, and just to not do anything stupid.  We were require to leave all of our belongings on the tour bus - even small camera cases, and if wearing jackets, we had to keep them on properly at all times so that we couldn't be suspected of hiding something within them. 

lined up in the Freedom House (illegal picture)

conference row.

After a few minutes, our soldier took us into the middle 'Mac' building on 'conference row', a series of buildings, some blue (SK), some silver (NK).  These buildings are all set directly on top of the Military Demarcation line which is the official split between the Koreas.  This view from the window of the MAC building shows the concrete boundary with the gravel on the South Korean side and the dirt on the North Korean side. 

a fine line.

Our only NK soldier sighting... can you spot him?

Inside the MAC building we were accompanied by 2 ROK (South Korean) soldiers. As the building is situated directly on top of the line, one end of it is officially North Korean territory, while the other side is South Korean.  One soldier guarded the door to North Korea at one end of the building and the other stood at the head of the main conference table seemingly guarding the flag. More about the situation inside this building can be seen in this video:

We took advantage of the opportunity for pictures with the ROKs and their modified taekwondo stances. 

After our short time in 'North Korea', we returned through the Freedom House to the US supplied bus and driver and drove through the DMZ to a checkpoint where we had a view of North Korea's 'propaganda village' and their gigantic flagpole which carries a 600lbs flag, the second largest in the world.  The village is so named because of its buildings which are mostly facades, some with windows and doors painted on, and many with no floors inside.  This village is used by NK to entice Southerners to want to defect (move) to the North.  There are also at least 2 phonebooths set up in the area with a direct line to NK if you should have a sudden urge to cross the line and defect. 

blue-roofed propoganda village and the NK flag atop a 160m flagpole.

We continued on to pass the 'bridge of no return' and the site of the infamous axe murder incident.  The bridge is the place where prisoners of war passed following the 'end' of the Korean war.  POWs were allowed to choose which country to go to, but after making their choice, could never return to the other side. 

the bridge of no return. the rusty sign on the left marks the military demarcation line - although it's actually a few metres south.

The axe murder incident took place in 1976 when American soldiers set out to chop down a large tree that was obstructing the view between two checkpoints in the southern DMZ.  The US had not obtained permission for this endeavour and NK soldiers intervened resulting in the death of two US soldiers and injuring several others.  This incident was so serious that both sides believed it might lead to war.  

a crude representation of the axe murder incident.

After our tour with the US soldier, we returned to our tour bus and set off for the 3rd infiltration tunnel, the Dora observatory and the Dorasan train station.  

The 3rd infiltration tunnel is one of 4 officially recognized (many more are believed to exist) tunnels dug by North Koreans in order to mount an attack on Seoul.  The 3rd tunnel is open to tourists and also to South Koreans as its opening lies outside of the DMZ.  It lies 73m below ground and is said to be though to accomodate 30,000 men in 1 hour - meaning 30,000 troops could travel from NK to SK in that time.  

Though we weren't allowed to have cameras, I snapped a quick shot of Tim in his required hardhat as well as the 400m sloped pathway down to the 1600m tunnel. 

Once out of the tunnel, we travelled to the Dora observatory, another place meant to provide an advantageous view of North Korea.  

Our final destination on the tour was the Dorasan train station.  A perplexing place, the station was built to accommodate train travel between North and South Korea.  It was an extremely impressive,  modern building which made it all the more puzzling to hear that  it isn't even used for anything besides tourism, currently.  In the past, cargo trains did travel into the North but were stopped in 2008 due to an argument between the two governments. 

A tear-jerking poster for re-unification.

We were able to purchase a 'commemorative' ticket and enter the platform where a train  was just turning around and heading back down south.  Due to the infrequency of trains at the station we were able to walk along the tracks and take in the pretty spectacular experience of being on the way to North Korea. 

I could probably write about 8 more pages about our tour and my general thoughts, questions and amazements about North Korea, but I'll leave it there so I can fit in a relatively small bit about the rest of the weekend. 

Cirque du Soleil

Needless to say, this show was a dream, out of this world and everything you could possibly imagine it to be.  Though we had a scare before the show when *one* of us lost our entrance ticket, in very Korean fashion, we found it lying innocently atop an ash tray where someone had clearly placed it there after finding it on the ground.  A circus miracle!

VAREKAI!

thank you honest Koreans. i love you.

cirque under the big top. no other way to see it. 

The show lasted an amazing 2 hours and 15 minutes, and we were on the edge of our seats for every second.  For anyone who's seen a show, you know what I'm talking about. For anyone who hasn't, don't give up any chance you have to see this performance. Unreal!

Olympic Park

Also on our to-do list for the weekend was a run in Olympic Park, the site of the 1988 Summer Olympics.  Our hotel was only a few subway stops away so we geared up and took off on an easy stop/start/camera toting run through the gigantic park. 

The beautiful weather of the day helped, but the park itself was really impressive with vast fields, tons of trees and even a little bit of trail running in the middle of the park. An absolutely gorgeous place to spend a day. 

view from the centre of the park.

After a return to Busan on the swift KTX, we were home again home again, jiggety jig. Another awesome weekend in the land of the morning calm. 

Hello dust.

Just in case you thought that life in Kay Oh Ray was all mountains and kids and kimchi and giant boxes of asian pears.... think again. 

As with any aspect of anything, anywhere there are cons in this pro-filled international life. One such 'con' turns out to be that living in a big city involves dealing with the inconveniences while benefiting from so many conveniences.

Though yellow dust isn't necessarily a 'big city' thing, its arrival in SK this past weekend did have me counting the blessings of living in big old fresh-aired Canada. 

Though 'plagued' is a strong word, I would say I've had my fair share of sinus/respiratory ailments since arriving in August last year.  Some of this may be allergy-related, but I'm fairly sure that some is also due to the air quality and my insistence on running outside, often alongside busy roads and highways. 

This past Sunday, I awoke to check out our beautiful view of Busan but could barely see 2 km out the window because of a thick haze on the horizon - the worst I've seen since we've been here. 

I figured it was just fog from the rain the day before, and I set out for a 60 minute run to the beach, where I proceeded to spend the better part of the day. 

After checking the English-language newspaper online, I came across a headline about yellow dust, claiming Korea's worst yellow dust this year''.  So THAT'S why there was no one at the beach. Ooops.

Two days later, wondering if I should run outside again, I got a great link from my trusty Dr Ian, and was able to check the air quality in our region:

The graphic speaks for itself.

Again, there are ups and downs to living anywhere, and I see this only as a version of Korea's answer to Canada's snow-filled, low-temperature winters.  Neither is worse or better - just different.  

Now, students, are you ready for the wise words of Jill Teacher's quote of the blog?

No? Too bad:

Learning to live in different types of adverse conditions can only create a stronger character and breed compassion and understanding. In short:  deal with it. 

Thanks for tuning in, and for those readers who hate 'negative blogs', I hope this wasn't one of them ;)

The Picnic

If you go out to the park today, 

You're in for a big surprise.

If you go out to the park today, 

You'd better be in disguise (a bright yellow suit).

For every kindergartener that Corem has

Will gather there together because

Today's the day that Corem has its.....

PICNIC!!!

There was bus riding...

And gaming.....

And eating.....

And snacking....

And bubbling....

The End :)