Exploring Pohang and Some Interesting Koreanisms

So, after settling into school we spent some time exploring Pohang, our new home. We are only 5 minutes walk from the biggest and best beach in Pohang called Bukbu Beach. We also took a walk along past the beach to Hwanhoe (Sunrise) Park which is a big wooded park set on a hill which has many trails as well as a observation tower where you can see round the coast for miles, a mini zoo with some small animals and an art gallery. I love being so close to the beach, we both love living near the water and so are vary happy that we are in Pohang!

Bukbu Beach

A sunny day in early March

Feet on the beach.

The beach and the boardwalk.

There is also a great group of foreigners here who have welcomed us into their bosom like old friends which really helps with the homesickness. There are a mixture of EPIK and hagwon (private English academies) teachers and everyone seems really nice. We came to Pohang with 27 other EPIK teachers, even a few from the UK, so it doesn’t feel quite so scary!

A hangover day on the beach with Corey and Paul, EPIK friends who are from the UK too!

An interesting find for us was our first ‘outdoor gym’ area which you can find all round town and cities in Korea. Basically, it is a small play park sized are where there are a whole variety of basic exercise machines (self powered of course, no treadmills here). So, after hiking up a hill what else would you want to do but some pull ups, sit ups, arm exercises (as well as others that can look very suggestive). This may be why Koreans are all so slim - seriously, the girls are stick thin and so are lots of the guys. You occasionally see a slightly chubby Korean but no often. They put this down to their diet of mainly vegetable, rice (which apparently is highly nutritious) and that everyone loves kimchi.

Outdoor gym equipment.

Definition of kimchi = is a traditional Korean dish which is usually made of fermented vegetables (but not always fermented) with spicy seasoning. The most common veg used is cabbage but they also use radish, cucumber, green onion as well as hundreds of other varieties. It is served at EVERY Korean meal, without fail, including breakfast. All Koreans love Kimchi and it is rated as one of the Top 10 Healthiest Foods on the planet due to the healthy bacterial content. I think I will stick to Activia thanks.

Yum, tasty plate of fresh kimchi.

Other interesting things about SoKo so far:

1. They have underfloor heating in all homes which is great, warms your toes and heats up really quickly.
2. They have ‘wetroom’ bathrooms where there is a shower head over the sink no shower curtain. Everything gets wets but hey, its a bathroom and is waterproof.
3. They are amazed by Westerners and I am famous. Seriously, despite there being about 1 million Westerners now in Korea they are still surprised to see one walking down the street. You will often her the word “waygookin” which means foreigner and you quickly get used to saying “hello” a million times a day. You get stared at wherever you go and often people want their picture taken with you. Love it!
4. Blue eyes confuse many Koreans. One of my kids asked “Teacher, teacher, can you SEE?”.
5. Koreans do not wear their outdoor shoes indoors which I personally agree makes a lot of sense. Mostly. At home, we take out shoes of at the shoe area, there is a shoe cupboard and everything. We have separate bathroom shoes (kinda like jelly shoes) as the floor is often wet from it being wetroom. However, where this makes no sense is in school. The kids and teachers all have school indoor shooes. BUT they walk into the school and to their classroom before changing. They also go out into the playground with them on. Is this not outdoors I ask?
6. Koreans are very friendly and polite except if you happen to be walking past them/next to them/around them in the street. They WILL bump into you, despite there being loads of space and will not apologise. Apparently this has roots in Confucianism and the importance of relationships - if they do not know you, they have no relationship with you and in big cities it id impossible to have relationships with everyone SO no relationship = no person. You are a nobody and will be bumped.
7. Koreans are very bad drivers - they pull out from nowhere but all seem to slow down. And taxi drivers are mental!
8. They have no cheese (unless you count the rubber slices as cheese but I certainly do not. Help, I need cheese to survive!
9. Koreans love karaoke which in Korean is 'noraebang' - literally meaning singing room. They go out, get drunk on soju and then head to noraebang - these are not like western karaoke places, but have individual rooms that fit from 4-20 people, you have your own large screen TV, book of songs, microphones and even a tambourine!
   

So this is where you dispose of your pets.

Camambert in s squeezy bottle??? I think not.

Noraebang in a travelling van. Just what you need at the beach! She is definitely enjoying it.