Staff Trip to Pohang

In early October, we had a day off from school on a Thursday for Hanguel Day. It's a Korean holiday which celebrates the creation or invention of their writing system: Hanguel (한글). My school decided to use this holiday for the annual staff trip. We left school at 3pm on Wednesday and stayed overnight in Pohang (포항) before returning in the evening the following day.

Our first stop on the trip was in Gyeong-ju (경주), because it was on the way to Pohang. We visited a small, old folk village that had traditional housing and a beautiful view. After walking around for a while and taking lots of pictures, everyone piled back on the bus to finish the route to Pohang.

For dinner we had raw fish! It was a seafood galore restaurant, which was expected for dinner since Pohang is a fishing village that's famous for it's seafood. I was a bit nervous when they told me the only thing on the menu was raw fish (I didn't think my stomach could handle being full of only raw things), but it turned out to be delicious! The fact that it was raw wasn't even a though! You just dunked the meat in some samjan(삼잔) sauce and it was amazing!

After the delicious meal, which was accompanied by a lot of alcohol (including soju and beer), the whole gang headed to a norebang (노레방). Nore (노레)  means "song" or "singing", and bang (방) means "room". A "singing room" is the Korean version of karaoke and is very often the ending point to a night of heavy drinking.

The following morning, we took a bus out to the mountains nearby to do a short hike. We weren't climbing a mountain like my previous adventure to Gajisan, but we did hike uphill or upstream in order to see the two small waterfalls in the area. Korea doesn't really have many waterfalls, and the ones they do are very small, not coming close to comparing to the ones I grew up seeing in central New York. Nonetheless, these waterfalls are what the Koreans are used to and so hiking to them and getting the opportunity to see them is a big deal to most native Koreans.

As is true with most mountain or hiking areas in general, the trail began next to a temple. We all got to walk under the beautifuly painted architecture.

The weather was perfect: sunny, but not too hot. The water was crystal clear and proved for some great photos of the reflections. Many of my coworkers told me that the water here is so clean and pure that you can drink it straight from the stream.

Here we viewed the first waterfall and stopped for a big group picture. From this point, the second waterfall was further up and the next section of trail leading to it was much more up hill than the first stretch. Only a smaller group of us decided to carry on to view the second waterfall.

In our next stop of the trip, we headed back to Pohang. Here we went to a smaller section by the bay on the east side. It is famous for it's Japanese appearance because in the past, many Japanese fisherman immigrated to Pohang. The population of the area became almost exclusively Japanese and it thus effected the architecture.

In the parking lot by the bay there were tons of racks like this set out for squid to dry on in the sun.

Our main stop on this part of the trip was this musuem, located in a Japanese style house that was once owned by a very rich Japanese person and has been passed down through many owners throughout history before becoming a museum about the area's Japanese influence.

My co-teachers and I in front of the museum. My 5th grade co-teacher, Jihyeong, is on the left and my 6th grade co-teacher, Heeyeong, is on the right.

My co-teacher purposefully didn't tell me where we were headed on this part of the trip because she wanted to see if I would recognize the Japanese aesthetic to the area. Before we even reached the museum, almost immediately after we arrived, she caught me staring wide-eyed at the people walking around in kimonos. The whole ambiance felt completely familiar to me and as soon as I began to question her about it, she told me about the Japanese influences.

After seeing the museum, we had a few minutes of free time to head over and see the bay before we would get back on the bus to return to Ulsan. From here you could see the incredible number of seafood restaurants lining the street. All were marked by a giant grab atop the building.

Saw this little guy in the box just as we were getting on the bus. I was glad to see he had food, water and some shade to escape the hot day's sun.