Staff Trip to Namhae
About 2 months into the summer semester, the rest of the majority of the staff at Sincheon Elementary and I took an overnight trip to Namhae. Namhae is an island in the center of the southern coast of Korea, and it took about 4 hours to drive there from Ulsan. It's a beautiful island very famous for it's beautiful beaches, scenic
roads, incredible views and....fish. Being and island, it's main
industry is fishing, a particularly large quantity of which is
anchovies.
As we got closer to the island, we stopped the bus on a small pull off on the tiny, country road to walk out on the dock and view (take millions of pictures of) the island and it's large, famous bridge in the distance.
On the docks, we took several group photos, and then my principal proceeded to pull out some expensive rice and berry made liquor that tasted extremely strong and not very good. We weren't allowed to get on the bus until everyone had helped finished the bottle (WHILE enjoying the view of course).
When we reached the pension we would be staying at that night, I was stunned. I had heard the pensions in Namhae all come with incredible views, but I didn't realize we would be up on a cliff directly next to the shore.
The rooms and building were spacious, modern and clean, with an amazing view from every window.
We stuck around at the pension for a while, watching the sunset before heading to get some dinner. That night we had a delicious delicacy of seafood. Sliced raw fish, sea cucumber, a number of various shell fish, live octopus, and shrimp heads to name a few...
The next morning was a rainy one, so we started our day's activities with some indoor things (or things with roofs in hopes that the rain would let up as the day moved on. We kicked it off with a salty breakfast of hot, spicy, eel soup! Just the thing they wanted to kick their hangovers in the butt while they passed around another bottle of soju (the typical Korean liquor). The soup was actually delicious and I learned that I love the taste of eel, but it was a bit TOO spicy for me to handle and not exactly the kind of taste I look for in my first meal of the morning.
From the eel restaurant, we walked across the street to one of Namhae's large fish markets. It reeked of salt and that fishy smell that comes with the sea. Their were boxes and bags of dried fish, squid, octopus, and seaweed everywhere. I wandered around taking pictures (like the cluelessly, inquisitive foreigner that I am), turning up my nose and making mildly disgusted faces at the wide-eyed and gaping-mouthed, dead fish that stared back at me. Meanwhile, all of my co-workers were busy bargaining for as much fish and seaweed as they could carry. I noticed a few people make a second trip to the bus and back to purchase extra boxes of the stuff. It was at this point that I realized our chosen destination for the staff trip was less of a vacation and more of a long distance shopping trip to stock up on some favorite "tasty" and "fresh" snacks.
When we got back on the bus (the boxes and boxes of dried creatures located carefully in the storage lockers underneath), everyone was passing around giant chunks of dried squid to munch on as a snack. I was kindly given a moderately small piece so I could see if I liked it first, but ended up unable to finish even that. After a minute or so of watching my grimacing face as I chewed with difficultly through the tough, salty meat, the woman next to me offered to eat the rest of it for me and I complied with gratitude. I usually very good about finishing what I'm given even if I don't like it, but after two meals in a row of pure seafood, I was pretty fished-out.
Although it was still raining, to our disappointment, we still went to the next destination after the fish market: Boriam (보리암) Temple. It's located at the top of a large mountain and, being a large group, we didn't have the time to hike the whole thing. So instead, we took a small shuttle bus to as close as we could go and then did a short 30-40 minute hike from there that was only slightly uphill.
This temple is extremely famous for it's terrific view of the sea and the surrounding islands, but the altitude and the rainy, cloudy weather left us with nothing but white in every direction.
Even with the lack of view of the sea, the temple itself is very pretty and uniquely located in split levels on the side of the mountain. Plus, the white misty atmosphere made it very mysterious and still fun to explore.
After lots more picture taking at the temple, we went to another restaurant on the island for lunch. To my "happy" surprise, I was greeted at the table with....even more fish! This time, it was Namhae's famous anchovies. We were served a 3 course meal of anchovy salad, anchovy soup and fried anchovies. Each dish was made with whole fish, including the bones, eyes and scales (all of which are apparently good for you). Even if I could have gotten over the continuously salty, fishy taste that I was already sick of, I couldn't handle the uncomfortable, and occasionally painful crunch of chewing up a whole fish skeleton. So, I politely tried 2-3 bites of each dish and the proceeded to eat rice and onions for the rest of the meal.
By the time I returned home I was starving. I had eaten a light, eel soup for breakfast, skipped on the snack of dried squid and only ate a couple spoonfuls of rice and some onion slices for lunch. When the bus dropped us back off in Ulsan, I picked up some fried chicken on my way home and ravenously ate every bit of it in my apartment.
It was a great and fun trip! But, I saw, smelled and ate more seafood that I've ever wanted to in a 24 hour span of time.
As we got closer to the island, we stopped the bus on a small pull off on the tiny, country road to walk out on the dock and view (take millions of pictures of) the island and it's large, famous bridge in the distance.
The weather was gorgeous: a perfect cool temperature, clear blue skies, and calm water, uninterrupted by any harsh winds.
On the docks, we took several group photos, and then my principal proceeded to pull out some expensive rice and berry made liquor that tasted extremely strong and not very good. We weren't allowed to get on the bus until everyone had helped finished the bottle (WHILE enjoying the view of course).
When we reached the pension we would be staying at that night, I was stunned. I had heard the pensions in Namhae all come with incredible views, but I didn't realize we would be up on a cliff directly next to the shore.
The rooms and building were spacious, modern and clean, with an amazing view from every window.
We stuck around at the pension for a while, watching the sunset before heading to get some dinner. That night we had a delicious delicacy of seafood. Sliced raw fish, sea cucumber, a number of various shell fish, live octopus, and shrimp heads to name a few...
The next morning was a rainy one, so we started our day's activities with some indoor things (or things with roofs in hopes that the rain would let up as the day moved on. We kicked it off with a salty breakfast of hot, spicy, eel soup! Just the thing they wanted to kick their hangovers in the butt while they passed around another bottle of soju (the typical Korean liquor). The soup was actually delicious and I learned that I love the taste of eel, but it was a bit TOO spicy for me to handle and not exactly the kind of taste I look for in my first meal of the morning.
From the eel restaurant, we walked across the street to one of Namhae's large fish markets. It reeked of salt and that fishy smell that comes with the sea. Their were boxes and bags of dried fish, squid, octopus, and seaweed everywhere. I wandered around taking pictures (like the cluelessly, inquisitive foreigner that I am), turning up my nose and making mildly disgusted faces at the wide-eyed and gaping-mouthed, dead fish that stared back at me. Meanwhile, all of my co-workers were busy bargaining for as much fish and seaweed as they could carry. I noticed a few people make a second trip to the bus and back to purchase extra boxes of the stuff. It was at this point that I realized our chosen destination for the staff trip was less of a vacation and more of a long distance shopping trip to stock up on some favorite "tasty" and "fresh" snacks.
When we got back on the bus (the boxes and boxes of dried creatures located carefully in the storage lockers underneath), everyone was passing around giant chunks of dried squid to munch on as a snack. I was kindly given a moderately small piece so I could see if I liked it first, but ended up unable to finish even that. After a minute or so of watching my grimacing face as I chewed with difficultly through the tough, salty meat, the woman next to me offered to eat the rest of it for me and I complied with gratitude. I usually very good about finishing what I'm given even if I don't like it, but after two meals in a row of pure seafood, I was pretty fished-out.
Although it was still raining, to our disappointment, we still went to the next destination after the fish market: Boriam (보리암) Temple. It's located at the top of a large mountain and, being a large group, we didn't have the time to hike the whole thing. So instead, we took a small shuttle bus to as close as we could go and then did a short 30-40 minute hike from there that was only slightly uphill.
This temple is extremely famous for it's terrific view of the sea and the surrounding islands, but the altitude and the rainy, cloudy weather left us with nothing but white in every direction.
Even with the lack of view of the sea, the temple itself is very pretty and uniquely located in split levels on the side of the mountain. Plus, the white misty atmosphere made it very mysterious and still fun to explore.
After lots more picture taking at the temple, we went to another restaurant on the island for lunch. To my "happy" surprise, I was greeted at the table with....even more fish! This time, it was Namhae's famous anchovies. We were served a 3 course meal of anchovy salad, anchovy soup and fried anchovies. Each dish was made with whole fish, including the bones, eyes and scales (all of which are apparently good for you). Even if I could have gotten over the continuously salty, fishy taste that I was already sick of, I couldn't handle the uncomfortable, and occasionally painful crunch of chewing up a whole fish skeleton. So, I politely tried 2-3 bites of each dish and the proceeded to eat rice and onions for the rest of the meal.
By the time I returned home I was starving. I had eaten a light, eel soup for breakfast, skipped on the snack of dried squid and only ate a couple spoonfuls of rice and some onion slices for lunch. When the bus dropped us back off in Ulsan, I picked up some fried chicken on my way home and ravenously ate every bit of it in my apartment.
It was a great and fun trip! But, I saw, smelled and ate more seafood that I've ever wanted to in a 24 hour span of time.
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