Let's start travelling. Sokcho, Korea east coast

After the last week of class, and with the feeling of a nice beach trip, we decided to take a look at the map of Korea. Korea is like the shape of the classical inclined plan problem. It has a rectangular layout shape, with a mountain range (high ones) from north to south in the east side. That makes really different morphologic landscapes from the east to the west coast.

Google maps Korea

Sokcho is a coastal city in the east coast. Its limited in the west by Seoraksan National Park, and the east Sea (Sea of Japan) in the west. It is located one hour far from the north border, and some ferries depart from here to China and Russia.

There are many buses from Seoul (about 3 hours 10 minutes, a lot of them) and from Incheon about 10 per day (3 hour 40 minutes). It is basically a touristic city, so as we expected no much people should be there in June, and it is probably crowded by summer holidays (July-August).

There are many accommodations next to Sokcho express terminal, from Motels (about 40.000 won per night) to nice Hotels (I didnt ask the price but probably double), and it is possible to sleep also in particular houses. Many people offers a place to sleep in a private house. Anyway, korea is full of Motels, so we decided to take a room in the closest to the station., basically becaouse we get there about 10 pm, and when nobody speaks english it could be a kind of difficult sometimes. That's what the Motel we slept looks like.

It looks a kind of funny, with green and red light in the room, in a Korean style bed (basically a kind of small matress on the floor), confortable?? not bad. Is a good experience for one night...

The characteristic food in that city is raw fish. I know that you are thinking about sushi now, but it is not exactly like that. I'll try to describe a picture of the scene... Imagine some big fishbowls with different kind of fish, squids, and red (rare) kind of squids pasted in rokcs, and similar.

Basically when you order one of them, it is fished, cutted, and served. So you see a guy fishing them with a small net, and cutting them fast. Then when you get all the stuff (Korean style) with all the salads, sauces, etc.. you can see a masacre of fish, moving in front of you. Well maybe, like that sounds a bit disgusting, but it is not.

We got squids and that kind of red thing that I am not sure how is it called. It is a bit difficult to describe the feeling of a squid leg kind of moving in your mouth, but is not bad. the red thing was like gelly something. Anyway, you should taste it. Sincerely the raw fish looked better, but after that we decided not to eat more...

The beach in the city is nice at night, and a lot of people goes there to have fun with friends and couples, fireworks are a cool nice amusement at night, while you can watch the fishing boats approaching with its lights.

(picture:http://images.travelpod.com/users/groundhopper/14.1249510037.sokcho-beach-at-night.jpg)

Seoreaksan national park is located 30 minutes far from Sokcho (east entrance), and it is easy to got there by bus (bus 7 and 7-1, but try to ask the driver). The park is located in one of the highest mountains of South Korea.

We went through the east door into the park. It is really steep. I mean, let me be a bit freak, the streams has just a few water, and the sediment is really coarse, is like a torrent, but with a big basin. That is a view from the cable car, in 5 minutes bring you to the top a a peak, about 700 m. The view of the landscape, with the see and the mountains is really awesome.

That is a view of what we wanted to climb to arrive to the top, is so impressive my face with a John Travolta hair style jaja.

That's the top, oh yeah!!

After a 10 minutes rain, a bit of wind, and the awesome view, we decided to continue the visit. There are many rutes to hick, and many natural things to enjoy with all the senses, from waterfalls, to huge rocks, natural swimmingpools, and many different rock formations.

In the vale, the spirituality of the Buddhist is present. Many temples and figures are in the mountain, some of them to visit.

And, after a hick of 40 minutes, incredible rock formations and friendly natural pools (tempreture about 30-35º) invite to jump in, even if the water is so so cold...

I can say that the park is really nice, nature, spirituality and water live together. I really reccomend it, but to hick it all 3 or 4 days are probably needed.

After a tiring day in the mountain I took 2 showers to get of all the nature accumulated during the day in my body.

If you go to Socko you can go to a Hotel or a Motel, but if you really want to enjoy the travellers spirit, you will look for a Hostel. Is not easy, but in Sokcho you can find one of the best I've ever been. The owner is a really nice guy. He make us a plan to visit the city just going into the hostel, some reccomendations for cheap and good places to eat and visit. The room was a kind of nice, and it is located in the old city (most of the motels and hotels are located close to the bus station, in a not really nice zone far from the center but close to the beach). One of the best things is the free bicicles in the hostel, but I will talk about that afterwards. The pictures of the hostel are taken from its homepage. Visit it! Home hostel Sokcho It really looks like that.

By the reccomendation of the hostel guy we went to have dinner to a buffet bbq. That's another thing that I really like about korea. Is a restaurant in which you get a grill or similar and you cook the stuff yourself. It is possible to have pork, beer, fish, squids and dessert. That one was really nice cos it was kind of familiar, small, cheap, and nice staff. In the picture it's me eating

an ice cream, we were too hungry to take pictures during the meal jeje.

A good destination in Sokcho is the lake. That natural lake situated in the north of the city is a reserve of nature and environment. We were riding a bicycle there. it takes about 1 hour to sorrounde it, but it depends on how fit you are and how many people are on the bike...
Even if the city is close, nature is more powerful. It was also good because there were not many people, so the feeling of freedom ii makes it even better.
You should take care about the dragons, they are still in korea, jeje
Another kind of typical food from there is noddles, potato noddles. The restaurant is a potato one. I mean, from the noddles, to the crep s looking something even the makoli are potato made. It is not bad, but I still prefer the "normal" pasta,jeje. the soup had a high density... but perfect to recover forces.

We came back to the hostel to return the bicicle and take a look to the port before come back to Incheon.

That bridge is really nice at night, lighted in colorful Korean style. During the day is also spectacular (if you like bridges) but not very useful, just take a look at next picture thats the highway that it was supposed to go. a bridge to nowhere...

That is the beach in front of the port, but I thing that there are building something not really good for that beach, so probably in a few month (pale pale) will be totally different if it still exists.

Finally, that is the view of an small island in front of the beach (the other beach of the city, the big one). It looks really nice.

After that we went just running to the station, to have a 3 & half hour trip back to Incheon. It was a exhausting weekend, and we left with the wish to come back to enjoy the rest of the city, beach an Seoraksan park. Simply amazing, one of the best weekends in Korea ;).

Ioga. Why not feel the energy??

Sometimes, when you feel far from yourself, and the equilibrium between the mind, the body and the environment is not equilibrated, you have some options: pray to something (in general), run nude in the field (that s one of my favorites), or... do ioga.

It was a nice advertisement in the elevator of the dorm, and someone's idea to join it. Why not? just do it! So here we are, just two hours per week, just to demonstrate the flexibility (low) of our bodies. Somebody is gonna hit me for next video, but I have to upload it.

After the session, we really feel the energy (and all the muscles of our body).

It was the first day, now I can say that we improved a lot, but Imnot gonna upload new videos about that...

Namaste!

Geondam mountain

The idea itself was really good. Spend Saturday morning in the mountain, have a good lunch in a nice korean style restaurant and come back to get ready for the next.

What I didn't expect is that two days later is still so hard to walk downstairs. I can feel all my muscles in my legs, and half of my back, arms,... everywhere. I didn't really know the amount of muscles that we have.

But, maybe is better to explain the whole story, it seem a kind of torture but it was not really like that. Was a nice trip, and a good night...

Once upon a time in witch the prof. responsible of us, let's call him prof. C, decided to go hiking in the mountain, with all the members of the department, and some other professors and friends. The schedule was basically go to the base of the mountain departing at 8 in the morning (oh yes, you know I like it!) to start hiking at 10:00. Walk for 3 hours, go to have a good lunch and come back to the university.

It was 7 in the morning when the clock rang. It was a beautiful morning, the sun was shining, the weather invited to think about a warm day, so i decided to sleep 5 minutes more. Thanks good day... late... but it was ok, just a few minutes. The departure point was 15 minutes by bus far from the university. Thanks to me (again) we took the wrong bus (at 7:50 sorry again...), but the driver, nice guy, was going really slow. 5 minutes later he stopped the, and, suddenly, the correct bus stopped close to us, changing it's route (a bit) to pick us up (thanks nice people who drive in the morning). So we finally arrive on time (+- 5 minutes) to greet all the amount of people who was waiting for us. Let's go!!

That's the people arriving late (my face is saying like: it wasn't me at all, it was my bed...sorry...jeje)

Thats the people excited to go to the mountain:

We get there fast, about 10:00. So we packed all the stuff (cucumbers, snacks, cherry tomatoes, makoli (see food section), dried fish, some water,....),

and we started to walk. Only 3 hours going uphill where between the top an us... this was the complete team:

After 30 minutes half of the people were exhausted (I was still alive, oh yeah!), so we did a technical stop, to get a bit of air, water and a delicious and nutritive cucumber. Why are you laughting Sophie?

The next 45 minutes were... well, what I should tell? you can't imagine the slope of the mountain, the quantity of stairs...

even though the landscape was awesome. Maybe a bit estrange, but beautiful. The weather in korea is dry all year, only in summer is wet (people told me that, but in the last 3 weeks had been raining (in Incheon) every 3 days, at least), so it looks as a ghost forest, small rivers, and some purple flowers... there are many diferent routes to get to the top of this mountain, and it was nice becouse maybe was one of the most difficult ones, but there were not many people. So we could really enjoy nature..

Second stop. Please water, a shadow, a bit of fresh wind, an oxigen mask,... o yeah, something to eat, oh yeah something to drink! makoli? yes sure!

I think that I can't tell exactly how was the feeling after this stop. The distance to the top was getting shorter. And it arrived this moment in witch you are not tired, but neither good, you just don't feel, only walk. Thinking, some jokes, people going downhill, a bit of water, another colleague a bit more destroyed than you, more people going downhill... Oh look!! is there!!! only 15 minutes aprox.!! only 15 minutes???!! what means only?? it looks still 1 hour far!!! up there??

Buas, just the last 100 stairs... and to the top!! ice cream fight!!!, and nice views...

I don't have the group picture in the top, neither pictures of the other side of the mountain. the city in the picture above is Seoul, with the typical fog of these days (?).

I will tell you something. Sometimes, I smoke. And when I go hikking (not very often) I like to smoke one in the top, just to feel as the end of something hard and/or nice, do you know what I mean?? always getting my trash downhill. But in Korea is forbiden to smoke there. I understand cos there were a lot, a lot of people there on the top.

So I decided don't break the rules (I never use to do it), and wait till arrive down the mountain. In the other hand, cos I felt really good, I decided to go down running, to do a bit more of sport is this healthy day, if it was possible. So I did, well, some of we did.

Going downhill, the view over the Han river was spectacular...

So all that goes up must go down, but it doesn't mean that all goes at the same time, so we were trying to get energy from somewhere, just holding the head (good job Jean), or smoking a cigarette (I'm not gonna say it).

When the last lost people arrived (iBen, "Soyo", and a couple more, jeje) we jump in to the bus and go directly to have lunch, bieeeeeeeeeen! vamooooos!

The location of the restaurant near the Han river, is really nice, and the restaurant itself, at open air, and made in wood, was the ideal place to go. We went in a bit after the other people after smoke the obligatory cigarette before lunch.

So the spacial table was waiting for us. Ji Eun (pink one), the man that I don't really know who is, another good boy that we'd never seen before (and I forgot his name :(), iBen and me.

The menu?? BBQ, pork meat and duck (sorry, you said "duck" or "dog"? jeje), with all the kinds of kimshi that you can imagine, a bit of salad and something to drink :).
We really enjoyed the lunch, and the people was really nice, I mean the professors and the other members of the uni. Was a good experience.

So after some pictures near the river, a coffee and a cigarette, we get into the bus to come back to Incheon. It was a hard day (you can guess it in next pictures), but also a really good one. I felt really happy and in harmony with nature, I don't really have enough words in english to describe it, but you know, is was a kind of challenge, and the result was ok. It was also exciting discover that there is something else than city in here...

Bye bye, have a good rest! See you on monday!... maybe

PD: iBen, Sophie & Big Seb thx for the pictures :)

Water Resources: Impacts of climate change & adaption (23/04/2010)

Maybe you think that I am here just to enjoy life with really nice girls, and have fun celebrating things with friends, but it is not really true. Most of my time here in Korea I am studying. Either Korean language (practising), at class (more than 24 h per week in unusual schedules from monday to saturday), doing homework (is most of the part of the evaluation) or going to "recommended" events.

Well, beginning from these hypothesis, I want to tell you my first experience in a international workshop, and the second in climate change.

My first experience in that was in Valencia. The conclusions, in general, were that nobody really knows what is gonna happen (in terms of water resources and rainfall) is spain. So I was really interested if somebody of the guest could know how it is going in their countries.

The workshop was in the Seoul National University, in Seoul (a si?jeje). The university itself is really huge. Well, Seoul metropolitan area is the 2nd biggest in the world (25 million people), but the city it is not that big, only 10 million people, so the university has the same scalar dimension.

I wanted to attach a link to the workshop but I don't really know where to find it. Anyway here it is the order of the day:

In general the speakers were telling their projects in their different countries. (Ojo!) technically speaking their explained the different downscaling techniques applied to their local climate change models, to estimate the rainfall tendency in the next decades (using CGS global models). Others explained about detailed studies, as for example the korean one (with 35 years of data), and more detailed (and more technical and advanced) the US's one.

Even if their conclusions were that some of them detected some trends, and that these trends were because of the climate change, I think that (personal opinion) the amount of data used in the studies (about 30 to 60 years), the sensibility of the models (huge variation of estimations if the data was from 1960 to 1996 and 1960 to 2000) and the uncertainness shown in the results (in the range of more than 16 climate models) is enough to say that nobody really knows what is gonna happen in the next decades (even in the next decade).

Anyway a lot of brains are working on that so I hope that the uncertainness will be reduced soon.

The common sensed US's guy was telling his thesis about the integration of the opinion of the decision maker in the technical process. Really interesting vision: knowing that the decision makers (normally politicians) are gonna promise something not always smart (ehm...) the formulation include this "pre decision" to look for a solution to fix it.

The funny moment was when the Japanese guy was talking about something that was not really climate change. But he was happy to could explain it. In general...??? interesting, jeje.