Freezing in Gwangju

So I'm halfway through my tenure as an English kindergarten teacher here in Korea. E removed the stitches from my head and the wound is healing up pretty nicely, it just looks like I got a shitty haircut now. Anyway, as you probably remember, Korea hosted the 2002 FIFA World Cup, and Gwangju was one of the host cities to have a stadium built for the events. It took me about a week of living here to realize that the World Cup stadium is just a 10-minute walk from my apartment. Now, the stadium is the home of Gwangju FC of the K-League, which is in its offseason so unfortunately I won’t be able to see any Korean soccer while I’m here. The stadium is across the street from the Pungam Reservoir, which has a number of walking trails all around it. So after seeing a bunch of Koreans doing their power-walk thing on the snow-covered trails, I made a few attempts at jogging around the reservoir. In case you were wondering, going for a run with 2 inches of snow on the ground in sub-freezing temperatures really sucks. But there are some really cool ice sculpture-like structures around the reservoir, so I gave up on running and just started to take pictures instead.

Next to the reservoir is Mount Geumdang, which I kind of discovered by mistake. I didn’t realize that this mountain is really popular with Gwangjuians for hiking. I just saw a pagoda from the street and walked up to it, only to discover that from the pagoda, there are a number of paths through the woods continuing on up the mountain. I noticed that all of the Koreans who were hiking the mountain were wearing mountaineering shoes and had ski poles with them. But the beginning of the path didn’t seem that treacherous, so I decided to try to hike it anyway in my sneakers. Obviously, the Koreans knew what they were doing and I did not – many parts of the trail were just steep sheets of ice. After nearly slipping and killing myself about 30 times, I finally made it to the top. I knew that Gwangju was a pretty big city, but it really doesn’t feel that way because the area where I live and work is fairly residential. It’s actually the sixth largest city in Korea with a population of just under 1.5 million. But it wasn’t until I was at the peak of Mount Geumdang that could I fully appreciate the size of the city. There are large industrial and commercial areas extending out all around the city, and beyond these, the city is surrounded by a number of other mountain ranges...it's really quite amazing when seen from above.

For a city of 1.5 million people, downtown Gwangju isn’t too remarkable. Especially since I’ve just come from Thailand, where the nightlife is nothing short of amazing. But for a city that probably has less than 1000 foreigners living here, there’s definitely still a lot to do. There are three or four bars where many of the Expats go – Bubble Bar, Speakeasy, and Soul Train all have a bunch of other ESL teachers hanging around, along with a few Koreans. But getting away from these and entering a more traditional Korean club this weekend was…interesting. My friends Blake, Worthington and I were the only white people in the entire club, so I guess you could say that we kind of stood out. The club is packed full of Koreans, none of whom can properly dance to the beat of the music, but try their best to nonetheless. It goes without saying that this was wildly entertaining for us. There was also an endless array of house music, Korean K-Pop, laser lights, etc. The clubs stay open all night and the music never stops, so it’s pretty easy to lose track of time. When we left for good at around 4 am to find food, the place was showing NO signs of slowing down, let alone closing. Crazy Koreans.

One of the best things about Korea is the high-speed Internet, which is supposedly the fastest in the world. This, along with channelsurfing.net, allowed me to watch the Packers' beat down of the Falcons this morning, while I enjoyed some kimbap and bibimbap. So my Sunday morning consisted of a gluten-free Korean breakfast and some good old American playoff football, all while I sat at my computer in my pajamas. Now that’s what I call globalization.