Cherry Blossoms

(Originally posted on www.glennlewisphotography.com on April 13, 2015)

Cherry blossoms, duh!

I had hoped to write an entry about cherry blossoms about a week and a half ago, and that deadline went by without my writing so much as a single word. I then hoped to write this about a week ago, and that deadline went by without my writing so much as a single word. Then I wanted to finish writing this by this past weekend – April 11th and 12th – and that deadline went by without my writing so much as a single word. Well, today's the day. The cherry blossoms might all be gone for the year, but the annual blooming of cherry blossoms is a pretty big deal in portions of east Asia, and for the second year in a row, I had the privilege of living on the South Korean island of Jeju at this incredible time of year.

The cherry blossoms first began to bloom on Jeju on something like the 25th of March. The next weekend, March 28th and 29th, held Jeju's annual Cherry Blossom Festival. I went to this festival, but didn't bother to bring any camera gear, because in my experience, festivals in Korea are much more about buying trinkets, drinking soju (a clear, Korean rice-wine), and eating street food in tents than about whatever the title of the festival in question happens to be. The Cherry Blossom Festival. The Fire Festival. The Barley Festival. The Flower Festival. Any one of them could easily be renamed "The Drinking Soju and Eating Street Food in Tents Festival." This is by no means meant to be an insult. I love the Drinking Soju and Eating Street Food in Tents Festival! From this point forward, I'll shorten the name down to the D.S.E.S.F.T. Festival.

Several of my friends went to the D.S.E.S.F.T. Festival on Saturday, March 28th, in the early afternoon. I wasn't able to join them until a few hours later, at something like 5 P.M., which gave my friends a bit of a head start on me in regards to liver destruction. I took the bus into town and walked up the hill to the stadium complex around which the Festival was taking place. I was in no way surprised to find my comrades a few minutes later, in, where? You guessed it! A festival-style tent, drinking Korean liquor and eating street food. I promptly joined them and set off towards my goal of having an absolutely miserable Sunday.

After about an hour of playing catch-up, we paid for our food and drinks, and began our trek around the stadium. The stadium in question isn't particularly large, but it is a full-size soccer stadium, and it would probably take 10 minutes to circumnavigate at normal walking speed. Normal walking speed, however, is not something that would have been possible to achieve, even if it were desired, due to the huge number of people – certainly in the thousands – milling about.

I was looking for a new pair of sunglasses, because the only pairs I have are Elvis-style sunglasses, complete with glued-on fake sideburns. The D.S.E.S.F.T. Festival, and in fact all Korean D.S.E.S.F.T. Festivals, are great places to waste money on stupid gimmicky things one certainly doesn't need, and by the time we'd made one full lap of the stadium, I found myself in possession of one pair of admittedly pretty-sweet sunglasses, and four baller-ass pimp rings. Some friends I was with ended up with a toy sword that lights up and makes annoying noises and a matching balloon. Basically, we were super-mature.

Jokey Festival Pictures

This was the state of things when I arrived at the D.S.E.S.F.T. Festival. Throughout this entry, I talk a lot about drinking soju, and while it is THE drink Korea is famous for, and the primary thing I drink when it comes to alcohol, we actually mostly drank maekgolli at the festival. That's the delicious, extremely reasonably-priced, brownish liquid in our little dog-food bowls.

Interestingly, these dudes lived in Geoje, a neighboring city to Tongyeong, the first city I lived in in South Korea, back in 2010-2011. We actually hung out a few times back in those days, too. Now, we both live on Jeju.

Someone's happy.

These dudes don't look all that happy, but they are.

Balla! The total cost of all the rings in this photo was 24,000 Korean Won, or about $20.

My totally awesome, new sunglasses.

 We spent maybe half an hour watching some live music and dance performances on a fairly large stage before wandering back to the tent in which I'd originally found my friends. Another couple hours there, and a night in town left me sunglassesless, and with only three rings. That's pretty much why I didn't take my camera out.

But back to Cherry Blossoms. On the weekend of the D.S.E.S.F.T. Festival, the cherry blossoms weren't quite at their peak bloom, yet. It took another couple days for them to come out, completely. And then, in typical fashion, a typhoon moved in and tore all the petals off the trees less than a week after they first bloomed. But not before I went back to the stadium and adjacent stream upon which the D.S.E.S.F.T. Festival was held, and took a few pictures. Check 'em out.

Good Pictures

A close-up of some cherry blossoms.

A closer close-up of a single cherry blossom. At the time I took this shot, all the cherry blossoms weren't quite done blooming. Notice the pink, unopened flowers on the right.

More cherry blossoms.

A wide-angle (17mm) shot of some cherry blossom trees and the night sky. The lights from the city caused the sky to have a disitnctly purple color.

One of the many roads in Jeju that is lined with cherry blossom trees.

I've lived on Jeju for about two and a half years, now, and until the night I took this picture, I didn't know this street, unofficially called "Cherry Blossom Street," even existed.

A brown-eyed bulbul. I took all the bird photos in this album at the schools at which I teach English.

I like that I finally got a little direct sunlight in this shot.

Full bloom.

A chestnut-flanked white eye. I was able to take the next few pictures from the second story of my school, which conveniently looked out, at eye-level, with these cute, little birds.

Also, on the first through third of April, I brought my camera and telephoto lens to the schools I work at, because both of my schools have several cherry blossom trees in their courtyards. I don't know if it would fly in America for anyone to walk around an elementary school with a fairly paparazzi-looking telephoto lens, but here, not an issue. I actually managed to get some great shots of a brown-eared bulbul, and a chestnut-flanked white eye.

The cherry blossoms are now gone from Jeju, now, and I will be, too, in the terrifyingly close future. And it's very possible that I've now attended my final D.S.E.S.F.T. Festival. That sucks. Oh well. New adventures and new festivals await!

Six Short Stories

One more Korea blog before I go back roughly a year in time to talk about some of my past adventures that haven't yet been mentioned here. My posts have been pretty long lately, so I'll try (likely unsuccessfully) to keep this one shorter. Rather than sharing one big story, I'll just share a few short stories about things that have happened to me in the two or so weeks I've been on Jeju.

Story One: I was at E-Mart (one of Korea's own versions of Wal-Mart) the other day. There are enough foreigners in town that the sight of a “waygook” (foreigner) is not particularly exciting to most Koreans, but to some children, a tall, bearded white guy is still an amazing sight. As I was riding the moving walkway up from the basement to the ground floor, there was a mother and her three children, aged something like 1, 3, and 5, in front of me. The two youngest children were seated in her shopping cart. The oldest, a little boy, was standing next to his mother. He hadn't seen me get on the moving walkway initially, and when he turned around, he was obviously startled by my … existence? After overcoming his initial shock that such a tall, bearded white person could possibly exist, he smiled and said, “Hi!” I smiled and responded, “Hello!” He tugged on his mother's pants leg, and they briefly spoke in Korean. The boy then turned back to me, smiled again, and said, “Opa Gangnam style.” I replied, “Opa Gangnam style,” did a brief horse-dance, and then, upon reaching the end of the moving walkway, we each carried on with our lives.

Story Two: There's a stereotype about “bad Asian drivers.” One of the first times I was in a car with a Korean driver, s/he drove the wrong way down a clearly marked one-way street (I could tell it was a one-way, and I don't speak Korean, and therefore can't read signs) for several minutes, ignoring the oncoming traffic's horns and flashing headlights, only to turn onto another one-way street, again going the wrong way.

During another ride, my driver decided to do a U-turn in the middle of a 6-lane (3 lanes each way) road. See the fantastic diagram below, which showcases the awe-inspiring Microsoft Paint and Adobe Photoshop skills I command. While it would be illegal to attempt this with no oncoming traffic, it would at least be possible to complete such a maneuver. However, there was a car parked in the furthest of the lanes opposite us at the exact location we'd otherwise have been able to complete the U-turn. The driver must have been aware of this at the onset of the attempted U-turn, but paid it no attention. So within a few seconds, we found ourselves parked perpendicular to the now-oncoming traffic. Rather than putting the car in reverse and doing an admittedly-awkward 3-point turn, we waited for the parked car, whose driver was at a walk-up ATM on the side of the road, to complete his transaction, get back in his car, and drive away. It was weird. This drive was completed by back-to-back failed parallel parking jobs. As awkward as all of this was, I must admit I never felt unsafe, because the speed of traffic on city streets is quite low, and the patience of drivers is quite high.

I kick so many asses at computer graphics programs.

Story Three: One evening, as I was walking through a park en route to my bus stop (I don't yet have a motorcycle, damn it), I found myself walking behind a mother and her middle-school aged son. The mother had apparently just bought her son some type of toy, and he was tearing through the packaging as I walked behind them. After breaching the outer layer of packaging, they both slowed down so the boy could further examine the inner packaging. He then casually threw the outer box on the ground. The mother said nothing and they carried on their merry way. Then, upon getting through the inner packaging, he threw it on the ground. It wasn't like there weren't other people in the park, either. They just didn't care. The mother said nothing and they continued on their merry way. It reminded me of the scene in Anchorman where the Channel 4 News Team walks through a park in San Diego and casually throws their corn-dog remnants and other trash on the ground. You stay classy, Korea.

Story Four: I suck at cooking. How is it even possible to fuck up steamed vegetables? Well, frankly, the answer is obvious. You boil off all the water and end up with smoked vegetables. Don't do this, unless you are a fan of smoked vegetables with a metallic taste.

Story Five: General disorganization of the Korean workplace continues. When I was here in 2010 – 2011, I had a good number of “WTF?! This is happening in my workplace?!” moments. All such incidents were simply the result of poor planning, such as being told on a Thursday that there would be some kind of mandatory workshop on Saturday. Annoying, but you learn to roll with the punches. As I've since been told, “T.I.K.” - This Is Korea. I have had a couple such moments already on this tour of duty. Example one: being told at 8:50 that I would be teaching a 9:00 class.

Example two: I was taken to an “International Festival” for children on Jeju. I was obligated to attend because of my employment through EPIK (English Program In Korea – the federal government's English-education department), but no one knew what was going on. I was dropped off at the festival, and basically told to figure it out. There were a hundred stands, each manned by people I didn't know (I'd been in Korea for one week at the time of this festival). I eventually found a festival tent labeled “North America Corner” or something similar, and found that the other workers at this tent were North American EPIK teachers. So I talked to them for the next couple hours and did nothing. Pretty much a waste of time, but I guess that's part of the deal.

Story Six: Katie, my amazing friend and fellow ESL-teacher with whom I spent 3 months traveling in Nepal, and who lives in Geoje (a 45-minute flight and a one-hour bus ride from Jeju), came to visit me last weekend! It was awesome! Our travels in Nepal were cut short so unexpectedly that the last time we saw each other, almost a full year ago, we each thought we'd be seeing each other the next day. You can read about it in my “Tidbits and Tragedy” article from December 7, 2011. Anyway, it was awesome to see such a great friend on such short order after my arrival here. Made me feel like I was back home.

That's all. Go Broncos! The end.

Nepal Photo Post 1 of 4

Picture time.  Finally.  I narrowed my Nepal pictures down to about 240, which I'm going to post 60 at a time as time allows.  I think it's a pretty good mixture of pictures.  Some are included simply because they are good pictures.  Others are shown because they go along with some kind of an interesting story.  Others are here because they show something unique about Nepal.  And others are included because I felt like including them.  I'll try to keep the captions short.

This album covers my departure from Korea, on September 11, 2011, some time spent in Kathmandu, another week or so in Pokhara, and the first half of the Annapurna trek, ending at Braghat / Manang, on October 20, 2011. Several of the pictures in THIS album are shown in a post from September.  The next three posts will be all-new.


YOU CAN SEE LARGER VERSIONS BY CLICKING THE THUMBNAILS!

Goodbye, Korea!

After a calamitous first night in Nepal, we were finally able to get some money the next day.  At a conversion rate of roughly 75 Nepali Rupees to the U.S. dollar, we both felt pretty rich.  Make it rain, Katie!

One mode of transport available in Kathmandu, the bicycle rickshaw.

On our second day in Kathmandu, we visited Swayambhu, a famous Buddhist temple atop a hill overlooking the Kathmandu Valley.  Swayambhu is, for reasons that will be apparent after looking at the next few pictures, commonly referred to as 'Monkey Temple.'  When Katie and I first got there, we were just blow away.  How could a place like this exist, and seeing that it obviously DID and DOES exist, how was it that we'd never heard of it prior to arriving in Nepal?  One of the coolest places I've ever been.

Baby monkeys were all over Swayambhu.

Shortly before Katie was attacked by 'King Monkey.'  I think that story is told in an old post.

Thirsty?  The monkeys at Swayambhu are all rhesus macaques, and they have no fear of humans.  Dogs, on the other hand seem able to instill fear in these creatures, that depending upon their disposition, can be either incredibly cute, or, frankly, a bit frightening when they're pissed off.

Nice to meet you.

On September 16th, Katie and I started a short trek a bit north of Kathmandu in order to make sure we at least kind of knew what we were doing before starting the 2-week plus Annapurna Circuit.  This was our first day on the trail.

A boy herding a bunch of goats on the same trail Katie and I were hiking on.  Down here, it was goats that you found on the trail.  Up higher, it changed to donkeys and yaks.

The view of an abandoned bus from Mt. Dog Fuck, Nagarkot.  No, 'Mt. Dog Fuck' isn't Nepali for anything.  It's a reference to the canine copulation that was taking place all around us as we hung out and enjoyed a sunset over Kathmandu.

And here's the sunset view of Kathmandu from Mt. Dog Fuck, Nagarkot.  If Kathmandu doesn't look as big or bright as you might expect, it could be at least partially explained by the rolling blackouts that are just a part of day-to-day life in Nepal.

A flamingo.

After completing our 5-day Kathmandu Valley trek, we celebrated by going on a Nepali beer tour.  Kathmandu, San Miguel (actually a Filipino beer), Gorkha, Nepal Ice, and Everest beers cost about $2 each, making drinking a relatively expensive hobby in Nepal, considering that a hotel room cost less than $5 a night in Thamel, the tourist district of Kathmandu.

These are the receipts I got from my visit to an overcrowded Nepali hospital.  There's a whole post about this ordeal somewhere on my blog.  The visit may or may not have been prompted by Katie and my visit to a dirt-floored local restaurant in Nagarkot where we were served rahksi (Nepali moonshine) out of a dirty gas can.

Kathmandu, being a relatively big city (about one million people live there), has a relatively big pigeon population.  Photo credit: Katie

To get around in Kathmandu, you can walk, take a taxi, or take a bicycle rickshaw.  If you aren't trying to get up any big hills, the rickshaw is a good option.

On September 28th, we arrived in Pokhara, a tourist-friendly city that serves as the jumping-off point for the Annapurna Circuit.  We happened to be in Pokhara during Dashain, a 15-day festival that is the most important holiday in Nepal.  During Dashain, many families construct swings of varying sizes from bamboo poles.  Some of the swings are enormous, towering above the homes of those who built them.  It's rare to meet a Nepali person without a smile on his or her face, and this was even more pronounced during Dashain.

Some Hindus put 'tilaks' - the red dots you see on the foreheads of many Hindu people - on their pets.  Later, I'd see them on elephants as well.  Interesting side note: this dog was a little fucker.  The stray dogs in Nepal are friendly.  In fact, this was the only angry person or animal I saw for about 4 months.  Except for that innkeeper in Namche Bazaar...

A fruit stand in Pokhara.

I'm not going to explain this one.

There were tons of butterflies in Nepal, especially in the lower-elevation areas.  This is a 'Red Spot Jezebel Butterfly,' and I took this photo just outside of Pokhara.

Another butterfly photo.  There are 643 species of butterfly that live in Nepal.  After trying to find out what this one is for a few minutes, I've given up.  It's probably a new discovery.  Does this qualify me as an entomologist?

The Japanese-built 'World Peace Pagoda,' located on top of a hill overlooking Pokhara.

Katie and I got drunk one night and decided to build a fort when we got back to our kick-ass room in the kick-ass Hotel Elia, still in Pokhara.  Photo credit: Katie

Think these kids are cute?  Look a little closer.  What is the kid in the blue shirt, on the right, holding in his hand?  Oh, it's a big butcher-knife.  We met these kids during one of our Pokhara-based scooter adventures.  We had to cross a river to get here, but could make it no further, as the road at this point went across (by going through) a river that was frankly too deep for us to hope to be able to get across on our rented scooter.  Photo credit: Katie

Here's one of the larger bamboo swings we saw.  Photo credit: Katie

There are two particularly memorable aspects of Dashain.  The first is the bamboo-swings.  The other is the slaughter of thousands (millions?  I don't know... there are 20 million people in Nepal, so I guess it's possible) of goats, buffalo, ducks, pigeons, etc.  The blood of the sacrificed animals is offered to the blood-thirsty Goddess, Kali.  Here's a herd of now-dead goats.

Our first good view of the Annapurna range of the Himalayas.  This was taken at sunrise from Sarangkot, a famous view point just outside of Pokhara.  The most prominent mountain, near the middle of this photo, is the 6.993 meter high Machapuchare.

Another early-morning picture of the Annapurna Himalayas taken from Sarangkot.

Obligatory jumping picture.

Katie picked a fight with a kung-fu master.  Actually, there were some Chinese journalists at Sarangkot at the same time as Katie and I, and enthralled by our jumping pictures and other silly antics, decided to get in on the action.  Katie: "That Chinese man kicked me in the ..."

Monks meditating, mesmerized by mountains.  The big guy is, again Machapuchare.

There are some situations I can't tear myself away from when I've got my camera gear.  Anytime there are flowers and bees together is one such situation.

Our favorite Nepali drink, Officer's Choice whiskey.  Cheap as can be, and good enough for airline pilots.  What else can you ask for?  Photo credit: Katie

We never got around to paragliding in Pokhara.  It was a very popular activity there, but expensive - over $100 US.  The lake shown is Phewa Tal, the second-largest lake in Nepal.

I loved Nepal, and hate to put up anything critical about it, but c'mon.  What kind of a message is it sending when you put up a sign bragging about the particular region being "the First Open Defecation Free District of Nepal."  Wow!  What a great place!  There aren't people shitting all over the streets!

On another one of our scooter adventures near Pokhara, Katie and I found a river with a bunch of kids playing in it.  We considered joining them, but the water below was frighteningly shallow, and as Katie so eloquently put it, she'd love to try jumping too, but "I'd go down harder and faster than those kids."  Yeah, you would.  Photo credit: Katie

We went to an amusement park in Pokhara.  Weird, but awesome.  One attraction of the amusement park was the 10-meter high wooden barrel in which a man on a motorcycle rode around the vertical walls.  Photo credit: Katie

Most afternoons in Pokhara, we'd get a couple beers, rent a canoe, and row out a hundred meters into Phewa Tal for our own sunset booze cruise.  I tried to look as creepy as possible in this photo.  Photo credit: Katie

There wasn't too much in the way of wildlife in the non-jungle regions of Nepal, so whenever there was any kind of animal in sight, I'd tend to drop everything and start taking pictures.  This is an "Oriental Garden Lizard."

Finally, some trekking.  This was the room we stayed in on October 14th, in the "Ngadi Guest House," our first night on the Annapurna Circuit trail.  Neither of us really knew what to expect at the tea houses (Lodges on major trekking routes in Nepal are commonly called tea houses) along the Annapurna Circuit.  This lodge, fortunately, ended up being one of the worst lodges we stayed at on either the Annapurna or Everest treks.  Perhaps the highlight of the lodge was our roommates, one of whom took a shit on Katie while she was trying to get to sleep.  Our roommates were rats.  That said, it was fine, and cheap as can be.  Because of the fact that the lodges on the Annapurna Circuit aren't (yet) reachable by car, they become increasingly expensive with altitude.  At only 900 meters, this lodge cost us 100 rupees ($1.33) for the night, and breakfast and dinner for Katie and myself totaled only Rs. 720 - less than $10.  Nice.

On our second day on the Annapurna Circuit, October 15th, we stayed at a lodge in Jagat (elevation 1314m) where several other groups of trekkers were also staying.  There was a family trekking together that had hired a porter-guide (there's a distinction, I believe this guy was both) who was celebrating his birthday with everyone in the lodge.  So we were treated to some chocolate cake, and per the Nepali tradition, or maybe it's a made-up tradition to make Westerners feel special, Katie and I got tilaks made from rice and some red dye on our foreheads.

Stop!  Thief!  That guy is stealing my dead goat!

... like lambs to the slaughter.  Or like goats, rather.

Short hair, short beard.  At this point, I obviously hadn't been in Nepal too long.  Katie and I stopped in Tal for lunch of tuna momos (delicious Nepali dumplings) and chang.  Chang is home-brewed 'beer' that tastes like lemonade that's short on sugar.  Interestingly, I just found out a couple days ago that Chang is also a major beer brand in Thailand.  Photo credit: Katie

On the morning of October 17th, we awoke to this spider running around our room.  We'd thought of sleeping a bit longer, but when we found out that we had roommates like this, we got up and headed out the door.

A breakdown of trekkers on the Annapurna Circuit by nationality and the month of their visit.  Katie and I were doing the trek in the middle of October, far and away the busiest month for trekking in Nepal, and there wasn't a time when we felt like it was too crowded.

"You look like Chewbacca!"

Obviously I had to include this picture.  Anytime I can make some kind of Colorado reference, I have to do it.

On the night of October 18th, we stayed in a village called Upper Pisang.  There was a monastery at the upper end of town which offered incredible views of the Annapurna range.  The tallest mountain shown here is Annapurna II, the 16th highest mountain in the world, at 7,937 meters.  The coloring in this picture ended up coming out strange, but I liked it, so I decided to keep it.  My use of a polarizer certainly had something to do with this strange effect.

Here's the same picture as shown above, but "color-corrected."  I don't know which version I like better.

The kitchen at the "Yak and Yeti Hotel" in Upper Pisang.  All the food you get on the trails in Nepal is cooked in kitchens like this, usually on wood-burning stoves, but some places do use gas that's brought up in big cylinders on the backs of donkeys.

Nepali script.  There are tablets with this script carved into them all along the Annapurna Circuit, and to a lesser extent, the Everest Trek as well.  It reads "Om mani padme hum," and there is no easy-to-understand English translation that I can find.  It is basically a mantra, and is revered by Buddhists.

More "Om mani padme hum" tablets.

One of the smaller rooms we ever stayed at, thankfully.  No, I'm not doing ballet in this picture.  I'm demonstrating how small the room was.  Photo credit: Katie

I'd never seen an avalanche until October 20th,when I saw two.  Katie took this picture while I filmed it.

I own a pair of really nice, expensive hiking boots that I wore for the whole Annapurna Circuit.  Here's what they'd done to my left heel by day 7.  Lacking moleskin, I made my own band-aid with duct tape and toilet paper.  When I finished the Circuit, I decided I'd use my running shoes for the Everest Trek - the boots were simply too painful to continue using.

We went to a "movie theater" in Manang.  You can't reach Manang by any kind of mechanical vehicle (other than a helicopter), but the village had two movie theaters.  They didn't have current releases, of course.  They had pirated DVDs  and a projector.  You got to pick your own movie to watch.  The benches were covered with yak fur, and the 200 rupee ($2.67) ticket price included a bag of popcorn and a cup of hot tea.

When we left the movie theater in Manang, we found ourselves a half-hour walk from our hotel in a snow storm.  The walk was reminiscent of the beginning of either a horror movie or a survival story.  Yaks with glowing blue-green eyes watched us walk slowly back to our hotel on a suddenly unfamiliar (due to the dark and snow) trail.  But we made it.