The trip to get to the north was over and we were taken to check in to the strange “boat”-shaped hotel that float on a lake lake. The hotel wasn’t bad at all. My only complaint would be that there was no English TV at all. At least I learned something interesting which I will touch on in a moment
After everyone had checked in we went downstairs and got on our designated buses. We were only going for a short trip in to “town” for dinner and a drink or two. As I already mentioned, the prices are reasonable here. The food is a little expensive, but not that bad, considering most of it is brought over from the South. Things in the convenience store are the same price as in the South and the exchange bank gives the same rate that it would on the other side. Beer and soju are about the same price and the Duty Free shops are expensive, as they are everywhere.
In all the shops and restaurants there are both North and South Koreans. The North’s employees are recognized by the pin they wear featuring the face of Uncle Kim (Kim Jeong Il , normally written as Kim Jong Il). I was unable to find an image of this pin, but it is normally a red flag with his face in the middle. They are forced, but “law”, to wear these pins, but I suspect they will wear them even if they don’t have to. They see him almost as a god over there. Big brother would be proud. I don’t see him as such and can’t use his special title because he is a dictator who is letting his people starve. Mugabe of Baboon can learn a few things from this guy.
Here is a picture of him and the puppet they used in the silly film called "Team America". An impressive match, don't you think?
The men all looked gay, seriously. What is it with Korea? Why can’t they make men look like men? They all had these model hairstyles and sissy boy outfits. Even the ones who were dressed a bit manlier still looked gay. Anyway…
The women in the audience were actually funnier to watch than the men. At one point it seemed like one woman wanted the guy to say “Oppa”. It is actually, “Obba”, but doesn’t sound like it. Girls call their boy friends this but it actually means Older Brother. Strange. A few days ago I was reading one of my regular blogs. The woman from the blog was trying to say this to her Korean boyfriend in the same way Korean girls do. I didn’t really understand what she was talking about until I heard this.
The woman from the TV asked the guy to say “obba”, but he obviously didn’t do it right, so she demonstrated. It is a very short “O” and the “A” is delivered in a long, whining tone as only Koreans can. “Oppaaaaaaaa”. As if on queue, all the other girls did the same thing in EXACTLY the same tone. Do they teach them this in school? Even funnier than this is that in Afrikaans “Oupa”, meaning Grandfather, sound almost exactly the same. I hope June doesn't start calling me that any time soon.
Now, on to the first day’s climbing. All in all it is something to be experienced and my words will not do the beauty justice. I hope my photographs make up for it in a small way.
We had to be up for breakfast before sunrise. In Korea a breakfast is just a scaled down version of dinner, or lunch for that matter. There was kimchi, rice and soup, salad, dumplings and other normal Korean foods. No bacon and eggs. They did have a section with bread and a toaster and a bowl of cornflakes.
After breakfast we headed off to our militarily parked buses and then in to “town”. We were allowed to grab drink or any supplies we needed before we headed off to the first climb.
Every day, for every group of tourist who depart for the day, there is a full farewell by the staff. They all come out, line up next to the road and wave us off. I am not sure if I liked it or if it creeped me out. None the less, it is an interesting sight. We were in “town” one day when another group was sent off. As soon as the buses are out of sight, the people make a B-line for the warm interiors of the shops and restaurant. It was quite amusing to see.
You guys really need to see Koreans who go hiking or climbing. They don’t do it half way. They have special clothing, shoes, spikes for the shoes, backpacks and walking sticks. They love kitting themselves out over here. Then there were us foreigners with our sneakers/trainer/tekkies, jeans and casual warm jackets. Quite the contrast.
Eventually we were allowed to go, after a brief speech of what we were allowed do on the climb. There are little stalls at the bottom of every climb. They sell some food stuff drinks and soju. Apparently it is a tradition here to drink soju at the top of a climb. That was the actual start of the climb.
I will let a few photos speak for the scenes that unfolded as we were moving up the mountain. Right at the top they have a platform where you can rest and take photographs of the frozen waterfall. In the collection there is a photograph of rock carvings. Some of them are enormous. I estimate one character to be about 10 meter in size. I have no idea what they said and why exactly they are there. I’m sure it will be interesting to see for people 1000 years from now.
I’d like to apologize for the quality of the photos. I wasn’t allowed to take my normal camera because the zoom is to strong. I had to make do with my 2.4 zoom, 5 megapixel compact camera.
Of course, they sold coffee and more snacks at the top. East Asians and snacks, Sheez! Interestingly, almost all the women who worked at these snack tables were reeeeeealy pretty. They had their own uniform, as everyone working here has. Their shoes, strangely enough, are those thick soled Spice Girls type shoes. I can only wonder how you get up a mountain in that.
The trip down was interesting. I didn’t rent spikes to strap to my shoes and nearly took a tumble down the mountain because of it. When we got back to the bottom we had lunch at the restaurant there before heading back to the “town”.
The next instalment will be about the second part of this day and the trip to the frozen lake. If you haven’t noticed yet, then I’m telling you now. It was cold, things were frozen and there was thick snow everywhere.
After everyone had checked in we went downstairs and got on our designated buses. We were only going for a short trip in to “town” for dinner and a drink or two. As I already mentioned, the prices are reasonable here. The food is a little expensive, but not that bad, considering most of it is brought over from the South. Things in the convenience store are the same price as in the South and the exchange bank gives the same rate that it would on the other side. Beer and soju are about the same price and the Duty Free shops are expensive, as they are everywhere.
In all the shops and restaurants there are both North and South Koreans. The North’s employees are recognized by the pin they wear featuring the face of Uncle Kim (Kim Jeong Il , normally written as Kim Jong Il). I was unable to find an image of this pin, but it is normally a red flag with his face in the middle. They are forced, but “law”, to wear these pins, but I suspect they will wear them even if they don’t have to. They see him almost as a god over there. Big brother would be proud. I don’t see him as such and can’t use his special title because he is a dictator who is letting his people starve. Mugabe of Baboon can learn a few things from this guy.
Here is a picture of him and the puppet they used in the silly film called "Team America". An impressive match, don't you think?
The men all looked gay, seriously. What is it with Korea? Why can’t they make men look like men? They all had these model hairstyles and sissy boy outfits. Even the ones who were dressed a bit manlier still looked gay. Anyway…
The women in the audience were actually funnier to watch than the men. At one point it seemed like one woman wanted the guy to say “Oppa”. It is actually, “Obba”, but doesn’t sound like it. Girls call their boy friends this but it actually means Older Brother. Strange. A few days ago I was reading one of my regular blogs. The woman from the blog was trying to say this to her Korean boyfriend in the same way Korean girls do. I didn’t really understand what she was talking about until I heard this.
The woman from the TV asked the guy to say “obba”, but he obviously didn’t do it right, so she demonstrated. It is a very short “O” and the “A” is delivered in a long, whining tone as only Koreans can. “Oppaaaaaaaa”. As if on queue, all the other girls did the same thing in EXACTLY the same tone. Do they teach them this in school? Even funnier than this is that in Afrikaans “Oupa”, meaning Grandfather, sound almost exactly the same. I hope June doesn't start calling me that any time soon.
Now, on to the first day’s climbing. All in all it is something to be experienced and my words will not do the beauty justice. I hope my photographs make up for it in a small way.
We had to be up for breakfast before sunrise. In Korea a breakfast is just a scaled down version of dinner, or lunch for that matter. There was kimchi, rice and soup, salad, dumplings and other normal Korean foods. No bacon and eggs. They did have a section with bread and a toaster and a bowl of cornflakes.
After breakfast we headed off to our militarily parked buses and then in to “town”. We were allowed to grab drink or any supplies we needed before we headed off to the first climb.
Every day, for every group of tourist who depart for the day, there is a full farewell by the staff. They all come out, line up next to the road and wave us off. I am not sure if I liked it or if it creeped me out. None the less, it is an interesting sight. We were in “town” one day when another group was sent off. As soon as the buses are out of sight, the people make a B-line for the warm interiors of the shops and restaurant. It was quite amusing to see.
You guys really need to see Koreans who go hiking or climbing. They don’t do it half way. They have special clothing, shoes, spikes for the shoes, backpacks and walking sticks. They love kitting themselves out over here. Then there were us foreigners with our sneakers/trainer/tekkies, jeans and casual warm jackets. Quite the contrast.
Eventually we were allowed to go, after a brief speech of what we were allowed do on the climb. There are little stalls at the bottom of every climb. They sell some food stuff drinks and soju. Apparently it is a tradition here to drink soju at the top of a climb. That was the actual start of the climb.
I will let a few photos speak for the scenes that unfolded as we were moving up the mountain. Right at the top they have a platform where you can rest and take photographs of the frozen waterfall. In the collection there is a photograph of rock carvings. Some of them are enormous. I estimate one character to be about 10 meter in size. I have no idea what they said and why exactly they are there. I’m sure it will be interesting to see for people 1000 years from now.
I’d like to apologize for the quality of the photos. I wasn’t allowed to take my normal camera because the zoom is to strong. I had to make do with my 2.4 zoom, 5 megapixel compact camera.
Of course, they sold coffee and more snacks at the top. East Asians and snacks, Sheez! Interestingly, almost all the women who worked at these snack tables were reeeeeealy pretty. They had their own uniform, as everyone working here has. Their shoes, strangely enough, are those thick soled Spice Girls type shoes. I can only wonder how you get up a mountain in that.
The trip down was interesting. I didn’t rent spikes to strap to my shoes and nearly took a tumble down the mountain because of it. When we got back to the bottom we had lunch at the restaurant there before heading back to the “town”.
The next instalment will be about the second part of this day and the trip to the frozen lake. If you haven’t noticed yet, then I’m telling you now. It was cold, things were frozen and there was thick snow everywhere.
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