Mt Yudalsan

So we've discovered a whole other part to the city ---Mokpo is huge! We finally go a hold of a map of Mokpo and found our way to the other side of the city where we could climb mount Yudalsan. The "mountain" is only about 280m above sea level, but the hike was long and we were were pretty tired by the end. Another couple is talking about doing a hike up a mountain that is closer to 900m high and that is not far from Mokpo, so I think we will join them for that hike and then actually be able to say we hike up a mountain. The hotel in Italy where we stayed on our honeymoon was higher up in the hills than Mt Yudalsan so I think we are ready for the next challenge! The view was quite impressive though!

The start of the climb was almost the prettiest - a perfectly manicured little park with this big sculpture - no idea who it is because nothing is written in English!


For the most part, there were stairs and cleared paths to follow to the top of the mountain.

This was the view of Mokpo from the top.

A bit tired by the time we made it back down, but perfectly placed were these little resting huts where we re hydrated and regained a bit of strength!

Yesterday Milton and I also had our first "celebrity" moment when two young boys followed us around town for a bit. These kids must have only been about 7 years old and they were playing around in the streets when they saw us. Like everyone who sees us in the streets, they started out by yelling any English words they knew and giving us high fives. They then followed us to the E-mart where we were doing a bit of grocery shopping. They tried to put toys in our cart so that we would buy them for them and they looked quite surprised that we kept refusing. Is there some kind of tradition that I don't know about where foreigners buy gifts for everyone they meet?! We thought we had lost them when we went down to the first floor but they managed to find us again in the freezer aisles where they decided it would be fun to just hang off our cart while we shopped. This got pretty tiring after a while - they had been following us for over a half hour. I told Milton to get rid of them, a task at which he failed pathetically. And finally when I started to shoo them away with my hand and started saying "find mommy" they protested in disappointment but got the message and took off. After that we thought we were safe until this morning when we ran into them in the Internet cafe! Thankfully, they seem more interested in the online gaming that is going on, but they still come and offer us single little puffed rice snack (think a single chip or Cheetos stick) when they want to yell some more English at us. We'll be sure to bring the camera next time so that we can post photos of them.

Tomorrow should be an adventurous day too...we are off to get our alien registration cards, open bank accounts, and try to connect Internet and phone service. Milton's co-teacher has taken on the task for us and I thank god she volunteered because I'm not sure we would succeed at all the tasks with the help of my co-teacher. She means well but this is what I got as instructions from her:

The top left is apparently the map showing me which building I need to go to. I couldn't tell it from any other intersection in the city!

Top right is the list of things i need to bring or do in order to get my alien registration. I understand the price: 10 000 won is what I will have to pay (equivalent to 10$)

I think the white piece of printed paper is something I am supposed to give the immigration office as proof that I am working here, and on it, on the three little post-it notes are the address, phone number and something else that I can't read because it is all written in Korean!!!

So like I said, tomorrow should be an adventure for us and I am really glad that Milton's co-teacher will be taking us to do all of this because I think she at least understands that we don't speak Korean yet. I'll let you know how it goes!