Korean Beachavior

Despite half the season being rainy or overcast, I was able to get to the beach a few times this summer, once it got blisteringly, oppressively hot in Ulsan.

I noticed two things this year:

1) That the vast majority of Koreans do not wear swimsuits, despite the young population having the types of bodies we Westerners would kill for, and would love to show off at the beach. As I was sitting on the sand, if I took a 180 look around, easily 80% of the people I saw were fully dressed, often wearing completely "unbeach" clothing like jeans, sneakers, sweatshirts, long sleeves, blouses, dresses, and of course high heels. IN the water, man. Can you imagine walking into the water with a hoodie on? Over your t-shirt? Which is worn over an undershirt? With pants? And shoes? And THEN, walking out of the water, into a sea of sand? Inconceivable.

2) That Koreans of all ages like to cover their bodies neck to toe (fully clothed, naturally) with sand, set up a hat or parasol over their heads, and have a lie down or take a nap in the sand. This is very common. You really have to watch yourself when walking around, so you don't trip over or step on a mound o' native. For me, I can understand the appeal to some degree, but doing it with all that clothing... blech.

How did I not notice this stuff the last summer I was there? It's so obvious. Maybe it was because I didn't go to the beach much my first summer in Korea. The only specific beach memory I have there is from the mud fest, when everyone was covered in mud...

I asked a couple of my classes about this, because I was kind of baffled, particularly by the first one. The kids pretty much all were confused by my asking and after thinking about it, concluded that regular clothes are just more comfortable to wear at the beach. Then I made a bunch of scoffing noises of disbelief and opposition and argued that not having a bunch of wet, sandy fabric hanging off you MUST be more comfortable. They brought to the table the idea of Speedo swimsuits for men, which I rebuffed as a ludicrous choice for swimwear, and that trunks are the obvious choice for men. But they just shrugged and sat resolved, which I guess I understand. Apparently Koreans bring one set of clothes to swim in, and another to change into after taking a shower at the facilities that are commonly set up at beaches. Seems like an awful hassle to me, but all our cultures have their own idiosyncrasies. Actually, according to this Filipino lady I met, it's really an idiosyncrasy of Europeans and Americans to have special swimwear. The rest of the world just wears clothes, if they swim at all.

The whole sand nap thing makes more sense to me, except for the clothes part. I'm told they do that to create a convenient and free sauna, like at the jjimjilbang. I'd rather do the jjimjilbang, though.

Canyoning

So canyoning was my second and final action-adventure tour from the Philippines. It was cool. I went with a couple who were around my age, with more experience than I had, which was none.

We drove to the site and did some hiking towards the river. Whenever I go hiking, I always wish I hiked more, but I didn't fall too far behind. Partway there, we were given a demonstration on how to use the harnesses we'd put on (the kind that go around the waist and thighs) with the rope to rappel down the waterfalls. I was kind of nervous, especially since it kind of hurt my shoulder to feed the rope through the rings and step back. It ended up being okay.

Our first waterfall was wicked tall. I think it was like 20 meters high, at least. The guides set us up one at a time with the rope, and we went down individually, one guide first, then the three of us, and the second guide last (Mario and Eric were our guides this time). We weren't allowed to jump in the rappels, which was fine with me. We were supposed to walk down, with our feet wide apart. The rock face was curved, with a wide, somewhat weak sheet of water on one side, and a stronger, narrower fall on the other. I tried to keep to the left, where it was safer, but then I noticed my feet were too close together. Dumbly, I tried widening my stance, which made me step into the stronger stream, which made me fall.

But that's what the harness is for. I just lost my feet, and swung into the rock face in front of me. It took me a second to get my bearings again, but all I had to do was push the wall and I was able to right myself again, and slowly walk down the rest of the wall. I was scared.

I think this is from the top of the first one. It doesn't give much indication of the height, but trust me.

I think the second one was really quick and small, just basically a groove in the land that we kind of slid down, so the others didn't take any pictures of it.

Each waterfall (five total) had its own challenges and scariness, like not being able to see where I was going, awkward positions, height, etc. 

I don't remember the details of these next photos so well. I think this must have been a reasonably straightforward waterfall, even though the rock face looks a little tricky near the bottom of the frames. 

The best part was the highest waterfall, 30 meters, and the lower half was just a free-hang. I think this one the one in which we first had to climb down into like a little cave, and had to put each hand and each foot in turn in precisely the right spot or it wouldn't work. I messed up a little and ended up pretty much hanging upside down because I couldn't see the right place to put my foot or didn't understand how to move my body or something. It was very silly.

I took a moment to just kind of hang out and relax for a sec, then slowly fed the rope up and lowered myself down. Then of course I had some trouble when the falls met up with the bottom, and Mario was trying to help me out, and got my foot tangled in the rope, but didn't realize it at first. Heh. I got down safely eventually, though.

Here was the last one, I think, just a quick walk down a groove into a nice pool where we found some kids playing hooky. Not that it being a quick walk down a groove made it any less scary.

In conclusion, this was fun. I got some rope burn on my waist, and a few scrapes and bruises, but totally worth it.

By the way, my finger is still fucked up from the first trip, river climbing. It sucks.