I've been teaching here for over six months, and strangely enough, I haven't written anything here about my job. Is it because my job at Avalon is terrible? Well, sometimes. But for the most part, it's not that bad. Without further ado, here's a glimpse into my mundane day-today.
When considering an ESL job in Korea, you essentially have two choices: hagwons or public schools. Hagwons are ubiquitous private academies (most commonly for English and Math) where parents send their kids after they're finished with public school. A typical Korean kid is in school -- in one form or another -- from 7:30 AM to 10:00 PM, and sometimes on Saturdays. If nothing else, teaching here has made me appreciate the freedom that American students have. Just the ability to go home and play every day after school isn't something that should be taken for granted.
I ended up taking a hagwon job, mostly because the money is slightly better at the entry level. In private academies, you make slightly more, the class sizes are smaller, and the teaching hours are often much less than in a public school. There are, of course, many disadvantages as well. There are only 10 vacation days in a hagwon contract, compared to the weeks and weeks of vacation that public school teachers have. I've only had time for one extended trip, whereas public school teachers I know have been to Japan, Cambodia, China, and Vietnam all in the last 6 months. First world problems, right? The hours are brutal, too. I knew from my experience at EMS that I do not thrive on the night shift, yet here I am punishing myself again, every day from 2:30 to 10:30. My co-worker Matty has a relevant joke here: "What does a hagwon teacher get on his pizza? Nothing, because all the pizza places are closed when he gets off work. Frown."
All the lousy parts aside, the ESL gig in Korea is relatively easy. Any ESL teacher here who says their job is hard has either never had a real job or doesn't know what actual work is. My actual time spent in front of a classroom amounts to 14 hours a week. The rest of my time is spent lesson planning, "lesson planning" (a.k.a. aimlessly surfing the web), practicing my Korean, finding excuses to walk down the block and get some fresh air, and listening to NPR. I haven't once had to take my lesson planning home with me. I get it all done at work, and I still have free time to kill. I don't think I've ever met a teacher in the States who can say that.
The classes themselves can be good or bad. Avalon divides its middle school students into four levels based on ability: H (for Horizon), M (for Mountain), T (for TOEFL), and 녹지원 (Nokjiwon, the Honors kids). They change every teacher's schedule with each semester (of which there are four, one for each season...no rest for the weary), so the levels I teach are often all over the place. This semester I have mostly M1s, with some M3s and T2s. I am also lucky enough to have the highest Nokjiwon class, which -- with the exception of one or two kids -- is a blast to teach.
On Mondays and Tuesdays, I teach Writing in 40 minute periods. Avalon has a pretty strict curriculum which we are to adhere to, and unfortunately, this curriculum is dreadfully boring. As soon as they enter Avalon, they are being trained to succeed on the TOEFL test, the exam on which a good grade can get them into a prestigious high school or college. That's right, they aren't even considered by college admissions departments unless they can demonstrate fluency in another language. The West has it easy! Occasionally, I get to give them a fun assignment, but for the most part, we are teaching from the book and teaching to the test. Blech.
On Thursdays and Fridays the kids have Speaking class, also for 40 minutes. Speaking can be really fun or terrible, depending on the class. Some classes are very conversational and active, and in some you can hear a pin drop. The good classes will blow through the book work in 20 minutes, so we often get to spend time just chatting or doing fun activities. At the higher levels, though, the adherence to the TOEFL format becomes stricter, so the students often unfortunately lose the sparkle in their eyes by that point.
Wednesday is Speaking Academy. These are optional free classes for students who want extra practice, designed and taught by the foreign staff. This semester I'm doing Role Playing (meh) and Model United Nations with the higher levels (which I'm really excited about; hopefully I won't be disappointed).
That's the basic run-down of what my weeks look like. Expect more detailed descriptions of the classes that I like. I'm hoping for a good semester.
Wednesday, March 6, 2013
Sunday, January 27, 2013
I Can't Believe It's Not Butter!
As any curious soul moving himself to another country might tend to do, I have been making it a point to try to learn the Korean language. In fact, I began a few months before I came, anticipating a challenge, and indeed I got one.
The first hurdle, of course, is dealing with another alphabet. However, Hangeul, the Korean alphabet, is actually rather user-friendly. It was developed in the 15th century at the behest of Korea's wise, benevolent, and very favorite king, Sejong. Apparently he thought that the enormous alphabet of Chinese characters (which was the current script at the time) did not suit the Korean language well, and that it was unfair to the common man, as the learning of Chinese characters was something that only upper class people with time to study and access to education could afford to do. To say that Hangeul simplified the character system is a gross understatement. Today, many of the original letters exist only in memory or collect dust in archaic words and forms, so it is even more streamlined.
The first hurdle, of course, is dealing with another alphabet. However, Hangeul, the Korean alphabet, is actually rather user-friendly. It was developed in the 15th century at the behest of Korea's wise, benevolent, and very favorite king, Sejong. Apparently he thought that the enormous alphabet of Chinese characters (which was the current script at the time) did not suit the Korean language well, and that it was unfair to the common man, as the learning of Chinese characters was something that only upper class people with time to study and access to education could afford to do. To say that Hangeul simplified the character system is a gross understatement. Today, many of the original letters exist only in memory or collect dust in archaic words and forms, so it is even more streamlined.
See? Easy!
Hangeul consists of 14 consonants, 5 double consonants, and 21 vowels. What an absurd number of vowels! How can the human mouth even make that many sounds?! Well, I call them vowels for easy reference, in fact Korean vowels include sounds like "ah," and sounds like "yah," and double vowels combined from two symbols, and diphthongs like "way."
Surprisingly, with all these vowel sounds, there are still phonemes for which Korean has no single letter. For all you non-language nerds out there, a phoneme is, in layman's terms, the simplest sound you can make without changing the shape of your mouth, like "f," "sh," or "oo." It is through this discovery that I had a revelation about my own language. Some single vowels in English are in fact not phonemes, but a combination of sounds. The long I in die or the long A in ace, for example, though represented by only one letter, still require your mouth to make two separate sounds. Try it, slow down your speech and you will notice your mouth forming what you thought was one vowel with two distinct vowel sounds. So it is that in Korean, die is not one syllable, but two (다이 = da-ee), and ace is not one but three (에이스 = eh-ee-suh). The third is due to the fact that the "S" sounds becomes a "T" sound on the end of a syllable, so for that reason, among many others, words often get an extra syllable. Korean is also not too fond of consonant clusters, and thus Sprite, which in English has one syllable, has five in Korean (스프라이트 = suh-puh-ra-ee-tuh). By far the most outrageous transliteration I've seen yet.
These quirks aside, the script is in fact remarkable easy to learn. It took me about two days to commit it to memory, although as always noise from one's own alphabet gets in the way when reading a new one. For example, what sound doesㅌ make? Oh, well that's an E of course. Nope, that's a T. What about ㄹ? That's a 2, obviously. Wrong again, that's R/L (incidentally, one of the reasons that Koreans mix these letters up in English so much, they have no cause to differentiate the sounds in their own language). What about ㅇ? Well that has to be an O. Or at least a 0. Nope, that letter is actually silent. Or if it's feeling sly -- and aren't we all when we're at the end of a syllable -- it's NG.
Also, you face the hurdle of dealing with a syllabary. Hangeul has letters, but they don't exist on their own, only in syllables of two or three letters. So words cannot look like
ㅎㅏㄴㄱㅡㄹ, that would of course be silly. It's written 한(Han)글(Geul). Naturally, we English speakers read and understand words one syllable at a time, but we are not used to letters stacked up on one another.
My experience with the language has been good, so far. It's not terribly difficult to pick up basic words and phrases, and once you master the alphabet and some survival vocabulary, ordering food and getting around becomes immensely easier. You might actually know what dish you're pointing at on the menu. My major problem, as someone who spent the last few years studying dead languages, is actually using it. I feel immensely confident reading and writing Korean (within the limits of my grammar and vocabulary abilities), but speaking it and listening to it (something I never had to do with Greek or Latin) are a whole other ballgame. When speaking, the problem of pronunciation of course rears its ugly head, and my feeble attempts at communication usually go over the head of the well-meaning but throughly nonplussed Koreans with whom I interact. The hardest pronunciation problem to deal with is the presence of three very similar sounding vowels, 으 (euh), 어 (uh), and 오 (oh). To use a frame of reference that only my one reader who is a Classicist will understand (Phil, I'm looking at you), this is at least ten times worse than the frustration of first coming to terms with α, ο, and ω.
The worst feeling in the world, as any learner of a foreign language knows, is the false confidence that comes with self-study. When speaking to a Korean, on a very routine basis, I find myself in a magical, miraculous sort of rhythm where all my vocabulary falls neatly into place, my grammar is flawless, and my pronunciation, though not perfect, is bordering on mediocre. I rattle off a whole paragraph and mentally pat myself on the back as I can see understanding register in my interlocutor's eyes. But then, of course, comes their thought: "well, this foreigner's Korean is actually not bad! Good for him," followed by a veritable torrent of rapid-fire foreign language way beyond my capability, and my guilty admission that I haven't understood a word of what they said. Dealing with a living language is a humbling experience, although I get oohs and aahs from my students anytime I tell them that their jacket is blue, so I guess that's something.
One of the most interesting benefits of learning Korean is gaining insight into Korean culture using nothing but language and grammar. You can learn a lot about a people by the way that they write and talk. Korean has seven registers of formality for use when speaking to people of different social stations in different settings. This goes well beyond the difference between "Open the door" and "Would you please open the door?" Depending on to whom you are speaking, you might use the formal polite, the informal polite, the humble, the honorific, and so on. When Koreans first meet someone, they have to ask all sorts of probing questions like "How old are you?" "What do you do?" "Are you married?" and "How much money do you make?" just so they can figure out how to address each other in the rest of the conversation. Luckily, most don't expect foreigners to catch on to this quickly, so one can get away with the formal polite most of the time.
My favorite thing that I've learned so far is that Koreans are the most incredulous people I have ever met. I don't know if they suspect that they are living in a fantasy world, if they naturally distrust everyone, or if they all have problems hearing, but from what I can understand, they are constantaly questioning the legitimacy of everything. Within 2 weeks of coming here, 4 of my only 50 vocabulary words revolved around this, translated as follows:
그래요? - Really?
헐! - What the...?
정말? - REALLY?
진짜? - No, like, are you seriously for real right now?
Admittedly, my vocabulary is limited, but it seems like 80% of the conversations in the office are nothing more than an announcement and a polite but patent disbelief in the statement's veracity. I feel like one could have an entire conversation using nothing but the words above. Why so mistrustful, Koreans?
I'll stop rambling on about language now, as I'm sure most of your eyes glazed over paragraphs ago. But for those of you who don't like language lessons in their blog posts, I apologize, but I will tell you what I tell my students: "Grammar is fun and you should love it because I love it, dammit!"
The worst feeling in the world, as any learner of a foreign language knows, is the false confidence that comes with self-study. When speaking to a Korean, on a very routine basis, I find myself in a magical, miraculous sort of rhythm where all my vocabulary falls neatly into place, my grammar is flawless, and my pronunciation, though not perfect, is bordering on mediocre. I rattle off a whole paragraph and mentally pat myself on the back as I can see understanding register in my interlocutor's eyes. But then, of course, comes their thought: "well, this foreigner's Korean is actually not bad! Good for him," followed by a veritable torrent of rapid-fire foreign language way beyond my capability, and my guilty admission that I haven't understood a word of what they said. Dealing with a living language is a humbling experience, although I get oohs and aahs from my students anytime I tell them that their jacket is blue, so I guess that's something.
One of the most interesting benefits of learning Korean is gaining insight into Korean culture using nothing but language and grammar. You can learn a lot about a people by the way that they write and talk. Korean has seven registers of formality for use when speaking to people of different social stations in different settings. This goes well beyond the difference between "Open the door" and "Would you please open the door?" Depending on to whom you are speaking, you might use the formal polite, the informal polite, the humble, the honorific, and so on. When Koreans first meet someone, they have to ask all sorts of probing questions like "How old are you?" "What do you do?" "Are you married?" and "How much money do you make?" just so they can figure out how to address each other in the rest of the conversation. Luckily, most don't expect foreigners to catch on to this quickly, so one can get away with the formal polite most of the time.
My favorite thing that I've learned so far is that Koreans are the most incredulous people I have ever met. I don't know if they suspect that they are living in a fantasy world, if they naturally distrust everyone, or if they all have problems hearing, but from what I can understand, they are constantaly questioning the legitimacy of everything. Within 2 weeks of coming here, 4 of my only 50 vocabulary words revolved around this, translated as follows:
그래요? - Really?
헐! - What the...?
정말? - REALLY?
진짜? - No, like, are you seriously for real right now?
Admittedly, my vocabulary is limited, but it seems like 80% of the conversations in the office are nothing more than an announcement and a polite but patent disbelief in the statement's veracity. I feel like one could have an entire conversation using nothing but the words above. Why so mistrustful, Koreans?
I'll stop rambling on about language now, as I'm sure most of your eyes glazed over paragraphs ago. But for those of you who don't like language lessons in their blog posts, I apologize, but I will tell you what I tell my students: "Grammar is fun and you should love it because I love it, dammit!"
Monday, January 14, 2013
Engrish (Part 2 - Malaysia Edition)
I don't know if this is a shop that only sells rejected merchandise, or a shop that caters to people who are rejects. Either way, the marketing team needs to step up its game.
Free whiskey with your haircut!
Buy one free? Don't mind if I do!
Friday, January 11, 2013
Mount Kinabalu
As previously mentioned, the primary impetus for my trip to Borneo was the ascent of Mount Kinabalu, the tallest mountain in Southeast Asia and my highest climb to date. It was exciting, it was empowering, it was humbling, and most of all, it was necessary. It was obvious to me during my time in New York City that frequent trips into the wilderness were necessary to maintain my sanity when surrounded by 8 million other souls, and here in Korea there is little to no wilderness to be had so far:
Climbers have a choice of climbing the mountain in one day or spending the first night at the Laban Rata Rest House halfway up, and making the final push and descent the following day. Having thrown this trip together rather slap-dashedly, I was worried that I might not get a space at Laban Rata and have to attempt the single day climb, something the ever-sensational denizens of the Internet advised was not for the faint of heart. That's 7,313 feet up and another 7,313 down in one day, and a very strict timetable of checkpoints to make. Most of the mountain guides (without whom you are not allowed to climb the mountain) will allegedly turn you around if you do not meet these checkpoints, regardless of your proximity to the summit. The summit plateau is usually wreathed in clouds late in the day if you're lucky and lashed by rain if you're not, so one-day clmibers are all too often not afforded any views from the top either. On top of that, the park only offers 4 one-day climbing permits per day, and you have to present yourself for a cursory inspection by one of the park rangers, who can turn you around at the gate if he deems you unfit for the challenge. This option is fine for those who climb mountains to conquer them (peakbagging sluts, as my hiking companions from Potsdam affectionately call them), but if you prefer the steady pace of nature walking and the reward of a stunning view from the top, I suggest spending two days on the mountain.
Luckily (for my legs, though not my wallet), I was able to score a reservation at Laban Rata, so I would be doing the trek in two days. At this point, you have two further choices as to approach trail. The Timpohon Gate trail is the shorter and more commonly walked trail, significantly steeper overall but with far more points for resting, answering nature's call, and re-hydrating yourself. The Mesilau trail adds an additional 1.4 miles, is a more gradual ascent, and offers (in my opinion) better views and more solitude. The timetable for either runs as follows:
Day 1 (5 miles by the Mesilau Trail, 3.72 miles by the Timpohon Trail)
7-9 AM: Arrive at Park Headquarters, arrange transport, meals, mountain guide, and lodging.
7-10 AM: Shuttle with your group to your trailhead (6,122 ft for Timpohon, 6,561 ft for Mesilau), begin the climb.
12-3 PM: Arrive at Laban Rata and check in (10,730 ft).
5-7 PM: Buffet dinner at Laban Rata.
8-10 PM: Go to sleep! Long day tomorrow...
Day 2 (7.4 miles by the Mesilau Trail, 6.21 miles by the Timpohon Trail)
2 AM: Quick breakfast at Laban Rata
2-3 AM: Begin the climb to the summit (13, 435 ft).
5-7 AM: Arrive at the summit, soak up the sunrise.
9-11 AM: Return to Laban Rata for second breakfast.
2-6 PM: Arrive back at the trailhead and shuttle back to Park Headquarters for another buffet lunch.
Logistically speaking, pretty easy. As far as getting to Park Headquarters, you have a few options. First of all, you can arrange for lodging in Kinabalu National Park itself the night before your climb, so that you're close to the starting point the following morning. There are a number of options for accommodation here, even some hostels, but it is as a rule more expensive, I'm told. Your second option is to stay in Kota Kinabalu and get transport to the mountain very early the morning of your climb. This requires at least a little bit of planning. The buses and taxis to the park all leave from the same location in Kota Kinabalu, which is a large parking lot to the east of Kampung Air that is easy to find. You can get a bus for 15 MYR ($5), and it will leave when it is full. The bus journey takes about 2 hours, and the first one is at 7 AM. This means if you don't make the first bus, you will almost certainly be very late for the start of your climb, which is not recommended. In order to make the first bus, you should get to the bus stop no later than 6:30 and claim a seat. There is no bus with a terminus of Mt. Kinabalu, so you want the one that says Kota Kinabalu <---> Ranau. Alternatively, you can grab a taxi. The taxi ride takes about an hour and a half if traffic is light, but will usually cost in the neighborhood of 120 MYR ($40). If you can find three other hikers in Kota Kinabalu to split the fare with you, or if you came with a group, this is your best option. If you cannot, and you miss the first bus, as I did, you will have to shell out the $40 or risk being turned around on account of tardiness. Ouch, right in the finances.
The park officials are anywhere from passably to surprisingly fluent in English. First, you have to confirm your reservation at Laban Rata. This has to be paid for ahead of time, by credit card or bank transfer. They will also give you a lanyard and an identification card with your name and group details on it, which you will need to proceed through the final checkpoint to the summit plateau. Then you have to line up transport in one of the park shuttles to the trailhead, as both the Timpohon and Mesilau Gates are a few miles away from Park Headquarters. You are also given meal vouchers for use at the nearby restaurant and Laban Rata. If you pay for lodging at the Rest House, five meals are included. The fee for Laban Rata comes to 555 MYR ($184), and includes the mandatory climbing permit and climbing insurance. Here is the website where you can make reservations. However, they often don't offer one-night stays, only two-night, so it's a better idea to just e-mail or call and request the night you want.
As if all these particulars weren't enough, you are also forced to hire a mountain guide.
This will cost anywhere from 125 to 150 MYR ($41-$50), depending on group size and which route you choose. Our guide, L.D., spoke good English and already has almost 100 summits of the mountain under his belt at the age of 18. He began guiding climbers when he was still in school and is now doing it full-time.
Here's a breakdown of the costs, now that all my readers are assuredly itching to follow in the footsteps of my well-worn hiking boots:
Taxi from KK to Park HQ: 120 MYR ($40)
Lodging, Food, Insurance, and Entrance Fee: 555 MYR ($184)
Shuttle from Park HQ to trailhead and back: 25 MYR ($9)
Guide Fee: 150 MYR ($50)
Shared shuttle bus back to KK: 30 MYR ($10)
TOTAL: 880 MYR ($290)
I was lucky enough to latch myself on to two other Southeast Asia travelers at Park HQ, so I was able to split some transport fees and the guide fee. Mike (from Slovakia) and Yvette (from Canada) were great company and I ended up hanging out with them for the remainder of the trip. After a short ride with some stunning views of the approach to the mountain, we began the descent up the Mesilau Trail. The trail itself was easy to follow, rugged enough to offer a challenge, and like any highly-traveled mountain, drowned in an overabundance of stairs. I think almost any hiker will tell you that with a positive attitude, no ascent, no matter how jagged, is insuperable. But there is something so psychologically damaging about an endless snaking line of steps disappearing over the horizon.
- wilderness [wil-der-nis], (noun): a vast tract of untrammeled nature where cell phone use is not only discouraged, but impossible.
Climbers have a choice of climbing the mountain in one day or spending the first night at the Laban Rata Rest House halfway up, and making the final push and descent the following day. Having thrown this trip together rather slap-dashedly, I was worried that I might not get a space at Laban Rata and have to attempt the single day climb, something the ever-sensational denizens of the Internet advised was not for the faint of heart. That's 7,313 feet up and another 7,313 down in one day, and a very strict timetable of checkpoints to make. Most of the mountain guides (without whom you are not allowed to climb the mountain) will allegedly turn you around if you do not meet these checkpoints, regardless of your proximity to the summit. The summit plateau is usually wreathed in clouds late in the day if you're lucky and lashed by rain if you're not, so one-day clmibers are all too often not afforded any views from the top either. On top of that, the park only offers 4 one-day climbing permits per day, and you have to present yourself for a cursory inspection by one of the park rangers, who can turn you around at the gate if he deems you unfit for the challenge. This option is fine for those who climb mountains to conquer them (peakbagging sluts, as my hiking companions from Potsdam affectionately call them), but if you prefer the steady pace of nature walking and the reward of a stunning view from the top, I suggest spending two days on the mountain.
Luckily (for my legs, though not my wallet), I was able to score a reservation at Laban Rata, so I would be doing the trek in two days. At this point, you have two further choices as to approach trail. The Timpohon Gate trail is the shorter and more commonly walked trail, significantly steeper overall but with far more points for resting, answering nature's call, and re-hydrating yourself. The Mesilau trail adds an additional 1.4 miles, is a more gradual ascent, and offers (in my opinion) better views and more solitude. The timetable for either runs as follows:
Day 1 (5 miles by the Mesilau Trail, 3.72 miles by the Timpohon Trail)
7-9 AM: Arrive at Park Headquarters, arrange transport, meals, mountain guide, and lodging.
7-10 AM: Shuttle with your group to your trailhead (6,122 ft for Timpohon, 6,561 ft for Mesilau), begin the climb.
12-3 PM: Arrive at Laban Rata and check in (10,730 ft).
5-7 PM: Buffet dinner at Laban Rata.
8-10 PM: Go to sleep! Long day tomorrow...
Day 2 (7.4 miles by the Mesilau Trail, 6.21 miles by the Timpohon Trail)
2 AM: Quick breakfast at Laban Rata
2-3 AM: Begin the climb to the summit (13, 435 ft).
5-7 AM: Arrive at the summit, soak up the sunrise.
9-11 AM: Return to Laban Rata for second breakfast.
2-6 PM: Arrive back at the trailhead and shuttle back to Park Headquarters for another buffet lunch.
Logistically speaking, pretty easy. As far as getting to Park Headquarters, you have a few options. First of all, you can arrange for lodging in Kinabalu National Park itself the night before your climb, so that you're close to the starting point the following morning. There are a number of options for accommodation here, even some hostels, but it is as a rule more expensive, I'm told. Your second option is to stay in Kota Kinabalu and get transport to the mountain very early the morning of your climb. This requires at least a little bit of planning. The buses and taxis to the park all leave from the same location in Kota Kinabalu, which is a large parking lot to the east of Kampung Air that is easy to find. You can get a bus for 15 MYR ($5), and it will leave when it is full. The bus journey takes about 2 hours, and the first one is at 7 AM. This means if you don't make the first bus, you will almost certainly be very late for the start of your climb, which is not recommended. In order to make the first bus, you should get to the bus stop no later than 6:30 and claim a seat. There is no bus with a terminus of Mt. Kinabalu, so you want the one that says Kota Kinabalu <---> Ranau. Alternatively, you can grab a taxi. The taxi ride takes about an hour and a half if traffic is light, but will usually cost in the neighborhood of 120 MYR ($40). If you can find three other hikers in Kota Kinabalu to split the fare with you, or if you came with a group, this is your best option. If you cannot, and you miss the first bus, as I did, you will have to shell out the $40 or risk being turned around on account of tardiness. Ouch, right in the finances.
On the plus side, the taxi driver was very nice, spoke great English, and was happy to stop to let me take pictures as we approached the monolith. It was very cool seeing it completely dominate the entire landscape from a distance. Mt. Kinabalu's distinctive crown and the absence of any neighboring peaks of consequence make it seem like it belongs in a movie about dinosaurs and not under the soles of man-made hiking boots.
The park officials are anywhere from passably to surprisingly fluent in English. First, you have to confirm your reservation at Laban Rata. This has to be paid for ahead of time, by credit card or bank transfer. They will also give you a lanyard and an identification card with your name and group details on it, which you will need to proceed through the final checkpoint to the summit plateau. Then you have to line up transport in one of the park shuttles to the trailhead, as both the Timpohon and Mesilau Gates are a few miles away from Park Headquarters. You are also given meal vouchers for use at the nearby restaurant and Laban Rata. If you pay for lodging at the Rest House, five meals are included. The fee for Laban Rata comes to 555 MYR ($184), and includes the mandatory climbing permit and climbing insurance. Here is the website where you can make reservations. However, they often don't offer one-night stays, only two-night, so it's a better idea to just e-mail or call and request the night you want.
As if all these particulars weren't enough, you are also forced to hire a mountain guide.
- mountain guide [moun-tn gahyd], noun: a professional hiker hired to chaperone weekend warriors and to prevent clinically stupid people from doing clinically stupid things.
This will cost anywhere from 125 to 150 MYR ($41-$50), depending on group size and which route you choose. Our guide, L.D., spoke good English and already has almost 100 summits of the mountain under his belt at the age of 18. He began guiding climbers when he was still in school and is now doing it full-time.
Here he is on the right, sporting sandals, a $5 backpack, a drugstore umbrella, and a healthy contempt for any mountain that would seek to defeat him.
Here's a breakdown of the costs, now that all my readers are assuredly itching to follow in the footsteps of my well-worn hiking boots:
Taxi from KK to Park HQ: 120 MYR ($40)
Lodging, Food, Insurance, and Entrance Fee: 555 MYR ($184)
Shuttle from Park HQ to trailhead and back: 25 MYR ($9)
Guide Fee: 150 MYR ($50)
Shared shuttle bus back to KK: 30 MYR ($10)
TOTAL: 880 MYR ($290)
I was lucky enough to latch myself on to two other Southeast Asia travelers at Park HQ, so I was able to split some transport fees and the guide fee. Mike (from Slovakia) and Yvette (from Canada) were great company and I ended up hanging out with them for the remainder of the trip. After a short ride with some stunning views of the approach to the mountain, we began the descent up the Mesilau Trail. The trail itself was easy to follow, rugged enough to offer a challenge, and like any highly-traveled mountain, drowned in an overabundance of stairs. I think almost any hiker will tell you that with a positive attitude, no ascent, no matter how jagged, is insuperable. But there is something so psychologically damaging about an endless snaking line of steps disappearing over the horizon.
This was my favorite part of the trail. The views were incredible (that's the jagged summit right ahead) and the flora was a really cool mix of jungle plants and gnarly prehistoric trees. Again, straight out of a dinosaur movie. On that note, I feel like "Dinosaur Movie" is a completely untapped genre. Get on it, Hollywood!
It quickly became obvious that not even a blind Alzheimer's patient could lose their way on this trail, and we began to call into question the necessity of the guides. I don't deny that groups of inexperienced hikers may require some guidance, but I would prefer to sign any waiver you throw at me in exchange for the autonomy to make my own stupid decisions and live with their consequences. Yvonne wondered why they made every person hike with a guide, to which my immediate response was "obviously they don't want to get sued." She said that hadn't even occurred to her, and that it was a very American thing to say. Ah, to live in an overly litigious society...sad but true.
No swimming allowed? So sue me!
Laban Rata, the guest house, was a true anomaly. Seeking wilderness and untamed mountainsides, I was instead treated to a repeat of exactly what bothered me about hiking in Korea: a giant house with bunks, a restaurant, electricity, and running water halfway up the mountain.
What you see above is the product of the unsung heroes of Mount Kinabalu, the porters. These locals make a mediocre wage for humping upwards of 60 pounds -- water, food, and other supplies -- several times a day in boat shoes and jeans. The truly lazy among the hikers can even unload their packs on the porters. I saw not a few porters chugging tirelessly up the trail with five separate backpacks lashed onto their bodies at all different angles like a bloated flak jacket. They were the lucky ones; many others carried linens, food, and trash in a makeshift pack constructed of a garbage bag and two bungee cords. Just another effect of depthless manufactured ecotourism.
We retired early, conscious of the need for a good night's sleep and the inevitable 2 AM wake up call. However, sleep was hard to find, in spite of the punishing exhaustion exacted by the day's march. Jon Krakauer says in Into Thin Air that an Everest climber is lucky to get more than an hour of sleep a night on a summit bid, due to the over-tiredness and the deleterious effects of high altitude. The minor altitude headache may have had something to do with my insomnia, but I find that I all too often get very little sleep on a backpacking trip, no matter how much physical strain I put on my body or how tired I am. Ultimately, I think it just boils down to anticipation. The challenge of the next day's climb is too present at the forefront of one's thoughts and its siren song lends the excitable climber little rest.
If my math is right, there were over 200 climbers making the summit hike the following morning, and our group unfortunately was one of the last out the door. This left us three spry and energetic young people in an unfortunate position at the end of the single-file line that stretched as far as the eye could see up the mountain. I am a strong proponent of trail etiquette, and though everyone has their own rules, I think it's fair to say that slower hikers should be happy to make room for faster ones so the former can enjoy the peace and quiet of their own pace and the latter don't have to break their well-established gait. Many people on the mountain did not seem to share this sentiment. The fact that one constantly has to deal with queues and passing lanes on a mountain trail is frustrating enough. As a result, I was forced to move briskly past the other climbers, as politely as possible, and soon found myself at the head of the pack, looking down in the pitch dark at a sea of bobbing headlamps, which was in itself a very cool sight. Having shouldered my way past at least 150 people in a mad rush to walk at my own pace, my blood was boiling at this point (not in anger, mind you, just with exertion and excitement), and I just had to be first to the top. Fairly soon after departing Laban Rata the trail spills out onto the summit plateau and you are guided with fixed ropes the rest of the way. The plateau is truly an eerie place. You realize that you are pushing 13,000 feet, but there is not, nor will there ever be, a single snowflake to be found. Just an endless stretch of jagged toothy protrusions, cementing the prehistoric feel. A few spots of lichen and alpine scrub tenaciously brave the elements, but it is mostly bare rock and the keening wind. A little slice of desolation and lifelessness in the middle of the jungle. Pretty cool.
Sadly, my quest for first place was not to be realized. Yvonne and I arrived at Low's Peak (the summit) in a short two and a half hours, making us the second group there. Considering we were nearly the last to leave, a silver medal will have to do (I'm no peakbagging slut, after all, I just have my own pace). We sat patiently, chatting with other arriving climbers and trying to stay warm as we waited for the sunrise and the promise of a stunning view. The temperamental and unpredictable weather in the afternoon is the main reason why climbers are scheduled to make the summit hike in the wee hours; the hours of 6 AM to 8 AM afford the best chance at clear skies and visibility. The sun came up and the clouds stubbornly lingered, but after another 30 minutes or so our patience paid off.
We hung around for a bit snapping pictures, but pretty soon the crowds came rolling in and we began a relaxing, by comparison, descent. The nice thing about this particular summit is that though hundreds of people may climb it in a day, the plateau is expansive, and if your guide isn't too strict and judges you responsible enough, you can amble around the top of the mountain at your leisure and escape the huge knot of people at Low's Peak.
Our climb down was steep, winding, uneventful, and of course positively filled with stairs. We chose the Timpohon Trail for our return, for a little variety. The Mesilau trail offered fewer people and a more gradual climb, but the Timpohon Trail gave us more wildlife.
Mountain volleyball, anyone? Or perhaps badminton, considering the consequences of an errant volleyball serve.
Anomalous though it is, the view from the balcony is pretty incomparable.
Buffet at 10,000 ft.
I feel like I'm at P.F. Chang's, not the middle of the Borneo jungle.
What you see above is the product of the unsung heroes of Mount Kinabalu, the porters. These locals make a mediocre wage for humping upwards of 60 pounds -- water, food, and other supplies -- several times a day in boat shoes and jeans. The truly lazy among the hikers can even unload their packs on the porters. I saw not a few porters chugging tirelessly up the trail with five separate backpacks lashed onto their bodies at all different angles like a bloated flak jacket. They were the lucky ones; many others carried linens, food, and trash in a makeshift pack constructed of a garbage bag and two bungee cords. Just another effect of depthless manufactured ecotourism.
- manufactured ecotourism [man-yuh-fak-cherd ek-oh-too r-iz-uhm], (noun): the unapologetic commercialization of the world's wild places that allows anyone with a bulging wallet to partake in the wonder and beauty of the great outdoors without having actually earned it and without actually appreciating it. Also a prime motivator in making Connor sound hopelessly and disgustingly pretentious.
Never mind the breathtaking view behind me, I simply must see if anyone texted me in the last five minutes!
We retired early, conscious of the need for a good night's sleep and the inevitable 2 AM wake up call. However, sleep was hard to find, in spite of the punishing exhaustion exacted by the day's march. Jon Krakauer says in Into Thin Air that an Everest climber is lucky to get more than an hour of sleep a night on a summit bid, due to the over-tiredness and the deleterious effects of high altitude. The minor altitude headache may have had something to do with my insomnia, but I find that I all too often get very little sleep on a backpacking trip, no matter how much physical strain I put on my body or how tired I am. Ultimately, I think it just boils down to anticipation. The challenge of the next day's climb is too present at the forefront of one's thoughts and its siren song lends the excitable climber little rest.
If my math is right, there were over 200 climbers making the summit hike the following morning, and our group unfortunately was one of the last out the door. This left us three spry and energetic young people in an unfortunate position at the end of the single-file line that stretched as far as the eye could see up the mountain. I am a strong proponent of trail etiquette, and though everyone has their own rules, I think it's fair to say that slower hikers should be happy to make room for faster ones so the former can enjoy the peace and quiet of their own pace and the latter don't have to break their well-established gait. Many people on the mountain did not seem to share this sentiment. The fact that one constantly has to deal with queues and passing lanes on a mountain trail is frustrating enough. As a result, I was forced to move briskly past the other climbers, as politely as possible, and soon found myself at the head of the pack, looking down in the pitch dark at a sea of bobbing headlamps, which was in itself a very cool sight. Having shouldered my way past at least 150 people in a mad rush to walk at my own pace, my blood was boiling at this point (not in anger, mind you, just with exertion and excitement), and I just had to be first to the top. Fairly soon after departing Laban Rata the trail spills out onto the summit plateau and you are guided with fixed ropes the rest of the way. The plateau is truly an eerie place. You realize that you are pushing 13,000 feet, but there is not, nor will there ever be, a single snowflake to be found. Just an endless stretch of jagged toothy protrusions, cementing the prehistoric feel. A few spots of lichen and alpine scrub tenaciously brave the elements, but it is mostly bare rock and the keening wind. A little slice of desolation and lifelessness in the middle of the jungle. Pretty cool.
Sadly, my quest for first place was not to be realized. Yvonne and I arrived at Low's Peak (the summit) in a short two and a half hours, making us the second group there. Considering we were nearly the last to leave, a silver medal will have to do (I'm no peakbagging slut, after all, I just have my own pace). We sat patiently, chatting with other arriving climbers and trying to stay warm as we waited for the sunrise and the promise of a stunning view. The temperamental and unpredictable weather in the afternoon is the main reason why climbers are scheduled to make the summit hike in the wee hours; the hours of 6 AM to 8 AM afford the best chance at clear skies and visibility. The sun came up and the clouds stubbornly lingered, but after another 30 minutes or so our patience paid off.
A new personal altitude record!
Our climb down was steep, winding, uneventful, and of course positively filled with stairs. We chose the Timpohon Trail for our return, for a little variety. The Mesilau trail offered fewer people and a more gradual climb, but the Timpohon Trail gave us more wildlife.
Really cool song from these fellows, and some amazing harmonies when you encountered a group of them.
Pictures courtesy of Google, as these critters proved too fast for my camera.
I should hope that someone planning the same hike may come across the post and glean something useful from it, so I'll give a quick inventory of the essential gear as well. Also, I'm an insufferable gearhead -- exacerbated by my job at EMS -- so I can't help but talk about my kit.
After years of painful shoulders, I am finally, gradually, and painstakingly learning how to pack light.
Since food and lodging are all provided, you shouldn't need to bring more than 9 or 10 pounds of gear. Necessaries include:
- Sturdy pair of hiking boots. The guides do it in sandals, but especially for the untrained sole, comfortable boots are essential.
- Water bottle. There are few streams to speak of, but there is running water at Laban Rata and basins of water at several rest points along the trail. These are frequent, so anything more than a liter is overkill. I barely dipped below the .5 L mark on either day. Some of the basins are marked "untreated," so bring water treatment if you're paranoid, but most of the hikers enjoyed it with no adverse effects.
- Daypack. The smaller the pack, the less likely you are to bring stuff you don't need, and the easier you will make life for your porter.
- Headlamp. Climbing at 2 AM makes this one kind of important. And regardless of environment, I maintain that anyone who hikes a serious mountain with a flashlight is being woefully inefficient.
- Snacks. In case you want some extra energy food. Our meal vouchers netted us some hard-boiled eggs, plantains, and white-bread sandwiches featuring fake cheese and mystery meat. Decide for yourself if that's enough.
- Rain Shell. Capricious weather, ya know.
- Waterproof Sack. See above.
- Extra Layers. It doesn't get too cold during the day, but if you spend any time sitting on the summit, you will want, at the very least, a baselayer, an insulation layer, and a windbreaker (which a good rain shell can also function as). If you find yourself often colder than other people, another layer is a good idea. An extra change of clothes and socks is also a good idea for the time you spend at Laban Rata.
- Toiletries. At least Laban Rata is sufficiently "wild" enough to not offer tiny shampoos and soaps or a mint on your pillow.
- Confirmation Papers for your reservation. Just in case.
Friday, January 4, 2013
Kota Kinabalu
After winning a hard-fought 5-day weekend from Avalon (every attempt at vacation from a Korean hagwon must be fought for tooth and nail, it seems), I ran up an uncomfortably large credit card bill and made my way to beautiful Malaysian Borneo for a New Year's holiday. Why Malaysia, you ask? It was actually quite spontaneous. A month or two ago, I was browsing Wikipedia, falling farther and farther into its depths of links -- you know, as one does when bored at work -- when I came across this picture:
That's Mt. Kinabalu, the highest mountain in Southeast Asia, and the highest east of Everest, in fact. The main summit, Low's Peak, tops out at 13,435 feet (4,095 m). Having stumbled upon this picture, I simply decided that I had to make Borneo my first vacation stop. I showed one of my Korean colleagues, and upon seeing the elevation, he asked "Why would you want to climb that?" To which I answered, obviously, "Why would you not?" The island of Borneo consists of parts of Malaysia and Indonesia, and the small country of Brunei. Sadly, five days was not enough time to see much of it, so my trip was confined to the monolith you see above and my port of entry, the coastal town of Kota Kinabalu.
After a four hour flight -- quite short in my experience -- I arrived in Kota Kinabalu at around 2 in the morning. My first impressions:
My next two days were spent in the mountains -- more on that in the next post -- and I used my final day to recover from the grueling climb and to relax on the beach. Off the coast of KK there are five islands that make up, quite inconsistently I think, both a national park and collection of resorts. We hopped out to Manukan Island for a much-needed day of convalescence.
Truly, an expensive but much-needed vacation. I'll recount my daring and brutal summit of Mount Kinabalu in my next post, but for now I'll leave you with some statistics:
After a four hour flight -- quite short in my experience -- I arrived in Kota Kinabalu at around 2 in the morning. My first impressions:
- It was blissfully, amazingly, stunningly warm. Daegu has been treating me to an average of 20 degrees Fahrenheit and dumping snow on me with uncharacteristic regularity (according to my coworkers), so it was wonderful to leave winter behind, even if just for a few days. It was terribly humid, but the combination of the rainy season and the cool seaborne breeze made it actually quite comfortable.
- I also realized in my taxi ride from the airport to the hostel that it was the first time I'd seen the stars in nearly four months. That realization truly frightened and disgusted me. I have been cooped up in this pollution-choked, neon-lit, sprawling city of Daegu for too long! Getting away from the ambient light and noises of civilization is turning out to be much harder here than anywhere else I've been.
- Even something as innocuous as the Latin alphabet can offer great comfort. English words abound in Korea, you usually see at least a few in every establishment you enter, but you are still nonetheless effectively hemmed in on all sides by Hangeul. The Malay language is just as confusing to an English speaker as Korean, but it uses our alphabet, and seeing billboards, signs, license plates, and brochures in the familiar A-Z was like having an old blanket wrapped around me.
- Korea may be dirty and fairly well-littered with garbage, but it's got nothing on Kota Kinabalu. The stench was almost overpowering, and no matter where you went, the beautiful turquoise ocean was marred by floating trash. It boggles my mind how anyone can look out into a sea of garbage and not be disgusted enough to avoid adding to the pile, but it was depressingly common.
Malaysia is predominately Muslim. Islam was introduced by traders and well-established by the end of the 15th century. It was strange to walk around an Asian country featuring mosques rather than Buddhist temples, and even stranger to see women walking around a tropical resort town battling the heat by covering up as much as possible, as proscribed by their religion.
I only spotted one bicycle the entire time I was in Kota Kinabalu. Truly surprising. Motorcycles were very common, but most people seemed to get around by car. Due to some time as a British possession, Malaysians drive on the right, leading me to several confusing pedestrian maneuvers. Even after five days I hadn't properly trained my head to turn the right way before crossing the street, and I was constantly shocked to see people driving the wrong way or making crazy right-turns across multiple lanes of traffic!
Look at the color of that water! Absolutely marvelous. It was so warm and so salty that even I,Connor the Quite-Sinkable, was able to float comfortably right off the beach.
Beware of jellyfish.
Mike and Yvonne, two Southeast Asia backpackers that I met on the mountain and with whom I spent the rest of the trip.
Truly, an expensive but much-needed vacation. I'll recount my daring and brutal summit of Mount Kinabalu in my next post, but for now I'll leave you with some statistics:
- Miles hiked - 11.18
- Vertical miles - 2.77 (up and down)
- Orangutans spotted - 0. Bummer.
- Money spent on 12 mediocre beers - $6.00. It is super cheap to eat and drink in Malaysia, if you avoid the tourist locations. Perhaps the good price was to make up for the cockroaches and rats that were just as happy to frequent the bar as the people.
- Hiking poles discarded - 1. I took a gamble and tried to bring my $80 Leki hiking pole on the flight (I was told that sometimes they'll allow it, and sometimes not), but sadly they would not have it. With no time left to send it back home, I was forced to abandon it in the airport. Very sad.
- Modes of transportation taken - All. Praise be to Asia's efficient and omnipresent public transport systems.
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