I was in a terrible car accident in a taxi last night. Not in real life - just in my imagination. Every time I'm in a cab I picture the car being T-boned as we run red lights or struck head-on as we veer into oncoming traffic. So far I've escaped each ride unscathed (physically), but I'm not sure how long I can hold out.
Today is a special day in Korea. My birthday. So in honour of what should be a national holiday, I'm going to go off topic and share a few of my favourite things, via YouTube:
1. This is, in my opinion, the funniest moment ever shown on television. Thank you Mr. Brent . . . and Gareth:
2. Exchanging vows with my wife and the birth of my beautiful daughter are the two most incredible moments of my life. Being at a Pearl Jam show is (a distant) third. If you look closely enough, you can see Carmen and me about 30 feet from the stage:
We still live in Korea. I have pictures to prove it. Really.
We're sort of on the other side of the mountain now. Not an actual mountain. A figurative one. We've been here for eight months and almost three seasons, and now it's like a countdown. We're coming down the mountain. Not that it's been some sort of mountainous obstacle - quite the opposite. And there's no threat of Grizzly Bears. But I'm guessing when you climb a mountain there are easy parts and hard parts, but once you start your descent things seem less challenging. That's how we feel now. All the challenges we've faced being in a foreign country seemed exacerbated by the idea that we'll be here - away from family and friends, and people who speak English - for a long time. But time flies, man.
October has been a good month. One of the things I miss most is Fall in Lethbridge. But the weather has been beautiful here in Daegu and the colors have lasted all month. Nothing beats a brisk walk through a concrete jungle.
I bought a membership to a gym. For the last eight months I've been relying on the exercise equipment in local parks and schoolyards, but as fun as endless pull-ups and chin-ups on cold metal bars sounds, it's not very motivating. So I decided to take my game indoors. I found a nice fitness centre in Seongseo and I'm trying it out for a month. But the experience has been a bit different from the YMCA at home. At my first visit, I bought my membership and the friendly assistant behind the desk showed me around. She brought me to a table outside the men's changeroom and gave me a towel, as well as a shirt and shorts. I looked at the tiny outfit and said, "Oh, you want me to wear this?" She nodded. I looked around and noticed everyone was wearing the same thing - and everyone was three to ten inches shorter than me. I convinced her it wouldn't work and she said it'd be fine if I wore my own clothes. So I did. I put on my iPod and stepped on a treadmill. JT was pumpin' and I was pumped. Ready to run. Just as I took my first step, a guy taps me on the back and says, "Come this way." I followed over him to the front desk. He pointed at the scale, which looked like it was made in 2050, and told me to get on. There were two handles on the front and he told me to squeeze. The little computer did some computing and then printed off a couple sheets of paper. So we headed over to a table to discuss my fitness level and the state of my life in general. With what little English he knew and what little Korean I know, we talked about what this computer said about me. Not only did this scale measure my weight, it measured my strength, my body mass index, my body fat percentage and, apparently, it knew where most of the fat on my body is and what I should do about it. Huh? Well that was fun. But I just wanted a treadmill, really.
Other than all that, it's business as usual in the Guenther home. I've stopped updating my Flickr account because I've reached my limit on uploads, so now if I want to add more, my earlier photos won't be displayed. Of course I can get a larger account for $20 or something like that. But come on, this is the internet. Do people actually pay to display their photogs? So you can expect to see more here, along with more frequent posts. Seriously.
What do you get when you take a famous Korean actor, thousands of screaming fans and utterly unprepared security, and put them all in one place? This:
This was Yoo Ji-Tae arriving at a public press conference in downtown Busan on Saturday, as part of the PIFF (as mentioned previously). We had no idea what was going on, but it seemed like word was spreading that he'd be arriving, and the crowd grew quickly behind the massive stage set up in the middle of a small intersection of the city's biggest shopping district. We rushed Cate away from the scene and made sure everyone was safe. Then . . . I headed back in.
With camera in hand, I braved the mass of school uniforms and trendy haircuts, determined to get a glimpse of whichever massive, important star was about to arrive. As two black vans rounded the corner about a block away, all hell broke loose. Elbows, kicks, screams. It was all fair game. As Yoo fought his way through the crowd I thought, "Okay, who is that? Seriously guys, where's Gwyneth? Or Brad? Or even Pauly Shore . . . don't tell me that's the guy we've been waiting for." I panned frantically, waiting for something more - but - to no avail. That was it.
In the video, notice the guy with the baby in the middle of the crowd. He's clearly thinking, "how the bloody hell did I get myself into the situation?!" For the record, he made it out alive - with his son.
The only words I can think of to describe our day in the coastal city are high octane. We went to Gukje Market, the main shopping district of Busan, straight from Busan Station, and realized when we got there that we were in the middle of the Busan International Film Festival (contrary to what the website says, in English it's Busan). In case you haven't heard of it, it's a pretty big deal, which means all the big Korean film stars were there. I don't know any of their names or what movies they're in, but they draw a big crowd. And I was in the middle of it. Thousands of screaming girls awaiting the arrival of one (apparently) sexy male movie star. Who was he? I don't know. But he was nearly the cause of my death. I captured the whole experience on video which will be posted to this very blog shortly, along with more details.
We went from downtown to Taejongdae, an area along the coast consisting of islands and some monuments. We spent most of the time searching for a beach, only to find a dumpy little waterfront road behind some old shacks. An amusement park popped up out of nowhere and we ate some cold sweet potato fries. Not a bad afternoon.
We headed back to Busan Station where there was an annual Chinese Festival. While checking this out, we stumbled upon the Russian Red Light District of Busan. Did you follow all that? Let me sum it up: A Chinese festival in Busan which is home to Russian prostitutes. There was enough culture to last a lifetime.
After a long, high octane day, we headed back to Daegu in the comfort of a bullet train.
I've been away. From this blog. For a long time. Pathetic, I know.
The truth is there hasn't been a lot happening until this past weekend, and I'd rather not bore anyone with stories of walking to the corner store or cooking and cleaning, because that about summarizes the last three weeks.
My parents made the trip to SK last week. We met them in Seoul on Friday and spent a day and half in the capital. Cate was ecstatic to see her Nana and Papa and of course the feeling was mutual. We basically just hung around downtown and the Insadong area and shopped. It's always nice to experience Korea from a fresh perspective, and we've been reminded of just how different things are as we watch my parents take everything in. We're in the middle of the most important holiday of the year in Korea - Chuseok. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday are national holidays and it's the time of year when everything shuts down and everyone spends time with family. It made weekend travel almost impossible. We found out on Tuesday that the KTX was nearly sold out for the entire weekend. I was able to snag enough tickets, but it meant we had to leave Seoul at 6:30 on Sunday morning.
On Friday, Carmen and I had tickets for the 5:40 train to Seoul. Carmen didn't get off work until 4:30 so we knew we'd have to hurry. We left as soon as she got home and jumped in a taxi. Traffic was crazy because of Chuseok so we realized we were cutting it close, but we got to the station with 13 minutes to spare. Not bad considering there's no check-in process - just scan your ticket and get on the train. Well, it's easy if you get on the right train. We didn't. We boarded the train at 5:37 and realized there was no one on it. Strange, seeing as this ride was sold out. So I ran outside and checked with a janitor; he looked at my ticket and pointed to the train across the tracks. This meant we had to go back up two flights of stairs, through a corridor, down two flights of stairs - carrying two backpacks, a playpen, a stroller and a baby - in three minutes. We were like the Mcallisters trying to catch their plane to Paris after a storm knocked out their power, only we didn't forget our kid in the attic. Anyway, we made it, with seconds to spare.
I'll be a tour guide for the next couple of weeks, pretending to know what I'm talking about and acting like I understand the language, just so I can impress my mom and dad, and they can return to Canada with stories about their extremely cultured and well-traveled son.
While we really enjoy Daegu and have met some amazing friends, I do regret, just a little bit, that we didn't choose to live in Seoul. Four days just didn't seem long enough to really explore and experience the city. But we were definitely satisfied with everything we'd done. The pace of life is even more intense than we've become used to in Daegu and there's always something to be entertained by. I found out recently that the square mileage of Seoul is actually less than Daegu, with nearly ten times as many people.
Our last day was mostly spent in the neighborhood around the hotel. We went back to Insadong and spent too much money on Korean art and traditional things. You could literally spend days searching every shop and stand, looking at antiques, jewelry, carvings, paintings, masks and anything else that might be considered Korean or Asian.
With Cate it wasn't possible for us to go out and really experience the Seoul nightlife, but Carmen and I each made solo late-night excursions, although mine would probably be considered early morning. This was possibly my favorite part of Seoul. It's as busy at midnight as it is at noon.
Clubs are open every night of the week, and Korean businessmen love to drink every night of the week, so it works out well for both parties. However, this is where I saw one of the ugly sides of Seoul. As I was walking through the narrow pedestrian streets where most of the clubs and bars are located, I noticed men with ear pieces and two-way radios, just sort of lingering around. Most of them were standing in intersections and some were walking back and forth along the streets. After seeing several of them I began to wonder what they were up to, so I started to watch a little closer. Apparently, their job was to entice random young women to come to the club they were working for. They'd approach the women, sometimes in a friendly way but usually very aggressively, and give them a quick spiel. It was obvious that most of the women knew exactly what the men were up to and were very uncomfortable by it. Most of them would walk past quickly, holding their arms in so the men couldn't grab them, but it wouldn't always work. One instance I witnessed was particularly disturbing. I was with Carmen and Cate and we were on a busy street getting ready to cross and head back to our hotel. As we were waiting at the intersection I was watching three men who were 'working' the corner. One little dude asked a girl to come to his club, and when she wouldn't, he grabbed her by the arm and dragged her. The woman was clearly scared and did not want to go, and her friend was pulling her in the other direction. The idiot wouldn't let go and after a few seconds was joined by a couple of his co-workers who also started pulling her. There were hundreds of people standing on the corner and no one was doing anything about it. There was a man in a lawn chair sitting on the steps of corner store who was, apparently, in charge of the whole operation. He looked on like nothing was happening. Finally the woman slipped loose and the light changed so she was able to cross the street with her friend. I went for a walk again later and 'accidentally' bumped into another jerk who was doing the same thing to another woman. He looked at me as if he wanted to stab me in the heart, but I just put my hands up with an 'I'm just a stupid foreigner' look on my face. I was shocked that A. this was a legitimate method of business and B. no one did anything about it, including the police whose station was a block away.
Enough of the tales of fear and injustice. I also witnessed the coolest and most entertaining form of useless technology I've ever seen. This guy:
I thought the following image was interesting. We don't get to see or read much of the news in Korea. We don't have access to either of the English newspapers and there's no local English news programs on TV. So most of the information we've got regarding the ongoing story of the Korean hostages in Afghanistan has been through sources outside of Korea, which means we haven't been able to gauge how big the story is here. This banner on City Hall gave us an idea:
Sorry about the quality. It was taken from a distance in a moving taxi with a compact camera.
Here is a look at the alley in which our hotel was located. It looks quite shady, and it is actually. Not in a dangerous way, just in a dirty, seedy kind of way. These guys, and guys that look just like them, were there 24/7.
Eventually we had to call it a day and return to the South. We took the KTX once again and enjoyed an incredible view of the Korean countryside on a beautiful, misty, rainy day.
We'll miss Seoul, but fortunately we're going back there for a short stay in two and half weeks when we meet my parents at the airport and bring them back to Daegu for a visit.
The foreigners' market. Sounds great doesn't it? Rumor has it we could find anything we might be missing from home in Itaewon, the foreigners' district of Seoul. We'd been looking forward to this for months. We'd heard mixed reviews, but mostly people said it was an amazing place, with Western food, toiletries and regular-sized threads. We were giddy.
But heavens to Betsy, what an utter letdown it turned out to be. A series of dumpy knockoff stores and dozens of custom suit tailors (sorry, I don't want something that looks like it's 40 years old and has a 28 inch crotch). The clothes were basically the same stuff we'd find in cheaper areas of Daegu, with a few second-rate gangsta brands thrown in for good measure. We walked around for 45 minutes, ate at Subway and jumped in a taxi to head back to Insadong.
On the plus side, this gave us enough time to spend part of the afternoon at Dongdaemun, a massive shopping district in central Seoul. Dongdaemun means 'Great East Gate' and refers to the large ancient gate the market is built around - it was built during the Joseon Dynasty. You'd think I would've got a photog of something so historic and significant, but after wasting our time in Itaewon, we didn't have a lot of time before Cate would need a nap - and it was raining buckets. So we did some shopping.
One thing I learned about Seoul is no matter where you are, you'll see every part of Korean culture in some way. Although Dongdaemun is a major fashion district and attracts mostly young hipsters, there are seniors selling street meat, jewelry and carrying cardboard around on bikes. This is often the case in Korea but I found it especially interesting in this major part of such a large, modern city.
When we returned to our hotel from Dongdaemun we were hot, tired and ready for a nap. We got to our door, and I realized the room key was not in my pocket. This was a problem for a few reasons. First of all, the key had a magnetic tag with it that's used to turn everything on in the room. You insert the magnet into a slot on the wall and the lights, TV and A/C power on. I knew this would be expensive to replace and that this hotel most likely would not have extra tags. Secondly, the magnetic tag had the hotel name and room number on it, meaning whoever found it would have a free room in Insadong (and they'd definitely want to visit there after reading my blog). The third reason this situation was a problem was the fact that as I was searching my pockets, our bags and the stroller for the key, the geezer next door was watching porn. How do I know he was watching porn? Because he had his television turned up to, what I'm assuming was, the maximum volume level for his listening pleasure. What a perfect soundtrack for a panicked situation, and perfect for our 17 month old daughter to be hearing in a smoky hallway of a seedy hotel. We went to the front desk and explained what happened and the manager was clearly worried. She said it would cost 30,000 won to replace which, to be honest, was far less than I was expecting. So we paid the replacement fee and had to use the 'master key', which had to be returned to the front desk every time we left the hotel. A little awkward.
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