Pohang to Daegu to Seoul

Normally, buses aren’t much to write about, four wheels, lots of seats, and an engine. But, the bus from Pohang to Daegu was noteworthy. Intercity buses in the States, or Greyhounds, leave a lot to be desired; in my only experience, a driver who knew the route would have been helpful. Buses in China vary in quality, from acceptable to downright disgusting and frightful. Normally there are people sitting in the aisles, it’s either hot or cold (in the summer and winter, respectively) and the bus will stop at every intersection to solicit more passengers until fully packed. Oh, and sometimes they drop you off on the side of the highway. South Korea, in contrast, seems to be the paragon of intercity bus excellence. The seats weren’t so much seats as La-Z-Boy recliners. Each seat was given its own armrest, so the passive aggressive armrest struggle was not to be had. The bus was quite comfortable, and although not full, we didn’t stop once to pick anyone up.

We had an afternoon in Daegu before our train back to Seoul, and the only thing really notable in the guidebook was the traditional medicine market. It wasn’t all that impressive, as it was not an open-air market, but rather just a line of shops. Their products were things that would decidedly not be found at a Hy-Vee pharmacy. If you’re in the market for ginseng, dried fungi, or reindeer antlers, then Daegu is your place. Much more fun was the Korean Traditional Medicine museum. It was full of (in my opinion) outrageous traditional medicine displays, all touting ways I could mystically heal my body. Now, I am sure that some Korean Traditional Medicine is effective and useful, but this museum went a little beyond the generally accepted medicines. I was very happy to learn my traditional oriental medicine body type (via an interactive display). It warned me that to maintain my body’s balance I should not be consuming pork, black beans, red beans, cold water, beer, ice, or Vitamin E. Oops, I think I have had every one of those since then, and am still feel pretty balanced. The funniest thing was the video about how Korean Traditional Medicine is now being accepted into the mainstream medical field, after passing tests and experiments…oh, how modernly scientific. After our brief education in traditional medicine, we took the KTX express train back to Seoul in the evening and went back to the same hostel. It’s pretty crazy, after growing up in America and living in China this past year, to take a four-hour train and essentially cross a country.

Ulleungdo-Pohang, back to the mainland

We started the morning off with a boat tour around the island. Before the boat even left, both Danthemanstan and I weren’t too excited about one aspect of the boat ride. Almost every other passenger (they were all presumably Korean) was infatuated with feeding the seagulls. Now, I don’t have any disregard for seagulls, and am more than happy to see a few and snap some pictures (they aren’t so common in Iowa). But, when all fifty people on the deck of the boat are holding up some shrimp flavored Cheetos-like snacks, the seagulls become too much. A rational person might think that seagull poop would be a deterrent…but he would be wrong. More than a few people got pooped on (luckily not Danthemanstan nor I) but they, or their friends continued to feed the seagulls. On the definitively strange side of things was a man who took advantage of the seagull surplus, and went primitive-catching seagulls out of mid-air in his hands. It was pretty awesome, I saw him nab three of them, and Danthemanstan got a good picture of it, which may be on his blog. On the whole, though, the boat tour was awesome and provided great views of the island and the beautifully clear ocean. After lunch we checked out of the guesthouse. Well sort of, in fact, we hadn’t seen the staff since check in, and they weren’t at home, so we just left the key on the floor in front of the door. We saw the grandma from the guesthouse on the way down the road, and did our best with non-verbal language to tell her as much. When walking around the island we ran into a man we had met on the ferry. He was a college professor of sorts, and spoke great English. We chatted about traveling, and he was very enthused for his trip to Dokdo. Apparently tickets are hard to get to the two rocks, as there’s stiff demand from the geriatric tour groups getting in the nationalistic pilgrimage before they’re too old.

While waiting for our ferry back to Pohang, we had a very interesting conversation with an older gentleman. He started chatting with me, and I found out that he had been a high school teacher for quite a long time. He said he taught ethics and because we don’t have that in the States, I requested he elaborate a bit on it. As he stated, it wasn’t really ethics but actually just anti-communism-so more of a political science class. He explained that there wasn’t much of a need for the class anymore, and it’s been falling off most curriculum lists around South Korea. Apparently when you’re ranked among the twenty wealthiest nations, and your communist neighbors to the North need international food aid to feed 1/3 of the country, anti-communist rhetoric becomes unwarranted. Hooray for Samsung, LG, and Kia!

Our boat ride back to Pohang was much calmer than the ride there. Once back, we headed back to the Rich Hotel, but this time the friendly and feisty owner wasn’t there. This was no deterrent, as we were able to simply write down our desired price on a piece of paper, which was accepted, we gave the receptionist the cash, and she gave us the key. Nice, easy, quick transactions, one more reason to love South Korea. As well as the PC with Internet connections in every room of the Rich Hotel! I had a painfully spicy dinner, but it was my fault, as I didn’t fully appreciate the meaning of the three chili peppers on the picture menu. Warning to any future Korean travelers, three chili peppers means three chili peppers. Even Danthemanstan, who has a spicy tongue, stated candidly “yeah, that’s hot”.

Ulleungdo

We hit the waters nice and early on our fifth day, taking the three-hour ferry to Ulleungdo. It’s a small, rocky island a good distance east of South Korea, in the Pacific. As it’s pretty far north, it’s not the sandy beaches and sunny skies one might imagine of a Pacific island. The ferry was very choppy. We rode with the retirees of South Korea, and were in a very small minority being younger than 60. There were people getting seasick all over the place, but a group of old men close to us were living it up and drinking soju and eating dried squid. They weren’t afraid to start the party at eight in the morning, and I admire that. I slept for a fair amount, but managed to notice a long video about the history and politics of Dokdo during the first hour of the trip. Dokdo consists of two small rocks about halfway between Ulleungdo and Japan-but a little closer to Ulleungdo. They are of historical and political importance to South Korea, and also some to Japan-although I never heard its side of the story.
After arriving in Ulleungdo, and walking past scores of drying squid, Danthemanstan keenly found a hotel. He saw a group of people with bags walking up some stairs on a side street. We followed them up, were greeted by the guesthouse owners, and quickly got a room. It was a pretty nice room, but no beds-it was the ondol style, which is the way many Koreans sleep (or did so in the past). It wasn’t a big deal, as the floors in this guesthouse were honestly more comfortable than some of the wooden beds I’ve slept on in China. Lunch consisted of another point and hope for the best situation, and turned out to be quite good. We spent the afternoon walking around the island. It was very pretty. The blue skies, endless blue ocean, and forested cliff edges were a much needed respite from the buzz of Seoul (and more so from industrialized, polluted Changzhou). The island of Ulleungdo isn’t much, and most of it is pretty steep, going up to the center of the island. It is just a volcanic point sticking out of the ocean. There are some really cool rocks jutting out of the ocean that surround it, and there was an outpost up a hill that provided great views of the island. Danthemanstan, in a bit of entrepreneurial genius, was proposing some great zip line routes along the coasts. We had a little more trouble for dinner, as we were hoping to eat in one of the restaurants along the shore, but couldn’t find one with a menu or food or prices that we like. Eventually we found something. It’s a little frustrating, but should be expected when you don’t speak the language and aren’t really on the main tourist route.
An interesting, and very South Korean thing happened in the evening. We needed to book some tours of the DMZ (Demilitarized Zone). So we went to the building marked PC center. It seemed closed, but had an open door, so we peeked in. Well, it was under renovation, so definitely no Internet browsing there. As we walked back, I saw a pool hall, and figured there would be some young guys there that would know how to get on the Internet. We walked in to stares from everyone (clearly we weren’t there for the pool), but there was a computer in the corner. The guy on it got up before we even got to him, and graciously motioned for us to use it. After we were done, some guys playing poker and drinking-and looking “in charge” adamantly refused the small payment we tried to give them for using the computer.

Seoul to Pohang

After deciding against a palace tour in the rain. We started today off with a very good lunch at a nice little restaurant. It really displayed the value of picture menus for tourists, because even the “English” menus leave some mystery to the exact dish (like the “tunny salad” I had the other day in a town nearby Changzhou). Getting to see a picture of what a tourist is about to eat really allows him to make a much better decision. The rain let up a bit, so we checked out a ‘traditional’ (aka touristy) market street near our hostel. It had more handicrafts than most can handle. I kept the tourist stereotype alive and bought some small gifts and postcards. Because both of our phones weren’t really low on batteries, thus unreliable as alarms we went to try and buy one. They were way too expensive, but the store was in the same mall as the e-Sports Stadium, so we went up to see if there was any computer gaming going on. And there was. The studio was taping once again, but this time to a packed live audience. We had to budge through the crowd just to get close enough to get good pictures. The crowd was due to the fact that this was the real thing: one on one Starcraft. Each player was inside a pretty cool looking sound cube that looked a lot like a cable car. What you won’t believe, but what I have a witness (Danethemanstan) to prove is that later that night, at our hotel, we saw the exact game that we had been watching on TV. That’s right, I have been a studio audience member of a Korean gaming network prime time event. Try and act like you’re not jealous.

In the early afternoon we grabbed a train to Pohang, which would be the taking off point for our ferry trip to an island of the east coast of the peninsula. Before it even started I was lauding praise on the Korean rail system. The day before, we had only bought the ticket to Pohang, having been ingrained in the archaic ways of the Chinese system. But, as we waited, we bought our return tickets-from a different city and to a different station than where we were. What should be the norm for a ticket system seemed like a miracle to us. The train was delightful, comfortable, and had ham sandwiches in the food cart (a nice relief from the ubiquitous instant noodles of the Chinese trains). If you don’t think having a long standing military presence in a country isn’t good for tourists, I would give these ham sandwiches as a one example of the benefit (to me) of having American soldiers somewhere for 50 years. Another stark contrast to the trains in China was how quiet they were. We were actually told to be quiet when we started laughing loudly about something. Quite the opposite of the clamorous amalgam of sounds on the Chinese trains. A funny occurrence was that our tickets were not checked a single time during the entire journey, and not at either station. Apparently there aren’t too many whiteys trying to jump trains in South Korea.

We made it to Pohang and took a taxi to the area by the coast, to make the morning ferry easy to catch. We had quite the interesting experience getting a hotel. In the end we received a “special” price! We checked out one room, which was nice, but had a double bed-whereas Danthemanstan wanted two singles. But it was late so we said okay. I left my bag in the room when we went back to the lobby to do the paperwork. Well, when we were down there, the owner offered us the “special” price for a room with two beds. This keen minded old man was operating on pure opportunity cost, and as it was late and the hotel pretty empty-as long as we paid a penny more for the second room, he most likely made money. So after copying my passport, he took us up to the “special room” but my bad was on the other floor. So he literally fought me away from the elevator buttons and door. I was able to succeed, and then when he saw I did know what I was doing and was just getting my bag he was incredibly apologetic. But he was also pretty darn strong for an old man, and I barely did get past him in the elevator. The Rich Hotel in Pohang was actually one of the nicer hotel rooms I have ever stayed in, and at a pretty good price. From the looks of it, tourist season in Pohang must be a little later in the summer.

Some More Seoul

Neither Danthemanstan nor I are big morning people, and thus continued the trend and didn’t hit the town too early our second full day in Seoul. We had lunch at a small, typical restaurant not too far from our hostel. Despite my attempts to learn the Korean alphabet on the plane ride over, it’s a little more than a two hour task, so we went with the time-tested method of having the waitress/owner point at an item and then nod. We got a pretty good dish, and enjoyed being the only people in a restaurant that might have fit 6 eaters (although it’s owners encouragingly squeezed in seating for 12 or so). Apparently, I can’t mix my food well enough, so the owner came over twice and passionately stirred up my dish for me. I was just disappointed she didn’t take the first spoonful and do the airplane up to my mouth.

As we approached what all the signs stated was the Korean War Memorial and Musem, we both started to get doubtful. The plaza was filled with young teenage girls (not generally museum enthusiasts) and a huge stage and sound structure with the word Möbius splayed across the lights above the stage (we figured out that was the band). There were tents and tables set up everywhere with “I ♥ U SO MUCH” printed on almost everything (I am guessing that's the name of a song or album). Sound checks intermittently blasted from the speakers. But, as we got closer the statues of soldiers and flags of all the countries fighting (for the UN/South) confirmed that we were in the right place. I would contend that in few places, Seoul being one of them, could a pop-rock concert occur on the plaza of a civil war memorial. Judging by the fans, this band isn’t exactly a politically conscious group-or one that has any footing with the remaining veterans of the war. Upon entrance, the museum offered more in the distinctly non-Korean War sector. The entire special exhibition zone was taken up by a Thomas the Tank Engine fun zone. It was filled with toddlers and young kids playing on slides and a moon bounce, riding a train, building train tracks, and most impressively, playing/working in a conveyor belt ball movement toy. This was really cool, as the kids were very industriously working to move all the balls from one bin to another. I guess that’s how you develop the minds to make some of the world’s best cell phones, cameras, and cars. When we did make it to the stuff about the Korean War (and the entire war history of the Korean peninsula) it was very interesting and quite well presented. It was refreshing (compared to China) to walk around a museum that presented the information in a generally neutral tone. Each section had a video summary with English versions, which were well done and quite informative.

Danthemanstan is a pretty avid computer/video game player, and he had heard that you could watch live Starcraft competitions in Seoul. The guidebook noted that it was the country’s addiction to Starcraft (and the need for speed to play the game) that caused its broadband Internet network to develop. Now it’s the most connected nation in the world-don’t doubt the power of online gaming—especially in Asia. One hostel receptionist told us the metro stop where he thought you could find these live competitions. At first we found not Starcraft, but a Mexican mariachi-rock band playing in the lobby of the mall. But, when we were almost ready to give up, or maybe look foolish and ask somebody, we saw the mall directory, which listed an “e-Sports Stadium” on the eighth floor. We crept in an otherwise uninviting door and there it was-cameras, lights, huge monitors, and projection screens, and two banks of computers with young Koreans playing a Counterstrike-like game called SF-Special Force. Each team had 5 players, and they had uniforms, coaches, chants, and logos. There weren’t too many people in the audience, so during one break, they taped Danthemanstan and me chatting. I got the feeling that the e-Sports stadium isn’t on the normal tourist circuit. There was even an all girls team (and some of them were pretty cute).

One of the interesting things I noticed around town today was the prominence of Major League Baseball hats. Danthemanstan bought an LG Twins hat at the game last night, but he was the only one supporting a team from the local league. Young guys and girls alike rocked out MLB hats with incredible regularity all over the city-many not being the team’s official color; reflecting the similar trend in America. Yankees and Red Sox caps were probably the most frequent, as expected, but I noticed the Pirates had a more than usual representation.

After a long search-due to bad directions in the guidebook, for a recommended Korean BBQ restaurant, we just went to one that looked and smelled good. And it was. We had a great meal in a nice cool alley, filled with other BBQ restaurants, which had a lively atmosphere. The service was wonderful and we enjoyed BBQ duck and pork with all sorts of sides to enhance the meat flavor. We took down a bottle of soju, which wasn’t too bad at all.

Back to posting, and almost back to the U.S.A.

For those who read this blog regularly, sorry for the recent drought of posts. I finished my trip to Korea, then traveled around China with Clay Padgett, my pledge dad from Kappa Sigma who came to visit. I then took an unplanned trip to the hospital for two days, more details about that in a coming blog post. Just as I healed, Laura Hermann, a friend from TU arrived to visit David and me. She's still here with us, and I am sorting through my stuff and packing to come back Stateside. I am sorting because I will be returning in September to teach here (at Jiangsu Teacher's University of Technology) for another year. I have had quite infrequent access to the Internet since midway through my trip to South Korea, thus the month without a post. After getting back to Iowa, I will type up some of the travel journals and enter some other observations I have written or typed. The faster (and unblocked) Internet will allow me to add some photos to some older posts without them. Thanks again to all who read, and to the random searchers, hopefully somewhere in my ramblings you find what you're looking for.

Seoul

We started our first full day in Seoul off late, sleeping in to make up for the lost night (more or less) of sleep at the airport. We made our way to a delightful sushi restaurant for lunch, which wasn’t too bad of a walk from our hostel. We then headed to Gyeongbok gung, one of the famous palaces in Seoul. We took the English tour, which was very nice, interesting, and allowed us to learn some interesting things about Korean history that weren’t in the brochure or the handbook. The palace had been reconstructed in various phases within the last 150 years. This was (mainly) due to it being burned down on two separate occasions by Japanese invaders. Our guide gave a sort of half laugh and odd tone whenever she mentioned this. Because of these invasions and a colonial occupation in the early 20th century, the Koreas don’t have a very good opinion of the Japanese. This was moderately evident in the tour guides presentation. The thing that I really noticed about the Gyeongbok gung was its incredible resemblance to the Forbidden City in Beijing. We learned that there was a strong neighborly relationship between the Korean monarchy and the Chinese emperors. Apparently the state architects were especially close, because besides the signs, I don’t know if I could tell the difference between the two places.

The palace tour took a fair amount of time, and afterward we walked along some of the main streets in that area of Seoul, which featured lots of government buildings. We also walked by the U.S. embassy, which, if nothing else, is a great representation of 1970s office building architecture. There was a big line of Koreans (I assume) outside, but its very ugly brown and deep tan color and outdated design made it look comedic against the surrounding brand new, high tech buildings. In the late afternoon we headed out to the Olympic Sports Complex to catch some baseball, the great American (or Korean?) tradition. It was an absolute blast. First, it was nice just to go to a live sporting event, as those (besides intramural basketball) are very lacking in Changzhou. It was a good game, with the SK Wyverns beating the LG Twins (our team) 7-6, but the game was made exciting by a five run inning late in the game by LG as they staged a comeback. If the team names seem odd, it’s because in the Korean league, the teams don’t use their location as a name, but rather the principal sponsor, in this case, SK a telecommunications company and LG, the technology manufacturer, respectively. Korean baseball is a little different than American baseball, well off the field at least. Beer is the beverage of choice, but there weren’t any hot dogs or cracker jacks. Instead, the snack of choice was dried squid. So I enjoyed my beer and struggled with my dried squid, which was essentially seafood flavored leather. Danthemanstan went to the concession stand and came back with a small bowl of noodle soup; a very Asian twist on concession stand food. The other big off field difference from an American baseball game was the fans. Yes, the obvious, they were Korean not American. But that’s not it. Normally, a baseball crowd is pretty relaxed and there isn’t too much chanting or heckling, at least not until late in the game. Not so for the LG Twins crowd. There was a group of five cheerleaders, and a male cheerleader, who didn’t dance, but was more like an orchestra conductor leading the main home section in organized cheers. A Hello Kitty and LG Twins mascot also joined in on the cheers or dancing (Why Hello Kitty? Because it’s Asia). This made the game much more exciting, and to be honest, I support Hello Kitty cheerleaders at any and all sporting events.

Much of our time was spent moving around the city going to various places, so there was plenty of time for people watching and culture analysis. The most blatant thing I noticed during the first few days was simply how much richer South Korea was than China. The men wore nicer suits, the girls dressed much more fashionably and a little less conservatively, people wore and carried more name brand products, people in general just looked richer (better teeth, non-worn hands, clean clothes, etc.). Now, I know it’s odd that I am comparing Korea to China and not to America, but having been in China for the last ten months, it is definitely my cultural litmus paper. The traffic was a wonderful respite from the no holds barred mayhem that is Chinese traffic. Just like back home (the U.S.A.), in Korea, when the walk signal is green, you can walk, and when it’s red, you don’t. And drivers give right of way to pedestrians. I was almost shocked, when crossing an unmarked intersection; a woman actually waved me across. Apparently I have been walking on Chinese streets too long. When on the subway, there was one thing that almost every Korean was doing. Staring at his or her cell phone. This is the home of Samsung, so I shouldn’t have been surprised, but it was still a bit crazy how glued everyone was to his or her phone. Many of them had an antenna on their phones, and were watching TV on sliding screens that shifted horizontally. Others were texting, listening to music, or watching movies or TV shows on their phones, or a portable movie player. Between two sites we stopped to take a break at a coffee shop. I was able to enjoy a delightful bottle of pink lemonade. Yes, something as uniquely American as pink lemonade has made its way onto the streets of Seoul. This was one of the most striking things about Seoul-its large variety and frequency of Western restaurants. China (especially the big cities in the Yangzi River Delta) is moving this way, but Seoul seems well advanced. Most enjoyable was Dunkin Donuts, which was by far the most frequent of all the Western restaurants.