Korea

This post is long overdue (not to mention long). The deadly combination of being either busy or lazy has postponed it until now.

I went to Korea for a few days between Christmas and New Years.
After a long day of travel, as I found myself rather weary and unnerved by yet another very foreign language and another very foreign alphabet, I arrived at my hostel.
After checking in, I decided to go out for some food. I walked around the hostel, and saw a restaurant that not only had pictures of meals above the doorway, but they all had English descriptions. Adding to those two finds, I saw only locals inside. Perfect, I thought. I walked in.
A lady who worked there came up to me and started rambling on in Korean. After waiting her to pause (which seemed to take forever) I said, in English, "I'm sorry, I don't speak Korean." However, this did nothing to slow her conversational speed. Clearly she didn't understand me, and she continued to ramble on in Korean. Eventually I heard the word "menu." I figured, correctly, that they did not have an English menu. (Then why the pictures and English-subtitled signs out front? I wondered) No problem. She kept on talking and talking and talking to me in Korean, so I eventually just started saying "yes" to whatever she was saying. She asked me some more indecipherable questions, and after some more yes'es, she showed me where to sit. After a few minutes, brought me several very small plates of food. Good, I thought, I'm not that hungry.
But then she came back, but with a rather large (really, meant for 2-4 people) plate of noodles with meat and veggies. All for me. And she still kept on talking to me quite fast in Korean. Eventually, this table of 4 men - all about 35-40 - came to my help. One of them spoke half-decent English, but he was able to translate for us. Everyone was quite surprised that I was able to eat this "very spicy" food. Impressed, they asked if I wanted a drink. After downing the first shot, they poured me another. I thanked them, returned to my seat and began to work on my monstrous meal.


After I stuffed all I could of this mountain of food into my body, I got my jacket and went to leave. Those men called to me, "Hey, do you want to drink?" I didn't want to drink that much, but how could I turn down the offer? Experiences like that are a huge part of why I travel. We talked for a long time, as we compared Japanese and Korean life, told dirty jokes, and clanged shot glasses full of soju while shouting "Welcome to Korea!" Certainly a memorable introduction.


The next couple days I visited all around Seoul - palaces, gates, and markets.


I found some distinct differences between Japanese and Korean culture, but I feel I can sum them up by saying that Korea has more color than Japan. I mean that literally and figuratively. The temples and palaces I visited in Seoul were structurally very similar to their Japanese counterparts. Yet they were all painted bright colors - yellow, blue, green, orange... Japanese temples and palaces are rarely any colors other than brown, white, and maybe a little red.

Korean people seemed to have more color to their personalities too. They were a lot less afraid to show their emotions. I went to a jazz club one night with a fellow world traveler, and we both commented on how we felt the singer had more soul (or rather, showed more soul) than just about every other Asian person we had ever met (sorry Josiah, Charlotte...). The above story about the guys inviting me to their table, slapping me on the back, offering me drinks and giving me their business cards in case I needed any assistance during my stay - I feel safe saying that would not happen in Japan.

The markets were interesting experiences as well. Some were open during the day, but the real markets didn't get going until well into the night (I walked around a market one night around 10, and most places were still getting set up). There were markets everywhere - in nearly every subway station, underground passage or alley, there were blankets and stands of all goods from wallets and bags to clothes, shoes, electronics, watches, household appliances, toiletries, and food.
The sheer size of the markets was impressive, as was what some of the stands sold. A bit blurry, but here two stands - one that sells clothes, and one that sells shoes. I took this about 11pm, before the crowd really started to show.


I am accustomed to seeing motorcycles or scooters all the time. Seeing them in Seoul, even in rather large numbers, was not that special. But there were two notable differences. One was that the loads frequently seen on the bikes were loads I've seen only in "Is this a real or Photoshop'ed picture?" email forwards and websites. The other difference is that motorcycles would seamlessly drive from main roads to crosswalks and up on sidewalks, humorously cumbersome loads and all.


One day I ventured out of Seoul and took a guided tour of the DMZ - the border between North and South Korea. That was a fascinating experience. The tour took us into a tunnel the North Koreans were digging years after the end of the Korean War to be used to send thousands of troops into the South.
While, quite naturally, it was a serious situation, I could not help but chuckle at how it was presented by our tour guide. It was said that the tunnel was made large so that thousands of troops could get through in just a couple hours. The humor in that statement was that we all were required to wear hard hats because of how small the tunnel is - all us foreigners hit our head on the "ceiling" of the tunnel countless times. I guess Japan is not the only land of the little people (though, to be fair, Koreans generally had noticeably larger frames than Japanese).
It took very little time to grasp the weight of the situation at the DMZ. There was much room left for hope for reconciliation in the future, though. Dorasan train station was recently completed and opened, with the hopes of uniting the North and South. In the station, a neon sign flashed messages in several languages, as well as train schedules:


One of the neatest parts of the tour was when we were allowed entry into a room which straddles the border between the two Koreas. This room is jointly controlled by both countries, and we were allowed to walk freely across the border in the room. So, for a few minutes and by a few feet, I was actually in North Korea (my passport doesn't reflect that, but that's okay - that would raise a few eyebrows upon my return to the U.S.).
This is taken from the room, and that concrete slab in the middle of the picture marks the border between North and South. I was slightly in North Korea when I took it.

In the room there were two South Korean soldiers. This one was in the Northern half of the room.


Just outside this room is a large building in North Korea. As I took the photo, I noticed the North Korean soldier standing out front with binoculars staring in my direction. Neato.


One last tidbit about this area is that 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, there are two South Korean soldiers watching that building. Each soldier only exposes half his body, hiding the other half behind one of the buildings that straddles the border. They're small, but you can see the North and South Korean soldiers staring at each other.


Of course that is not all there is to say about the DMZ - one other notable thing was that the area has been untouched by humans since the 1950s, when the DMZ was established, so many biologists are itching to get in the area to see what ecology has evolved in the last 50 years. Of course, I chuckle at the irony of that. "It's been untouched for too long! We must get in there!"

So all in all, it was a great trip. Ate great food at fantastically cheap prices. But I fount it quite difficult using Korean chopsticks. I am very accustomed to chopsticks - I have used them regularly since arriving in Japan. But at every restaurant I went to in Korea, the chopsticks were nearly flat. It was very hard to get a good grip on them. By contrast, the chopsticks I use almost daily in Japan have some girth to them - they're typically rectangular or cylindrical - very easy to hold on to.
But as I said, the food was outstanding. For the most part, I could not tell you what I ate. But it was delicious. So for those of you who want to ask if I ate dog or cat, it's entirely possible. And if I did, I would like to say that it was absolutely scrumptious.

Kamsahamnida.