First, a continuation of my account of the trip to Daegu. So I arrived at ICN finally, and you have to go through immigration, before you can get to the baggage check. There was an older Korean gentleman who had arrived at the immigration lines just after I did, who somewhat comically repetitiously moved from one immigration line to another, trying to find a shorter line, and finally ending up back in the very same line he started in. Then I went through immigration, picked up my bag, and headed out the gate to meet Glenn. Who was nowhere to be found...
Not that I didn't expect this, somewhat. At first, I figured Glenn just had the time confused. He'd previously sent me e-mail indicating the wrong time. I corrected that, but I figured he may have had the wrong time stuck in his head. Not really a problem. But still, having no idea where he was, and no way to get in touch with him, I was a little nervous. I also thought he might have actually been at the airport, but had somehow ended up at the wrong gate. So I tried to find a place I could leave my bags, so I could go look around a little for him. I went over to the information booth, to see if I could check my bags, but they informed me that there was no such place and that I had to keep my bags with me. This complicated things a little bit. The young woman at the desk was otherwise very friendly and helpful though, and offered to have Glenn paged to the information desk. But he didn't arrive. So I waited some more, and then tried to see if I could call Glenn at home, to make sure he didn't answer (i.e. therefore was on his way to meet me). But the phones required either a South Korea Telecom credit card, or korean coins, neither of which I had.
I went back over to the information booth, to find out if there was somewhere I could make a phone call with my credit card. By then, a new girl was at the desk, and was wearing a placard indicating that she was the English language attendant. I found this quite ironic, since the first girl I spoke to actually spoke much better English than she did... But, she offered to call Glenn for me. My initial impressions of the Korean people are that they are very polite, friendly, and well-mannered people. At any rate, she called Glenn, who didn't answer. I took this as a good sign, and resigned myself to wait for him. He did eventually show up about an hour and a half after he was supposed to meet me. Evidently he had quite a bit of train trouble, having just missed the last train to Seoul that would get him to Inchon in plenty of time, and had to wait for the next one, two hours later. Then I guess he got on the subway to Inchon, which as it turns out doesn't actually go to Inchon airport, and had to return to Seoul Station to catch a bus to ICN. Anyway, he finally found me.
As usual, I've forgotten a number of things that I had meant to add on to the end of my first entry. Looking at what I wrote before might serve as a reminder for some of it, but unfortunately I left all of my stuff in Glenn's room last night, and he's still asleep even though it's 10:30 am in Daegu. This is no surprise though, since we didn't pack it in until 6:00am or so... We were up late because we were, among other things, watching some FOX sci-fi show called "Firefly" which aired at least a year ago, as far as I can tell, and has long since been canceled. That it has been canceled is not very surprising, since it was actually not too bad, and pretty funny. It showed some signs of originality. But, FOX cancels most of its best shows... We talked a lot too, about anything from music as poetry, to the futility of the songs in Tolkien's novels, to Korean and language in general.
The train ride from Seoul was perhaps worthy of note, though. Oh! Of course, the bus ride to the train station from Inchon was also very, uh, interesting... I'll get back to the train ride momentarily.
Apparently, anyone in South Korea who is paid to professionally commute people from one place to another must be certifiably maniacal as a prerequisite to getting the job. After several instances of Glenn darting on and off various busses outside Inchon, he finally managed to identify the correct one to get us to Seoul station. That was when the fun really began... There was some initial misunderstanding about the fare, where our illustrious driver and Glenn went back and forth with eachother, each seemingly not understanding the other's complaint about the fare Glenn had already paid. This resulted in Glenn overpaying the fare by 500 won (about US $.40), and a non-verbal response from the driver which I can only describe as apparently mildly indignant resignation. But Koreans are different from Americans in many ways, as I am constantly reminded, so I could easily have simply misread him.
Ok, I lied before... this was when the fun really started. I soon realized that the bus's suspension was in need of maintenance, as the driver proceeded down the road leading away from Inchon airport (there is evidently only one such road), taking the curves at nearly 100kph (about 60 MPH). This caused the bus to lurch from side to side, seemingly about to tip over into the ocean at any moment, and when covering some of the bumpier parts, to bounce wildly in a manner that must be much like riding a bucking bronco.
He approached a toll both with a gate barely wide enough for the bus to actually fit through, still at a startling 100kph, and nearly crushing a small car between us and the toll booth in the process. He slammed on the breaks of the bus at the last possible moment, causing the tires of the bus to skid across the pavement, not unlike a piece of paper being forcibly pulled out of the feed tray of a laser printer while the roller is trying to feed the paper. Imagine being a tiny insect resting comfortably on the part of the paper which is about to be fed to the printer, and you have some idea what this experience was like...
Soon after this, I learned that if you are rapidly approaching another vehicle which is going much more slowly than you are, say, because it is stopped waiting to make a left turn, then rather than breaking to slow your approach, the custom in Korea is to toot the horn politely two or three times, and then swerve into traffic in the next lane over to avoid forcible compaction of the car in front of you. I initially thought this sort of display of driving prowess might be limited to our heroic bus driver, but had that notion dispelled when later the taxi driver who brought us from Daegu Station to Glenn's apartment behaved similarly. Glenn later reassured me that this is quite common in Korea, and then mentioned almost off-handedly that the death rate due to automobile accidents is quite high here. With such heroic driving professionals, it is easy to see why...
Having remarkably arrived at Seoul Station alive and without injury, I rested near the entrance to the station with my three increasingly heavy bags, while Glenn went off to see about getting a train to Daegu, where his apartment is. He returned shortly with tickets in hand and an amused grin on his face. He explained that there were no more seats available on the train, but that they were happy to sell us tickets to sit on the floor, either in the main aisle or in one of the spots behind the last seats in any of the cars. This obviously amused Glenn a great deal, but as I was extremely tired from the long journey to get to South Korea, I was just glad to have a place to sit and put my bags down, and possibly catch up on some much needed rest. The latter turned out to be very difficult due to there being no place to actually rest comfortably on the floor of our passenger car, but I did still manage to nod off for about maybe twenty minutes total. This did little to shorten the four-hour train ride.
After arriving in Daegu, we had our second experience with Korea's heroic driving professionals, which went much like the first with the exception of less lurching and bouncing, on account of being in a taxi rather than a bus. The song "Lies, Lies, Lies" by the Thompson Twins was playing on the radio when we entered the taxi, and a discussion of 80's and 90's music ensued as a result, generally distracting Glenn and me from our driver's amazing feats of transportation wizardry. Perhaps this is a good time to explain the weirdness with my metabolism...
As expected, I didn't really get any sleep the night before my flight, and I needed to be up at 2am for the airport limo. I thought I might doze in the limo, but it was not to be. The limo driver kept the car at a cool forty degrees Fahrenheit to keep himself awake, and regaled me with stories of strip clubs in FL, and of his tribulations with strip searches by authorities at Charles de Gaul International airport, and of fares having sex in the back of his limo... Given the early hour of the ride to Logan, I figured much of this was to be expected. What was totally unexpected was that during my 22 hours of flying, I slept almost none at all. The most I managed was to nod off for a few minutes at a time, here and there, sleeping probably a total of an hour or less during that whole time.
So, having now arrived at Glenn's apartment in Daegu, you'd expect that sleep would be the first thing on my mind. Despite all this, in actuality I had an overriding hunger that took precedence. It was now 4am in Daegu, but fortunately there are a few places that are open all night, which serve reasonably good Korean fast food. With Glenn's help, I ordered a beef kim bap (cooked ground beef with daikon radish, egg, and a few other things, wrapped in a roll with white rice and nourri, which is an Asian sea weed used for making sushi). It's basically just like a typical sushi maki roll, except for the ground beef being unusual, and that you get twice as much as you would at a sushi restaurant, and except that the Koreans call it something different. Glenn and I also split a Chinese-style sweet and sour pork dish, and Glenn got a kimchee dish. Soup and salad were served with all of this, too. In the US, such a meal would have cost probably about $40, but here it was only about 19,000 won, which is around US $15.50. Finally, after this feast, back to Glenn's apartment. The apartment is smallish but well laid-out, and comfortable. It is also spartan, which suits me. I immediately went to sleep, and stayed in that state for about ten solid hours.
I headed for the shower shortly after waking up. It is common in Korea for showers to have no bath tub; the water drains directly into the a drain in the floor. I like the efficiency of this, and with only a few minor modifications, I can see my bathroom of the future resembling this. However, Glenn's bathroom floor is tiled -- not a normal feature in these apartments, and one that would cause a maintenance headache, I should think. I'd rather use several large pieces of seamless rubber for the floor, which would be much easier to clean, I think.
Before I actually made it into the shower, I heard someone enter the apartment, followed by a female's voice; Glenn's girlfriend, Eun-Ha, had arrived unexpectedly. This left me in a minor quandary, as I had not entered the shower prepared for guests to arrive... I had only a towel and a pair of dirty shorts in which to emerge from the bathroom. This seemed mildly awkward at first, but I resigned myself to it, and simply donned my shorts and made a bee line from the bathroom to my room to dress properly upon completion of my daily hygiene rituals...
Once clothed for polite company, I went to meet Eun-Ha, who is a delightfully charming young Korean woman with very good English speaking skills. The three of us spent another hour or so at Glenn's, acquainting ourselves and eachother with one another, before getting on with the business of the evening: entertaining ourselves!
First, we rented a DVD, which we ended up not watching. Glenn and I later reviewed a little of it, to get the flavor of it, and guage our interest in watching it another time... It was a Korean action film, with interesting political overtones, about a North Korean defector to South Korea. Could be interesting... But this is all much later. After renting the DVD, we went to a bulgogi restaurant. This is sliced mean, served with an assortment of side dishes. Unlike at many Korean restaurants in the US, you actually sit at a table with a little round hibachi-like thing, and cook the meat yourself. I was also introduced to the Korean tradition of having others pour your drink for you. I think this is a nice social custom, but it will take much getting used to... This was a very good, hearty meal, which fed the three of us very satisfyingly (and then some) for about US $9, not including drinks, which tend to be only a little less expensive than they are in the US. Come to Korea, eat like royalty on a poor man's budget. I like it. And for what it's worth, despite no sleep and eating local food for two days, not even a hint of traveler's diarrhea. That's a Good Thing™.
Then we went to a bakery, with the thought that we would celebrate Eun-Ha's birthday, which is remarkably close to mine. Though, she isn't sure exactly when it is, because her parents originally recorded it by the lunar calendar, rather than the solar calendar that we all use. So she's recently decided to pick a date that made sense, and stick with that. At the bakery, Glenn bought all of us some sort of cookie thing, which was quite tasty, and provided opportunity for me to learn of another Korean quirk: they seem to believe that nearby flora will eat cookie crumbs and the discarded portions of other fine baked goods. When I dropped a small chunk of my cookie on the ground outside the bakery, Eun-Ha suggested that I feed it to the potted plants in front of the shop. Very odd... I guess Koreans have no concept of littering.
Even more foreign to me that that was the experience I had upon leaving the bakery, when I needed to relieve myself. I was show to the bathroom, and upon opening the door there was a Korean man standing at the sink, apparently talking to himself, and just beyond him were man-sized urinals. That is, a full-grown man could stand inside one. Just beyond those was a stall with a squat toilet, which is little more than a hole in the ground, filled in with a bit of porcelain. Best of all, when I closed the door behind me, out from behind it popped a woman! I was unaware that it is not uncommon for Korean lavatories to be unisex. This gave me pause, initially, but I figured, "When in Rome, do as the Romans..." and went about my business. It seems the Koreans also have no notion of modesty...
Oh! Before we went to the bakery, Glenn and Eun-Ha were singing a song from some movie they had seen, revealing that Eun-Ha has quite a nice singing voice (Glenn does not, but this is well-understood by all parties involved). I asked if she sang (which most people reading this will probably understand that I meant in some sort of group or organization). She emphatically replied, "Yes, in singing rooms!" [This is like a karaoke bar, only with private rooms. It seems the Koreans are more shy about this than the Japanese are...] This led (essentially) to a discussion about why I don't do karaoke. I explained that like Glenn, I know I have a horrible singing voice; but unlike Glenn, I usually prefer not to inflict it upon others. This elicited a burst of laughter from Eun-Ha, followed by a comment about me being very frank. Anyone who knows me knows that's pretty much true; for the most part if prompted to, I'll say exactly what I'm thinking. To Eun-Ha, this seemed in contradiction to a comment I had made after the incident at the bakery's bathroom about being shy. She was (expectedly so) incredulous that I could be shy. See, many people I meet have this reaction, especially if I've met them in a one-on-one meeting, a business situation, or when I was already around other people that I know well. Since I am somehow not usually not affected by my shyness in those kinds of situations, those people often (understandably) don't realize that I am shy, even sometimes after knowing me for quite a while. They usually seem to have a hard time with the idea that I can seem normal, or even quite outgoing at times, in those kinds of situations, but become nervous and twitchy, if asked to speak to a group, or if at a party with a lot of people I don't know, or other similar situations. No one understands me...
After leaving the bakery, we went back to Glenn's for a mostly uneventful evening. Eun-Ha went home around 11:00, and Glenn and I stayed up pretty late having many discussions that were interesting to have, but which by and large aren't terribly interesting to try to remember and relate to others... many of which I've already mentioned near the beginning of this entry. So I'll stop here, noting that I never did actually manage to sleep last night, but continuing the trend with my weird metabolism, somehow I still don't feel at all sleepy. Shrug.
| Last modified 4/23/2003 | © 2003 Derek Martin |