Who woulda thought Korea's so much fun?

part il [that's korean for one. clever huh?]
golden week starts may 3 and is a string of holidays [constitution day, national day and children’s day] when everyone and their grandmother goes traveling. if you take 11 hours of vacation, you can score 9 days off in a row. carrie, melanie and i decided to brave airport traffic and head to south korea.
the madness started on friday night, 4/29/05, in Tokyo as a bunch of friends converged on the city for a kick-off. this is beth, melly and i on the way to dinner at a kushi-ya.

it’s a delicious but unhealthy marvel. of course, at this point nutrition wasn’t a concern as our vacation had already technically started. at these restaurants, after hitting the buffet of raw foods and piling your plate full of delights like shrimp, shellfish, fish cake, pork, beef, cheese and tons of veggies, everyone sits at a table with a fry daddy in the center. you dredge your food, all on sticks which are called kushi in Japanese, in a creamy batter, roll it in breadcrumbs and drop it in the vat of hot oil. and there are a ton of great dipping sauces. it is 90 minutes of stuffing your face for 2500 yen, about $25, and for an extra 1000 yen they will throw in all the alcohol you can drink. afterwards we hit roppongi, one of the boroughs of Tokyo that i had never partied in before. it is famous as the foreigners' district although we hung/danced/talked with mostly Japanese peeps. it is amazing to see the discrepancy in attitude and disposition between the country mice in my relatively small town and the city mice who inhabit Tokyo. as we finally decided to call it a night, the city was already transitioning from nightlife to morning traffic. the view from our hotel as we returned.


the next day, on about 30 minutes of sleep, we headed for the airport.
i was interested in visiting the Korean peninsula more because i lacked knowledge about it and less because i was particularly intrigued by its culture. i expected, being situated as it is between china and japan, that it would be a blend of these 2 most well-known asian cultures. while there were definitely shades of cultural cross-over, i couldn’t have been more wrong about korea possessing a strong national identity of its own. our first indication was in the subway station soon after we had arrived. we’d taken a bus from the airport to downtown seoul and were standing, gazing at the posted subway map trying to discern our next move when we were approached by two hip young men. one spoke in great colloquial English… “what’s up? you guys need some help?” uuhhhh… i was instantly aware of how japan has been conditioning me over the last 10 months. i was so caught off guard by a stranger speaking to us that i could barely proffer up a response. he was the first of many, many Koreans who would attempt to communicate with us. most of the conversations would start with a ‘hello. where from?’ and we would quickly realize that we shared very little vocabulary. this wouldn’t put them off however as we would lapse into a game of charades on the spot. quite a few young people are well-educated in English and it was so refreshing to see them attempt to use it on foreigners. in japan, by contrast, they have absolutely no self-confidence or faith in their ability to communicate with foreigners, be it in English, Japanese or via gestures. i would venture to say the English level of the average Korean far exceeds that of a Japanese person, although this assumption could be tainted. perhaps many Japanese people are able to muster some English but us foreigners will never know it because they are too scared to actually attempt to use it in conversation. another refreshing aspect of communicating in south korea was their determination. if the first try at conveying an idea flopped, they would stop, think, regroup and try again using different words or movements. if a Japanese person gathers the courage to talk with you and you don’t appear to be understanding exactly, their tendency is to throw in the towel; they act as if it is hopeless.

we dropped our bags at kim's guesthouse, which turned out to be great lodging for about 15$/night per person, and headed into the bar district on foot. exhausted from the previous evening, we found a lively restaurant for dinner where we quickly realized the extent of our ignorance. luckily the menu had some food pictures, but there were no pictures of ashtrays, water, beer or the bathroom for us to point at in an attempt to communicate. it was pretty darn funny. afterwards we wandered a bit checking out the bar scene. this is one of my personal favorites...not the bar, just its name.

the koreans, like the japanese, are idol crazy. especially when it comes to the handsome, sensitive men of asian weekly dramas. although japanese and korean political ties are strained at best, the people of the countries share an unreal fascination with a korean actor named bae yong joon who stars in the serial 'winter sonata'. japanese women love the show because of its romance, which never lapses into open-mouth kissing [gasp!] or raunchy sex scenes. they interpret joon's glossy, wide-eyed stares into his lover's eyes as a sign of his compassion, passion, infatuation; all traits that japanese men are notorious for not having. joon has even boosted tourism between the countries as japanese women by the throngs are traveling to south korea for 'winter sonata' tours. i picked up a pamphlet about them...you can do episode #12 tour where you'll sit on the same park bench he did and eat at the same noodle shop. or maybe you'd prefer episode #30 where you can see the grocery store where he met his lover. or... how bizarre. this is a shot of idol trinkets at a market in myeong dong including bae yong joon socks, business cards, magnets and all the other necessities.



the first of many amazing meals. you swish the beef in the broth until it browns then place it on the rice sprinkled with sesame inside the lettuce leaves, slather on some fermented bean sauce [which tasted so much better than it sounds] and roll it up. after all the beef is cooked, they bring out a heaping plate of sprouts, seafood, and other veggies which they dump in to the pot and let simmer into a salty, delicious soup. every meal comes accompanied by tons of small dishes of side items like kim chee [at absolutely every meal], potato salad, seaweed dishes, tofu dishes, strange vegetable concoctions that we were unable to identify, etc.

that night we took a cable car up to seoul tower for a view of the cityscape.

no matter what district of the city you are in, the night markets are bustling.
we had planned to bar hop in hongik, the area surrounding one of the universities...but before we knew it we were on the street of 'try to walk' headed straight for nightclub central.

we didn't protest as the bumping music from inside drew us through the door of club NB like the mice following the piper. the place was packed, people were dancing, and, to these 3 girls' delight, they weren't frightened to dance with us.


mel and carrie suffering from hangovers/in need of food...fast.
lunch the next day at a bul go gi restuarant just down from the hostel. behind kimchee, this is the country's most famous cuisine. you always get tongs and scissors to lop off chunks of the steak and you grill the meat, garlic, peppers at your own table, although most proprietors didn't trust us to do this ourselves and usually tended the grill for us [in the beginning it was a welcome help, by the end we were beating them off of our grill].


momma mel, as she became known, had written the subway stop on our arms the night before in case we got separated up and couldn't remember how to get home. since i couldn't use my left hand, i couldn't properly wash it off of my right arm. it was a hilarious reminder of a great night until i finally got one of the girls to scrub it for me.


mel and i at gyeongbokgung palace. this is just one of the places where the roots of koreans' distrust of japanese people is evident. king taejo built this to be the main palace, but in 1592 the japanese burnt it down during their invasion. when it was finally rebuilt, about 300 years later, it didn't take long for the japanese to ruin it again. assassins snuck in and murdered queen min as she slept in her bedroom. the king fled and it was never used as royalty's home again.

insadong is the artsy area of town. the streets are lined with art galleries,

book stores,

and kitschy little shops selling all sorts of crafts and crap.

you can see some japanese writing used on these signs. because of the occupation, many of the older folks can speak japanese. many times in markets i resorted to speaking that instead of english in order to bargain.

near insadong and city hall was a gawdy, terribly fun part of town.

we spent many nights cruising the streets here people watching and partying.

she's making a kimchee pancake [perfect blend of kimchee and green leafy vegetable, sometimes they add minced octopus, fried till crisp. you should have seen her skillfully flip that thing with a spatula. unbelievably tasty.] outside one of the many restaurants.


the next morning we rose early to catch a bus to the demilitariazed zone, a 4-kilometer wide stretch of land that separates north and south korea [2 km on each side of the 38th parallel]. you must join a tour to area; this isn't a do-it-yourself trip. technically the 2 koreas are still at war and their cease-fire agreement is the longest treaty of its type to hold. the area was established in 1953 after the korean war. there are numerous stories of isolated violence erupting in recent years, but even without those tales the tension is palpable. we first visited the southern edge of the DMZ which is patroled by american troops.

it's lined with fences and barbed wire.

the girls standing in front of the entrance to 'freedom bridge' which has now been locked and barricaded. at the end of the fighting, thousands of north koreans used this bridge to escape to the south before the border was sealed.

the bridge is a simple structure that offers no hints as to its historical importance. letters, signs and clothes scrawled with handwritten notes adorn the fence. they are written to loved ones that were separated when the border closed. an estimated 5 million families were split up. now there is no way for these family members to find their missing loved ones because the north has such strict control over the flow of information.

we ventured into the DMZ under many bridges we were told are loaded with dynamite in case the north attacks, the south can detonate the tnt blocking the roads. they estimate the north has dug about 21 tunnels into south korea and we trekked through the third, and last one, they located. no cameras were allowed so close your eyes and picture... it was a cramped, damp place with water dripping from the rock outcroppings that hung making the tunnel about 5.5 feet tall. luckily we were wearing hardhats which did their job. the tunnel is about 73 m underground and 1,635 m long. they made it to within 44 km of seoul with this one. the craggy walls are colored black with paint that is now beginning to chip away. this was a feeble attempt by north korea to claim it was a coal mine and not an infiltration tunnel. subsequent tests proved there is no coal in the area. the passage also slants down toward north korea to ensure the water will drain that way so as not to reveal its position to troops in the south. south korea has blocked off the tunnel with a series of 3 heavy concrete doors that are menacing. our guide told us that the north first denied digging the tunnels but later, after realizing the tourist dollars the passages were generating, admitted to creating them and demanded their cut of the profits. what lunatics.

the next stop was dorasan military observation post where we got a glimpse of the north. after being briefed on the security in the area we were lead to a balcony where i used binoculars to check out north korea...you could see the military men doing their thing and also the largest flag pole in the world, a result of a 'pissin contest'. the south built their flag pole first, then the north built a taller one, so the south upped theirs, and so did the north. in the words of our tour guide, 'eventually we realized this was a stupid game so we just gave up.' they are worried about spying so you can't get any closer than this to take pics of the north.

in another strange twist, we headed to a station where the outgoing train would be bound for pyeongyang, the capital of north korea, if that were possible. since the koreas have yet to reunite, there is no traffic of any sort between them. the trainless and passengerless station now serves to remind the world of the south's dreams of reconciliation. as you don't pay to get in, it can't be considered a tourist trap. who knows... anyway, it gives the military men somewhere to stand all day.

on the way back into town the bus took us by an 'amethyst factory' which did turn out to be a tourist trap of a jewelry store. we spent the time on the bus chatting with the tour guide. he was really inquisitve about american cultural marvels such as hooters. 'are they really all a size d?' he asked.

one of the reasons we never made it out of seoul was the city-wide art festival happening the whole time we were there, Hi Seoul 2005. one night they showed a huge projection piece on the city hall building that was an amazing sequence of huge, colorful, animated pieces of art melting from one into another. it was accompanied by an oh-so-appropriate original soundtrack.

they also had concerts [during which it rained but that didn't deter anyone from coming out. we drank, danced and met a lot of people on the lawn at city hall.], art markets, food stalls, exhibits. that night, we headed to the gawdy center of the city and found a draft beer bar. we were able to read the chinese character for fresh or draft which has been adopted by the japanese and also, apparently, by the koreans. while there we met a couple of men, one who spoke english. they led us on to a tiny dance club where we met a ton of other people. we ended up singing the night away at a karaoke bar with a couple other guys. as popular as it is in japan, we had to give it a whirl korean style.