My (South) Korean Vacation (Part 3)

This picture shows the view of North Korea from the Dora Observatory in the DMZ. The big building on the left (along with several of the other buildings?) supposedly is empty and was built simply as a propaganda tool. I only took a limited DMZ tour, so I didn't go to Panmunjong. Maybe next time. By the way, yes, I did keep my distance from those two funny looking creatures.










I was surprised to see barbed-wire fences as well as so many guard towers along the river that lead from the DMZ toward Seoul. When I took this picture from the freeway, we were already well past the DMZ and back into "real" South Korean territory. The fences continued for miles.










One day, I went to a place called a jimjilbang. It's fairly similar to the Japanese onsen. One of the main attractions of a jimjilbang is the igloo-shaped sauna. Or should I say kiln? Man, that sucker is hot inside! It must have been over 100 degrees Celsius! I went in about three times, but each time, I only lasted about 2 or 3 minutes. When you go in, you take something like a potato sack and wrap it around your body. And some people wrap their towel around their face. And you sit on straw mats. And you sweat like mad! I don't really understand how people can find that a pleasurable experience.







They even cook eggs in the kiln. I have no idea why. Probably because that makes the eggs oh so healthy. Believe me, the egg tasted about as good (or rather, disgusting) as it looks.










Right next door to the kiln there was what amounts to a freezer. Talk about contrasts in temperature. One minute you're like a piece of clay being fired; the next minute you're a piece of meat being put away for storage.













Two more things about the jimjilbang: They are cheap (this one cost about 6000 won or about $4.25) and they are open 24 hours a day. In other words, if you need a really cheap place to stay, this is it! There are pads to sleep on and rooms to sleep in. A jimjilbang is a big step down from Japan's capsule hotels, at least in terms of privacy, but you can't beat the price!













Honey Potato Burger, anyone?













Check out the world's smartest milk. I feel like a genius just looking at it!










There was many signs of safety in the subway stations, from barriers between the passengers and the incoming trains...










to fire extinguishers...













to gas masks!













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I rode the Korean equivalent of the shinkansen, the KTX (Korea Train Express), from Busan to Seoul and back. The 400 km ride takes a little less than three hours, and the train travels at a maximum speed of just over 300 km/h (we topped out at 307 km/h). The KTX had the normal 2/2 seating layout, with half the seats facing the front and half the seats facing the back, so there was nothing unusual on those two fronts, unlike the shinkansen.

What was surprising was how cheap the KTX is! The one-way cross-country trip costs roughly 47,500 won, which is about 60% cheaper than what you would pay in Japan. And in Korea, the fare apparently changes depending on a number of factors, including whether you reserve a seat facing forward or facing backward (don't quote me on that, but I seem to remember that being the case), whether you buy a "reserved" or "semi-reserved" seat (there are a couple of cars with free seating, the only restriction being that you should sit in the direction indicated on your ticket), whether you buy a standing-room-only ticket or not (when available), and what day of the week you are traveling (I think there is no way to avoid paying a little more on weekends, when the trains are seemingly almost always full, for example). Also, you pay about 500 won extra for buying a ticket from a human instead of a machine (you pay a similar fee in Holland), and I don't think you can use a foreign credit card to purchase a ticket from the machines, since you have to have some sort of password (you can easily use your credit card when purchasing your ticket from a human).

In any case, I rode four times and paid 45,000 (cash, weekday, semi-reserved, machine), 48,600 (cash, weekend, reserved, human), 51,200 (credit card, weekend, reserved, human), and 45,000 (cash, weekday, semi-reserved, machine). Also, the ticket machines weren't as customer-friendly as they could have been. For one, the screens only give information in Korean or English. For two, you can use the "edit" button only until the point when a seat is assigned to you. Then, you either pay or start over. So if you want, say, a reserved seat facing backward ("wrong") but the machine decides you should sit facing forward ("right"), or if you want a window seat but the machine gives you an aisle sit, you can't just change your seat. Instead, it's back to square one. Frustrating!

One thing that I thought was especially unusual about riding the KTX was that the boarding procedure is a bit like boarding a plane at an airport. About 99% of the passengers wait until the "Now boarding" announcement is made before heading to the platform, even though no one stops them from doing so. It's like it's an unwritten rule, perhaps. And since the announcement isn't made until about 15 minutes before departure, you would expect there to be a mad rush for the train. But somehow the mad rush is more of a controlled process, probably because everyone has a seat assigned to them and the passengers are spread throughout the train. I think the only other time I have experienced boarding a train like that was at Charing Cross Station in London, but there you couldn't board the train until they gave the green light.

The other unusual thing about riding the KTX is that after you purchase your ticket, you pretty much don't need it anymore. For instance, you don't need your ticket to pass through the turnstiles at either end of your trip, and, as long as you stay in your assigned seat, the chances of the conductor checking your ticket are slim. Why? Well, the conductor knows exactly how many tickets have been sold and exactly which seats are taken. The result: As long as everyone is in their place, the conductor won't have to check any tickets.

And finally, for whatever reason, many passengers leave their tickets at the exit gates. Maybe that practice was imported from Japan, because there you often hand your ticket to an agent at your destination. But there's probably a different reason behind that behavior. Whatever the reason, no one forced you to give up your ticket, so I hung on to mine.


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I met a bunch of people in both Busan and Seoul, including a really nice Japanese family from Kagoshima Prefecture in the southern part of my island (Kyushu). I was just hanging out in a tiny park, watching mostly elderly Koreans exercising on various contraptions, when this cute little girl came up to me and said, "Hello." So I talked to her a bit and then got into a conversation with her father, who happened to be an English teacher. We hit it off pretty well and he invited me to have dinner with him and his family. So we met up again later in the day and had Korean BBQ. And they actually treated me, which was really nice of them.

I also met Emilia, a girl from Taiwan who was staying at the same guesthouse as me. We hung out one day, doing a bit of sightseeing and grabbing a couple of meals together. She was on her way to Paraguay, where she was going to do some sort of volunteer nursing work for a year. She didn't speak much English, so, when she asked me if I spoke Spanish, she was ecstatic when I responded with a "Sí, un pocito." So there I was speaking Spanish to a Taiwanese girl in Seoul, South Korea. You gotta love it! Unfortunately for me, though, my Spanish really isn't all that great, and my brain kept thinking in Japanese as well as spitting out words in Italian, since my Italian is much better than my Spanish. But somehow we managed to communicate quite a bit.

And I now have a favorite foreign currency bill, the 500 Taiwanese dollar note. What's so great about it? Well, take one look at the picture and you'll have your answer.

I met some other cool people, too, like this guy who I met while walking around Seoul . He had lived for a while in New York City, so he pounced on the opportunity to talk to an American (me) again. We only talked for a couple of minutes, though, and then he and his two girlfriends went their way and I went mine. I was then left to sort of kick myself in the rear, wondering why I didn't make an attempt to hang out with them longer. You know, it's a lot more fun hanging with others than it is to hang alone, especially in an unfamiliar place. Anyway, I stepped into a store for a few minutes, and when I came out, they they were again, slightly up the street from me. So I caught up with them, we chatted some more, and they invited me to go eat with them. Remember the pictures of the stir-fry followed by the fried rice? This is who I had that meal with.

By far the coolest person I met in Korea was Lisa. I can't tell you how nice she was. She happens to live in Milan at the moment, and was in Seoul on vacation. We met in a subway station when she offered to help me buy a ticket. I actually didn't need help, but I guess I looked lost. We were both heading in the same direction, so we talked for a while. And the crazy thing was, we hit it off like we had known each other for years. She gave me some advice about where to go sightseeing and invited me to meet her and a couple of her friends later that night. So we met again several hours later. One of her friends was this guy who had just gotten into town from L.A. He was studying architecture and was a real artsy type, but we also hit it off as if we'd known each other for ages. I was having a great time talking to him, but then he had to head home. So Lisa, her other friend (I can't remember her name because she had a "real," and thus for me unusual, Korean name), and I went out to dinner together. And Lisa paid for me! And then we took a taxi to the part of town where I was staying (which also happened to be where Lisa had parked her car, since she lived relatively close by, too), and Lisa paid for that, too. I'm telling you, she was NICE!

The next day, New Year's Eve, Lisa took me to the jimjilbang. And yes, she treated me once again. She kept telling me how nice Koreans were and that that was just her way of being hospitable. Unfortunately, she headed to the east coast (of Korea) that night with her family to catch the first sunrise of the New Year, as is a tradition in those parts, so we didn't see each other again. But someday I have to pay her back for treating me so nicely.

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On New Year's Eve, I headed to the center of town to celebrate the beginning of the New Year. Unfortunately, the event wasn't really all that spectacular. I didn't even see a clock (real or digital) prominently displayed until there were about thirty seconds to go before midnight. And the most noise being made was by the hundreds of people protesting against Lee Myung-bak, the South Korean President. It turns out those who don't favor the President have given him the nickname "2 MB," which is a play on his last name combined with his supposed ultra-slow brain processing speed. (I believe that sign the guy is holding up must say something like, "Out with 2008, out with 2MB.") So the celebration was more annoying than fun, to tell you the truth. But I was close enough to the stage to catch a glimpse of some of the invited guests, and I was able to hear the bell ringing in the New Year. Shortly after that, I headed to the subway station, since I feared that the protesters might get out of hand, despite the enormous police presence.


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Back to food: Here's some of the best food I had in Korea, purchased from a street vendor. I had one of those vegetable pancakes and six of those dumplings. The total cost was only about 4000 won, I believe. Cheap and quite delicious. Plus, I learned that when Koreans eat, they don't hold their plates or bowls up to their mouths as they often do here in Japan. Instead, Koreans reach down with their chopsticks and bring the food up to their mouths.