Sunday, December 20, 2009

"A discourse on the scientific nature of Hangul" (aka My Trip to Korea)

I'm still alive...apparently some of you have been wondering. I apologize for the seemingly eternal hiatus, but here is a gigantic post to sate your appetites for my horribly lackluster, mistake-ridden English. This post has been in the works for awhile...with more on the way soon.

At the end of November, I visited one Mr. Eric Wallin in South Korea. I took a half day on Friday, and had Monday (holiday) and Tuesday (my day off from working entrance exam Saturday) off, so I ended up with a nice long weekend. And Korea is so freakin’ close, it’s entirely doable. Getting from Ogaki to Chubu airport was almost as long as the actual flight to Seoul…er…Incheon airport. Less than a two hour flight, but there was still a full meal. Well played, Air Korea, you just earned some points. Before I knew it was in Korea and got through immigration, customs, etc. pretty quickly, probably due to the fact that I didn’t have checked baggage and that customs consisted of me handing someone my slip as I briskly walked past them. No questions, no inspection, one of the easiest customs setups ever (only to be outdone by China, which didn’t even have a person standing there to take a slip).
And it’s a good thing, too, since I only had about 7 minutes to spare to catch the 6:20 bus I had planned on taking to downtown Seoul. I was heading to Sadang station, where Wallin was going to be waiting for me near a coffee shop. Thanks to the Friday night traffic going into Seoul, though, the bus ended up taking a lot longer than Wallin had expected, so instead of arriving around 7pm, the bus dropped me off around 7:30-40. I didn’t see any station entrances, so putting on my best confused foreigner face, I ask the bus driver, “Sadang?” He pointed me in the right direction and without too much trouble I found exit 12, and the coffee shop Wallin was supposed to be waiting by…except there was no Wallin. I checked inside the shop as well, but he was no where to be found. I looked around a bit, but was sure not to wander to far from the meeting spot. Eventually I heard Wallin calling me and a teary-eyed reunion ensued. Turns out Wallin saw a bus pull away right when he arrived, and assumed the bus was early and I had been on that one. It was quite the opposite, but apparently Wallin had then thought he lost me and was all worried looking around for me. Aww…he really does care about me. Now that I’m in a brand new country, what do I do first? That’s right, we went straight to capoeira practice. One-track mind? Maybe. Anywho, we get there, only to find them in a circle practicing instruments. And this is after hearing Wallin complain about them never practicing music…was he lying this whole time? We joined the circle and Wallin’s story was quickly corroborated when I heard the quality of the music. The instructor was barely singing loud enough to hear him over the instruments, and I certainly couldn’t understand what he was saying. Granted, he is Korean, and thus Portuguese isn’t his native language, and a certain amount of slack could be given for being sloppy with words, but I wasn’t hearing any consonants whatsoever. Either everyone else couldn’t hear him, or they just didn’t care, because hardly anyone was singing. And one girl who had a tambourine looked like a freaking zombie. No energy, mouth not moving, and I swear the tambourine was striking her hand, and not the other way around. We stretched a tiny bit and then it was roda time. It started out slowly and built up, and it was fun enough in that I got to play against new people, but there was definitely a lack of dialogue/communication in their play.
And then the instructor…I don’t know if he just learned a different style of capoeira regional, but I almost couldn’t stand watching him play. He never had his guard up and was throwing these lazy kicks, and all around just playing sloppily, at least in my opinion. I realize I’m not hot shit myself, but if he’s supposed to be an instructor…
It would be a good place to improve acrobatics, though, as a number of the guys in the class were pulling off barrel rolls and folha secas over the mats after class, but that’s only a small part of capoeira. Anyway, long story short, I now understand Wallin’s frustration.


After practice, we headed off to meet up with a couple of Wallin’s friends. We found them outside a bar, but Wallin and I hadn’t eaten yet, so we went to a restaurant and grabbed dinner first. They had the heating surface in the middle of the table and we ended up getting chicken w/veggies. Lots of steam shot up and helped warm me up, seeing as it was a good 20 degrees colder in Seoul than in Ogaki. The food was spicy and tasted of kimchi, but I enjoyed it and it actually went well with the soju (standard Korean alcohol, approx. 40 proof) and crappy beer. Wallin apparently hates soju, but I didn’t think it was that bad. Then again, I’ve had baijiu (China’s standard spirit), which is at least twice as strong and three times harder to drink, so my scale may be a bit skewed. After chatting it up and getting a proper buzz going, we headed to the bar, which actually ended up being more of a lounge atmosphere, to meet up with Wallin’s friends, Jenna and Carrie (sp?). They apparently bought a bottle of wine to split, but it was so bad, they had Wallin and I help finish it off. Apparently in appreciation for taking one for the team and buying such a horrible wine, they were given a plate of appetizers/snacks. It looked pretty sketchy and they hadn’t touched it. I gave one of the “nacho” looking things a try and whatever they put on top (which sure as hell wasn’t cheese) was not pleasant. I then tried one of the mandarin orange wedges, which tasted vaguely of mint, nothing like orange, and was equally unpalatable.

After chatting about life in Korea vs. Japan, etc. for awhile, we called it a night. We headed back to Wallin’s apartment, where I got to sleep in a space that was…drumroll…centrally heated! That alone was pretty amazing. Wallin’s apartment itself is pretty spiffy as well. Everything looks relatively clean and modern…he has kitchen space…and a dining table…and a not ghetto bathroom. However, he also has a bug infestation, which I don’t envy him for. And earwigs at that, blech!

The next day we got a late start, but eventually headed over to a district called Insadong, which is by far my favorite area of Seoul. We grabbed some walnut paste filled donuts from a street vendor, and those were quite tasty and filling. There was a lot a souvenir shopping to be had, so the foreigner/tourist population in this district was rather large. We were in particular looking for an awesome teahouse Wallin had been to before. We ended up wandering down all these different side alleys, which at times felt like their own little maze and definitely had a distinct personality/atmosphere. I particularly enjoyed wandering down and exploring these side paths.

We didn't find the one he was thinking of, but in the process managed to find an even better one. And this tea house is my favorite place in Korea, beyond a shadow of a doubt. The inside was super warm and had tons of character. It had a very natural, earthy feel to it, and the coup de gras is that there were about 6 or so live birds chirping freely inside. They weren’t caged, so every once in awhile one or two would fly overhead across the room. And this is to say nothing of the tea, which was also incredible. Wallin raved about the plum tea, but I went with the citron tea, which was sweet and sour and incredibly yummy. There were even a bunch of citron rinds at the bottom you could mash for even more flavor. We were waiting for Jenna to meet us there, so once she arrived, we of course had to have another cup. This time I went with the plum tea, which tasted like candy and put me in a happy place. Soooo good.
There were also these puffed rice snacks that came with the tea. They had a slightly sweet flavor and I enjoyed those thoroughly, too. If I ever make it back to Korea, I AM coming back to this place.

We attempted to go to the imperial palace that day, but due to our late start, and the fact that they apparently close at 4pm, we had to abandon that and go to plan B. This involved unexpectedly stumbling upon a new, free to the public exhibit about Hangul, Korea’s writing system, which is so FREAKIN scientific, you won’t be able to handle its awesomeness. Or at least that’s what they would like to have you believe. For some reason, Koreans take what I believe to be an inordinately large amount of pride in Hangul. I think it’s cool that have pride in their writing, don’t get me wrong, they are just very in your face and over the top about it. There was a volunteer interpreter who started explaining some of the exhibit to us. First sentence out of his mouth? “Hangul is really scientific!” *facepalm* It is certainly easy to learn (an hour on a website the night before I left was enough for me to be able to read signs/sound out words) and simple to write (no 22 stroke symbols), but there is just no end to the pro-Hangul mania. And of course they drew a comparison, saying hangul could better approximate English words than katakana, the Japanese writing system for adopting foreign words. Whatever you say, guys. To be honest, neither is perfect, and which one does a better job depends on what individual word you pick. Despite being overkill, I did kind of like the emphasis on science. They even had some navigational/astronomical tool on the 10,000 Won bill. “It’s science!”

Wallin then proposed heading to this tower that supposedly had a pretty sweet view of Seoul at night. Sounded like an all right plan. Then we got there and were in line for the cable car when we realized we were pretty much the only non-couple there. Apparently this is quite the popular date spot as well. Of course, for all I know, this could all have simply been a ploy by Wallin to try to get in my pants. He kept giving me that look, like he wanted to hold my hand. It also turns out that Korean women have a similar high-pitched annoying scream/squeal, one that I swear every girl let fly when the cable car jerked a little bit and left the platform. It's like they'd never been on a cable car before. And even if you hadn't, what were you expecting?! Of course it is going to be hanging over nothing, with a rather large drop to the ground. That's the point! Yet this was apparently reason for everyone to scream. We got to the top, at which point Wallin wanted to attached a padlock to the fence, symbolizing our love. And then he saw a place indoors that would make a mold of a couple's clasped hands, and wanted to do that. I realize he's not having the best of luck finding Korean women he's interested in, but this was getting ridiculous. In all seriousness, though, the view was spectacular, and I managed to a pretty decent shot of the night skyline.

After that excitement, Wallin and I took a stroll down this river that runs through Seoul while Jenna met up with Amy to do some shopping. Apparently the city fixed up the river area a few years ago, and it is a really nice place to stroll through. They had a lantern display going on, so there were some interesting decorations to look at as well. We wandered through one of Seoul’s marketplaces (I believe this was the “wholesale” one, so pretty cheap). After not buying anything, we were going to meet up with Jenna and Amy…who had apparently been drinking…outside, in 30-something degree weather. I can tell I’ve already been away from Wisconsin too long because for second I thought that was weird. Way to represent Wisconsin, ladies. It took a couple subway transfers to reach them, but when we did, we found they had consumed a bottle of wine…each. We also saw empty wrappers from chocolate and Camembert cheese. Apparently, this was supposed to be their dinner. Not a smart choice. We dragged them along to a proper restaurant. Jenna wanted to keep drinking, but Amy wisely slowed down. I did my best to drink most of the bottle of soju, but my efforts were squashed when Jenna ordered another bottle, held on to it, and proceeded to drink from it. Yeah, your imaginations aren’t far off…nothing good is going to come of this. The meal itself was, well, fatty. We were at a grilled meat place, and whatever we ordered was at least 60% fat. It’s a good thing the alcohol kicked in and I stopped caring, otherwise I don’t think I could’ve put down much. The grease was tasty enough, but that much fat just isn’t appetizing.

After this meal, the four of us planned to grab a taxi over to where another friend of their group was hanging out. On the way there, Jenna passed out in the backseat, and when she woke up…yup, she started puking. We got out of the cab right away (thankfully it mainly went on her bag) paid the good man (who was laughing at the whole situation) and let Jenna finish cleansing the system. Amy decided she would go with Jenna to find her a hotel for the night. This all happened quite quickly and Wallin and I soon realized we should have jumped in the cab with them. Why? Because we soon got a call from Amy saying they had to stop that cab as well for further “evacuation.” It got real interesting, because when Amy was paying the cabbie, Jenna just ran off. So she is now wasted and by herself, wandering Seoul. If that’s not a recipe for disaster, I don’t know what is. Wallin and I just decided to wander random around where we thought their cab would’ve headed, in hopes of maybe running into Jenna. Thankfully, after about 15-20 minutes, we got a call saying Amy had found Jenna and gotten her into a hotel. Whew, crisis averted. We stopped by to drop off her half puke-covered bag, which I had been carrying the whole time.

With Jenna securely in a hotel room, the three of us headed to Hongdae to meet up with the other friend of theirs. We ended in a bar/hookah bar/club that actually have a pretty cool cave-like interior. We found our own little alcove seating area and took a breather after all of the hullabaloo. Thanks to the ladies, Wallin and I found ourselves on the dance floor. Yeah, picture Wallin and I dancing…not pretty. They had a decent, if not odd mix of music, with random techno, followed by Nirvana, followed by “Rock Around the Clock.”

No one really cared to drink given the previous craziness, but Wallin ended up buying a beer just because he felt bad that none of us had bought anything since arriving at this place. We hung out a bit longer then decided to call it a night and headed back to Wallin’s place. Amy also crashed at Wallin’s place and ended up making us breakfast in the morning. I forget what they are called now (English fail) but she made the toast with an egg in the middle. I also think I drank a gallon of the orange juice Wallin had on hand. We also got a late start this day (noticing a trend?), but eventually headed toward the palace to rectify yesterday’s mistake. Amy headed back home to the countryside, but we met up with Jenna (now alive and well) for the palace.




This was pretty cool and the grounds were expansive. To be honest, this stuff all starts to look the same, so I was trying to find characteristics that were different from Japan and China. What makes this thing Korean? The degree of curvature on the roofs seemed a little more severe, and they used the green a heck of a lot more than I’ve seen anywhere else. I was also struck by one of these old style buildings having a chimney attached to it. It makes sense in terms of heating the place, but I’d just never seen that combo before. There was also a museum on the grounds that had a lot of interesting stuff about Korean culture (which I’m pretty clueless about other than Taekwondo). They had an exhibit on traditional Korean clothing and a bunch of old tools/implements…including the “placenta chamber.” Yeah, you read that correctly.
Apparently they though burying the placenta after birth would lead to an auspicious life for the child. Go figure.

On Monday, I got a late start and climbed the large hill next to Wallin’s place. It was a really nice wooded path and maybe took 45 min to get to the top. What was distinctly Korean, or at least something I had never seen before, were the little exercise stations located just off the trail. Every so often I would come upon one of these, where there were always a number of elderly folks deluding themselves into thinking they were getting exercise. At best, most of the equipment could facilitate some light stretching. The most noteworthy contraption being the spin platform that you rotate on while holding onto a steady post. A very…unique phenomenon, if anything. After getting back down the hill, I attempted to find a subway station and head to the old Olympic park, but I got turned around and ended up just exploring the surrounding area, and then killing time at a cafĂ© until Wallin got back from work. We hit up capoeira again that night, and then I headed out early the next morning. On the bus back, there was a suspicious looking statue as we approached the airport. Way to keep it classy, Korea.