upcoming jaunts in 2014

Good morning, hangers-on! And ain't it a fine April day? The sun is shining, the kkachi (magpies) are screeching love songs, the yellow dust is nearly gone, one of my students told me I've lost weight and I'm almost over the 24-hour bug I caught. Time to plan some trips.



So I went through the Korean calendar and I found out that 2014 is the year of three-day weekends. Here's a list I compiled of holidays (and the potential trips which might accompany them). I might not be traveling overseas for every little break I've got here, but it's intoxicating to contemplate the possibilities. So here you go:

1. May 3-7 (Children’s Day, Buddha’s Birthday): nothing planned, as it's probably too late; though I might see if there's a last-minute deal for Taiwan or something, just for me. I have five days, but Miss H and Miss J have four. Ha-ha. [blows raspberry]

2. June 6-8 (Memorial Day): Miss H and I were thinking about Jeju Island. We need to jump on the web tonight and book tickets NOW, though.

3. July 12-August 10 (my summer vacation): my big trip. I've shelved Mongolia for the moment, as it seems all the good stuff there is really far apart and requires guides and prepaid tours to access. I'll have to save that for later. But I'm still going to do Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, and whatever country Miss H and I decide to visit for...

4. August 2-10 (Miss H's summer vacation): she and I still need to work this out. And fast. Hong Kong might be too small to sustain a week-long trip, so we're thinking Japan—Kyushu and southern Honshu. We could see Miyajima (its sacred torii gate which seems to float upon the water at high tide); Kyoto; Nara (Japan's ancient capital); Hiroshima; Nagasaki; Kagoshima (known as "the Naples of Japan" for its smoking volcano, tropical climate and hot-tempered locals) and other stuff. Yeah, I like that idea. Maybe we could even visit a hot spring and Miss H could sample her first capsule hotel. It'll be my third trip to Japan, but there's still so much I haven't seen.

5. August 15-17 (Liberation Day): another three-day weekend. Might have to be used for a rest period, understandably. But if Miss J's summer vacation lines up with it...that's a different story. Hong Kong anyone?

6. September 6-9 (Chuseok): four days. Always tricky to travel over Chuseok, as that's precisely what the other umpteen million Koreans (and a lot of Chinese folks as well) are doing. But we'll figure it out. Someplace tropical, we're thinking.

7. October 3-5 (National Foundation Day): another three-day weekend.

8. February 18-22 (Seolnar): a full five days! We gotta do something! 

After February 2015, of course, Miss H and I will head back to the U.S.A. (most likely Las Vegas or Tuscon), settle down, and embark upon our careers and family lives. I won't hang up my travelin' boots, though. I hope to pull in enough money from my writing to take time off and globe-trot some more. Miss H and I still haven't seen Europe, and I've got some trekking in South America and some safariing in Africa to do yet. I still need to ride trains through Canada and Australia and Russia and India, too.

But this'll do for right now.

Bongeunsa Buddhist Temple and homeward

I woke up the next morning still suitably stuffed. I dithered for a bit after packing, not knowing exactly what the Tiffany's check-out time was. (Silly me, sometimes I act so much like a blockhead tourist I disgust myself.)

Anyway, to be on the safe side I checked out and hit the streets. I still had a couple of hours to kill before our appointed meet-up time. Adam and Elaine would be meeting me at the subway station at Sinchon about an hour or so before our train departed, giving us plenty of time to go a couple of subway stops, fight our way inside Seoul Station, perhaps grab a snack, secure our tickets and a place in the line, and get on board. Jeff would be catching the bus down to Geoje later on with Bryan. We'd all been so drunk two nights previously that we'd neglected to finalize our rendezvous, so Adam thoughtfully Facebooked me about it and I, my mind running along similar wavelengths, had gone to the nearest PC bang and received his message. (Whew!) So that was all set.

Now, what to do on a bright Tuesday morning, the last day of Seolnar, with two hours to spare and Jamsil stretching all shiny, cool and hazy before you?

I figured I'd do like I'd seen all the trendy young Korean couples do and go to one of the myriad coffee houses that dot Jamsil and have a cup of joe. I tried, but no such luck; they were still closed, even at mid-morning. I tried the door of one of them and succeeded in doing nothing more than setting off the burglar alarm. Unconcerned, and noting that opening time was a mere 30 minutes away, I sat down and updated my journal in the cool January breeze. I observed with detached interest as an ADF security vehicle pulled up and a uniformed man got out, went up to the coffeehouse behind me, unlocked the door, and examined the interior of the premises for burglars and thieves. Finding none, he shut off the alarm, made a call to his superiors, then got in and drove away.

None of this really connected up in my mind with the fact that I myself had set off that alarm; I was too busy thinking about how I was going to make the most of my last few hours in Seoul. Then suddenly I knew my calling. There was still a blank spot on the map. It was labeled simply "Bongeunsa." It was depicted with the strange obelisk-shaped icon merely denoting an object of cultural interest. Having no idea what it could be (I rather suspected it to be some kind of memorial park rather than a temple), I trudged in its direction.

It proved to be a good deal closer to me than either COEX or the Han River, which was saying something: hardly a block away across the street. As it happened, it was a Buddhist temple! I stood reverently outside the towering gates for a moment before steeling my nerves, bowing twice (once each to the four nearly life-size statuettes enshrined within those gates), and entering.

Being inside was like the realization of a dream. In my fantasies about world travel I had always envisioned myself, wearing travel-dusted clothes, hat clapped to my head, notebooks and pens in my pockets, wandering around the earthen streets of temples and castles and towns on the far sides of the world. Suddenly I was really doing it. Bongeunsa didn't seem all that separate from Seoul proper. The glittering edifices still presided in the distant hazy sky, and the traffic, though light, still broadcast the occasional roar or honk. Yet Bongeunsa did manage to be separate, somehow. Ethereal might be the term.

From Merriam-Webster Online:

ethe·re·al (\i-ˈthir-ē-əl\) 1 a: of or pertaining to the regions beyond the earth; b: celestial, heavenly; c: unworldly, spiritual. 2 a: lacking material substance; immaterial; intangible. b: marked by an unusual delicacy or refinement; c: suggesting the heavens or heaven. 3: relating to, containing, or resembling the chemical ether.

All of those multitudinous definitions, excluding the seventh and final one, which is slightly too literal, fit the bill. There was a haze of blue, fragrant smoke hanging over the place, from the wood fire they had going in one corner of the square for visitor's warmth. Buddhist chants, eldritch yet strangely soothing, slid peacefully from speakers hung from the eaves of the traditional buildings. Pious Koreans, many of them middle-aged or elderly but with some younger demographics represented, wandered in and out of the temple buildings, or clustered in worship. In the central square, my first sight upon entering, there were about three dozen people grouped about a twenty-foot obelisk:

Supplicants bowed at each of its four sides, pursuant to the four points of the compass; then they lit candles and incense sticks at an altar on its south side, and prayed. Behind the obelisk, up a set of stairs, was what seemed to be the main temple. Before entering, everyone doffed their shoes. Inside, on prayer cushions the size of card tables, Korean men and women bowed and prayed before an enormous golden statue of Buddha and two of his acolytes, itself in front of a rich tapestry of the Enlightened One's doings, under a ceiling of oddly grouped and planed wooden blocks painted in varied colors, supported by thick, cylindrical wooden rafters from which enormous dragons leered down with hollow eyes and fanged jaws. Or so my memory seems to recall; I took no pictures for fear of violating some half-imagined sacred law.

Outside and further along the trail up the hillside were smaller temples of sorts. They seemed to resemble Catholic confessionals; inside there were one or two monks in attendance (there had been about a half-dozen at the main temple; I had just missed the services) and many, many candles, as well as what looked like booths.

The crowning glory of that exploration, however, was what awaited me just a little ways farther on: the Buddha himself.

I saw this statue, all fifty or sixty feet of it, looming all of a sudden to my right. I stood in awe. I hadn't imagined I'd find anything like this short of the deepest jungles of Burma or Thailand. Reverence of a different sort was happening at the statue's base; on the polished marble floor you see in the picture (which also necessitated the doffing of shoes), people were doing worship. At the bowl-like altar you see at the base of the statue were more candles and more incense.

I could explain the significance of these things if I knew a little more about Buddhism, heh heh...not about to trust Wikipedia on the subject, I'm afraid...

I wish I could describe such events with the significance they deserve, but I was ever inarticulate when describing religious practices with any sort of reverence. I must practice more. On my way out of the temple I saw the raised, roofed platform wherein was kept the enormous conical bell, and the gigantic two-sided drum, both Buddhist instruments of the highest importance.

I also saw this, which I absolutely must try someday:


Isn't that cool? It's called a temple stay, and you can do them at many of the temples in Korea. You stay overnight (or a couple of nights) and you basically live the life of a monk. That includes getting up at four in the morning and chanting sutras. Notice how it doesn't say anything about that on the notice.

So, finally, the time had come. I trudged down to the station, quite pleased with myself. I'd managed to hit everything on my to-do list except Lotte World, which had proved to be out of my reach (for whatever reason, distance or time or lack of sobriety). No matter. I knew this wasn't the last time I'd be in Seoul. I'd had a taster; a week or two was needed to assay the rest of it. Not that I wanted to take up permanent residence or anything, and seeing as how it was the first major foreign city I'd ever seen, it still struck me as being a place affable to foreigners and forgiving of mistakes and miscalculation, perhaps more so than European cities and even the remainder of Korea.

Seoul had been described to me by Koreans as being like its own country. As internationalized as it had proved to be (signs in English every which-way, and a great deal more Western food, coffee, and clothing store chains, not to mention public transportation, street layout and architecture indistinguishable from many U.S. cities I'd been to), I could see their point. Seoul is foreigner-friendly to a degree, I'm sure, rarely seen anywhere else.

I duly met up with Adam and Elaine at Sinchon, after duly getting my jonesed-for cup of joe at a coffee house called "A Twosome Place." I had a cinnamon-chip mocha, and for what it's worth, it wasn't bad. I'm not much of a coffee drinker, and I don't go for limp-wrist pansy-ass coffee drinks like that (much less fruity cocktails like Oaxaca Jim), but it got the job done. I can now say I've had coffee in Seoul, trendily.

A, E, and I emerged into the now-familiar chaos of Seoul station, made note of our departure gate, then found a small diner and took a break. I had an egg sandwich whose flavor was somewhat tarnished by a soggy English muffin and the inclusion of green peppers. Then we got into line, boarded the train, and had an uneventful (and somehow even slower) trip back to Busan.

I'll never forget the cab ride from Busan Station to the bus annex. The cabbie asked us if we wanted to listen to one of his CDs. He put it in and (lo and behold!) Get Low by Lil' John and the Eastside Boyz started blaring out of his speakers. I'm no more a fan of hip-hop (or crunk) than I am of limp-wristed coffee drinks, but still, this "song" still had some nostalgic value for me; I remember getting low out on the dance floor many a time in high school. So there I was, grumbling the lyrics away under my breath in my best imitation of Lil' John, with Adam and Elaine behind me, grinning indulgently.

It was in Busan, in fact, that we hit the first and only real snag concerning transportation. We had some difficulty finding the station itself, first of all. The building we were dumped off at had several levels; we were on the third before we figured we'd gone too far; we went back to the second, followed the signs, and wound up on the third level again; finally, on our second run through the second level, a sympathetic employee (the second level was a clothing store) who'd noticed us go through the first time pointed us in the right direction. Turned out we had to utterly traverse the first building and venture across a footbridge to a second building behind it, which was the bus station.

That spot of trouble overcome, we then hit another one, somewhat more serious. We'd planned to catch a bus from Busan directly to Gohyeon, but we arrived at the station too late; the final run had already departed. Crossing our fingers and trusting to luck, we caught a bus for Tongyeong (still having to run to make it in time), hoping we could catch a bus from there to Gohyeon, or at least a cab. After an extremely claustrophobic and uncomfortable ride (my bag was on my knees, and Korean bus drivers all seem to have lead feet on both pedals), we were in Tongyeong. Our luck held. We caught the next bus for Gohyeon and got home safe and sound, breathless and exhausted, heads spinning and hearts pounding. Best of all, we had the next day, Wednesday, off! We used it to recuperate, and the weekend following.

I suppose this is the point where I should sum up this informative treatise with a restatement of my thesis (whatever that was) and some kind of witty, pithy, articulate thought, but in reflection of the fact that this is a blog and not a travel article, and that I am recovering from a nasty cold right now, and that I hate this conclusion part of writing anyway, I'm going to say the hell with it and just sign off. Hope you enjoyed the tale, and annyeong for now.

the Han River and Olympic Park

Man alive, I haven't told you about the rest of the Seolnar Seoul jaunt! Where were we? Ah yes!

So, I woke up the next morning after that ill-fated night at the noraebang in Sinchon. I had only the vaguest recollection of staggering up the steps, hailing a taxi, and riding for what seemed like hours in it, all the way back across town back down to Jamsil and my hotel. Mind you, I didn't have any recollections at all until my head stopped hurting, and at the outset that seemed like a pretty tall order. It was fit to split. I woke up and it was as if somebody had driven a pickaxe through my brain. I lay prostrate on my bed, willing every muscle to go limp, readjusting my position every few minutes (hours?). It did no good. Finally I couldn't stand it any more and lurched into the bathroom for a scalding hot shower. I resolved, as I leaned against the wall of the shower with my eyes closed, relishing the miracle of hot running water, that I would never touch that devilish soju again.

Conditions were much improved after I exited the shower, toweled off, dressed (The Matrix was playing on the TV...thank goodness for English-language movie channels), then headed outside to find something to eat. I managed to locate a Sizzler steakhouse. Yep, they've got those in Korea too. I ate a rather large meal of barbecue pork ribs with a side of potato and veggies, paid up, and headed outside.

My resolve had not weakened. Even in the darkest hours of my Hangover Recovery Time, lying on my hotel bed and clutching it like it was the International Space Station and I an astronaut with no tether, I had promised myself that I would not let this precious final full day in Korea's capital city elapse without making use of it. Indeed, I was now feeling better than ever...it was almost as though I had a normal everyday garden-variety hangover instead of the apocalyptic demon I had woken up with.

I still felt a little fragile, however, so my choice of attractions was simple: the Han River, a mere ten minute's walk from my hotel, in the opposite direction of the COEX Mall (north). I had planned this early on before coming to Seoul. At some point I would journey to the Han River, cross the Yongdong Bridge, descend to the riverbank, and rent a bicycle at a stall shown on the map in my guidebook. I'd then bike along the river for a ways and take photos.

Stages 1-3 of that plan came off like a charm. It was the penultimate one, the renting of a bicycle, that was a bust. The vendor was shut up for the holiday. Darn! Oh well. It was still a beautiful day, if a bit muted. The wind was blowing chill and the sun was obscured by halfhearted clouds, but it peeked through at pivotal moments. I strolled along the footpath, heading east, and managed some good photos of the partially frozen river and Ttukseom Riverside Park:
After a half-hour or so I returned to my room, a little let down but glad I'd still gotten to see what I did. I sat down in my room to take a break and warm up. I switched on another movie and marshaled my faculties. I decided to make another excursion. Lotte World, the Korean Disneyland, was out of the question: a bit of a jaunt even though it was in the same district, and like as not shut up for the holiday as well.

That left Olympic Park. It was just a hop, skip and a jump away, a few stops on the pink line from Jamsil proper. That sounded nice and easy: a stroll through a famous park on a winter's evening at sunset. I waited until I saw the sunlight trickling amiably through the curtains at an acute angle, then grabbed my stuff and split. It was a slight hike to the subway station, but one stop later I was at my destination. Whoever designed the station at Jamsil had planned well. From the bottom of the stairs at the Olympic Park exit, the staircase seems to open up into a vast trapezoid of endless blue sky. It is not until your head emerges from the ground and your feet lift you into cold, clear air that Olympic Park takes you full in the face, lit by the glow of the dying sun:
I spent the next hour or two wandering around this place, taking photos like any flathead gumshoe tourist. There's one of the fluttering flags of the dozens of nations that took part in the 1988 Seoul Olympics to which the park is dedicated...
One depicts scores of bundled-up Koreans ice-skating on a rink set up in the center of the park...
Another few take in the Olympic Museum (shut for Seolnar), the lovable statues of tigers dressed in hanbok (Korean ceremonial dress) in front of it; the sunlit skyline of Jamsil; lovers pedaling around on side-by-side two-person bicycles shielded from the wintry air by sheets of plastic; and the eternal flame under the World Peace Gate at the entrance to the park, fluttering in the frigid, friendly breeze.
And that was that. I walked around a bit more, saw a few buildings, grabbed a delicious raisin cookie and a warm bun with chocolate chips embedded in it at a nearby bakery, then munched my way back to the subway station. On the way to my hotel I stopped by a Family Mart and bought up about thirty thousand won's worth of junk food and snacks. Then I toted the lot back to my room, switched on the telly, and had a flippantly lazy, unhealthy feast.


Then I shut out the lights and went to bed. Next up: BONGEUNSA BUDDHIST TEMPLE AND HOMEWARD!

N'Seoul Tower

The next day, refreshed and ready for a full day in Seoul (boy, little did I realize), I strode out boldly bound for Myeongdong. That was almost back where I'd started, just a few stops north of Seoul Station. I found myself in a much different neighborhood than Jamsil: narrower streets (but still wide; this was near the city center after all), not as many tall buildings, and a great deal fewer coffee shops.

I was slightly concerned. Though we'd agreed to meet at Myeongdong Station, we'd been unaware of how massive it was. The station itself must have had entrances and exits on at least six city streets for blocks around; on the street where I'd surfaced, there were no less than eight. Fortunately, though, after a bit of walking back and forth and craning my neck, I managed to find Jeff, and his friend Bryan, who'd flown in yesterday from Canada. Bryan was a bear of a guy with long curly hair. We exchanged introductions and pleasantries. Soon enough Adam and Elaine happened up (they'd been in contact with Jeff via cell phone, and knew where to find us) and we got into a cab for a quick ride to the cable car station at the foot of Namsan Mountain, visible from our vantage point outside the subway station. The sun was shining down, but the air and breeze were chilly: a perfect day, in my opinion.

We purchased our tickets in the sunny office and then sat down to wait for the bell to ring, signaling the return of a cable car. We weren't waiting long, and managed to snag an ideal spot in the queue. I was squished into the front-left corner of the car: perfect. From there, I managed to get a mind-blowing view of Seoul on that winter's morning, and a few pictures that didn't turn out so hot but will be suitable for memory stimulation (see Jamsil jamboree). And then we were ascending the wide wooden staircase to the summit of the mountain and the entrance to the tower. It was an imposing sight:


I must admit to giggling like a little kid and running ahead of the others past the trees, gazebos and vistas that populated the top of the mountain to the entrance of the tower.

We all made it inside and went to the top, where we were greeted (after a moment...it seems we were the only ones there, and there was some confusion as to whether the place, N'Grill by name, was actually open) and seated. After a minute or two of looking at the menu, the restaurant started revolving.

V. . . . . . e . . . . . . . r. . . . . . . y . . . . . . s . . . . . . l . . . . . . o . . . . . w . . . . . l . . . . . . y.

I think we were there for nearly three hours and we progressed through only 270 points of the compass. We started out at roughly north-northwest, and hardly made it to the northeast before we strode out of the place.

(I don't know where my craving for speed on this trip was issuing from but it plagued me the whole time we were in Seoul. First the bullet train didn't go fast enough and now the rotating restaurant didn't rotate properly. I wasn't asking for a carousel or anything like that, I just wanted to see the whole panorama once or twice instead of 0.75 times.)

As for the meal itself, though it was delicious and didn't break the bank (as we were in a group and we ordered as many group specials as possible), the meal portions were disappointing. I've never found a filet mignon the size of a Post-It note to be all that satisfying. I did get to eat a little lobster tail, though, and there was enough pasta to go around.

We sat and conversed and r............o................t...............a..................t.................e.............d, and then settled up. We hopped down one flight of stairs and found ourselves on the observation deck, equipped with a paltry gift shop and a better snack bar. I got a cookie to assuage our recent meal's inadequacy (which sure beat gnawing on a lobster shell, which I'd been doing) and we gazed out at Seoul. Or what we could see of it; a snowstorm moved in as we stood there and visibility rapidly disintegrated. Eventually all we could see was the ground, and only then the patch that was closest to the tower. I can't tell you what a weird feeling it is to be looking out of a massive plate glass window at the ground hundreds of feet below and see snow blowing by BENEATH you.

Your intrepid correspondent. This was taken before the aforementioned snow started blowing but it demonstrates the perspective I was speaking about in the previous paragraph.

Also, on that level there was a small booth set up where you could sign a piece of paper with your name, make a wish, and tack it to a bulletin board. The point of this was simple: every Seolnar the powers-that-be in the city send aloft a balloon with all these wishes tied to it, the theory being that they will all come true as a result. I couldn't resist, and wished to have no hangover in the morning. Bryan and Adam and Jeff went in for it too.

Then we rode the cable car back down, and trudged the rest of the way down the mountain in that furious snowstorm. It wasn't windy, there was just a lot of big, wet flakes coming down. It was actually quite charming, and I rejoiced that got a chance to feel some snow on my head (and catch some snowflakes on my tongue) that winter. We'd gotten only two small flurries on Geoje Island, temperate island that it is. Up in Seoul it was truly winter.

We didn't split up. Piqued by my glowing reports of COEX, the others decided to hitch a subway ride with me back to Jamsil and see for themselves. I did my best to show them around on the same route I'd walked the previous day, but I didn't have much luck, and I'm sure they were disappointed. We were still there three hours though. We did a more thorough sweep of Bandi & Luni's (here's another couple of pictures)...
...and had some fun at the arcade. Adam and I had a go at The Lost World and I got to lasso a few more African animals on Jambo! Safari. Unfortunately the line for House of the Dead 4 was still really long. That, or the deadpan youth standing in front of it and calmly blasting undead abominations was actually a staff member and was busily demonstrating for the crowd. Whatever the case he was standing there both times I went to COEX, for as long as I'd been there. He must've had quite the insoles in his shoes to let him do that. We checked out some of the cooler shops, too. I got a compact for my mother at a particular Korean curio boutique.
Thence we adjourned to Sinchon, Adam and Elaine's stomping grounds, for a night on the town. We hit a few bars, drank a few beers, and just wandered.

In our wanderings we discovered something never equalled or even approached before or since in our Korean sojourn: Mr. Wow. Outside one bar there was a vendor set up who was selling what looked for all the world like enormous bratwursts on a bun with mustard and ketchup. On my friends' recommendation (they'd tried them before and had been favorably impressed, even if the brats were unexpectedly spicy) I bought one and chomped on it as we marched along to the next bar. It was 25% spicy and 100% delicious, and one of the primary reasons I want to see Seoul again before I leave. (Although we do now have it on good authority that Mr. Wow has scions in Busan...)

Much later that night, after many more pints of liquor apiece, we wound up in a noraebang. I believe I explained in Korean nightlife that a noraebang is a "singing room," otherwise known as karaoke. Only they do it right in Korea. You get a private room to yourself, snacks and booze, TV screens, disco balls, tambourines, and can just go at it for hours. This we did. I don't even remember what tunes we put on; last thing I truly remember is trying to equal Steve Tyler on "Sweet Emotion," while reaching for my beer and missing by a couple inches. We stayed until closing time, which was remarkable, as those places don't close until the wee hours of the morning ain't so wee anymore. Somehow I grabbed a taxi outside and paid the enormous fee to get back to Jamsil. I was completely gone. I undressed and tumbled into bed, and hovered somewhere between sleep and unconsciousness.

Don't miss part four, THE HAN RIVER AND OLYMPIC PARK...

Jamsil jamboree

Phases 1-5 of the grand plan had been completed. We boarded the KTX, quivering with excitement. I'd never ridden a train quite like it before. It was streamlined, sleek, and imposing; the interior resembled a jumbo jet more than a passenger train (a similarity I would rue a few hours later). I even had a window seat. The windows were huge, and commanded a thorough view of the surrounding countryside (not that it mattered). I sat down, arrayed my possessions comfortably about me, and prepared for the ride of my life.

...which ultimately failed to materialize. Maybe I've been desensitized to speed (real or imagined) by action and sci-fi movies, but 300 kilometers an hour just didn't seem like it. First off, we were only going that fast for about 20 minutes out of the whole rotten three-hour ride. The distance between Busan and our first stop, Gupo, was so small that it wasn't feasible to power up and rocket down the line to get there. Meanwhile, there's me, sitting with my face glued to the window, impatiently waiting for the countryside to turn into a mammoth motion blur, silently urging the engineers to hit the juice. Nothing doing. Heck, between Gupo and Daejeon we only hit 250 kilometers, and I started to get an idea of what a disappointment I was in for. If this is 250 kilometers, I thought as I watched the small towns and rolling hills and mountains and forests pass by a non-blurry fashion, 300 kilometers isn't going to be anything special.

I was right. After Daejeon, our speed finally increased (very, very gradually) to 300 kilometers per hour. First I knew of it was when I looked up at the TV monitors embedded in the ceiling of the car and saw the little speed readout in the upper corner of one of them ticking off our rate of travel. Looking out the window I wouldn't have known. One hundred and eighty-six miles per hour over the ground seemed, as I looked out at the countryside going by, no faster than freeway travel.

I managed to stop being disappointed for the snow that appeared as we neared the northern end of the country, blanketing the countryside with a soft veneer of white I'd already subconsciously resigned myself to missing down on the islands.

Adam, Elaine, Jeff and I had deliberately left Phase Seven (traverse the Seoul subway system) out of our group plan, because our individual plans diverged at that point. Adam and Elaine were off to Sinchon, in the northerly part of Seoul not far from the city center, to sample the nightlife. Jeff was headed to the Insadong airport to pick up his friend Bryan, flying in from Ottawa; thence they'd head to north Seoul and kick around.

I was destined for Jamsil, south-southeast Seoul, across the Han River. It was the fun district, whence lay Olympic Park, the Sports Complex, and the gigantic COEX Mall. It seemed like an interesting place to spend a few days, so I'd picked out my hotel, and with (literally) no reservations, I said my goodbyes to the others, promised to meet up with them the next day at Myeongdong for lunch atop N'Seoul Tower, and boarded a subway train.

The ride was long. I had to go 12 stops, including my destination, Cheongdam, a little north of Jamsil proper but still in the neighborhood. I emerged from the station and got my first look at my Seoul district of choice.


I found my hotel, the Tiffany, with a little difficulty, despite the fact that it was staring me in the face. (It's just fifty yards down the sidewalk to the right in the above picture; you could see the sign from the subway station.) I checked in, first having to make a down payment on my room. This hotel had been described in my guidebook thus: "Like an old pickup truck, this hotel doesn't look pretty but it gets the job done." This was true. It wasn't much to look at from the outside, much less the inside. But the rooms were clean and bright and suitable.

Without much ado, pausing only to wash some travel grime from my face, take off an underlayer, and re-equip myself with a camera and some water, I sallied forth into the chilly winter's day (it was much colder in Seoul than it was on Geoje, thank goodness; I'd begun to feel as though I'd miss out on winter weather entirely). My destination was the nearest Jamsil attraction to my hotel: the COEX Mall.

The outside view was pretty stunning to a boy raised in the 'burbs like myself. The mall was underground but the skyscraper above it was full of corporate offices and meeting rooms.

Reputedly the largest underground mall in Asia, COEX sports an unbelievable array of diversions: an aquarium, a massive bookstore, an arcade, a duty-free shop, and enough stores, boutiques, shops, restaurants, and snack bars to choke a 20-mule team. I spent five hours wandering around the place, almost never retracing my steps, and I still didn't see everything.

I commenced at the aquarium. It was overpriced, something in the neighborhood of 30,000 won, but I didn't care. The thought of going to an aquarium in a shopping mall rather overwhelmed my sense of prudence and frugality. It started slow but became impressive by degrees: I saw Eurasian beavers, fruit bats, sharks, sea turtles, penguins, and seals. Some of the exhibits were unimaginative, some of them oddly so (one was composed of a perfectly ordinary bed, sticking out from the wall, with a pillow and covers; only instead of a headboard there was a fish tank set into the wall).

Overall, I was pleased when I emerged from the gift shop and turned a quick left to check out the duty-free shop. This was a high priority, even higher than the Kimchi Museum, I'm saddened to admit (which I never got around to seeing). The possibility of cheap booze, unburdened by import tariffs, was now having fairly good try at overwhelming my already-overwhelmed sense of prudence and frugality. Fortunately for my pocketbook, the shop contained nothing but designer handbags, cosmetics and shoes. Chanel and Calvin Klein had got to COEX first. Disillusioned and let down, I wandered back out into the maze and wandered for a time. I stopped into the arcade and was treated to a wave of nostalgia as I beheld many of the same games I'd played in a dozen arcades and fun parks in my youth, The Lost World: Jurassic Park and Jambo! Safari among them. I spent a few thousand won lassoing African animals and then wandered back outside again. I stopped by Bandi & Luni's, the mammoth bookstore somewhere near the center of the mall. I mean mammoth when I say mammoth. It was at least half as big again as your standard one-story Barnes & Noble or Borders, which made sense given the fact that they sold thousands of books in both Korean and English but also had, inexplicably, a toy section to boot. I snooped about and snapped a few candid pictures (using a trick I'd picked up from a travel photographer, holding the camera at stomach height and looking down at it as though you're fiddling with the buttons on top when you're really snapping candid pictures of what's in directly in front). I did this just in case the management had some problems with pictures. I've been in a few shopping malls where they have, you see. Don't give me that look! I'm not going to blackmail anybody. I'm just deathly afraid I'll get Alzheimer's disease here someday and then I won't remember that I've done any of this cool stuff. So I take lots of pictures. If I wasn't so lazy I'd put some more into this blog.

Okay, fine, here:

That's one of the best candids I got. It was pretty crowded in there. Lots of studious Koreans reading up; I was proud to see it. By this time I'd assayed the phalanx of eateries present; they were for the most part fast food joints, but there were a few genuine restaurants mixed in. I selected one, the Uno Pizzeria (of Chicago fame), and made a reservation. To kill the 30-minute wait I wandered about a little more, but saw nothing of overtly compelling interest. My meal was delicious, pepper steak with a baked potato, soup, salad and breadsticks. I ate every last crumb. Full of food and eminently satisfied at what I'd scouted out, rehearsing the glowing reports I'd give to the others upon the morrow, I finally departed COEX Mall and waddled back to my hotel. I channel-surfed for a bit, then shut out the lights and slept contentedly.

Here ends part two...part three, N'SEOUL TOWER, coming soon...

Seoul for Seolnar

The situation was this: I'd been in South Korea for nearly seven months, and still hadn't seen Seoul. Holidays weren't exactly thin on the ground during the first half of my tenure here, but nonetheless Seoul seemed prohibitively far away, even for a four-day weekend. (I have since discovered that it can be reached in four hours for the rough equivalent of twenty American dollars, as long as one is willing to ride an Express Intercity Bus.)

But hope was in sight: Seolnar, the Korean New Year, and one of the two most profound Korean holidays, was coming up. I and my coworkers at Reading Town, Adam Humble and Elaine Orkney, late of Newcastle, England (which makes them Geordies through and through), had five whole days to see the near-mythic city of Seoul. Here's how it went. Seolnar is pronounced roughly like the English word "sonar," except with an "l" in between the "o" and the "n." (Don't bear down hard on the "r," either.) In addition to Chuseok, Korean Thanksgiving, it is Korea's most important holiday. Everybody goes home to their parents or grandparents, visits their ancestors' graves, bows low to their elders, gives gifts, and feasts for four days straight.

Conditions seemed ripe for action: according to our then-new head teacher, who goes by the Anglo alias "Charles," everyone would be leaving Seoul instead of entering it. We couldn't believe our luck. We were accustomed to major cities becoming jam-packed for holidays. Instead of having to fight our way through a city crammed with twice as many as the ten million people already routinely living there, we'd be coasting our way through a virtual ghost town, or close enough. This was our original plan. We'd rise early, link up with our friend Jeff (late of Ottawa, Canada, working for a rival hagwon), catch the bus out of the Gohyeon terminal to Busan, get a cab to Busan Station, and board a train for Seoul.

This plan went through several permutations over the ensuing weeks. We'd decided early on to ride the KTX to Seoul. Short for "Korea Train Express," the KTX is quite simply the one-and-only Korean bullet train. Boasting a top speed of 186 miles per hour (300 kilometers per hour, for all you metric weirdos) and the latest in comfort and grandiose views, it seemed like the perfect way to make a grand entrance to what we were positive would be the golden horn of our travels in Korea.

Securing our tickets (about 50,000 South Korean won—that's pronounced "wuhn"—equivalent to about $35 at the time of purchase) was easy. However, new information came to light about transportation to Busan. Charles assured us that the buses, not to mention the roads themselves, would be packed to the gills. We'd be looking at a four- to five-hour ride to Busan - prohibitive considering our train left at 9:00 a.m. We then considered catching a cab to Busan, but then cost came into play. Long-distance cab rides, especially early morning ones, were ridiculously expensive, even factoring in the still-easy exchange rate. I'd just like to stop here and vent a bit. When I got here the exchange rate was blissfully simple: 1,000 won to the U.S. dollar. (Well, okay, it was more like 1,039 won, but who's counting?!) Nowadays it's something like 1,400 won to the dollar! A month or so back it was 1,500! What's up with that? By my calculations I'm losing about $300 or so in translation every time I wire money home, dad blast it. I'm hoping it picks up soon or I might have to cut my time in Alaska short.

So eventually we opted for the following caper:

• Get up at 5:00 a.m.
• Rendezvous at the northernmost gate of the old P.O.W. camp and war memorial conveniently near our respective apartments.
• Dial up Charles, who has graciously offered to be woken up at this ungodly hour to phone a cab for us. Have him phone a cab for us.
• Take said cab to the Guyeong ferry terminal on the west side of Geoje's northern peninsula. (By this time we'd already learned that it was both inconvenient and downright futile to attempt to take a ferry directly out of our town of Gohyeon: tickets had to be bought up months in advance, since space was so limited. Plus there were only three departures per day, the earliest three hours too late for our purposes. We were much better off taking the gargantuan car ferries based out of Nongso and Guyeong, two tiny burgs up north, on either side of the peninsula. The Guyeong ferries left on the even hours and Nongso's on the odd ones. We aimed for a 6:30 departure.)
• Board said gargantuan car ferry, cross the narrow, island-dotted straits between Geoje and the mainland, arriving at Jinhae at approximately 7:15.
• Snatch a cab from Jinhae to the subway station at Hadan, a thirty-minute ride costing a ridiculously high, flat-rate 20,000 won. Arrive at 7:45 or so.
• Traverse six subway stops between Hadan, nearly the westernmost end of the Busan subway system, and Busan Station. Arrive no later than 8:15.
• With forty-five minutes or, at worst, thirty minutes to spare, pick up tickets, sit, and have a leisurely breakfast of whatever-the-hell in Busan Station.
• Ride the bejesus out of the KTX, our lips and cheeks flapping in the imaginary wind of our tremendous speed, on up to merry ol' Seoul.

By this time we were reasonably well accomplished travelers, and the prospect of doing all this didn't faze us. We'd become semi-proficient at directing cab drivers in pidgin Korean and Konglish, and had ridden the ferry to Busan about five times between the four of us. The train station bit was the only part we weren't sure about; we didn't know what security (if any) would be like, nor how long the lines would be to get our tickets. Even with all the contingency planning we could muster, we weren't leaving ourselves a very wide window to get our tickets. We were reassured by Charles, who insisted that if we'd reserved our tickets in advance the whole affair would take five minutes or less. Trusting him, we set our timetable.

That's how we found ourselves shifting from one foot to the other outside the gate to the P.O.W. camp in the early-morning chill on the morning of January 24, 2009. The sky was still black. The streets were silent and deserted, except for the occasional car. Cabs were nowhere in evidence; blessing Charles's benevolence, we rousted him from his slumber and had him call us a cab. The kind fellow even told us to call again if we had any trouble, as had the other Korean teachers the previous afternoon before class let out. (Korea is a ridiculously helpful and friendly country if you have the courage to open up to them first. If you ask a question, don't expect to get a half-baked answer or a rough guess; expect to have a thoroughly-researched reply given to you in writing in a few minutes. If you ask for directions, don't expect to be told; expect to be taken by the shoulders and cheerily led there.)

The cab came and we piled in. After making dead sure the driver was headed for Guyeong, we only needed to sit back, eat our knees (five to a cab puts a premium on elbow room) and attempt to hold on to our potatoes as the cab swerved and swayed at a breakneck pace along the sinuous, two-lane roads that span the gaps between settlements in Geoje.

Twenty minutes later we were standing in front of the ferry station: total fare ₩12,000 or so. We purchased our tickets for a ridiculously low ₩5,000 and then stood around conversing in the comforting warmth of the small, well-lit station office (German expatriates being the only other occupants). Presently the imposing bulk of the auto ferry pulled up to the cement quay and began disgorging its contents. Trying not to think about how early those people driving those cars out of the ferry's belly must have had to get up to secure a ride at this hour, we boarded and sought a seat inside the passenger cabins, but for'ard, directly behind the enormous ports, affording us a good view of land and water.


And a good view it turned out to be. The sun rose just as we were in the middle of the crossing. I can't describe to you exactly how beautiful a soft reddish-gold orb, slowly ascending over a rustling expanse of indigo water, beneath a sky of the most tender pink and orange, shining between the trees of the wooded, rocky islands that dot the straits, is. But this might help.


We arrived at Jinhae, caught a cab with ridiculous ease, rode to Hadan, boarded the subway, and got to Busan Station well before our preset deadline. The gleaming face of our gateway to Seoul shimmered in the morning sun as we crossed the parking lot.

Getting our tickets took about five minutes, as predicted. We then adjourned upstairs to Burger King and feasted on a Whopper apiece. When the hour of destiny approached, we ambled contentedly downstairs and got in line; we were let past the barriers; quivering with excitement, we traversed a sky walk, rode an escalator down to the platform, and sauntered jauntily along it until we reached the number embedded in the floor that signaled our train car would stop at that point.


It wasn't long before the pointy nose of our ride poked itself into sight and the blue-and-gray KTX came slithering slowly up.


And so ends part one. Stay tuned for part two, JAMSIL JAMBOREE!