Going South in the Far East
Debbie told me yesterday, “Olivia, I have bad news.” I thought it was going to be something awful, I had no clue what to expect. “Seventy one teachers had fake degrees last month, so you have to go back to immigration with your diploma and verify it.” Seriously, what a PAIN. Do people really want to forego college and come teach overseas? Pretty lame.
Speaking of lame, man, if you thought Valentine’s Day was lame, has Korea got a surprise for you! Pepero Day. What the heck is a pepero? It’s like a cracker in a stick form (like those things that you get with salad, but without the seasoning), dipped in chocolate. That’s it. There’s an entire day for this! I’d like to meet the marketer who promoted it to the status it is today. I went to the store with Andy to get some for his girlfriend, since she’s coming in January. I considered getting some for my students, but I brought them Halloween candy to celebrate an American holiday, I figured Pepero is theirs and not mine. Of course, my students brought me TONS of freaking Pepero! One gave me this wine bottle holder, all decorated with hearts and bows and beads, full of Looney Tunes-wrapped Pepero. Cracks me up!
Well this weekend was the greatly anticipated hiking trip! We met before 7am outside the Family Mart—Amber, her boyfriend Sean, her co-worker Mojca (pronounced Moitza, she’s Slovenian Canadian) and me. We took a cab to Jamsil Station and arrived 20min before we needed to meet Ya Ho, the leader of the hike, so we sat down and had breakfast. Even though our entire day of hiking was an all-inclusive 10,000 won, we knew the meals would be Korean, so we wanted to be sure we had a breakfast we would eat. When the other hikers arrived, only 3 other whities (one of whom was wearing a Tennessee sweatshirt), the rest were Korean women and a few men. The 7 white people ended up sitting together and the leader of the bus trip was a very entertaining Korean woman. She spoke no English, but she had a microphone and talked for probably half of the drive. I attempted to read, but it made me nauseous, so I slept for a little while, until I got smacked in the arm. Ya Ho was sitting behind me, and for a woman who is probably in her 60s, she gave me a pretty good thud. Well we weren’t even to the mountain yet, but she was waking me up because we were stopping off at a place that had “medical instruments.” And by medical instruments, they meant we had to sit through a 15min presentation on heated mattresses, these belt things that look like the trophy of a heavyweight champion, magnetized pillows, and the like.
La dee da… the white group got out of there and went back to the bus as soon as it was over—we weren’t shelling out $5k for a mattress or anything else that was for sale. So back on the road again, back to catnapping, and then we stop again. Yes! The mountain. No. Just kidding. It was a ginseng farm. We whities opted to stay on the bus this time. No wonder the trip was so cheap—all these promotional stops had to be footing part of the bill. They gave us ginseng candy, which tasted pretty terrible at first, but ended up being okay. Then they gave us some fancy soap worth about $5, recouping half the cost of my bus ride. And on the road again we were, finally headed to the mountain without any further distractions. Once we reached our destination, we went into the restaurant where we had reservations for lunch. Reservations or not, this is like a nourishment assembly line. You march in, sit down, get served, eat eat eat, get out so the next herd can come in. It was peebimpap, which is about 5 veggies, a fried egg, some chili sauce, and rice, all mixed together. Most foreigners like this food, but I haven’t had good peebimpap since I’ve been here, until this meal. Yum! Our tour guide started hollering at us because we were talking to each other. She came up and motioned for us to eat quickly, then she pointed outside. We were prodded out of the restaurant and headed up the hill, that was so steep it reminded me of San Francisco, to the adventure. We had to get our ticket to the cable car and, as is not uncommon here, this little old lady butted right to the front of the line in front of Mojca and motioned to her friends to come get in behind her. She had to be in her 70s, an especially mobile older woman, but I really thought it was rude! If there’s room for someone to get in front of you as you’re getting on the subway car, they’ll do it, even if there’s no one else around and you’re both clearly going to get on the train before the doors close. It’s impressively impolite. Well this woman’s friends had manners, because they stayed where they were. We all got on the cable car and rode for just a few minutes to the top of Mt. Daedunsan. On the way up, we could see a bridge that stretched between two mountains that looked pretty narrow and was at least a hundred meters up (I’m really bad at distance measurements). Even higher than that bridge was a staircase that was only one-man wide and had a 60person maximum. It may as well have been a ladder given how steep it was! We got off at the top and began the hike. There was only room to go a few hundred feet higher, and then the option of returning to the cable car or hiking back down. I know I’ve already mentioned how mobile the older generations are, but boy do they MOVE, even on a mountain! There were piles of leaves on some of the rocks that didn’t deter this group. I was being extra cautious, given the tennis shoes and jeans I chose as hiking apparel (not the wisest selection), and these old folks just took it on like they were fearless toddlers, ready to roll! So we made it across the narrow bridge
and up the ladder (click the pic to see the staircase in the background). I must add that these stairs are clearly made for Asians and not for Americans of gargantuan sizes. My sasquatch feet hung off of every step. When we got as far up as we had time for, we realized there was not time to walk back to the bottom, so we would have to take the cable car. Some of our group, who had separated at different parts along the hike but reunited at the lookout point, felt like they were shortchanged when they couldn’t take the trails down. As for myself and my knee, we didn’t care. Weak, I know. Regardless, the views from the cable car are grand! (I have pictures. If you haven’t received them yet, email me). And back down we went. They made such a big deal out of us being back at the bus on time, but we waited for a good 30 minutes for several of the older women who were AWOL. Anyway, back on the road again! We had only one stop at a fish market on our return trip, and that’s where we had dinner. The whities sat together again, with Ya Ho, and had what I think was seaweed soup and lots of fixins. Koreans typically give you 5 side dishes with your meal. Several of these had eyes, which is not really a surprise given that we were at a fish market, so I stuck to the soup. We sat with the couple from the US who are in Korea because John is in the military. They have two children here with them and their son just went to Japan last week for a Cross Country meet. What a lifestyle! John is an architect with a second degree in structural engineering (pretty smart combo there!) and Sue just checks out the sights and does mom duties. It was really interesting to get a take on things from people who have been here longer but live in what is basically an American city, only venturing off post when they feel adventurous. With our meal, we were served makali, which is a rice wine. Christine bought 3 bottles, and then we all hopped back onto the bus and were chatting and ignoring the tour guide who was cracking jokes with the Korean women behind us. Then she turned off her microphone and turned on the lights. Not just any lights, disco lights. There were orange, green, red and blue lights along the top and bottom of the aisle. One woman from the very back row of seats paraded up to the front to say a few words to the bus driver, and then it all started. Dancin’ in the seats! Before long, the entire aisle was full of women dancing and having a great time right there on a moving bus! It was an absolute riot! I joked to Mojca that my grandmother would never engage in these activities—first and foremost, if she and her friends were on a tour together to go hiking, I’d pass out cold. If they got up and started dancing in the aisles, I’d die of shock! These women closed the window curtains and got me, Christine, Amber and Mojca on our feet to join. Later, they even got John to start dancing with them! Everyone was laughing and having a ball. Christine broke out the makali and shared with everyone. 
There was one Korean man on our trip and he sat in the second to last seat with his bottle of liquor and a mischievous look on his face. Before long, even he was cutting a rug! (or an aisle). He was passing out shots from his bottle to anyone who would have it, and one other woman had salted fish to boot. I, fortunately, did not partake in that part of the excitement. I did, of course, take many pictures. What a story! This is apparently the norm when it comes to both traveling for adventure’s sake and for passing a good time once the sun goes down. We arrived back at Jamsil Station around 9:45pm. Amber, Mojca, Sean and I got a cab back to our part of town. We had a nice driver, but he kept randomly putting on the breaks. There wouldn’t be anyone in front of us, and he’d slow down. All the stop and go had the four of us talking about crazy cabbies! Mojca told us how one of her drivers was the only car on the road one afternoon and out of nowhere, he let out a big sigh and punched the horn. (It may not be funny to read, but when she told us about it, we laughed pretty hard). Sean had a friend whose tire got deflated, so he brought it to get replaced. He and the tire man pulled a nail out of the tire and when they were in the car together, the tire man looked at the friend, then looked at the nail, and knowing that anyone who had tire problems right there in front of his shop would stop in and give him business, threw it out the window into the road. So by the end of our trip back home, the day full of adventure and laughs was coming to a close, but not without our constantly breaking cab driver having us all queasy and desperate for air. We pulled up in Gangseo, piled out of the car, and went our separate ways. And such was the end of my one day off.
Copyright 2005 Olivia R. Reed
Speaking of lame, man, if you thought Valentine’s Day was lame, has Korea got a surprise for you! Pepero Day. What the heck is a pepero? It’s like a cracker in a stick form (like those things that you get with salad, but without the seasoning), dipped in chocolate. That’s it. There’s an entire day for this! I’d like to meet the marketer who promoted it to the status it is today. I went to the store with Andy to get some for his girlfriend, since she’s coming in January. I considered getting some for my students, but I brought them Halloween candy to celebrate an American holiday, I figured Pepero is theirs and not mine. Of course, my students brought me TONS of freaking Pepero! One gave me this wine bottle holder, all decorated with hearts and bows and beads, full of Looney Tunes-wrapped Pepero. Cracks me up!
Well this weekend was the greatly anticipated hiking trip! We met before 7am outside the Family Mart—Amber, her boyfriend Sean, her co-worker Mojca (pronounced Moitza, she’s Slovenian Canadian) and me. We took a cab to Jamsil Station and arrived 20min before we needed to meet Ya Ho, the leader of the hike, so we sat down and had breakfast. Even though our entire day of hiking was an all-inclusive 10,000 won, we knew the meals would be Korean, so we wanted to be sure we had a breakfast we would eat. When the other hikers arrived, only 3 other whities (one of whom was wearing a Tennessee sweatshirt), the rest were Korean women and a few men. The 7 white people ended up sitting together and the leader of the bus trip was a very entertaining Korean woman. She spoke no English, but she had a microphone and talked for probably half of the drive. I attempted to read, but it made me nauseous, so I slept for a little while, until I got smacked in the arm. Ya Ho was sitting behind me, and for a woman who is probably in her 60s, she gave me a pretty good thud. Well we weren’t even to the mountain yet, but she was waking me up because we were stopping off at a place that had “medical instruments.” And by medical instruments, they meant we had to sit through a 15min presentation on heated mattresses, these belt things that look like the trophy of a heavyweight champion, magnetized pillows, and the like.
La dee da… the white group got out of there and went back to the bus as soon as it was over—we weren’t shelling out $5k for a mattress or anything else that was for sale. So back on the road again, back to catnapping, and then we stop again. Yes! The mountain. No. Just kidding. It was a ginseng farm. We whities opted to stay on the bus this time. No wonder the trip was so cheap—all these promotional stops had to be footing part of the bill. They gave us ginseng candy, which tasted pretty terrible at first, but ended up being okay. Then they gave us some fancy soap worth about $5, recouping half the cost of my bus ride. And on the road again we were, finally headed to the mountain without any further distractions. Once we reached our destination, we went into the restaurant where we had reservations for lunch. Reservations or not, this is like a nourishment assembly line. You march in, sit down, get served, eat eat eat, get out so the next herd can come in. It was peebimpap, which is about 5 veggies, a fried egg, some chili sauce, and rice, all mixed together. Most foreigners like this food, but I haven’t had good peebimpap since I’ve been here, until this meal. Yum! Our tour guide started hollering at us because we were talking to each other. She came up and motioned for us to eat quickly, then she pointed outside. We were prodded out of the restaurant and headed up the hill, that was so steep it reminded me of San Francisco, to the adventure. We had to get our ticket to the cable car and, as is not uncommon here, this little old lady butted right to the front of the line in front of Mojca and motioned to her friends to come get in behind her. She had to be in her 70s, an especially mobile older woman, but I really thought it was rude! If there’s room for someone to get in front of you as you’re getting on the subway car, they’ll do it, even if there’s no one else around and you’re both clearly going to get on the train before the doors close. It’s impressively impolite. Well this woman’s friends had manners, because they stayed where they were. We all got on the cable car and rode for just a few minutes to the top of Mt. Daedunsan. On the way up, we could see a bridge that stretched between two mountains that looked pretty narrow and was at least a hundred meters up (I’m really bad at distance measurements). Even higher than that bridge was a staircase that was only one-man wide and had a 60person maximum. It may as well have been a ladder given how steep it was! We got off at the top and began the hike. There was only room to go a few hundred feet higher, and then the option of returning to the cable car or hiking back down. I know I’ve already mentioned how mobile the older generations are, but boy do they MOVE, even on a mountain! There were piles of leaves on some of the rocks that didn’t deter this group. I was being extra cautious, given the tennis shoes and jeans I chose as hiking apparel (not the wisest selection), and these old folks just took it on like they were fearless toddlers, ready to roll! So we made it across the narrow bridge and up the ladder (click the pic to see the staircase in the background). I must add that these stairs are clearly made for Asians and not for Americans of gargantuan sizes. My sasquatch feet hung off of every step. When we got as far up as we had time for, we realized there was not time to walk back to the bottom, so we would have to take the cable car. Some of our group, who had separated at different parts along the hike but reunited at the lookout point, felt like they were shortchanged when they couldn’t take the trails down. As for myself and my knee, we didn’t care. Weak, I know. Regardless, the views from the cable car are grand! (I have pictures. If you haven’t received them yet, email me). And back down we went. They made such a big deal out of us being back at the bus on time, but we waited for a good 30 minutes for several of the older women who were AWOL. Anyway, back on the road again! We had only one stop at a fish market on our return trip, and that’s where we had dinner. The whities sat together again, with Ya Ho, and had what I think was seaweed soup and lots of fixins. Koreans typically give you 5 side dishes with your meal. Several of these had eyes, which is not really a surprise given that we were at a fish market, so I stuck to the soup. We sat with the couple from the US who are in Korea because John is in the military. They have two children here with them and their son just went to Japan last week for a Cross Country meet. What a lifestyle! John is an architect with a second degree in structural engineering (pretty smart combo there!) and Sue just checks out the sights and does mom duties. It was really interesting to get a take on things from people who have been here longer but live in what is basically an American city, only venturing off post when they feel adventurous. With our meal, we were served makali, which is a rice wine. Christine bought 3 bottles, and then we all hopped back onto the bus and were chatting and ignoring the tour guide who was cracking jokes with the Korean women behind us. Then she turned off her microphone and turned on the lights. Not just any lights, disco lights. There were orange, green, red and blue lights along the top and bottom of the aisle. One woman from the very back row of seats paraded up to the front to say a few words to the bus driver, and then it all started. Dancin’ in the seats! Before long, the entire aisle was full of women dancing and having a great time right there on a moving bus! It was an absolute riot! I joked to Mojca that my grandmother would never engage in these activities—first and foremost, if she and her friends were on a tour together to go hiking, I’d pass out cold. If they got up and started dancing in the aisles, I’d die of shock! These women closed the window curtains and got me, Christine, Amber and Mojca on our feet to join. Later, they even got John to start dancing with them! Everyone was laughing and having a ball. Christine broke out the makali and shared with everyone. There was one Korean man on our trip and he sat in the second to last seat with his bottle of liquor and a mischievous look on his face. Before long, even he was cutting a rug! (or an aisle). He was passing out shots from his bottle to anyone who would have it, and one other woman had salted fish to boot. I, fortunately, did not partake in that part of the excitement. I did, of course, take many pictures. What a story! This is apparently the norm when it comes to both traveling for adventure’s sake and for passing a good time once the sun goes down. We arrived back at Jamsil Station around 9:45pm. Amber, Mojca, Sean and I got a cab back to our part of town. We had a nice driver, but he kept randomly putting on the breaks. There wouldn’t be anyone in front of us, and he’d slow down. All the stop and go had the four of us talking about crazy cabbies! Mojca told us how one of her drivers was the only car on the road one afternoon and out of nowhere, he let out a big sigh and punched the horn. (It may not be funny to read, but when she told us about it, we laughed pretty hard). Sean had a friend whose tire got deflated, so he brought it to get replaced. He and the tire man pulled a nail out of the tire and when they were in the car together, the tire man looked at the friend, then looked at the nail, and knowing that anyone who had tire problems right there in front of his shop would stop in and give him business, threw it out the window into the road. So by the end of our trip back home, the day full of adventure and laughs was coming to a close, but not without our constantly breaking cab driver having us all queasy and desperate for air. We pulled up in Gangseo, piled out of the car, and went our separate ways. And such was the end of my one day off.Copyright 2005 Olivia R. Reed
posted by LSULiv | 7:01 PM
4 Comments:
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Fix you pictures!
Sweetheart,
You continue to be a good and interesting writer, with humor... I laughed aloud when I read about your second stop on the bus ride... "just joking". Also, as Jacques meant to say, clicking on the photo doesn't work. I'm enjoying your site, please keep up the great work!
Love you,
Dad
Sorry, kids, I can't fix the pictures. It's either have smaller pictures and have all 3, or have one big picture... And if I knew how to fix it on my home computer, I don't know what the heck the commands on this one say, so c'est la vie!
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