Backstreet's Back Alright!

Well the Backstreet Boys concert was quite a hit! Amy and I got there early because we expected to have some trouble getting our tickets. A friend of mine had his co-worker purchase them since you have to have a Korean ID number (similar to our SSN) to do it. But we went straight to the front of the line and had zero questions asked! So we walked around Olympic Park and saw the extremes they had to go through to build this facility. There were several different buildings—most were uniquely shaped, I guess to accommodate the sports that were held inside them. There was an enormous park, where people were walking their sweater-clad dogs, and some artsy décor as large as the stadiums! Once inside the gymnasium where the concert was held, we were seated in front of a huge heater. It was nice to be warm, but we decided to move further down (into the more expensive seats) so we didn’t choke from the heat. You would probably think that behavior at a concert would be standard across cultural lines, but I’m here to tell you that it was quite different. Maybe it had to do with the artists, or maybe it’s audience-based, but nonetheless… these people held these battery-powered glowing light sticks that changed colors when you flick them back and forth, which is what several thousand people did for 2 hours while singing along with five guys on stage. The artists spoke a bit slower and more deliberately when addressing the audience, but still limited their interaction with the crowd and focused on entertaining with their music and dancing. It’s funny to me to see guys being drug to movies and other things girlie, but here, it didn’t seem that way at all. In fact, wearing pastels is not only common here, but seems to be encouraged and sought after by the female population. Feminine is in! The guys at the BSB concert went all out—standing up, flicking their glow sticks, cheering, singing, whooping and hollering when the guys were singing… I don’t know many American men comfortable enough to partake in this type of thing. It was definitely a sight! After the two-hour performance, we headed to Itaewon for dinner. We wound up at Ali Baba. Maybe we shouldn’t support Middle-Eastern food, given the current status of world affairs and the dirty looks I’ve been given by a few, but I hadn’t had hummus since I’ve been here and that appetizer and our meal were both quite wonderful!

The following day, Sam and I went to Gwanghwamun, which is where there was supposed to be a grand display of Christmas lights. It was along the Cheongyecheon, the recently uncovered river in the heart of the city that has been cleaned up and made an attraction for visitors and locals alike. It was no Natchitoches, but the decorations were really pretty and lit up the area very nicely. You could walk along the river and cross to the other side via some large stone steps (something a litigious society in the US would never in a million years permit) and just enjoy the scenery. We got some good pictures but for some reason I can’t seem to upload any more to this blog.

A successful time in Daegu was had yet again. After a whoppingly abundant three hours of sleep, I got up at 4am Saturday so that I could be on the first subway at 5am from my stop to Seoul Station, where the trains leaving the city meet. Little did I know, the weekend subway starts going in the morning later than the weekday ones (makes sense, I’ve just never had to ride the first one out), so I waited until 5:30 for the gates to open. A precious waste of sleep! I caught KTX (bullet train) at Seoul Station and headed down to the city of 3million that those in Seoul consider “the country.” Sam and I spent Saturday evening with some of his co-workers at Hotel Ariana, where we had a full buffet (including foods like “frizzled rice” and other usual and unusual dishes) and a live European band playing many recognizable classics. The four of us then returned to the US Army Post and went to Cookie’s, a popular hangout for the officers, but it was closed. Not wanting our excursion to end, we tried again to extend the evening by heading to the Hilltop, where enlistees usually go and for obvious reasons—this place was hoppin! They had good music (though not the kind your parents would like) and the dancers had plenty of rhythm! We ordered drinks and a deck of cards and decided a game of “Bullshit” would be fun. (I thought booray might be good, but imagine teaching West-coasters a Cajun pastime!) Well, one of our party had a few more beers than everyone else, and was decidedly the world’s worst Bullshit player that any of us had ever seen. He never won a single game, didn’t know when to call people on their crap, and when he did, was regularly wrong. But it made for some great laughs and a lot of cards in his hands!

So the quest to keep my family and friends (and self) entertained with what I’m doing has not ended. I’ve found a “Seoul’s Best 100” information book that lists and talks about lots of things a visitor shouldn’t miss while in this part of the world. I’ve combed through the book and made notations of “must sees,” “possibilities,” and “what the hecks?” I am only sure that I won’t have Saturday classes through February, so I’d like to get as much culture under my belt while I have the time. I also have a friend or three coming to Seoul in February with high expectations. Hopefully the racecourse, pottery making, Han River cruise, and a few other priorities won’t be far away. Sam is also trying to fulfill his promise that Daegu has plenty of entertainment, so we shall see what that part of the country will bring. Next weekend is Lunar New Year (the Chinese New Year), so we will get Monday off and have our last, painful Winter Intensive class moved from Tuesday to Thursday. The original plan was to go down to Busan, a popular city on the coast. But apparently everyone in Seoul chooses this weekend to leave the city, so as exciting as fighting 12million outward-bound people sounds, I think that doing some touring around this city would be well-advisable with a much smaller than usual crowd. Stay tuned!


Copyright 2005 Olivia R. Reed

Wipeout!

TV shopping is usually a big ordeal. In Korea? Doubtful! My friend Gus has managed to find a 20” TV for each Sally and me for less than $50, and delivery for less than $10. This includes remote control, cable-ready, DVD hookup, etc. As my dad says, "I love technology when it works!"

Probably much to the amusement of several of my friends, especially of the testosterone-dominated gender, there is a concert coming to town that Amy and I are trying to get tickets to. Who loves the backstreet boys? I don’t, I don’t! I like them, but I'm beyond my adolescent years when their posters would've been on my bedroom walls. But how funny would it be to see them in Korea with a bunch of 12 year old girls screaming—like they do at the SBS station outside my home every weekend? And it’s at Olympic Park—a good reason to check out yet another area of this large city. We will undoubtedly be the oldest women there without children, but we care not! Music we recognize in a place we don’t? Can’t beat it!

So the Lunar New Year is a big holiday here, bigger than Christmas, but not quite as big as their Thanksgiving. We will have our Monday classes rescheduled and enjoy having January 30th off of work. I’m trying to set up a trip to Hiroshima for that weekend to visit the second closest LSU alumn and friend I know, but it may be twice the price!

It’s been cold. Snow, freezing temperatures, you know how it goes. It’s made me rethink any complaining about Louisiana’s heat and humidity I’ve ever done—and I’d venture to say that I even miss sweating profusely and slaving my air-conditioner away. Well it snowed again this past Monday night, which was pretty, but that was the extent of thought I put into it. The next morning, I decided it wasn’t too miserably cold to walk to work, so I did. Wrapped up in ear warmers, a scarf, and a long coat, I set out to get to my Winter Intensive class by 930am. Not more than two blocks from my house, I successfully completed my first wipeout of the winter. While illegally crossing the street when the little red man on the sign said "Don't Walk," the ice got the best of my rubber-soled shoes and I landed completely flat on my rear end right in the middle of the road. I was imagining being pancaked by a fruit-carrying Hyundai, so I got back on my feet and scrambled to the sidewalk. It was painful to walk. I’ve always had a fear of breaking my tailbone, and I may have succeeded in just that. At least a crack. Unsure if I would need a hemorrhoid pillow to carry around with me for the next several months, I decided to go ahead and finish the walk to school, though in much pain, my rear end imprinted in black on the back of my red coat. Now, even when I sneeze, my butt hurts! What a morning!

Copyright 2005 Olivia R. Reed

New Year's Eve

Rather than spend our New Year’s Eve with the majority of Seoul, I heard from my LSU pal , Jacob, that it really isn’t worth freezing and fighting the crowd over to watch a few guys give speeches in Korean and then bang a big gong, so we skipped out on that event and found our own elsewhere. Amy found out about an expat club near her neighborhood and we decided to venture there to see what they had to offer. We walked around for just a few minutes before we located Dragon Bar, complete with graffiti (to make it feel more American?) as we came off the elevator at the third floor. It wasn’t the whitey place I expected, but what’s a New Year’s Eve without some locals? We watched the countdown and banging of the gong on a big screen at one end of the bar—it looked like we didn’t miss much. There were a few people talking on the stage at Jonggak—near the city’s center. They banged the big gong, everyone cheered, and that seemed to be about it. Our little bar had more entertainment! There wasn’t much kissing going on at the stroke of midnight because any form of PDA here is considered rude, especially by the older generation. Kisses are considered sexual, so there were many hugs, and I was busy taking pictures, but everyone lit sparklers and the room lit up! It really looked cool. The bartenders then proceeded to entertain us for at least 30 minutes with a synchronized show of bottle throwing, tumbler tossing and then individual performances of flipping bottles in the air, mixing drinks, and pouring all the liquors into a pyramid of glasses they had put together on the bar, which they later lit on fire. The vibration from all the music made a bottle of alcohol fall on our table, knocking Amy’s drink to the floor and causing us to choose to move to another table. Our new neighbors were probably Russian, but the guy wearing the gray wife-beater, snug tapered jeans, sneaks and ponytail had serious body odor—even through the cigarette smoke! He had huge arms and a small lower body—I never have understood people who forget about their legs when they work out. There’s more to life than a bench press, but maybe that’s just this girl’s opinion. Anyway, he made some snotty remark about Americans more than once, and he said it toward the guy sitting next to me. They were both bigger than me, so I decided not to throw the first punch. (Ha!) Regardless, it was overall a fun experience to ring in 2006.

You probably remember the trip Amy and I took down to Daegu to see Sam and that part of the country. Well, Sam just spent 2 weeks in his hometown of Berkeley, California. He’s been in Korea for 10 months and decided in August to put in leave for the holidays. I was supposed to meet him at the airport, but got royally screwed by the airport limousine! The first two passed me up (they have a certain number of rounds they’re required to make each day, so if that means not stopping at a few designated stops, so be it), the third told me that he didn’t go to the airport I needed, and when the fourth tried to tell me the same thing, I pointed to the advertisement with a very insistent, and apparently persuasive facial expression, so he decided to take me on. And then dump me! He stopped me when I went to pay, and I figured out why when just a few minutes later I was required to step off of his bus and wait for the next one to arrive at 11pm. I thought it was a deal that I didn’t have to pay, but now I realized why. Here I was, the only person at the bus station, and there was a big field behind me. I can read Korean, but that doesn’t do a ton of good if you don’t know what the heck the signs mean. So I don’t even know where I was! And Sam was going to be finished with customs and baggage claim and halfway to my part of the city by then, so I was forced to hop in a cab and return whence I came. What a bummer! So much for the romantic airport greetings that are always something to both look forward to and back on. Anyway, he finally got here, we went to my house where I’d cooked salmon and mashed potatoes (even though he had Western food for the last 2 weeks), and caught up on all we missed for half a month. Wednesday was spent doing absolutely nothing! We finally had to get motivated and head to Seoul Station to get him back to Daegu. He would take the same high speed train we rode when heading to visit his part of the “countryside.” It goes about 180mph stopping every few cities, but only for about 30 seconds so anyone getting off of the train has to be at the door and at the ready to hop out! This train can cross the country (from Seoul to Pusan) in just over 2 hours—a drive that typically takes 6. I am trying to visit Hiroshima, Japan in the next 2 months, so I may take this bullet train down to the ferry to cross the “Yellow Sea” (Koreans don’t like Japanese people, so their maps will never acknowledge this as the Sea of Japan) from the Land of the Morning Calm.

This coming weekend will probably be spent at Olympic Park and maybe TV shopping. Korea hosted the Olympics in 1988 and the World Cup in 2002. These events are why so many of the signs are (loosely) translated into English— and thank God for 'em!!!

Copyright 2005 Olivia R. Reed