The DMZ and some lighter stuff

I have a new phrase in Korean!  It’s a phrase I try to learn in every language right after, “It’s all good” and “Hello”.  “I don’t speak Korean” is “Nanen Hangugmal mot hamnida”.  Translating is a challenge so I have to Romanize it to remember phrases. I don’t have a Korean keyboard option but I am trying to learn to read it.  It is really not so hard.  I actually read a sign today to find out where we were and figured it out!  Problem was that even though I read it I still had no idea where we were.  I went to the DMZ yesterday, and no matter what they say on the news, it wasn’t my fault. I followed the instructions to the T and didn’t talk to, gesture toward, make eye contact with or break anything on the list of rules toward the KPA soldiers.  What had happened was, while I was standing there on the North Korea side of the zone taking pictures of the soldiers per se and of South Korea, my glasses slipped down a little so I pushed them back up with my finger.  Apparently the use of my middle finger for glasses pushing was misconstrued as a threat.  Can you believe it?  Well to make matters worse a gnat flew into my eye and I blinked that one eye right into the surveillance camera and that got everybody’s attention!  Fortunately South Korea was not too far to run back across, but those Northerners, in my estimation, are wa-a-a-ay too uptight.  Needless to say I am no longer welcome in North Korea.  That’s okay though because their attitude sucks anyway.  After I get back home, I might just send their leader a bottle of Jack Daniels, a handful of Xanax and a  friendly card telling him to chill the heck out. The South Korean (ROK) and American soldiers, were awesome to watch.  They did not flinch a muscle and were very disciplined and professional.  I had to sign wavers that said blah blah… death or injury… hostile territory… hold harmless in the event of… blah blah. In spite of the wavers though I felt very safe and well guarded.  My hat’s off not only to the brave US troops who guard that tense border, but also to the ROK soldiers who stand their post staring the enemy in the eye from a distance of only 2-3 meters.  The position they stand in is called ROK Ready and they look it; that’s a modified Taekwondo stance.  A black belt in martial arts, mainly Taekwondo, is one of the requirements for this job. Well after all that I needed something to eat and took off to a little restaurant for some more of that awesome SamYeTang (Ginseng Chicken Soup) and soju followed by a long walk in a steady rain the one time I didn’t take my umbrella, capping off a great day. Today I had planned to go to one of those doctor fish pedicure places and have the rough spots nibbled off my feet by miniature piranhas, but as it turns out I couldn’t get a recommendation to good one. Most of the people I talked to, both American and Korean, convinced me that any place around here is probably not very sanitary and therefore not a very good idea.  Maybe in Seoul or Daegu they said.  Maybe I will pass.  Thing is that here it costs less than a beer and in the States it costs a little more than an iPad.  So I went shopping and walking instead and found a red shirt and a great hat that says boldly across the front REEP. That made my day!  Hopefully next weekend will be something to write about too.  I am spending it in Seoul (not for a fish pedicure)…again. So far it’s been worth it everytime.
These pictures in order from top to bottom, right to left are The DMZ conference room with North Koreans pointing and signaling to us (note the ROK Ready stance, one with only half of his body exposed beyond the wall), a KPA soldier standing outside the window behind a ROK soldier, Paradise/Propoganda Village (a mock village set up to "show" the South Koreans the beauty of living in the north with their 600 pound, 160 meter high flag which cannot wave except in typhoon winds.  The village is empty buildings without floors or walls.  The flag was erected because they were mad when South Korea erected a flag 100 meters tall), me and some statues at a park outside the 3rd tunnel dug by the North in an effort to penetrate into the South, my new hat!, and me playing too close

추석 weekend

So I was thinking a few days ago how the time goes by so fast and I had a moment of feeling sad that my time here will come to an end. I didn’t let it bother me for more than a few minutes because there is so much yet to do while I am still here. This weekend is the beginning of the Korean holiday of Chuseok (that’s phonetic or something; it’s pronounced Chew-Sock). The holiday actually is Monday and Tuesday, and we Americans get the day off on Monday. A sweet 3-day weekend twice in a row. I went into Seoul again on Saturday and visited Gyeongbokgung. ‘Gung’ means palace so I didn’t say it twice, although it would have saved the space of my explanation if I had, but since I am not paying for this space, 괜찮아요. Translating from English to Korean language is tough because a lot doesn’t translate perfectly and all of our colloquialisms get seriously lost in translation. Back to the point: The palace area was HUGE with big pavilions and buildings and a museum scattered across a large landscape in downtown Seoul.  I wandered from there to an area called Insadong which was rife with nice shops mixed with souvenir shops and craft kiosks.  It was also very crowded but not as much as the tourist targeted Namdaemun Market. Such a throng! I met up with my new awesome friend SangYeop and went to the N Seoul Tower.  The N is kind of a mystery thing although it stands for Namsan which is the name of the hill it stands on.  We got there after sunset so it was all lit up and by the time we went up to the observation deck the city was all lit up in all directions. Amazing to see the sprawl of such a big city, bigger even than Pensacola; over 10 million in the city proper and over 24 million in the greater metro area. For reference purposes Pensacola has about 53K. Seoul is about 20 times the population of Atlanta and is bigger than New York and Tokyo by a couple million each. We ate a side street diner and then had beers after wandering the labyrinthine alleys.  I still don’t have a good grip on the chopsticks here (pun intended) because they are metal so when they are wet it is kind of hard to pick stuff up, especially if it is also wet.  I look drunk trying to eat with them falling out of my hands, dropping food in my lap and poking myself in the eye, but fortunately I had a deft artisan of metal chopstick manipulation who coached me and kept me from hurting myself. The next day I went to the Korean War Memorial which is a pretty impressive and expansive museum of Korean War history (not just the one the USA was involved in). After coffee and market exploration, I finally forced myself onto the train to my homestead an hour back upstream. Despite the overcast sky and the extensive walking, it was a great weekend.  Today I chill, iron clothes for the workweek and spend a little me-time reading and vegging out, thinking about life, love and renaissance and looking forward to my next adventure to the DMZ and the doctor fish. 



The 한국 adventure begins...

It's been a long time since my last post, but then again I was home in Pcola and working at NAS so there was not much of particular interest to write about except that I did remodel another room replacing carpet with tile, lost a few pounds, turned 50, blah, blah, blah. So now I am in to the Korea experience by about 10 days and not to sound redundant, but I love it. It is always a huge culture shock to go somewhere that expects manners, where stealing is just rude and everyone is so darn helpful and outgoing. As with every place I have been I have been treated great. The first weekend I went to Soyosan (Soyo Mountain) and hiked up with Jessica, the consultant I replaced. It started off easy enough but then came the steps climbing and more climbing, then the steps were replaced by rocks to climb over with intermittent steps, a little more grueling than my Nikes were ready to handle. The view from the top though, made the climb worthwhile, even if I set my water down and somebody grabbed it to pour on their head to cool off. Later somebody else made up for it by giving me and Jessica a Snickers bar. Supposedly there is a monastery farther up and down and back up where the successful climbers may be treated to a nice veggie lunch. So that is on my itinerary for another day. I have been to Seoul twice, staying this weekend overnight with my friend Loren from Pensacola. He speaks Korean and introduced me to some of his friends. Starting with the Photography Club we went to the Namsangol Hanok Village, a traditional Korean heritage center where Loren and I dressed up like Emperors and took pictures around the park…two separate activites. After a coffee break we went to his apartment and got ready for a night out. Sparing the details I can sum it up with soju, food, excellent company, more food and beverage and then an early morning Karaoke party. Staying out til the sun came up was not part of the plan, then again we really didn’t have a plan. Of course with Korean friends now I kind of have to start learning Korean – yet another language for me to slaughter to the amusement of the locals. Next weekend is the Korean holiday of Chuseok, which everybody have pretty much summed up as a Korean Thanksgiving. Actually it is their own holiday and has to do with everyone going home and playing traditional games and eating traditional food while honoring their ancestors. I guess the thing that makes it like Thanksgiving is that there’s a lot of food and everybody is on the road for the long weekend. We Americans get to have a long weekend too which is pretty awesome. I will most likely be in Seoul again.

The pictures are Soyosan, a restaurant serving food in the cold creek, squid (your choice) for dinner, taekwondo exhibition, Namsangol Hanok, and me and Loren throwing hands.