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
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