The Olympics Addendum Part IX: Leaving Korea

After Seoul, we headed back to Daejeon, where we wandered the city, and saw old friends. We even had lunch with my professor from KAIST, who is doing well. Then at 4AM, we boarded the bus to Incheon, got on a plane and headed back. Trans-pacific airplane rides are long, but they treat us well. The flight includes two full meals, and they give us slippers, pillows, blankets, tooth brushes, and a really sore backside.

This trip was a good chance to look back and appreciate what we learned from our adventure back in 2011-2013. Korean life is natural enough for us to get by without much worry, and we were able to enjoy this trip in a deeper way because we knew how to get around. I found out that I can read at a 1^st grade level, which is a big accomplishment for me, because I’m pretty sure I talk like a toddler. The thing that was the most fun was being able to talk to all the people who don’t normally speak English, which is the big payout of language learning. I’ll probably never make it past 5^th grade in Korea, but if I do, there’s no stopping.

East Asia’s differences reminded me that conventional wisdom is often just a mental shortcut, and there are often several ways to do things. It was really fun to encounter stuff I thought were bizarre back in 2011, but now find familiar and comfortable. We got to eat lots of fermented  food, sleep on the floor, eschew chairs, and wash dishes in sinks without drain stoppers.  (Prior to yesterday, I never knew why I washed dishes so strangely. It turns out that I was just doing it the Korean way without knowing. I think it does a better job too).

We were free from cars for two weeks, and replaced them with subways, buses, bullet trains and airplanes. We got to cross streams on stepping stones that would be considered too tall for safety, walk down the middle of streets with no sidewalks,  eat squid jerky, wander downtown at 4AM, walk along sheets of ice on sidewalks, and various other activities that would rattle American sensibilities. We got to see old friends, and even meet some new ones.  It was basically a 2 week long party.  We loved it!

Some funny guys at Jinbu Station
Note: many comedians dress in the old style for skits, but why does the dude on the right have his hoodie tucked in?

Until next time, this is Riley, signing out

-//-/   //

The Olympic Addendum Part VIII: Party buses!

The Olympic arenas are on the other side of town, so we have to ride the bus to get there. The Koreans have provided free bus service throughout the area for the Olympics, which is a big plus.  The buses for the Olympics are from across the land, even as far south as Jeju Island. We haven’t seen any Japanese or Chinese buses however.

The charter buses in Korea are pimped out with bling.  When we first got here back in 2011, I thought the bling was silly and dumb, but now the buses have grown on me.   For a while, buses were used as moving Norae Bang (Karoke) rooms, until the practice was banned approximately 10 years ago, for rather obvious reasons.

Dongsaeng Gangwon Style! (Courtesy of Oppa John)

Another example of a bus with bling

The Olympics Part VII: Beth, Seoul and Brein Tarkington

After departing our pension, we met up with Margaret's cousin, Beth, her fiance, George in the morning, and traveled to Seoul.  That night we met up with Brein Tarkington, and his wife Crystal (hopefully I spelled names correctly).  In the interim, we went to the top of the newly built Lotte World Tower, over 120 stories tall, approximately as high as One World Trade Center.  I’m not sure if N Korea was visible from on a clear day, but it is not unimaginable.  It was really beautiful.  Knowing Seoul some made it more enjoyable, especially with all the surrounding mountains. The next day, we got up, sent John and Laura on the train to Incheon Airport, and departed to head back down south to Daejeon to meet up with Ashely.  

The tall tall tower (5th tallest in world)

View to the west

View to the North. I wonder what's behind the haze...

The planning team at the end of a successful trip

The Olympics Addendum Part VI: Our Pension

The place we stayed in Gangneung is a type of bed and breakfast known as a pension.  I’m not sure where the name originated from, but it may have to do with pensioners (retirees) tending to go on vacation a lot. The room we were in was a blue room with a loft with a bed that John and Laura slept in. It being Korea and all, the floors were kept nice and warm with hot water, so we slept on the more traditional style cushioned floor mat, called a Yo. This suited us well. However, I (Riley) kept waking up at 3AM due to jet lag.  Going home is going to be rough…

The proprietors of the pension we’re at are super friendly. Having never stayed at a pension before, we didn’t know what to expect. Similar to many Korean services, the customers were treated extremely well.  During our 8 night stay, we got 3 free rides, a set of 4 Olympic souvenir towels, 2 liters of complementary beverages, and 4 little Korean dolls that we may convert to refrigerator magnets. We mostly communicated in Korean, which is a bit unusual, since most everyone is keen on English here, but for the hard words, our hosts had a voice translation app on their phones. (I actually think our voices are part of the English training dataset for the translator’s AI, since we participated in a voice recording study  in Korea way back in 2012 [or 13?] for such an app.)

View from Riley + Margaret's floor mat

Our pension was complete with a kitchenette, and mini-fridge. There was no washing machine, so Laura, our heroine did the clothes for us in the sink, and we dried them indoors, which worked well. Breakfast tended to alternate between kim-bap (California rolls), eggs, fruit & yogurt and sweets—no squid soup. This is the Airbnb posting.  I was sad to leave.

The Olympic Addendum Part V: The actual Olympics

Due to popular demand, I am obliged to document the real reason we are here: the Olympics! I'll defer to John's Blog for more/better pictures. We went to six events that are listed below. Let’s begin.

Ski jumping qualifier

The first event we saw was ski jumping.  It was amazing how far those guys flew.  It was cold, but not too cold.  For more on that, see our brother John's blog. Between rounds, about 10 people on skis re-conditioned the landing area, which is steeply sloped. To deal with this, the skiers staggered themselves, so if one began falling down the slope, they wouldn’t hit people below them like dominoes. Ski jumping is a sight to behold.

Carefully reconditioning the ski jumping landing area

Snowboarding qualifier

The next day, we spent watching the last snowboard jump. The snowboard course is so long that it is hard to watch the entire thing. It was really cold, so we went inside for a while. As with ski jumping, snowboarding course is about a 1.5 hour long trip up into the mountains. During the bus rides, I try and learn more Korea, but I’m unsure if I’ll ever finish. Heck, I’m still learning English, and I’m 30.  John discovered the wonders of Pork Buns (known as Ho-Bbang here).  He also learned about the wonders of Korean pricing. These guys don’t gouge you the way Americans do. 85 cents for a bottle of water inside the secure zone?  HECK 

YEAH!

Biathlon

Event 3 was biathlon.  Again, it was a bus ride up to the top of a cold mountain. For those not “in the know” like myself immediately prior to the event, biathlon consists of skiing and shooting.  The course consists of a 2500m cross-country circuit and a rifle range. We watched a 10km biathlon, so the players took 4 laps. When they completed a lap, they would go to the rifle range, and shoot at targets, and for every target they missed they would take a penalty loop around a ~100m penalty ring.  There were 85 skiers, each individually timed, staggered at ~30 second intervals, so keeping track of the progress was impossible, but it was a sight to behold.

Foreground: the biathlon track, Background, shooting range, Right: a portion of the penalty loop

Luge

The next night, we went up the mountain to the bob sled track, and watched the luge. Like all previous events aside from ski jumping, the entire track was not in view. For me the best part was getting to shout the names of various countries as the sleds went by at some awful speed. The only sad thing was that someone crashed (not too badly) in front of us.  We didn’t see the start of it, but her sled started wobbling, hit the wall, and a skate broke off from it, and she skidded to a stop. She seemed fine and walked off the track, but it was not clear if she was injury free.

Hockey

Most recently, we watched the US Women’s hockey team mop the floor with those poor athletes from Russia. It seemed like a hollow victory given that in all likelihood, half the Russian team got banned for the doping scandal.  It was fun to see hockey for the first time in a decade. I sat next to a Korean college student, and we taught him and his buds some of the basics of the game.  They don’t play hockey much in Korea.  Word has it that the United Korea team only got to practice together for two weeks, and that’s why they fell apart when they played Switzerland a few nights ago.  The North Koreans are unfortunately not allowed to talk too much.  We have not knowingly seen any either.

Face off!

Dutch brass band, complete with wooden shoes

Curling

On our last full day in Gangneung, we went and watched curling. We learned a thing or two about it before going.  For instance, the ice isn’t smooth, it has been sprayed with water droplets to make a bumpy surface. Also, the players have one shoe that slides and one that does not. I can’t help but think they get very lopsided that way, so perhaps they switch sides every so often. A point is awarded to the team who slides their stone as close to the center of the target as possible. The overall strategy is to try and knock the other team’s stones away from the “bull’s eye,” blocking the other teams stones, and getting their own stones as close to the bullseye as possible.

Curling is fun to watch because it is subdued like golf, but lacks all the icky business stuff that seems associated with golf. You can see all four games at once so if one gets slow, you can watch another one.  In the games we watched, there was a US vs Japan game, where Japan beat us pretty badly.  After curling there were some pretty serious wind gusts, so we went to find shelter outside the Olympic park, which had too many tents. We wound up eating some KFC (Korean Fried Chicken).  I told the people there that it tasted better than Kentucky Fried Chicken, and I meant it. Korean versions of American fast/junk food just taste better, because they aren’t loaded with as much starch/sugar/fat. Coke is drunk out of shot glasses for instance.

A highlight of the competition was Chosun guards leading in the teams.

We’ll keep posting about our Gangneung for a while even though we have moved on, since we’ve gotten a bit behind.  Cheers!

The Olympic Addendum Part IV: Gangneung, the place where we are staying.

We made it to the city where we are staying for the games without a hitch. We got to the KTX station, and the owner and proprietor of our pension (think cheaper version of bed and breakfast) picked us up at the station. He and his wife speak little English, but are incredibly nice.  Upon arrival, we were given a tour of the place, and then unpacked.  As we were settling in, the lady of the house provided us with a plate of dumplings, which were delicious.

Many of the indoor Olympic events are being held in Gangneung. It could be said that Gangneung is pronounced GawngLung, so I’m curious what those Olympic announcers are saying.  This almost caused trouble for us ourselves because I read the English spelling so much so that I ordered ticket for “Gangneung” and got tickets for the next station down the line, “Gangmyeon.”  Luckily we noticed, and promptly exchanged them.

A view of the city from a hill above Gyeongpo

The city on the East coast of South Korea, and features a beautiful lake. We are on the far side of the lake in the district of Gyeongpo, which is a tourist destination.  In true Korean form, the water feature is surrounded by landscaped parks and green ways. The parks in Korea are one of the best things, especially because they can be used as transportation pathways for things like your daily commute.  In America, one must go out of one’s way to visit a park. The upstream portion of the lake contains a marsh with a large population of prickly water lilies, which appear to be somehow unique, and give the park its name. Being winter, we had to fill in some blanks with imagination, since nothing was in bloom. Elsewhere in the park were a series of statues depicting what appeared to be some kind of mythical spirits, or a traditional story, completely unknown to us.  I’ll probably edit this later to give you all more pictures, and links to Korean blogs with better summer pictures.

Margaret and the lake

We are on the other side of the lake from Gangneung, next to a temple complex in the Gyeongpo district, which has paintings of the area back in the 1700s, when the lake was much higher. They are painted in the traditional Korean style. Since then, some genius visionaries decided that draining the lake partially would be good idea.  However this had the unfortunate side effect of creating an unhealthy wetland that smelled terrible.  Given that there was no way to fill the lake back up, they decided to bring in some folks who knew what they were doing. The fix was to facilitate the growth of a healthy marsh land, which has attracted an array of Korean wildlife, including egrets, night herons, grey herons, mandarin ducks, spot billed ducks, coots, and more. It appears the distinguishing feature of this place is the prickly water lily, for which the park is named.  Being a swamp girl, this was Margaret’s favorite part.

A shrine in Geyongpo, dedicated to an event that took place in the 5th century. Distinct from the temple.

It's Daejeon!

We said goodbye to Kevin and Lucy, and proceeded to our former home, Daejeon. We stayed with our friend Ashely, who is also an English Teacher. Ashely has recently been hooked up with a mission organization to teach Syrian refugees somewhere in Europe, which is very exciting.

Ashely took us out to dinner with Mijin, Kim Sujin, his wife Sophia, and their daughter Ga-un.  Kim Sujin is an unofficial ambassador of South Korea.  When he was in university, he studied abroad in Oklahoma, which is a go-to destination for English language learners. His host family was from the beloved island of Puerto Rico, which has been the victim of misfortune lately.  The Puerto Ricans of Oklahoma, treated Sujin very well, and were unofficial ambassadors of the US, showing him the best America has to offer.  Since then, Sujin has made it his work to welcome foreigners to Korea in much the same way. When we were very new to S Korea, Sujin took us to Gangwando, the province where the Olympics are being held, and we learned how Koreans have fun on family vacations, and got to see the amazing foraging skills that his aunts had retained from harder times.  We had some delicious wild mushrooms and wild caught fish on that trip (post here). On that trip, I was also served Korean spicy soup—the hottest thing I’ve ever eaten and actually liked.  I've ordered this at some resturaunts, but I think they gave me the milder version formulated especially for the Western palette (or my taste buds had been thoroughly burned off by that point.) 

The next day after reuniting with our old associates, we were able to get out and see a bit of Daejeon. We have some pictures below. Then, we departed for Ganglung for the Olympics.

Dinner with old friends

The famous Expo Bridge

Margaret under a random bridge in Daejeon

Stepping stones across the Gapcheon river. Don't fall in :-) 

The Olympics Addendum Part II: Korea’s beef

Koreans have strong feelings about some stuff. The biggest issues we've observed relate to "Free" trade and the Empires of Japan and China. For instance, free trade bothers Koreans as much as it does Americans, because they view it as a betrayal of the Korean farmers to benefit the rich owners of the 10 businesses the essentially run Korea. Big business is the 4^th and most powerful branch of government. Who controls most of your life?  It’s not the IRS.

 

Koreans with beef at the Independence Hall Museum. Note the "gun box" and rocket launcher.

One symbol of Korea’s anti-free trade sentiment is an aversion to American beef (see news story here).  I don’t really blame them, since “free” trade harms the smaller farmers of South Korea, but the small farm market may crumble in the coming decades, because industrial agricultural facilities are starting to open up, unfortunately.  Agriculture markets dominated by small farms are often cited as a near-ideal free market in economics classes.  In the small farm market, capitalism can flourish unfettered by the business thuggery inherent to oligopoly (only somewhat better than monopoly). Industrial agriculture results in the market being consolidated to have too few players, so market failure occurs, regulations get made with mixed success to address said market failure, and then you wind up with stuff like the American airline industry. Consolidation is the enemy of capitalism and it is closer to communism than I would like.  So the recent free trade agreement with the US which has brought us many nice home appliances, and has brought Koreans cheaper food is opposed similarly in both countries. We actually got a TV camera pointed in our faces a few nights ago and they asked our opinion of Korean Beef, and we said it was delicious. That said, big business helps the owning country on the international stage, which is one of the reasons we keep them around.

The biggest beef Koreans have is with imperialism—mostly of the Japanese variety. Empire is defined as a country that rules conquered peoples. From the 1890s to ~1980 various powers have vied for control of East Asia, and Korea has suffered through most of it. Prior to WWI, the US and Britain backed Japan in its war with Russia for control of the region.  The Japanese beat the snot out of the Russians at a time when non-European countries typically lost wars. Japan thus took over Korean region for themselves and started the disgusting process of empire building. They continued, and likely would have been successful if they hadn’t attacked Perl Harbor (Many Japanese advisors knew that was a bad idea, but the “tea party of Japan” won the dispute to their own detriment.) During the years from ~1905 through 1945, Japan raped Korea on many levels. (A) they did a lot of raping, (B) they stole all the natural resources, and (C) they enslaved the people etc. These are just a few of the crimes committed by the Japanese, and while much of East Asia harbors bitter feelings, Korea probably does the most. No matter how many times Japan says  “We’re sorry,” many Korean’s are still so traumatized that many see the apologies as “just words” and no amount of reparation can undo what has been done here. In Japan's defense, Japan probably learned most of this stuff from the western nations, who were just as evil back before WWI, we just don't talk about it.

After the Japanese got nuked, Russia and the US divided the Korean peninsula. As in most wars, there were no good guys.  The South Korean leadership was dictatorial in that time, and had no redeeming value.  North Korea at least gave everyone a free bowl of rice every day, but the tables have turned since then.  South Korea got a better dictator who built up the economy, but was a ruthless SOB. Eventually S Korea became a democracy. 

WWII was part of a larger conflict to unify East Asia, which was ultimately performed by Mao. China is the new Empire of East Asia, and has expanded its soft power across the globe.

Korea still has an open territorial dispute with Japan oven an Island in the sea of Japan, which Korea actively lobbies international bodies to rename as the East Sea. A lot of people here feel really strongly about it, but I think it’s mostly about natural gas. I roll my eyes when I see news about it, because it looks to be two islands, so it seems most sensible to split it down the middle, but that’s apparently unacceptable to either Korea or Japan. Add it to the list of Korea’s beefs.  

The Olympics Addendum Part I: Our First Day Back in the Land of the Morning Calm

We first arrived in Korea on Jan 5 after crossing the international dateline, landing in Incheon International Airport’s new terminal II. The Olympics in Korea are much like our wedding was for Margaret’s parents—namely an excuse to get stuff done.  Infrastructure improvements that were expedited for the Olympics included extending a KTX (Korea’s original bullet train) to the North West coast of South Korea, and adding another terminal to the Incheon Airport. The new terminal was very nice, as all new Korean things are.  Since it’s a big investment, I’m sure they’ll make sure it ages well.  Note: due to Korea’s love of all things shiny, many things don’t age well. Once that thin shiny surface coat starts to wear, it shows.

Once we landed, we had a small misadventure.  We had been planning to get KTX tickets to the city of Cheonan (pronounced Chŏnan—don’t let that “e” fool you) to visit our friend Kevin and Lucy. Cheonan is about 60 miles South of Seoul.  However, we had forgotten that Kevin lives next to the Cheonan-Asan station, and the KTX does not go to Cheonan, so we wound up deciding to go west to Seoul (there’s that mis-leading “e” again), and then south to Cheonan.  We arrived at Cheonan station, and Kevin picked us up in his car, and we drove across town to the Cheonan-Asan station.  This is the second time we’ve been fooled by a two-station city.

Our friend Kevin, has lived here since 2008, and likes it here so much that we wonder if he’ll ever leave. Kevin’s wife, Lucy is an English teacher, who is pivoting toward counseling. Lucy holds the honor and distinction of being the only person to ever feed us a midnight meal. Upon arrival, we were greeted with some really nice Bip-im-bab (mixed vegetables and rice—we have another blog post on that).  The vegetables are all pickled or fermented, so it’s not stir fry by any stretch of the imagination.  Being people who like that sort of thing, we devoured it.

But the insane hospitality didn’t stop there. The next morning, we got quiche in Korea!!!  Kevin loves cooking the most delicious of American dishes. When we were here, he was hailed by all foreigners in the city of Daejeon as The Great Maker of Lasagna. He has one or two secret, East Asian substitutions that make it extra yummy. 

Kevin is part time these days, which is nice.  He got a masters in teaching English as a second language (TESL) from a program sponsored both by a US and Korean University.  Given that he has really good people skills, he has been able to run with this and done well.

After the delicious breakfast (a joint Kevin/Lucy effort this time), Kevin took us to then Independence Hall of Korea. The museum is an excellent display of why war is bad, because it was all about war, specifically the Japanese Colonial Occupation of Korea. America & Britain started out as bad guys in all of this, but thankfully wound up as good guys in the end.  It was a huge museum, and we mostly focused on the part on pre-1900 history, which in, even though the majority of the museum was devoted to Korea’s version of the holocaust. Some items included pre-Gutenburg  movable type made from cast metal.

We also saw some displays about the Turtle Ships, which were clad with iron and spikes to harden them against burning arrows and  boarding parties (Japan's favorite tactic). The ships deployed in the 1590s to repel the Japanese navy, long before the famed iron-clad vessels of the US Civil War. The mastermind behind all this was Yi Sun-Shin (Wikipedia) who had a hand in the design of the turtle ships. In one famed battle, 13 turtle ships were victorious against a Japanese armada of 133 war ships, and 200 logistical support vessels. Admiral Yi also had home court advantage, because his navigators knew where all the sharp rocks were, and made sure the Japanese sailed over them. The Turtle Ships were slow, but a Turtle Ship out-ranged and out-gunned the average Japanese vessel.

Exhibit of Korean sailor loading a cannon on a Turtle Ship in Independence Hall Museum

Sending the Japanese Navy home

After that, we proceed to the beautiful City of Daejeon, the city of Interesting Tradition and Science, which is the source of the “It’s Daejeon! “Brand.