Onwards and Southwards

Only three weeks until we leave for our next trip...

(Photo taken at Hwaseong Fortress in Suwon, Korea.)

Busan Ways To Die

(Posted by Andrew a few days after we got back because, well, you'll see...)

This post inspired and dedicated to "Dumb Ways to Die":

For our last day in Busan, we decided to head out to some hiking in the woods on Geumjeong-san. And by "hiking", I mean "riding the cable car to the top and exploring for 30 minutes then going to find a nice lunch". We didn't even wear our hiking shoes.

After easily reaching the south gate of Geumjeongsanseong fortress, we took a recommendation from our Lonely Planet book to seek out Seokbul-sa Temple, described in the book as "out-of-the-way and difficult-to-find"; it should have been described as "not on the mountain you are currently standing on; actually near the top of the next mountain over". We didn't discover this omission until we were pot-committed, having already descended the wrong side of Geumjeong-san from the cable car and realizing we would have to hike all the way back up or else exit the park in an unfamiliar direction. As we started up the next mountain and not convinced we were going the right way, I spotted a rock outcropping near the peak and commented that it surely couldn't be all the way up there. Famous last words. Thus our 30-minute stroll in a park turned into a 4-hour hike in the mountains. Luckily we had come prepared and had brought with us half a bottle of water and a full pack of Mentos for sustenance.

Hiking in the mountains without adequate supplies... dumb ways to die, so many dumb ways to die!

Admittedly when we finally got there, Seokbul-sa was impressive. Smaller than most temples we've seen in Asia but certainly different, carved out of the actual rock of the mountain itself. Also, the nice thing about Buddhists is that they don't mind and are even encouraging of you to explore and take photos of their temples while they are practising their religion.

We gave up any hope of being able to ascend back to the cable car so decided to try our luck walking out of the park to the south as there seemed to be a steady stream of hikers coming from that direction. While not arduous, it was a lengthy trail and about half way down we encountered a man selling tea by the side of the trail. At first we were going to pass him by but then one of the other hikers, seeing the state we were in, encouraged us to come over and join him in a sample of the tea (in what little English he knew: "drink... make strong!"). The tea was actually quite invigorating and gave us renewed strength on our way down the mountain; we even bought some to take back home. (Foreshadowing for later that night: "It must've been the tea! What else could it have been? Why did we agree to that tea?")

Accepting drinks from strangers in the woods... dumb ways to die, so many dumb ways to die!

Not unlike the final sequence in "Alive", the woods eventually finally gave way to suburbs which finally gave way to urban sprawl where we thankfully stumbled immediately upon a subway station to take us back to our "home" neighbourhood of Haeundae. A late lunch was enjoyed reviewing how unprepared we had been for that adventure and how we'd look back on it and laugh. We then went for an evening cruise around Busan and had planned a late bulgogi dinner as a farewell to Korea, since the next morning we had a long journey all the way home to Calgary.

(Anyone who like happy endings, has a weak stomach, or an underdeveloped sense of schadenfreude should stop reading here. Or just anyone: stop reading now. The rest of this post should probably only be discussed with my therapist and not published on the internet. Consider yourself warned.)

Then *it* happened.

It happened to Jessica starting at about 9PM, it didn't get me until around 1AM. Food poisoning, almost certainly from the tea, and bad. Every molecule of food and liquid in our systems decided to head for the emergency exits, with many of them realizing that the nearest exit was behind them. It's never a good sign when you need to call the front desk in the wee hours of the morning to ask to have more toilet paper delivered to your room. (The one bright spot in an otherwise horrible night was that Jessica & I, being so well-suited for each other, did manage to time our frequent bathroom trips perfectly: the bathroom was almost never empty but at any given time one person was shivering from the cold sweats on the bed while the other person was retching in the bathroom; I can't think of a single instance when we conflicted.)

By morning we were two exhausted, dehydrated corpses and the room was reduced to a post-apocalyptic wasteland. We now had to start an estimated 23-hour journey home (taxi + train + train + plane + plane + car) and hadn't yet managed to go 15 minutes without using the bathroom. I found a few packets of Imodium in my toiletry bag but they were 6-months past their expiry date. Good enough, we both agreed.

Eating medicine that's out of date... dumb ways to die, so many dumb ways to die!

(And that one's actually in the real song.)

We made it home... alive... eventually... barely. We're looking forward to exercising the lessons we learned from our day of stupidity in Busan. Also, I'm looking forward to being able to keep food down again.

On a plus note, if anyone is looking to lose a few pounds, I know a foolproof technique.

Busan

A high-speed train ride finds us in Busan for the second half of our Korean tour.

I've often said that one of the great joys in life is not being a fussy eater: whatever shows up wherever I am in the world, I can eat it. (Offer void in Koya-san.) This worked well in eateries in the Jagalchi fish market where the specialities of the house are raw fish and not speaking a word of English.  We ended up just shrugging our shoulders and trying to give the universal "whatever you think is best" look to the proprietor. A feast of raw fish and other Korean specialities soon arrived, luckily the only thing we think were still alive when served were some strange sea snails. (It is somewhat creepy to be eating a fish while all his buddies are in a tank a few feet away watching you, though.)

In the afternoon we found ourselves in Taejongdae Park without really planning it or knowing what it was. It was a nice and peaceful break from the hustle & bustle of Seoul (and Tokyo before that), and a walk down several hundred steps to the sea front made for some nice pictures at sunset:

One more day of fun tomorrow before the long trek home.

The DMZ

A tour of the Korean Demilitarized Zone is strange and surreal. It alternates between deadly serious and jokingly goofy; between safety briefings from armed military personnel you take silly tourist photos, and then are occasionally snapped back to reality by the fact that there are 26 million people trapped on the other side.

First we we hiked in and out of the Third Tunnel, where no photos were allowed.

Next, we viewed North Korea from the Dora Observatory, where no photos were allowed.

After that, off to Camp Bonifas for a safety and security briefing, where (you guessed it) no photos were allowed.

Finally, we actually entered the DMZ and went to the Joint Security Area which straddles the border between North and South Korea where, strangely, photos were just fine:

This situation is so absurd that it's difficult to know whether to laugh or cry. We were only allowed to take photos of the North Korean side; if we took any photos to the left or right or at the building we came out of, our cameras would be confiscated.

The raised cement line running left to right between the blue buildings marks the border. ROK soldiers stare defiantly at the North Korean side while tourists take silly photos. The North Korean soldiers are drawn back during tours from the south to prevent the situation from getting too tense (there's one visible if you search carefully); our side offers the same courtesy during the other side's infrequent tours.) The blue buildings straddle the border with a door on each end for meetings between the two sides, with even a marker on the table in the centre of the room marking where the border is so that nobody strays to the wrong side.

However, since the building on the left has it's North door locked we were able to go inside and even onto the North Korean side of the border. Here's me standing about 8 meters into North Korea with the ROK soldier guarding the wrong exit of the building:

If I had managed to get by him and left by that blue door behind me, the rest of my life would have taken a decidedly different turn.

Finally, before leaving the DMZ we had one more chance to look at the other side as the sun set behind Propaganda Village, set up by the North Koreans to show off their prosperity and to entice South Koreans to defect to the North. (Apparently the buildings were mostly empty shells with painted on doors & windows and very infrequently had electricity or even any people around other than minimal maintenance & upkeep personnel.)

While this photos was being taken, our armed US Army escort pointed out to us that the North Koreans in the nearby guard towers were observing us and taking our photos, the treeline just beyond the DMZ had hidden special forces & snipers watching us, and 90% of North Korea's artillery is in the mountains just across the valley, close to the border so they can reach Souel. Meanwhile, I took photos to post on Facebook.

We're a funny species.

Day Three in Souel

Day Three in Seoul was more of a standard tourist day: a trip up N Seoul Tower, the day spent on a tour bus around the downtown area, and then drinks & dinner with our local friend in Itaewon.

No time for a long post today. Tomorrow we head to the DMZ...

The Land of the Super-Helpful People

(A length entry, posted by Andrew)

The highlight of Day Two was the people more than the sights: we are in the Land of the Super-Helpful People.

We started the day at Namdaemun Market shopping for trinkets for family back home. After that, the plan had been to take a tour bus around the city but we discovered it doesn't run on Mondays. Instead we decided to catch a train south to Suwon so we set off to Seoul Station where we encountered...

Super-Helpful Person #1, who was more of a warm-up act, or amuse-bouche, as she spotted us trying to puzzle our way through the Seoul Metro map and took us to the right platform. The appetizer was when we arrived in Suwon and were on the street outside the station trying to get our bearings when we were accosted by...

Super-Helpful Person #2, who was clearly trained in foreign relations by watching episodes of The Amazing Race. Once she found out where we wanted to go she guided us to the line for taxis and then decided to wait with us. We tried to let her off the hook after she inquired about how long the wait would be and found it would be twenty minutes (which made little sense since there were about three dozen taxis parked in front of the line up - I guess this is just one of the mysteries of the far east) but she insisted on staying to make sure our cabbie had the right directions. I was worried that she was holding out for a payment but it turned out she just wanted to be helpful and apparently wasn't in much of a rush to get wherever she was going. The joke was on us though because the cab ended up taking us to the back entrance of Hwaseong Fortress meaning we had to explore it in reverse, but more importantly meant we were not in a tourist zone though desperately in need of lunch. We ended up finding a Chinese restaurant where we enjoyed the main course of...

Super-Helpful Person 3a & Super-Helpful Person 3b, non-English-speaking proprietors of the restaurant. During the meal we discovered that the zipper on Jessica's bag had jammed shut, trapping her purse, our guidebook, and umbrellas inside it. After fighting it for ten minutes, I approached Super-Helpful Person 3a, showed her the bag and motioned that I wanted a knife to cut it open. Instead, she grabbed it and, along with Super-Helpful Person 3b, refused to give it back until it was not only open but also completely fixed. Out came scissors and needle & thread and the next twenty minutes was spent in intense focus on repairing the bag:

After lunch we explored Hwaseong Haenggung Palace (which was completely void of people) and then a hike to the top of the mountain in Hwaseong Fortress where dessert came in the form of Super-Helpful Person 4. She was a fellow tourist who offered to take our photo and then insisted on giving us a ten minute lesson on proper framing and getting natural poses for tourism photos. You be the judge:

"Walk away from the camera and then turn around suddenly for a more natural pose":

"Face half-away from the camera and look back like you're being interrupted by the photographer":

She also had a secret tip for ladies that she would only share with Jessica:

Noticing her accent, I asked her where she was from and it turned out she was from Belfast. When I told her I was born there she said she had thought I had the face of an Ulsterman. Jessica remembered it as me having the skin of an Ulsterman but I'd have read that as an insult - wouldn't that just be code for "you look pasty"?

Boneheaded move of the day: At the Suwon train station on the way home we found the sign that said "Trains in the direction of Souel" so we paid our fares and entered that section of the train station. After ten minutes of confusion we exited again and bothered to read the second half of the sign: "...are located on the other side of the train station." There's 3500 won we'll never get back. (About $3.50.)

Can you explain to me how windows work again?

Our first morning in Seoul we woke to find our hotel room was boiling hot and no amount of fiddling with the air conditioner would solve it. On the way out for the day we stopped by the front desk to ask them to look at it while we were out. The clerk responded that they didn't run the air conditioning in the fall but that he could send a fan up to our room. As we walked away he added "Or... you could just open the window. It's quite cool outside."

Now, clearly we're the biggest imbeciles to visit this country but in our defence:

1. Hotel windows in hi-rises never open in North America. (Not because they're worried you'll fall out, but because they're worried you'll screw up the air conditioning and negative pressure inside the hotel.)
2. The window didn't open manually; you had to use electronic controls that were sneakily hidden behind the curtains.

Our tour guide for the morning was one of my (Andrew) old friends from Lister Hall at the University of Alberta (seventeen years ago - crap does that ever make me feel old) who I knew was living in Seoul thanks to Facebook. He gave us the essentials of the city and local customs, and we had a good catch-up before we adventured out on our own. We explored the local tourist market before having a long wander around Gyeongbokgung Palace.

Final thought for the day: cabs are very cheap and efficient here, as long as you're not bothered that the cabbie has a small TV on the dashboard that he watches while he drives. Ours was enjoying women's volleyball.

Five days in Japan.

This trip started with a week of business in Tokyo for me (Andrew). Tonight the sun sets behind Mt.Fuji and tomorrow I fly to Seoul where Jessica should be arriving from Vancouver just an hour after me.



No witty commentary today; I'm too tired and still have to head back out for a "traditional Japanese drinking party" before getting not enough sleep and heading to the airport.

I swear this trip wasn't inspired by the song.

Choosing the theme song for our next trip was a no-brainer: