Transcendental unity of apperception

I've been having a love affair with that Kantian phrase...

Anyways...

Dongdaemun Stadium: There wasn't much that was significant about this adventure other than I haggled for the first time in Korea. I forgot my camera upload wire back home and needed one, so I figured that I could find a cheap replacement at the market. I brought my camera and asked in Konglish (Korean + English) for "cable" (many Korean words are rooted in English, except with slightly different pronunciation. Computer is pronounced "com - poo - der" and apartment is pronounced "a - pat - tu, for example). I showed the shopkeeper my camera and said "cable download." He picked up on it and showed me a cable for roughly $5. I shook my head no and said that was too expensive and then I held up three fingers. I won! It was a good experience.

That was my Friday. I had an adventure walk as well, but there wasn't much that was memorable. I think the best part was when these two middle-school girls were walking past and one said "hello" and both of them ran off giggling as I responded. Some Westerners say they are tired of it, but I still find it funny. Maybe I'll eat these words in a couple months.

I spent most my Saturday trying to "fix" my phone. The problem that I have is that I need to set up an account with SK to get a new USIM card. In order for them to give me a new USIM card, I need an Alien Registration Card (which I would need to get within 90 days anyways). Tomorrow I am going to apply for the card, but the application usually takes a couple days (3-4). The conclusion is that I am phone-less for the next week -- it sucks. Everyone out there should give their phones a hug and kiss their SIM cards. The "fix" I was trying to work out was to import a Skype program that would let me make phone calls over Skype's service on my cell phone. Using this application, I believe I would just need to have a Skype account and then purchase SkypeIn for people to be able to call me. Trust me, it would likely be easier than going with Ada to set up an account on my credit card (dear God, please let them accept foreign credit cards...). Samsung hates my phone so provides NO drivers to allow me to connect my phone to my computer. Essentially, when I connect my phone, my computer doesn't recognize the phone and won't let me do anything with it. It took me 5-6 hours of trying to find third-party software that would allow my computer to establish an uplink with the phone before I admitted defeat and gave up.

I did have an interesting experience on my way back from the store on Saturday. I was just walking out with these amazing drinks (that are better than anything ever)...wait...hold that thought. These drinks are like carbonated Milkis. I've had regular Milkis before and mostly felt the price wasn't worth the taste, but this is carbonated and the best drink in the world. I can really only describe it as cream, milk, sugar and carbonation -- trust me, I don't get excited about drinks very easily, but this was worth it's own paragraph.

So I was walking outside the store and this guy waves me down. I walk over and say hello and he starts talking to me in Konglish. The only real word that I recognized very well (he slurred most his words together) was "gentleman." He called me that several times, so I thanked him, shook his hand and proceeded on my way. Maybe 20 steps later, he yells "gentleman" to me and walks over to me. Shakes me hand, looks me in the eye and grunts. He leans in real close to me with his shoulder touching my chest and reaches into his back pocket. He pulls out about 40 pictures and starts showing them to me. One picture has a woman in front of a tree and he pointed with his thumb at his chest. I guessed his wife. I didn't know what I could really say, so I just commented on the tree. That made him smile. He started cycling through these pictures -- one I think was him and his brother as children, three pictures were probably his kids, a couple pictures of his wife. I stayed with him for a couple more minutes and then told him I was cold and pointed toward Ada's place. He looked me right in the eye, said "gentleman," checked the zipper on my coat and put his hand on my cheek. We smiled and parted...it was, all in all, an interesting experience. I felt pretty safe through the whole...umm...conversation and I don't know if I would have felt the same way back home.

Moving on to Sunday! Josie and I made plans to visit a couple places around Seoul and then finish the night with ice skating at city hall. It can get pretty hard to meet people without a cell phone, so we didn't get together until 2:45 (45 minutes past our meeting time). Our first destination was Insadong, which is a more traditional Korean district. I'm not sure if we missed that section, but for the most part, it appeared like the rest of Seoul. The most significant parts of Insadong were the palaces with pictures below:

This is the courtyard to the main entrance. It was pretty big and really cool.














Josie and I in front of a different palace enterence. To be honest, we visited 6 separate and unique palaces and I can't tell them apart.












This is the barren forest inside the palace walls. Josie commented that Koreans often plant trees in Seoul (they are somewhat rare) and then fail to water them. She said that in Seoul, most caretakers use straw to make "clothes" for the trees. We saw a couple trees that had these straw coats. But, despite this, she expressed disappointment with Korean trees.








Look at that...cold enough to snow, but it just won't! I think this will look beautiful in the summer time.













This carving was decorating parts of one of the palaces. The men on horses are Japanese and it appears that the Japanese are killing or torturing women in this Korean village. There was another carving commemorating a female martyr that helped found a resistance group. The style shows her raising a Korean flag despite the coming Japanese bayonets.








After we finished at Insadong, we planned to visit Itaewon. I'd been trying to avoid spending too much time at Itaewon because it is the foreigner part of Seoul and I am not really interested in meeting up with Westerners at this point. Nonetheless, I felt that I would have to go in order to find an ATM that allows withdrawals from international banks. Luckily, it worked, so I was able to replenish my cash supply which was uncomfortably low. We ate at an expensive restaurant in Itaewon (expensive because of all the foreigners) that served mediocre food -- not as good as Kim bop (I also learned that is two words) around Ada's -- and I had my first experience with Soju. Expensive food in Korea is about normal back home -- I paid about $8 for my meal and was a little pissed. Back at my little Kim Bop restaurant I could get more food for $3 and it tastes better.

Soju is a Korean drink that comes in a beer-sized bottle and then the patrons pour it into shot glasses. Josie told me that traditional Korean customs demand the younger generations to pour for the older generations -- so Josie, being some 3 months my junior, had to fill my shot glass. Additionally, she said that the elders are supposed to drink their Soju facing the guest while the youngsters need to turn to their left when they drink -- therefore not facing the elder. Finally, it is mildly rude to have empty glasses during the meal because it makes the host look inattentive (that is my understanding at least). Josie said she disliked that custom because guests will often avoid drinking so the host doesn't have to serve everyone and also that many tables are left with drinks that are completely full.

We finished our night ice skating at city hall. It was really cheap, costing only about $3 for the both of us (including skate rental). They also gave us little gloves that we got to keep. I hadn't been ice skating in years and that made it a blast. There were a lot of people, so I made it a goal to knock down as many of them as I could...just kidding. Here is a picture of the outside of the skating rink:

Pictures

So I couldn't find the cord to upload pictures from my camera. Today I went back to the Dongdaemun Stadium to try to buy a replacement cord and the look for DVD's. I'll update later on that adventure, but first here is a round of pictures (I had some problems with format, so excuse the ordering):

This is a shop at Dongdaemun that ONLY sold foreign bags. In this picture you can see a Chanel bag. There were also Abercrombie bags, Disney bags and so forth. Brian told me that Koreans are very status orientated, so buying your goods and putting them in a Chanel bag looks better than a simple black bag. I can't tell from this picture, but I believe most bags were sold for about $3.







This picture shows two things: the market was actually on a street with people driving through and it also shows a car with loudspeakers driving through the crowd. I wanted to get a picture of the side because I think it said something like "choose Jesus and receive hell." They were Christian, just had some trouble with the translation.








This was the alleyway of shoes. I must stress this picture does not do justice to how many shoe stores were on this path.

Silkworm larvae. The smell was so strong that it overpowered every other smell in the market.












This is the room I am in. The bed nearly touches the door. There is a bookcase to the bottom left of this picture.













I usually see that symbol as a swastika. I know that it is a religious symbol for Buddhists and Hindus, but seeing it everywhere takes some getting used to. On that note, there are quite a few Churches with giant neon illuminated crosses that light the sky at night. It looks almost a little Satanic to see these bright red crosses on the skyline...









I think this is a picture of the Eastern Gate (name might be different, though). It was destroyed in the Korean war and then rebuilt. Ada explained that it was a military fort. The reason I like this picture so much is because you can see a meshing of 21st century and 18th century. I bet you $5 those cars turning left are running a red light...









This is Ada's shower. My first night here I went in fully clothed and just set things on top of the washer while I showered, not realizing they would be completely soaked. As you can see, there is nowhere to put dry clothes where they can't get wet. There are a couple nails available to hang towels from.

Skype and driving

I'll go ahead and reverse that order and talk about driving first.

Since this is approaching on the longest I've spent in a city the size of Seoul, it is difficult for me to differentiate between what is shared in big cities and what is unique to Seoul. With that said, I have never been so dumbfounded at the driving behaviors in this city!

As far as I can tell, police do not spend much time on traffic violations. I am used to "green = go, yellow = go faster or stop, red = stop." Here, red seems to mean either 1) "I can make it before oncoming traffic hits me," 2) "the car behind me is probably going to go as well, so I won't look quite as bad running this light," or 3) "proceed with caution." It isn't just the regular drivers either, it is taxi drivers and bus drivers. The Village Bus (Ada calls it that, but it is smaller than the other buses. I think the village bus gets kicked around by the bigger ones so I ride it to help it's self-esteem) last night was at a red light, a car was coming and the bus just went after the car passed. The light was red! Additionally, I was in a cab with Ada one day and the taxi was the sixth car to enter the intersection after the light turned red.

I really love that bus though. I am used to cars merging when given the opportunity, but this bus pulls up centimeters (I am trying to learn the metric system -- I wish they taught it to us in school...) next to the nice Hyundai, with the driver going straight and the bus trying to merge in, and the bus driver just starts honking. He waved his hands and just started going into the lane.

Streets around Ada's place are also paper thin. If I were driving here, I would consider most to be alleyways or simply parking lots because so many people just park in the street. I was walking today on a two lane road -- a TWO LANE ROAD (for emphasis) -- and half of the right lane was filled with parked cars that were up on the sidewalk. The left side mirrored the same image. This obviously made the road a one-lane road with traffic going in two directions. Despite all the honking, the drivers almost always seem very courteous. Both cars coming at each other honked and then one pulled to the side and they waved at each other. Normally I always see one of the cars yield with no yelling or obscene gestures (unless a wave means something different here...). I spent most of my day walking and witnessed one-way signs crying as they were ignored. I swear I saw tears! My first morning here I also saw a sign that had a picture of a car getting towed. I assumed that meant "don't park here, or you will be towed." Unsurprising, a car was parked as close to that pole as possible -- almost as the obligatory middle finger. I laughed to Ada about it and she just said she rarely sees tickets, fines or cars towed.

I walked a couple kilometers (AKA miles) today. Most stores seemed closed except for PC cafes and convenience stores. If only one of those SK telecom stores stayed open, they would have had 100% of the business today. The first walk I went on was to get Jasmine out for exercise. She did better this time and walked for most of the trip. I think she is trying to test my patience because she will randomly stop and shiver. I don't really want to pull her or pick her up, so I just stand there and say "come Jasmine. I have candy for you" (that works with kids). She would wait a couple minutes and then just continue walking. She did the same thing when I wanted to take a different route than her.

My second walk was to try to find a computer microphone so I could talk with Skype. I was trying to find a department store, electronic store, or street vendor that had something cheap. I walked for about an hour through the streets until I found a PC cafe that was open. The guy at the desk spoke little English, but we were able to hand-gesture our way to an understanding. He gave me directions to someplace that he believed would sell me a microphone. I realized at this point it would be good to have my phone because my phone has an English-Korean dictionary. I didn't bring it since it was low on batteries and beeping at me. I ate when I got home and charged my phone while I waited. Jasmine and I talked about interior decorating over noodles and pineapple juice.

As I took off again, I stopped at another PC cafe to see if anything was closer. This guy spoke no English, but I had my dictionary to show him "buy" and then I said microphone while demonstrating with a headset on one of the computers. He went to the back room and brought me one in a box. I was pleased because I bought these cool headphones for 3000 Won ($3) and they are made by Hyundai! They are blue and have padding to make sure it is soft. They are called "ROCK FIRE" (not in capitals, but that is how I say it).

On that note, just a little quirk of Korea, major companies seem to be somehow attached to everything commercial. There are SK gas stations and there is a band that was made to sell Samsung phones (Anyband is the band name to sell their phones, Anycall). There are other examples, but I can't think of them right now. Oh, I also saw a vending machine for candy, coffee, pop and it was a pay phone!

Back on track, I dropped my new headphones off at Ada's and logged on Skype. I started searching for JiBin's friends, but only found one (I think...I sent the person a message but she has yet to respond). I also couldn't find JiBin. My sister said she made an account, but gave me no indication as to what it is. For the record, my contact on Skype is erik.hagen2. I have a microphone now so just give me a call on Skype and we can chat!

I played around for about an hour and then decided to go for an "adventure" walk where I was just exploring the city. I was gone for about three hours because I got lost. When I got home I made dinner, watched "Sicko" and showered. Today felt boring compared to yesterday, but I somehow managed to get quite a bit written. I am impressed.

More phone + Lotte World!

Well yesterday wasn't as exciting, so I didn't take the time to write about it. I will simply make two observations:

1) Cell phone service sucks for foreigners here. First, after some searching, Ada and I figured out that I either need to buy 1) a new USIM card (pretty much the same as a SIM card) or 2) transfer the service to me from the previous owner. The problem with 2 is that she is gone for Lunar New Year and won't be back until next week (phone-less until then). And the problem with 1 is that I will need a subscription plan, which means I need an Alien Registration Card, which means that if you add in the holiday days, I can't submit for the card until next week. The reason is: Lunar New Year. I think it will work out eventualy, but I feel absolutely naked without a (working) phone (because I carry it with me to play with my virtual pet).

Lunar New Year is coming up (actually, tomorrow). It is a national holiday where many Koreans travel to visit family. I heard a story of a family that had to book a plane ticket to get from Seoul to Pusan (about a 2 hour bus) because there was nothing left of anything else. Anyways, it means that the business hours are all messy and I am mostly stuck with nothing to do. Ada and Brian went for a trip today for the New Year and so I am here alone watching Ada's dog Jasmine. I think Jasmine was abused in her earlier years and doesn't take kindly to men at all because she is constantly frightened of me and Brian, but seems to be okay around Ada. I tried to walk her tonight and we made it about half way until she refused to move...I had to carry her back.

So a lot can happen in two days, which explains the jumping around. 2) The second thing that happened yesterday was that Ada and I went looking for phone help. The place we needed was SK telecom. I had NO idea how frequently these stores appear. Literally, in a one block radius, there were about five different stores. Ada explained that they each serve different functions, but never really clarified what those functions were. All the stores sell phones, some can offer credit for prepaid service, some can help with USIM problems, some don't seem to do either, some are VERY friendly to foreigners, some are mean to foreigners. I didn't think it was possible to visit twelve different SK telecom stores in an hour...I mean think of Starbucks in Seattle -- one every block -- and I was amazed at how many of these stores exist. Each one appears to be independently managed because they all have sales. My Korean is still poor (awful), but one store appeared to have a 90% off phones (I read that in English)...or they raised prices by 90%...but I doubt that. When you see "90% phone..." you mostly assume it is a sale for how much % off.

Ada also gave me some useful advice. The traditional barber shop signs that spin red, white and blue are like everywhere on the streets around her place. They spin much quicker here than back home, so I told her I really liked the barber shop signs. Ada then gave me one of those "wait, what?" moments when she enlightened me that they can sometimes be symbols for prostitutes. "Wait, what?" Ada continued "I've heard from friends that if there are two spinning next to each other, that is where you can find prostitutes." We also just happened to be passing about three in a row that were paired together. I was silent a couple seconds and then thanked her: "I would have been very confused during that haircut..."

Lotte World: If I could describe it in one word, I would say "DisneylandwithoutDisney."

(Lotte World will now be abbreviated as LW because I got tired of writing Lotte so many times)

I got in touch with another exchange student from OSU studying in Korea named Josie. I had been communicating with her through Facebook and she invited me to join her and a friend at LW today. I honestly had no idea what it was. Nonetheless, I thought it would great to meet Josie and her friend and spend the day with them. I woke up at like 8:15 in order to meet her outside LW at 9:30AM (I was trying to be late, but made it on time thanks to a miscalculation on how long it would take the bus to reach the subway). Josie was born and raised in Korea, but her parents moved to the USA because the education was better (I know, I was a little surprised too) and they wanted her to learn English. She is already fluent in Korean, is near perfect in English (she was more humble about it) and also speaks Japanese. Really smart.

Her friend (I feel so bad because I forgot her name twice) was also really nice, but was too shy to really speak English around me. What that led to was Josie talking to me for ten minutes in English and then talking to her friend in Korean. Her friend and I indirectly communicated through Josie -- but my jokes weren't as funny in Korean, apparently. I felt really bad because I wanted to talk to Josie but didn't want to leave her friend out. In my defense, Josie taught me like twenty new Korean phrases (I remember maybe 5 of them =*( ), and her friend's name was hard for me to remember. I was the first American her friend had really spent any time with...I am going to sleep tonight hoping I made a good impression.

Back to LW: LW is an amusement park in Seoul, housed inside what I see as a big shopping mall. Let me clarify that: if you took old Washington Square, built two more stories and installed a theme park, you would have half of LW. There was an additional island outside with some fun rides, so maybe take that image and add an island about the size of a football stadium if the stadium were flat. The theme for the park seemed to be "Western culture."

Let me first stress how awesome this place was. I had such a blast and it was an amazing day. But I have to laugh about a few things, observe a couple more and then say what I loved.

Laugh 1) I think in the Western world there is often a mental organization that groups together all Asian societies into one shared culture. I was reminded of that here as well, except in the opposite direction. There was this ride that was something like "The Pharaoh's Curse" that possessed an Ancient Egypt theme. Inside the doors, there was this statute of Horace or some similar Egyptian god that was held on a pillar with Ancient Greeks. As we continued through this room, I noticed impressionist paintings of romantic France and American architecture. The next room was the pharaohs tomb...

Laugh 2) Disneyland has those magic cups...LW has the "Drunken Basket."

Laugh 3) Speaking of Disney, most themed rides seemed to be eerily similar to Disney. "Pirates of the Caribbean" was found with "Adventures of Sindbad," "Space Mountain" was this ride like "Comet Rush," and "Splash Mountain" was some weird adventure with many dinosaurs. One ride that I loved was called "French Revolution." I didn't get the name at all because there wasn't anything remotely French...unless the revolution involved a cave with flashing lights and one of those loops on a roller coaster where you are upside down.

Laugh 4) Sometimes the English translation just came off humorously. I remember reading a couple signs and just smiling to myself (Ali Baba and the 40 Fibs). I bet American signs written in Korean come off odd as well, but chuckling about the language differences is sometimes just called for. Case in point, from the English LW website, Lotty (the mascot) is described as "(one who) likes to play with other children, and is our friend who breeds dream with bright and nice mind." Ignoring the proximity of children and breeds, I just couldn't help but picturing a parent reluctantly explaining "when two people love each other very much..."

Observation 1) The staff at LW was really great and brought some positive energy. Josie had to translate, but as we finished the rides, four staff members would say something like (and you have to sing this in beat, each period is a pause) "the exit..is on [clap clap] the right." I couldn't imagine that job being very fun, but the staff seemed to have fun with synchronized hand movements (like "are you ready [point point] then lets get this [clap clap] ride going [move arms in a circle to point at the conductor]). Everyone there also had this wave where they took both hands and just kind of waved them. One guy told Josie that at Everland (the biggest in Korea, LW is the second) they do the same wave with their palms facing inward. That should be a jeopardy question.

Observation 2) I REALLY stuck out here. I got kicked off two rides for being too tall where a Korean that looked about the same height as me passed without question. The cut off for two rides was 1.87M (I am about 1.95M according to Josie's phone) so I was only 8CM too tall. That is nothing! Maybe he was short enough and I misjudged his height, but we met nearly eye to eye. There was also this little girl that ran up to me while I was waiting in line, waved, and said "hello." As I started to respond she ran off. Put a big smile on my face. Brian and I were walking home one night and this little boy said "hi" and ran off, leaving his two friends there. Brian growled at them and they took off too. I laughed as Brian explained he was tired of the kids.

Great Thing 1) I am not sure why (because today was a holiday), but there were not many people there. In the afternoon, some waits were about 40 minutes (reminisce of Disneyland). The park seemed to quiet down at 6PM when we rode the same ride three times in a row by running around and getting back in line. There were two rides that took us up some 30 stories and gave us a free fall. The lights of the Seoul buildings bouncing off the half-iced river was breathtaking (coupled with the quick fall, which also made it hard to breathe).

Great Thing 2) The park was very accommodating to foreigners, printing many signs in Korean, English and Chinese. Many staff members also spoke a little English to help me out during those confusing times.

Great Thing 3) The food was great! I couldn't tell you what I ate today, but everything was spectacular. There was this snack that was like a pancake stuffed with a sweet paste of beans and sunflower seeds (according to Josie). It was so sweet and wonderful, despite my limited description.

Great Thing 4) The rides were very fun. We bought our tickets to enter LW at about 10AM and left at 9:00PM only because I was concerned that the bus wouldn't be running too late during the holidays. There was a laser light show starting at 9 that I wanted to see and then there was this ride that circled the inside section. At night, the illuminated structures would have been beautiful.

Great Thing 5) Josie is awesome. Was so great spending the day with her. Her friend was nice too, but I wish there would have been something I could have done to help her feel comfortable speaking English around me.

My Superbowl and phone adventure

Brian asked me last night if I wanted to wake up at 7AM to go to an Irish pub in the foreigner part of Seoul to watch the Superbowl. Who could resist? In the bar, I saw more Westerners than the last two days combined (once I landed in Narita, that is). I cheered for the Patriots because I think the mascot is better -- when was the last time you saw a giant on currency? Exactly.

Brian was sick all day, so we got back to Ada's place around 2PM or so. I found this really nice phone on Seoul's craiglist on Sunday and I emailed the seller to try to meet with her. I wasn't really comfortable going on my own to the station she suggested (Hoegi) which was about an hour and a half away from me. My discomfort stayed with me, but I really wanted to get this phone, which meant that I had to go by myself to get the phone.

Since I hadn't met her, I gave her a description of how to find me: "tall white guy with a blue sweatshirt and a black coat." Her description was just a tiny bit vague: "I am a short Asian woman in a white coat." Number of short Asian women I saw while I waited: 10,000. Number of short Asian women in white coats: 500. I mean, come on, give me a little more direction on what to look for. Wear a scarf too (short Asian women wearing a scarf and white coat: 40), or a hat (short Asian women wearing a hat and white coat: 70), or a surgical mask (short Asian women wearing a surgical mask and white coat: 25) or combine them all (short Asian women wearing a scarf, white coat, hat and surgical mask: 3). She also didn't capitalize Asian, but I went crazy typing this up and leaving that as it is. So I bought the phone when she found me, costing about $60.

Well, the phone works fine, but it needs registration. I haven't quite fully figured out what that means, but my best guess is that it needs something like a SIM card. The woman told me how to activate the phone by going to SK telecom and asking for help. I left the subway station expecting to see SK telecom like right in front of me (she told me it would be). Nah, it is better to make me look for it. I got to practice my Korean by walking into every store nearby that had the letters "S" and "K" somewhere in their sign. Mostly consisted of me asking in Korean "do you understand English?" The first person did and helped me out by telling me to go next door -- where nobody spoke English. I showed the logo on my phone and gave a confused look, so the guy in the store gave me directions in complicated Korean, but I think I understood his hand signals: "go outside, walk left and give a big smile."

I walked around a little more to see this HUGE 30 story building with SK on the doors. I thought I might be in luck. The inside of the building reminded me of that tower in Die Hard -- there were two receptionists at the desk watching videos around the hotel. I asked if they understand English and luckily one did. She gave me a little map and pointed out the SK Telecom building (I don't really know what was inside the other SK building) which reminded me of the MAC store. The person at the front of the SK Telecom building spoke a little English, but had to call someone to help tell me that I can't use the phone on a prepaid system. How sad...

I got back to Ada's place successfully and with no trouble. The first thing I wanted to do was to play with this cool Korean phone. Let me tell you, this is so amazing! It has the ability to play downloaded videos, has like 10 games, has the entire Seoul subway system, an English-Korean dictionary, a virtual pet (I named mine Erik), internet (I think, there is a picture of the Internet Explorer but I can't click it until I register), email and some other features that made me point them out to Brian (he was far less impressed than I expected). That virtual pet feature is maybe the coolest thing: Erik and I played each other in a pong-like game, we chased butterflies by the garden, we looked at pictures together...yeah, it is pretty amazing. Oh, the backgrounds are animated too! I've never tried to build a facade that it is hard to impress me, but wow, this phone is awesome.

My perspicacity for Korean has improved as well! On my second day it came quicker that I need to say "Shilehamnida" (spelled phonetically) instead of "excuse me." When people wave at me, I still instinctively say "hello."

First day in Korea

Well I started my last post thinking I wouldn't have that much to say. Most started coming back so I needed to break the two days apart to protect the length.

I have my own room with that really beautiful bed. The room also has a brown-orange-ish chair and a bookcase. Using my height of 6"5 as a standard, I would estimate the room is 8 feet long, 6"5 wide and 8 feet tall. Her boyfriend, Brian, is also here for another week before he leaves to Thailand. He was feeling sick so I didn't meet him the night I arrived.

When I woke up, I could tell neither of them were awake, so I was uncomfortable moving around for fear of making a bad impression on Brian. I read in my bed for a half-hour or so, mostly trying to see if I could instill some useful Korean memorable phrases to memory. I think we will need some time to see if that succeeded.

Ada adopted (see also, picked up off the street) this small dog that was probably abused with the hopes of providing a restorative environment will make her more likely to find a permanent home. She needed to take the dog for a walk and invited me to come with her to a "mountain" (it was a hill). We spent maybe an hour talking about Korea and South Africa (Ada is South African), dogs, language and so forth. This hill had "tennis" courts, which didn't have any nets or clear lines. We saw six middle-aged men walk outside of the courts with tennis rackets and bags -- I was really confused how they could play with no lines and no nets...

There were also these random placements of exercise equipment (like chin-up bars, monkey bars and so forth) all along the paths on this hill. Some Koreans like to wear surgical masks everywhere they go (Ada wasn't sure why either) and that is very different for me -- reminds me of those SARS pictures. This old woman was walking around near the top and when she saw me, she slowly backed away bowing. We ran into her again and she told Ada that we were both beautiful. I didn't follow the conversation at all, but Ada told me that happens to many Westerners.

When we arrived back at her place, she offered to make me breakfast of oatmeal. At the time, because I was hungry, it was the best thing in the world.

Brian was interested in buying some Teva's (he really just wanted the cheap knock-offs) so they planned to visit a market during the day. They naturally invited me to come with them. Because the small bowl of oatmeal wasn't enough, we decided to stop and grab some food. Being vegetarian, I was the most limited in the group, so I hoped we could find something edible. We went to this small Kimbop (literally, seaweed and rice. Spelling is phonetic...addendum: Kimbop, not Kimbo) restaurant. I had to pick out the ham, but everything was great. I had some Kimchi in this red sauce, little slices of something that looked like an omelet, seaweed, rice...there was some other stuff, but I can't remember exactly what it was.

After lunch, we needed to get to the subway to ride to the market that Brian was looking for. We took the green line to Dongdaemun Stadium. This was like Saturday Market but with thousands of vendors. I was blown away by how many shops sell shoes because each one has roughly the same selection and same prices and yet there were hundreds of shoe shops. I took a picture of this alleyway (maybe 150 yards long) that ONLY had shoe vendors and there was no open space between the shops.

We spent most the day at this market. Some shops had the most random assortment of items: phones, tv's, necklaces, glasses, silverware, clothes, videos...and so on. There were some items worth their own special attention. One shop sold pills that claimed to be deer blood, a couple shops sold sex toys and pornography, a few had glass frames (hundreds of them). There were more odds and ends, but most of it was lost in the horrid smell of cooking silkworms for food. On that note, we also bought some delicious cookies. Well, they were mostly good, there was one that had this strong seaweed-fishy powder that overpowered the sweet taste.

I still need to get a phone. Dongdaemun has some phones that I liked (one had a TV feature) but I wanted to check online first before I purchased one. Once I have that, I feel comfortable exploring on my own. This week, I am going to try to get together with a list of people that I've been looking forward to meeting. As of now, I don't have a microphone or cell phone, so haven't gotten in touch with the people I've wanted to. Hopefully tomorrow or the day after I will have my phone! I am so excited!

After arriving back at Ada's place, I started writing these two journal posts. I got distracted along the way, but have mostly been writing since I got back around 6 (it is nearly 9 now). I also bought some orange juice and noodles from the local grocery store. It is closing in on some holiday (not sure which, precisely. I think Chinese New Year?) but there are tons of gifts being sold. Most of the gifts were food. For about $33, I could buy you like 12 cans of Korean Spam in gift-wrapping. I think it is cool to sell items that people will use, but man, it was hard not to laugh at the image of unwrapping that for Christmas.

First day(s) in Korea

This is my flight experience and first night in Seoul:

Plane ride from Portland to Japan: Plane ride was some 10 hours long (wasn't very fun, but could have been worse). Northwest Airlines had this really cool entertainment system where you could choose from several options on what sort of entertainment you wanted. They had like 20 movies, 20 CD's and a couple games. I watched three movies, listened to an hour of music and played an hour of games -- made the ride go quickly. The guy sitting next to me really had some trouble staying awake. He was asleep by the time the plane moved away from the terminal, woke up during takeoff to play his PSP and then back to sleep 20 minutes later. I felt bad going to the bathroom because I had to wake him up every time. Because of the time difference, I was scheduled to arrive at 9:15PM local time and didn't want to be up all night. To combat my fatigue, I drank some 10 cups of black coffee. I discovered that the airplane also had TV shows when I looked over at someone else's screen to see Jim and Pam from the Office talking. I promptly searched for where these were and found out they also showed old Nickelodeon shows. I saw that one option was Kenan and Kel and I hadn't seen it since I was in middle school, so I felt that I had to watch one episode with my last hour on the plane. The entertainment system didn't have a scene skip option that I was spoiled with from years of DVD use, which made it so I had to fast forward past the other Nick shows. Amazingly, that took me twenty minutes to get through like 8 random episodes of other shows and then the plane started the descent which meant that entertainment would turn off shortly. In conclusion, I hate fast forwarding. I never made it to Kenan and Kel, stopping instead to watch a couple minutes of Angry Beavers...

Narita, Japan: I spent about an hour and a half in Japan. I was really really tired (I think it was about midnight back home) and I had been up since around 7:45AM home time. While I was waiting, I met with this Korean guy named Sang that studied at the University of Oregon. I talked to him for a bit, which was helpful and kept my awake. The funniest part about the airport was the recycling system: they had bottles, cans, pet bottles (I have no idea what these are) and then "other." The other section contained paper and some plastic (the kind on CD's), but not really trash. I had this apple from the flight and was very confused as to where it should go since I figured "other" was mostly just recyclables. I had to ask the desk if it was okay to throw my apple away.

Seoul: The plane ride from Narita was perfectly fine. The scheduled time from Narita to Incheon was about three hours. I just couldn't stay awake so I maybe grabbed about a half-hour of sleep but was fully conscious as we started a 45 minute descent because I could see city lights. Riding into Korea was really interesting because there was a huge collection of lights from some city and then MILES of absolute blackness. I couldn't see any shred of light. I thought there would just be less lights and not a complete absence.

This might be a good time to mention the ambivalence of my luck for the day. The night before I left, I realized that I had the address for the person I was staying with (Ada, I met her through a networking site online for travelers), but I had no other information. I wrote an email to her requesting her phone number so I could get in touch with her if I got lost, or if there was a problem, etc, the morning I left. In addition to this, her directions had me catching a bus at 9:20PM with the bus service stopping at 10:00PM, according to the website. I was a little freaked out because if I missed the bus (my plane was scheduled to arrive at 9:15), a taxi cab to the address would cost around $45 because it was about an hour outside of the airport. Narita didn't have free internet (because of this, I like Japan MUCH less...PDX had free internet) so I wouldn't even get to check my email until I actually arrived in Seoul (assuming Incheon Airport had free internet). Lastly, my directions were written in English so I had to find the bus going to Silim station without knowing how to respond to any questions other than to repeat "Silim station." Unless they happened to ask me if I understand Korean (which I can politely inform them 'no.'

I mentioned this all to Sang while we were waiting at Narita. He said he would love to help me get wherever I need to, so I figured that was some amazing news and an excellent stroke of luck. Him and I rushed through customs at Incheon (I wanted to look at the stores, signs and so forth) trying to get to baggage claim. At this point I was pretty much awake 20 some hours. Just remember that before I share the next details. Anyway, Sang had his parents meeting him outside the airport. He told me that if I needed anything, he would be willing to help me out and wrote his phone number of a random piece of paper. As we waited for our baggage, I didn't see mine come up and I could tell he was anxious to leave since he just wanted to get home. I told him that I would be fine, that I had his phone number, and I didn't mind waiting for my bag alone. He said bye and I waited for another five minutes before I concluded my bag was lost. It turns out that in my haze, I forgot what my bag looked like and it had been there the whole time (I even saw it go by a couple times).

I grabbed my bag and rushed to figure out if I could make the bus for Silim Station. First thing that happened to me when I arrived was to see taxi drivers ask me where I am trying to get to. I told them that I am trying to take the bus, but they obviously want to gain customers, so they tell me over and over "No, taxi is better. Pay cash? Cab over there," and then they would try to help me take my stuff to their cab. Just outside the doors there were these booths with a big "Bus Tickets" sign...each one had a "CLOSED" sign outside the window. There were probably six of these stations.

So I figure I am screwed. A taxi driver sees my confusion and comes over to ask me if I want to take a cab. I tell him that I need the internet to figure out where I am going (since I wasn't comfortable showing up at Ada's place without her foreknowledge). So he walks me over to a bench and tells me to check the internet so he can help me out. I am sure his intentions were good, but I felt that no matter what the answer was, he would tell me that his taxi cab was the best way to get there. Nonetheless, I sit down and turn my computer on. Sang had kindly written Ada's address in Korean, which also happened to be the paper with his phone number, so the taxi driver stood holding it while I powered up my computer. I got no wireless signal...

I also noticed that my battery life was roughly 1/4 (maybe 30 minutes of power or so) so I quickly turned it off and thanked him. I walked around the arrival area a little longer to see if I could maybe catch Sang before he left so I wouldn't need to call him. No such luck. So I walked back inside to get to a phone and call him. As I casually walked up to the phone, I couldn't find the paper that had his phone number on it, so I kicked myself for walking away from the taxi driver without grabbing it back (I found it later, I was just tired and put it in a weird pocket. Also, I was walking a lot, so each use of walk is justified). I thought I was in some major trouble because that paper also had Ada's address. So here I was at the airport without her address, without her phone number, without Sang and without his phone number.

I had to sit down for a couple minutes and try to collect myself. I saw some people with their computers out, so I decided I would need to bite the bullet and pay for an hour of the internet to try to get things back on track. My luck immediately turned because I found free internet, which was maybe the third most important thing for me at that time. I checked my email and found that Ada had emailed me her phone number, so I hastily wrote it down and then grabbed some phone numbers that my friend JiBin supplied for me. I walked over to the pay phone and called Ada to let her know I was still at the airport and that the bus wasn't running, but I vowed to make it to her place that night!

I really didn't want to see the same taxi drivers again. Although I felt I would have to take a taxi, I still held some hope that maybe I could sweet-talk the bus driver to let me ride without a ticket (buses were still running, but the ticket stations were closed) or to pay with cash. As I was walking by, I amazingly saw the bus I needed to take. I jumped in line and asked "Silim station? Won?" He told me "Yes, 8 thousand" (about $8). How lucky is that?

I sit down, too weary to fully appreciate the whole experience of going from lost in Seoul to finding direction.

I got on the bus and just rested my head against the window. This woman came to sit down next to me, so I smiled at her and asked if she speaks English. She laughed at me and then said that she was one of the flight attendants on my plane from Narita to Seoul and speaks English. Her name is Jiyeong (spelling that phonenically) and she let me use her phone to call Ada to update her on progress. She was getting off at the station right before Silim, so we had about an hour to talk. I don't remember much of what we discussed, but she didn't recognize the word "favorite" so when I asked her what her favorite movie was, or her favorite thing to do, she looked at me confused. The only other option I had was to ask "what is the best movie...for you?" The answers were pretty funny as she told me how it depended on her mood, genre, weekday or weekend and so forth.

The bus arrived at around 12:30AM local time. I can't remember a time that I was so tired and yet ready to go out and explore the city. Ada met me at the bus stop and we grabbed a taxi over to her place. I took some pictures of her apartment, but haven't found where I put the cable to connect my camera to my computer. I am pretty sure I packed it, but haven't really torn apart my stuff to look throughly. The best thing thus far is her bathroom: it is a single room with a toilet, shower and a washing machine. Yeah -- a washing machine. Caught me off guard. And when I say shower, I don't mean a bath tub with shower, I mean that whole room has a drain. I fell asleep pretty quickly in a comfortable bed (she found it in the trash outside) and stayed warm all night. I woke up around 8:30AM, fully rested and ready to start my first day in Korea...