Day 2.3: Football Korean Style...

... short post this week. Still a lot of house stuff to get done.

Korea was definitely bitten by the soccer bug after co-hosting World Cup 2002. Although baseball is still paramount (we'll get to that in a future post) the Red Devils are definitely the most popular (and successful) national sports team. Third place finish in 2002. Qualifying for the elimination rounds in 2010. Led up to now by Manchester United midfielder Park Ji-Sung, South Korea has emerged as consistently the best team in Asia, which is a big deal for the country known as the "Hermit Kingdom." Hey, if you were constantly swirlied by China and Japan, you'd have persecution issues as well.

Not everyone can be Park Ji-Sung or Ahn Jung-Hwan (he was the guy who taunted Apolo Anton Ohno after scoring against the U.S. in 2002 - like I said - persecution issues), however, so the rest of the player develop in the 16-team K-League. Surprisingly, despite having 1/4 of the population, Seoul itself has only one soccer team, which plays at the World Cup Stadium, although three other teams are in the suburbs.

And so with that backdrop, we went to the aforementioned World Cup Stadium to watch FC Seoul take on  the Ulsan Hyundai. The fact that Ulsan was the opponent was sort of interesting for me, as that is where I spent my first year in Korea where my father worked for, you guessed it, Hyundai Heavy Industries. To say that Ulsan is a one company town would be an understatement.

It was a beautiful Saturday afternoon, and the FC Seoul fan side was reasonably full...

... but the rest of the stadium was pretty empty. Not bad for like 8 dollar tickets.

So, back to the fans that I showed at the top of the post. This is more important than you would think. Just like South Africa brought us the vuvuzela, Korea brought us the thundersticks. Yes, I know. I hate them also. Well, apparently these fans are the new thing. You use them folding them up until they are compacted, and then rapping them against your other hand to make a... fan-like sounds. Honestly, they aren't super loud and sort of sounds like ripping paper, but I guess it saves the vocal chords.

Andrew with his fan in action. He had actually never been to a soccer game in Korea before, so glad I could contribute something new for him as well. And yes, as you can see behind us, we were not the only non-Koreans at the game. In fact, there were quite a few in our section.

Eric and I with "proof" we were at the game.

The game itself was pretty boring. The highlights for me were the snacks. No hot dogs or fries here. Shrimp crackers. Fishcake soup. Ramen noodles. And my favorite - spicy ricecakes. No one else partook, but I was in Korean junk food heaven. And beer. Good old Cass and Hite. Think a cross between Michelob Ultra and PBR.

Something that probably was moderately exciting happening, but that I can't remember.

Anyway, the game ended in a tie...

... so we took off for our next destination... dinner!

Well, sort of. We headed over to the Hongdae neighborhood to meet up with Mary. Hongdae is probably the best bar/entertainment district in Seoul. Centered around Hongik University, which is the city's premier art school, it is a relatively new area to hang out, with it's rise coinciding with the ascent of hipsters everywhere. It's not uncommon to find Beatles tribute bands playing on random street corners here.

As we wandered deeper into Hongdae, this is where English being our first language made us recognize the absurdity of someone of the bar names. Above we have a very western bar shooters, clearly themed on the Wild West.

Next to it, however, is Cocks. It's a darts bar. Yeah, I don't get it either.

Here we have Swetty Bar. And it appears to lead to the basement. I don't see why this would be appealing.

Perhaps the most puzzling, however, was the Ho Bar. Not only was it's name strange, but it was a franchise. All over Seoul, I saw no less than 10 Ho Bars. Inside it's your fairly typical western style bar, albeit with a very red theme, and no clue as to what they mean by Greek Joy.

We finally found Mary and tried to get into one of their favorite Korean BBQ restaurants, roughly named Stone House BBQ. Shock of all shocks, they were pretty busy at 7:30PM on a Saturday night, so we left our phone number to call us when a table opened up. To kill some time and get started on evening, we went to the aforementioned Swetty Bar, and sat at a table underneath the 19. To be fair, it was dark, and the wall looked very abstract until you actually stared at it.

As you can see, Dave and John can't wait for dinner. Stay hungry for next week...

Day 2.2: Sightseeing Sights and K-Pop Part One...

... not a bad way to continue the start of our adventure... and walk off our meal.

Only one update this week. Sergey's back online! Although a bit confusingly, even though he has been India a month now, his first picture entry is from Beijing and its environs.

Back to Korea. After we had exhausted our share of bugs and snails, we decided we needed to take a little gander. The weather was nice (low 60s - relevant later), so Andrew suggested we stroll down Cheonggyecheon. Of course the boyz had no idea what that was, but I had gone there with a mom two years before, and agreed it was the bestest of ideas.

Cheonggyecheon is a stream or creek that runs into the Han River. It is smack in the middle of Old Town Seoul, however, so like most things in the central city, it had long been covered up and treated like a de factor sewer. Sort of like an "LA river." As South Korea got richer and Seoul got most cosmopolitan, however, the masses demanded green space, and so as a part of a downtown reclamation, they uncovered the stream and made it an artificial park. It's sort of strange because it is below street level in the median of one of the busiest streets in Seoul, but once you enter, you appreciate the subterraneanness because it masks a surprising amount of city sounds.

So with that background, we descended into the middle of this 5.2 mile-long urban oasis.

Nice aye? The skyscrapers surrounding it actually add the ambiance.

The boyz are excited. Especially Dave. Behind them are tiles depicting different royal processions.

Sort of an artsy waterfall shot. I am pretty sure John took this.

Our first sighting of a Korean in traditional garb! He is one of many tour guides/hosts along the stream. I think he was explaining something historical to Dave, who was doing a good impression of someone who understands what he was saying.

I had some friends in law school who said they had never left the five boroughs of NYC. I am sure they were exaggerating (at least the Hamptons, right), but then this kid looks like he has lived in the concrete jungle all of his life, and so is fascinated by this quasi-nature.

Crossing on the rocks was inordinately popular, as this father-daughter combo shows. There definitely would have been signs all over the place, if we were in the U.S., warning us to stay off the rocks, but Korea takes a different take on personal injury law, i.e., it doesn't exist.

I'm guessing newlyweds before he dunks his bride? Ha.

When in Seoul, Eric does as the Seoulites do.

We got to an end of the stream, with its cool waterfall and strangely Christmas tree like spiral in the distance, we noticed some strange music emanating in the distance.

As we got to the top of the stairs, we ran into this...

... and as you can imagine, it was very confusing, especially since everyone was so well dressed, even for Seoul.

When I was in undergrad, I was walking to class across Killian Court when I noticed about 100 very good looking people dressed in nice clothes and long trench coat jackets. Now, as most of us students were smelly engineers who lived in jeans and sweats (yours truly definitely included), I immediately did a double take. Then, as if on cue, all the people started running toward the Great Dome. Curious as to what was going on, I did also. All of sudden, I hear "cut, cut, cut." I look, and spot Gus Van Sant behind a camera staring straight at me. I didn't know it at the time, but I had inadvertently walked onto a b-roll scene from Good Will Hunting. It's after the professor has posted a problem on the chalkboard and everyone is running to the lecture to see if the student who solved it will reveal themselves. I'd like to think I am one of the little people at the bottom on for a split second, but I doubt it. Anyways, I didn't know the film, but I knew it was a movie, so I chuckled to myself, and then sheepishly disappeared into the building.

So, as we emerged from Cheonggyecheon, I kind of felt like that. Luckily, however, they were filming in the other direction, so we weren't disrupting anything as we came up and watched to figure out what the heck was going on. The people were just standing around for a few seconds, when suddenly, the music started again, and they began dancing in unison.

Ah! K-pop! They were shooting a K-pop video! Cool! For the uninitiated, K-pop is the Korean version of J-pop, which itself is the Japanese version of American pop music. But it is so much more! The blog Eat Your Kimchi is run by an American brother/sister team teaching English in Korea, and gives a great overview of what is hip in K-pop. The style is hard to describe. Imagine Spice Girls full of Katy Perrys, but with super processed sounds and nonsensical lyrics about love in hybrid Konglish (Korean/English). And those are the K-pop boy groups! Seriously, everyone looks like Justin Bieber. Anyways, these groups and videos are everywhere in Korea, and have already taken Asia by storm.

As strange as this was, an even stranger thing was the camera crew and director... they were Indian (dot, not feather). At least, we think they were Indian - they were so wrapped in winter wear that it was hard to tell. Like I said, the temperature was mid-60s, but to each his own.

After seeing a shot or two, we continued on to the central downtown plaza...

... in front of one of the main palaces...

... and found the statue of Admiral Yi-Sun Shin, probably Korea's greatest hero. We have no idea what that guy is looking at, and why he felt necessary to stare it at the exact moment to ruin John's picture.

Anyways, Admiral Shin is important because he was a particularly manly moment in Korea's history. Being stuck between the two cultural behemoths of China and Japan, Korea got invaded a lot by both over the centuries. During one of the few moments of non-occupation, Admiral Shin is famous for acquiring gunpowder from the Chinese, and then building ironclad turtle ships to fend off a Japanese invasion. Hence the statue.

Eric also pays homage.

Surrounding the plaza are these markers commemorating important people and events from Korean history...

... the most important of which is King Sejong the Great, possibly the only person more important than Admiral Shin. Among other accomplishments, his most important one is developing the Korean written language, considered by some to be the most scientific written language in the world. How is it scientific? Glad you asked. Korea has 24 letters that are arranged into syllables, with groups of syllables being words. So, in the above writing on the statue, you have 13 letters forming four syllables. The syllabic aspect is one part of being "scientific." The other is there are no exceptions to the written language. None. No thousands of Chinese characters, or "i before e, except after c" nonsense. Each word sounds exactly like it is spelled, making Korean a fairly easy language to learn to read. The grammar and vocabulary, however, is another matter.

Given the statue's importance, we got a group picture. But that was also a bit of an adventure. There actually weren't that many people around the statue, so the first guy I could ask was a guy (more like kid) in a military uniform. For those who don't know, Korea still has mandatory military service of about 22 months. All males must serve before 35, and it's taken pretty seriously. You think draft-dodging is a big issue in U.S. elections? Tons of politicians have been taken down because their kids have gotten question military exemptions.

I actually almost got caught up in all of this, if my cousin Roy hadn't serendipitously bailed me out. I was going to go to Korea in 2001 to celebrate by grandfather's 88th birthday, when my cousin Roy, who lived in LA and was visiting Seoul, was drafted into the military on his way back to LA. Yup. Drafted. Into the sixth largest army in the world. Facing off against a crazy dictator sitting on the fourth largest army in the world, across a DMZ that President Clinton called the scariest place on Earth. The Koreas are still technically at war (there is only an armistice), and you can bet they take their army training equally seriously.

Turned out that even though we were both U.S. citizens without Korean citizenship, my grandfather had listed us on some family roll somewhere, and so when Roy tried to leave, he was flagged for not having served. Uh oh. Having heard this, my grandfather went into action, and got us removed from the rolls. So, until it was resolved, Roy only had to do a few days of basic. Which still sucked. Luckily, this was all cleared up by the time I got to Korea, but to this day, the immigration officers do hassle me a bit when I leave Korea.

Anyways, this military guy was rushing around rather hurriedly with a walkie-talkie when I stopped and asked him to take a quick photo for us. He was surprised when I stopped him, and then a bit uncomfortable, mumbling something about how busy he was making important rounds. What rounds could be so important at a tourist attraction, I do not know, but he then just stumbled along. Luckily, a nice couple came up about that time, and readily offered to take the picture for us. And there it is.

This ugly looking building is one part of the U.S. embassy. Very 1970s retro-block architecture. Eric had to pay homage to the motherland.

And with that, we left downtown onto our next adventure. Vamonos.

Day 2.1: First Order of Business...

... food and shelter. Never forget. Food and shelter.

Luckily for us, we had shelter covered. For a few days, all of us dudes would be under the roof the generous Choqs (until we went south, anyways). When Rahul came, him, Eric, and I would split off and stay near old town. For the time being, however, skyscraper central. The above is the awesome view from Andrew and Mary's place. 29th floor. Facing southeast along the Han River. And the panorama is below.

One nice thing when you work for Samsung (or any other big Korean conglomerate), especially when you are an ex-pat, is that they take care of housing. Which is a BIG deal. Language barriers aside, Seoul has expensive real estate, especially in the city center. Well, let me qualify that. Rents are pretty reasonable (relatively). In the Denver/Dallas/Cleveland range. To buy, however, you are going to pay New York/San Francisco prices. Why the dichotomy? I don't know. But for pretty much this reason, more people rent here than in comparable cities I have lived in. And apartments are everywhere.

Renting is also a bit weird in Korea. For the most part, the country has transitioned to Western style rents, where you pay every month. A significant minority, however, use a different system where you give the landlord something analogous to a down payment (usually six figures), don't pay anything else while you live there, and then at the end of your stay, whenever that may be, the landlord gives you the down payment back. So how does anyone make money? Well, in theory the landlord is supposed to take that money and invest it and whatever returns they get will serve as the monthly rent, i.e., the tenant gives up opportunity costs. As you can imagine, however, not everyone is an investment genius (or six figures lying around), and so there are often issues when the tenant wants to move out, but the landlord doesn't quite have the down payment to give back. Hence the transition to monthly rents.

Anyway, back to the issue at hand, as you can see, Samsung knows how to take care of its people. Three bedroom, great views, sunshine, friendly doormen, hardwood floors, and even one "American" electrical socket to boot. All in a great location right in the center of the city near bus lines, subways, etc.

One amusing thing we found next to the apartment is a wedding hall next door. Amusing because the wedding hall is the building to the left of the parking lot, and on top of that building is a fake Korean folk village, complete with grass, a bridge, and a real live horse to go over the bridge!

You can get a better view of the little village here. I should also explain about weddings. Weddings here, especially receptions, are shorter, more business like affairs. Think of it more as dinner theater than anything else. You would recognize religious weddings as generally like those in the West, but that's only true for the 25% Christians or 20% Buddhists. And then you would have the reception. For the rest of the country, however, who is Confucian, the ceremony and reception are merged into one.

The above picture is from another friend Dave's wedding (yes, I know a lot of Davids), which I use to point out traditional Korean marital clothes. And yes ladies, the dress is a pain to get on. In a bit of irony, this one was taken in Houston. They incorporated the Korean ceremony in after a Western one, a fairly popular option in the U.S. these days.

Anyways, a typical wedding would start with the family and close friends in traditional Korean garb, taking pictures in villages like the one above, with the dude on the horse. Vaguely reminiscent of Indian weddings, sans the elephants. There is also a whole ceremony with lots of bowing (and drinking) that you do with the family and such, but we won't get into that here. After this, the couple usually changes into traditional Western garb (white dress, tux, etc.). While they are changing, the guest arrive at the wedding hall, and you sit down for a multi-course meal. While you are eating, a civil ceremony is performed on the stage. Like I said. Dinner theater! Anyways, after about an hour or two (literally - 90 minutes is not uncommon), everything ends, and you go home. No dancing. No massive imbibing (unless you can get it done very quickly). It's no wonder that wedding halls will do up to six ceremonies in the same room every day (marriage mills), so it wasn't surprising for us to see the parking lot fill and refill, and the village to be continuously occupied, during pretty much our entire stay. Not a bad way to pass the time.

Okay, enough "learning" for one day.

Some of us woke up earlier than normal due to jet lag, but we were still fairly well rested. Mary took us down the street for some awesome buns and coffee, and then we came back to wake up the other sleepy heads. After hanging around for a bit, Andrew was excited he was free to take us around for the next two days (Saturday and Sunday - working a half day/attending classes on Saturday is still very common in Korea, so he was glad to be off), so we didn't waste any time.

We walked a few blocks down the street and entered the subway system. Calling it a Byzantine maze doesn't do it justice. Not only does each station have a dozen exits, but the whole system has eleven lines, none of which overlap or are "express." On the plus side, it is cheap (usually under a dollar) and goes everywhere. No surprise, we told everyone to stick close, since they had no idea where they were going. Wasn't too bad today, but during rush hour, there has been so many people that I have been unable to get off trains at certain stops, unable to swim upstream on the river of humanity.

John showing some American pride. This ad is actually sort of big deal, because Korean are convinced all imported beef has mad cow disease, so this is the pushback campaign. And it's not a fringe thing. One of my cousins actually did a double take when I mentioned I eat American beef all the time, and she's lived in Indiana and Florida!

So anyways, we all got on the train (with reusable passes donated by the Choqs - did I mention they rule?), where Andrew, David, and John lorded over everyone like giants, which was actually a little surprising since Korea is catching up in height (mostly a nutrition thing). But I digress.

Anyways, we eventually came to our stop...

... at the ever fashionable Insadong, which is sort of an art/antique district - with good restaurants.

Insadong is generally closed to traffic, save the occasional delivery truck, which is good for us...

... and this dog strutting her stuff. At least I hope it is a her.

First order of business, however, is eats. I think smorgasborg is appropriate word for the variety and amount we ate at our first Korean restaurant...

... and I think it is safe to say we thoroughly enjoyed our meal. Nothing super unique - just your typical Korean food, which I will periodically cover in future posts.

Apparently unsatiated, John gravitates to a stuffed string candy maker.

They put on a whole show where they take a piece of stringy sugar, and fold it over so many times that it becomes 256 strings. They then cut it up and put those nuts in between, all the while singing in half-Korean, half-English.

As you can see, it takes some "special" people to make such candy. We all had some, and it was delicious.

What wasn't so appetizing to the group, however, was snails and bugs. Yes, that is correct. Snails (left) and bugs (right).

John couldn't really stomach the bugs (more like larvae), but reasoned that the snails were just like escargot, so he braved the effort. You take the boiled snail shell, stick a toothpick in to poke out the morsel of "meat," and eat it. As he put it, "it tastes exactly like it looks."

Eric was more adventurous and went the bug/larvae route. His sentiments were a simple "crunchy."

I leave you with one of my favorite street foods - dried oysters/octopus! You can eat them as-is, but it tastes a bit better if you lightly toast over an open flame.

And with that gastronomical thought, I will take my leave. Talk to y'all soon...