First day in South Korea -9/26/09 – Gyeongju (The Old Capitol)
Our first night camping in South Korea. The forest here is a close cousin to the damp woods of New England. Dense tree growth and moist rotting layers of ground cover. The pungent smell of fresh decay gives the air a sweet tinge. The campfire is hard to start with the soaked kindling we are forced to gather, but a fire does start. A fire with thick smoke that follows you whenever you stand up and spastically move to a new seat, wildly waving the froth away with both arms, only to repeat the dance when the relentless white clouds spewing form the logs find you again.
A fire starts and Amber chefs up a delicious green curry and Laura and Andy, our travel companions, colleagues, and friends, make excellent company. We set out from Seongnam at 10:00 AM this morning. A six passenger van rented from Seoul International School carrying the four of us to our first real adventure in South Korea. The four of is and a weeks’ worth of water, food, and camping gear. As Andy so appropriately said when we pulled off the highway, after four hours of driving due south on Korean Highway 1, and started driving through the first town we have visited outside of Seoul, “It’s my first day in South Korea.”
Six days shy of our two month anniversary in the Land of Morning Calm and we are finally able to let the spirit of adventure take over during this Chuseok Holiday. The rough equivalent of American Thanksgiving, Chuseok is the Korean Harvest Festival. Many of our students and Korean colleagues traveled near and far to spend time with family and celebrate with traditional Korean food and games. The double edged sword of working at Seoul International School is the communal and sheltered living situation of “the quad,” the rectangular shaped apartment complex where SIS teachers dwell. Double edged because on one side of the blade is the fine gleam of having a group of fellow expatriate, English speaking neighbors to communicate, travel, and work with.
To make this move and then be completely immersed in South Korea with no western buoys to help float would be hard. The language is incredibly challenging and the culture is both beautiful and mysterious. We often don’t know if we are offending, making fools of ourselves, or if we are just as enigmatic to our hosts as they are to us. It is a blessing to have experienced teachers and new friends close by to talk shop, translate a menu, explain why people are laughing at you, and take you on the subway for the first time.
The other edge of the blade cuts an unfortunate swath: it is easy to settle into the comforts of living in South Korea with expatriates. It is very possible to live here for sixty days, six months, or even six years and not make a single Korean friend, learn more than a dozen words or expressions, or never rent a van and drive as far south as possible before plunging into the South East Sea.
Our ‘first day’ in South Korea is what we came here for. After packing the van and saying goodbye to some friends in the quad, we set out with myself behind the wheel and Amber, Andy, and Laura working navigation, logistics, music, and massage therapy. Despite having a well detailed road atlas and street signs with Arabic numbers and phonetic English translations, driving around Korea is wild. The van we rented has a stick shift that feels more like an old racecar video game than an actual, functioning stick shift. The kind of video game you might find in an old pizza joint or bowling alley where you sit in a fake car seat and turn a fake steering wheel and throw a fake stick shift between 4th and 5th gear with the wrist action of the guy playing air hockey next to you. It feels like I don’t even need the clutch, and any uphill needs to be conquered in 2nd gear with the gas pedal pinned.
The scariest part is the first ten minutes. Driving through the concrete jungle outskirts of Seoul. The first time behind the wheel of a vehicle in South Korea, and two solid months since I have done any driving. Three very important people’s butt-checks clenching the soft interior as taxi cabs, buses, and helmetless motorcyclists whiz by the van at phenomenal kilometers. Horizontal traffic lights and loose traffic laws. Lanes intermittently jog to the left and right after major intersections and all those other vehicles buzzing on all sides like drunken bumble bees searching for some new nectar. But everything dials in very quickly, and it soon feels like I am driving in just another major city. New York, San Francisco, Atlanta, Montreal, Seoul. It all has that same feel of driving with the perfect balance of aggressive defense. The perfectly mixed Bloody Mary: not to spicy, not to strong, but enough zing to tingle the feet. Soon, my feet are tingling and the van is shifting smoothly and we are out of the city and cruising south, and with my co-pilot and navigators I could drive this van all day. Straight into the South East Sea.
We stop at a rest area for lunch and get more stares than usual now that we are out of the metro area. We find a tourist information center and get a map of Gyeongju. The Old Capitol is absolutely littered with temples, UNESCO cites, and historical landmarks from centuries past. We note a few spots we would like to visit, but it is late and our real focus is on the black circle left by the pleasant Korean women behind the desk at the tourist kiosk. That circle is our campsite and home for our ‘first night in South Korea.’
Our tent is sitting two feet off the musky forest floor on a ten foot by ten foot wooden platform. Laura and Andy are fifteen feet to our left on the adjacent camp platform. It is about 9:30 PM and the Koreans camping around us are awake and boisterous. We are the only westerners at the campsite. Our first friends were some Korean children. Without the stigma of social boundaries and the hurt pride of adult egos stumbling over pronunciations and the dubious distinction between a bow and a handshake, the children of Korea have welcomed us wholeheartedly from Seoul to Gyeongju and all points between. They have no qualms staring, speaking, or showing off for us – they are children, and we have learned that word is universal on planet Earth and their behavior holds little regard for geography.
Shortly after our arrival and setup of camp, a group of about six Korean children edge closer to our tent area. Slowly, they work up the courage to stand within ear shot and speak broken English loud enough for us to hear. One girl in particular acts as the leader giving English lessons to the other kids. Eventually we bridge the gap and strike up a conversation with the leader. We discover she is really the only one with English to communicate, but the other children seem plumb delighted to just watch the show between their friend and our group of foreign campers. Just standing near their friend as she jabbers away in English gives them privilege and a sense of belonging. They are standing by the cool kid. They have all been back to visit repeatedly throughout the night.
Our next friend arrives while Amber is cooking dinner. Rain starts to fall and we scramble to stash away supplies. We are prepared with rain jackets and umbrellas, but not the extensive tarps, canopies, and outdoor rain shelters our fellow campers rolled in with; transforming this place into a small plastic village. Amber is behind the camp stove, stirring the curry and starting to look panicked as the rain falls heavier and our dinner simmers.
Suddenly, a Korean man walks up with a large fold out umbrella. A Coca-Cola umbrella to be exact, heavy-duty, which would look completely natural on top of a street vendor outside of Central Park.
“Tomorrow,” he says, and pushes the umbrella into my hands, his young daughter hiding behind his leg and watching dad save the day. The four of us looked at him with slack jaws for a moment. He smiles warmly and repeats, “tomorrow,” with a slight bow and nod of the head. We thank him in what little Korean we have gained from the good side of the sword, and he smiles and nods again. “Tomorrow.”
We cook under the umbrella and eat s’mores over our smoky fire after the rain dies down enough to not water log the marshmallows. Our “fan club” of young people came back to visit and practice English, and we watch as the campers two sites down place slabs of fresh squid on their grill. The delicious smell of grilled seafood fills the air, and now these same campers are playing sweet guitar and some kind of flute and singing songs in Korean. I have no idea what the song is about, but I like it. Children are everywhere. Talking and running and having sword fights with broken tent polls.
At one point the guitar stops and we call out for more music. The Koreans laugh, drink more Soju, and slowly start the strings vibrating again with another soft tune. Shortly after, the children return with a wind up music box and teach us how to say music in Korean: umak – pronounced uh-mahk. Our new friends never missing a beat.
The Korean version of camping is quite the opposite of the outdoor adventures we have shared over the last seven years. Our backpacking excursions to remote and desolate locations where the only sounds at night are the bugs and owls and gurgle of running rivers rushing us off to sleep is replaced by sizzling barbecues and boisterous laughter. Extension-cords zigzag from the dish washing station and run power to the camping platforms of our neighbors. Spotlights are running at high wattage illuminating the campgrounds, and from above we must look like some weird alien ship that has crash landed in the woods and smells oddly of burnt squid. We call it a night and retreat to our nylon homes for our first night of sleep outside of Seoul. We zip ourselves in and lay down and the campsite is absolutely cranking. The Koreans stay up until long past midnight. Grilling squid and drinking Soju and passing the guitar and some kind of flute around. The music seeps into our tent and blends with the sound of children playing and eventually we drift off to sleep; our heads swimming with thoughts of tomorrow and the playback of today’s trip south. We sleep, but the Koreans keep the place busy. This campsite is alive, and I can’t wait for our ‘second day’ in South Korea.
Korean Sauna Take One – September 27, 2009
We are in the old capitol city of Gyeongju, and the rain is relentless. It held off long enough for our visit to the Seokguram Grotto (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seokguram) to be relatively dry. A little drizzle starts after we exit the main Buddha monument at the Grotto. A 15 foot stone carving of the Buddha sitting in the lotus position partitioned behind a glass wall guarded by carvings of the Four Heavenly Kings. A variety of other stone statues adorn the interior of the temple, and standing inside of this monument that was erected during the Silla Dynasty of the 8th century is humbling. A sort of mass is happening while we view the Buddha. A monk leads the parishioners, beating time with a wooden spoon striking a metal ornament, and the followers proceed through a random serious of gestures and salutations to the Buddha. All of this is encapsulated in a small wooden structure nestled into a small hillside that overlooks the Sea of Japan, or the East Sea depending on what country you are from. Unfortunately, that sea is hidden behind the low cloud cover and our view is blocked where the clouds meet the foothills that fall off into the horizon.
Our tour of the monument begins with a booth advertising tours in English. We inquire, and shortly after an elderly Korean man exits the booth, puts his shoes on, and starts walking towards the stairs that lead up to the shrine. He stops their and adjusts his microphone headset. A thin contraption with two firm wires that position two small microphones in front of his mouth powered by a chord that runs down to a control box attached to his belt. From his belt, the chord doubles back to a small speaker that I think is somehow attached to his back. The result is a bizarrely amplified voice that seems to be emanating from this gentleman’s back for the four of us who all stand a foot away from him. His broken English and the short delay between his normal voice and the amplified voice echoing from his spine do not deter from the knowledge our guide, Mr. Kim, possesses about the Seokguram Grotto. He speaks for a full ten minutes about the history of the Grotto, and the neighboring Bulguksa Temple, and about the Korean Dynasties that played a role in both historical sites. As he completes his speech and turns the last page in the photograph book that provides a visual backdrop to his tale, he thanks us and points to the stairs where we can walk up to the stone Buddha. He then turns off his sound system, walks back to the both, pops his shoes off and takes up his position waiting for the next ‘English Tour.’ The visit with the Buddha is brief but strong. Making eye contact with a 1300 year old sculpture that towers over you with the serenity of a panda bear is fantastic. No amount of rain can dampen the powerful spirit emanating from such a relic. But the rain tries.
Now we are soaked and our bellies full from lunch at a small Korean restaurant outside the parking lot of Seokguram Grotto. Beef stew and pork cutlet, kimchi and the ubiquitous pickled radishes, and sun dried shrimp still in the shell with head and tails and limbs that Andy and I declare the fishiest things we ever tasted. The cold rain and post lunch grogginess makes our afternoon plans an easy decision: time to explore the Korean saunas.
We find a hotel and spa, The Kolon Hotel (the puns are endless as the van navigates a parking spot), that allows public entry into the sauna for 9,000 won. The rough equivalent of $8.00 gives us access to a range of steam rooms, hot and cold baths, a relaxation room in case a nap is needed, some exercise equipment, and a prepping room complete with gels, sprays, and scents for when we are ready to leave The Kolon smelling fresh. We gladly fork over the one red and four blue bills, and firm up our plans to meet the ladies in three hours back in the lobby. Andy and I head to the right, Laura and Amber to the left.
Andy and I enter the nicest locker room I have ever visited and find some empty lockers. We are skeptical as towards how this experience will unfold. My tattoo pales in comparison to the amount of ink adorning Andy’s arms, legs, chest, and back; and tattoos in Korea are a major faux pas – or so we have been told. It is consensus among the older Korean generation that tattoos are acquired in prison by gang members. There have been times when, walking through a market or in a subway, Andy’s coated arms have caused elderly ladies to clutch their purses a bit tighter. Ironic, because Andy is one of the most genuine and honest people I have met, and one of the most culturally aware and sensitive ex-patriots working at SIS. His unequivocal desire to leave a positive image of westerners in Korea is sometimes thwarted by the artwork pinned on his long swinging limbs. We are also far from the modern beat of Seoul, and if we are going to offend we feel this is place. This old capitol city has a city vibe, but compared to the ultra-modern metropolis of twenty million people we embarked from yesterday, this place is the sticks.
We don’t want to make a scene, but we are wet and chilled to the core and those saunas and hot baths sound amazing. We are also not sure what to do here. We know that the Korean saunas are nude, and that’s fine, but we see no one else in this locker room, and there is some kind of middle room before you walk down the stairs to the actual sauna. Do we disrobe here? Down there? Do we wrap one of the towels they gave us around ourselves before we walk down? What is the protocol here? Unfortunately, there are no signs with naked stick figures to guide the way. As we debate this situation, and continue to discuss what we will do if we walk in there and the patrons flip, a Korean man enters with is son. They quickly disrobe and exit the locker room heading for the Saunas. Andy and I laugh, and follow suit.
The pools range in temperature from a cool 18 degrees Celsius to a boiling 44 degrees Celsius. The two sauna rooms have their own range, one very hot and kind of very hot. We get some stares as we enter, but everything is fine as we take our place on two stools for the ceremonial pre-rinse. A line of removable shower heads stands at attention before a row of plastic stools, and we quickly realize the purpose. We take our seats and join the other newcomers in a pre-rinse before entering the pools. We head straight for the hottest pool to push out the chill that has followed us for most of the day. Outside the rain is pouring and the wind is blowing large ripples through the water hazard on the 17th hole of the Kolon Hotel Golf course that sits far below the large glass windows of the sauna, but we are in bliss as the hot water fills our pores and heats us to the marrow.
Flooded Tent = Thai Style – September 27, 2009
We return from our sauna and the campsite is deserted, literally. The only things left are our two tents. This might have something to do with the fact that it has not stopped raining since noon, and the drive up the mountain to the campsite took us right through the very cloud that is dropping jelly bean size globs of water. The van lurches to a stop and the headlights illuminate the empty platforms. Our two tents look like lost children. They just shouldn’t be here all alone. The premonition in the van is bad, and when we get to the tents the predicitions are realized.
Our tent is not that bad, it has some water under the air mattresses. However, Andy and Laura’s tent now has a swimming section. We can’t break down the tents in this weather. We pile back in the van and head back to the front office of the campground. We manage to explain our situation to the man, and he understands our request for shelter. The only English he can stammer out is, “Thai style.” He repeats this phrase while drawing a roof in the air with his fingers. Thai style sounds good, as long as its dry style. We set up shop for the night in a Thai style cabin, hard wood floors with no beds, but a bathroom and a sink and enough space for the four of us to play cards and have some cocktails and watch Korean television. The rain continues through the night but stops sometime before the sun rises. We return to the campsite to salvage our camping gear and head to the next destination.
We pack up the tents and head for Namhae. We need to get a hotel because the tents have to dry. We spend a night in the hotel and head to the beach the following morning. We have apparently missed beach season because the place is deserted. All the restaurants and beach shops and trinket shacks are bordered for the winter, and it’s only the beginning of October. We have the entire beach to ourselves, and we soak up every thin ray of sun that seeps through the hazy cloud cover. Beautiful pink shells litter the beach, and the water is warm and salty. We swim out to a small float and take in the dramatic landscape. Jutting peaks that drop into the ocean, huge rock formations just off-shore, a nice sandy patch of beach, and we have the entire place to ourselves. We have a picnic lunch of grilled cheese, chips and salsa, and apple slices on a jetty. After a short parlay we decide to push on to the next island.
The Wall – Tongyeong – September 30, 2009
Every long trip has it, and it is best to just prepare for the wall. It usually happens when you have been on a plane or in a car for too long. Stuck in a train station or airport. Spending too many days crossing time zones or not sleeping on uncomfortable beds. Every long trip has a wall that you hit when you feel like things are stacked against you and you question how this wall was erected right before your face without your judgment demanding you detour around the wall. Our wall hit in Tongyeong. We expect a small beach town similar to Namhae were we just spent a semi-beach day beneath hazy cloud cover tenuously holding back the sun. Not a proper beach day, but warm enough to take a swim and with beach season officially over in South Korea, having the whole beach to ourselves was enjoyable. Frisbee, postcards, a picnic on the jetti, and then in the van and off to Tonyeong – the next “beach town.”
But this is no beach town. This is the port city of the south eastern Korean peninsula. Major shipping yards footprint the coast, and a boat building yard usurps a good chunk of the coastline. The bay is littered with enormous sea-faring vessels. One is possibly the biggest floating structure I have seen in person aside from the Intrepid floating in the Hudson. It looks like an enlarged football goal post attached to a barge with a crane on the tip of each post. My only thought is that it is some kind of boat that fixes other boats without having to dock. It does not seem feasible that it can float. But it does, and it dwarfs the other floating boats that scurry along the salty mix.
We are told there is camping on the public beach. A picture on the map shows a beautiful beach with nice sand and crystal clear water, and the blurb declares this beach a haven for summer beach combers with shallow waters safe enough for the kids! What we find is 40 meters of rough sand surrounded by a small break wall that drops into some precarious ocean splashing into the concrete. The beach runs adjacent to a jogging/bike trail, and the entire setting is just around the corner from a massive hotel. It is the equivalent of camping next to Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco, or under the Brooklyn Bridge in New York. We laugh and make endless jokes about waking up with a bunch of drunken fisherman gutting their days catch next to our tent. It is late and our daylight is dwindling and we have few options. Andy and I try the massive hotel, but the rate is way out of our budget. Back in the van, and off we go to Geoje. We find a hotel just before dark and feast on freshly barbecued beef at the Kalbi restaurant next door and wash it down with Soju and beer. After dinner, we soak our defeated day of driving through Tongyeong at the sauna.
Korean Sauna Take Two – Geoje – September 30, 2009
We are pros at this. We confidently enter our second Korean sauna on the island of Geoje after a long day of driving and one of the most interesting camp sites we have ever seen (see story above), and smoothly receive the electronic key attached to the rubber ankle band from the clerk behind the desk. Without hesitation we enter the locker room and disrobe and head to the sauna area. This facility has a much larger lounge area, and we stop to watch one inning of the Doosan Bears playing the Lotte Giants in what we believe is a playoff game. The game was on in the Kalbi restaurant we visited before coming here, and it is clear from the fans in the restaurant and the fans in the sauna that we are now in Giants territory – a long way from Olympic Park and the Bears faithful.
Despite what we have been told, we actually meet several Koreans at this sauna that have tattoos, and the common bond creates discussion in various forms of broken English and our horribly inept Korean. This sauna is much larger than the previous one, and has a larger variety of water temperatures and sauna rooms. One sauna in the corner of the room emanates a red glow, and it looks as if the room is on fire. The digital clock above the door says 77 degrees Celsius. I’m not sure if that is accurate because that converts to roughly 170 degrees Fahrenheit. Intrigued, I take a cold rinse and enter what I nickname “the viper room.” It is the hottest place I have ever been. The detoxifying and cathartic sweat streams from my body and any movement pushes blasts of hot air over my skin. I take ten, long breaths and slowly exhale each one into the thick atmosphere of “the viper room.” When I exit I head straight for cold. A small enclosed shower that dumps 100 gallons of freezing cold water at the push of a button. I can feel my capillaries flaring and the relief is instantaneous.
Amber is relaxing in the ladies sauna, and her experience with the locals is even more gregarious than Andy and I talking baseball and body art. Amber befriends a Korean woman who is thrilled to have some people with whom to practice her English. Before the women leaves, she finds Amber sitting in one of the sauna rooms and enters with a traditional Korean beverage for Amber. Amber does not know what the beverage is, but in her own words, “it was some kind of tea with an amazing aftertaste that was like heaven every time I drank it.” A cool and delicious drink, and just as comforting in the hot sauna as an umbrella at a campsite during a cold rain.
The Ride Home – October 1, 2009
After camping for a night in Geoje, at what we declare to be the best campsite of the trip, we pack up the van and head back to Seoul. The van cruises smoothly past the little cities and endless foothills that embody this country. We never saw flat land the entire trip. For every skyscraper and apartment high-rise in South Korea, there are two peaks speckled with oaks and pines. The mountain biking in this country is great, and driving to the tip of the peninsula and back to Seoul reveals the possibilities. I must do this trip again with the bike and better weather. The instant nostalgia that accompanies every road trip seeps through the van, and the gang is already reminiscing about our travels. Six days on the road, and we wear our new experiences like a badge. Another baby step in the land of morning calm.
The north bound lane we are driving in is moving fluidly, and we watch the south bound lane start to stutter with the congestion of Chuseok traffic. Far worse than any holiday traffic we experience in the states, Chuseok traffic is notorious in South Korea. The stuff of legend. It is easy for the veteran western staff member at Seoul International School to exaggerate and euphemize details to impress the rookies at Seoul International School, but even the Korean staff at SIS speak of Chuseok traffic as a beast with no predictable pattern. The most infamous tale of Chuseok traffic actually stems from a trip very similar to the one we just took. Except as those unfortunate campers neared Seoul they were greeted with a barrage of brake lights and bumpers, and after sitting in traffic for several hours without moving an inch, they unpacked the van and set up a tent next to the highway. They slept for a few hours, and got back in the van in the same exact spot.
We, on the other hand, are rolling along to the smooth sound of Billy Joel. I’m not sure how he ended up on the crackly van speakers, but a few miles ago it was mentioned that Andy only likes heavy music, and he immediately chimed in with his appreciation for Mr. Joel. He even went so far as to say one of his favorite songs is Downeaster Alexa. Amber cues it up and we all sing along, and then let Billy Joel continue to fill the airwaves as we cruises under the soft Korean sky. We are approaching the final toll booth without a lick of traffic-a tough feat at any time in this city of 20 million people and what feels like 40 million cars. Maybe good timing. Maybe coincidence. Maybe a little serendipity. It’s hard to say, but as we cross the city line we are a dozen songs deep into a Billy Joel shuffle and the old crooner is letting the pipes rip. Really letting it out as he hits the chorus of one of his classic tunes. And we are all bellowing along with him. And the van is filled with the repetitive chorus that has taken on a new meaning for the four of us:
It’s all about soul!
NaNaNaNaNaNaNaNaaa
IT’S ALL ABOUT SOUL!
