DMZ tour

with a ROK soldier

The Saturday of my last full weekend in Korea, I went on a USO tour of the DMZ with Laura. We had to show up at the USO station in Seoul at 7am and take a bus. Most of the people on the tour were Americans (a few Europeans as well) either on vacation or taking a break from teaching English to Korean kids. The tour guide on the bus explained how the DMZ was setup and pointed out the fences and tank blockers along the way. The fences had a bunch of white stones inserted into them every which way so that soldiers on patrol could tell if the North Koreans were tampering with things.

The first thing on the agenda was a visit to Panmunjon. We got an initial briefing from US soldiers and got issued guest badges. During the briefing they talked about the history of the DMZ and crazy things like the Axe Murder Incident, where North Korean soldiers killed some US soldiers because of a tree.  Then we took the bus over to the main complex, went though a big brand new building that was built as a reunion center for North and South Korean families separated because of the war (but was never used because North Koreans didn’t want their citizens crossing into South Korea) From there we went out to the blue buildings where negotiations take place. The desks inside are setup so that one side of them is in North Korea and the other side is in South Korea. So by walking around to the other side of the desk I was technically in communist territory. Outside the building there were ROK soldiers standing by the buildings, and on the North Korean side we saw a North Korean soldier observing us with binoculars.

Afterwards, we went down into one of the invasion tunnels that the North Koreans built. The tour guide explained that he was very sad when the tunnels were found by South Korea, because during the time that the North Koreans were digging the tunnels they were also having peace talks with South Korea. That meant that North Koreans could were terribly untrustworthy in their diplomatic actions and rhetoric.

For the last part of the tour, we went an observation post where we could see a few kilometers into North Korea. The photo restrictions there were a little bit ridiculous. We could take pictures only behind a certain line, but it was possible just to hold the camera up high and get the same view as we would have past the line. I spent 500 won to use a telescope and look out at the Kaesong industrial complex. I could also see the jamming towers to stop North Koreans from seeing South Korean broadcasts. One of the comments I heard from the other tourists was that it’s like looking into a completely different world. North Koreans are so isolated and restricted in their country. They aren’t allowed to leave their towns without government permission, and they only see what the government wants them to see about the rest of the world. No wonder the North Korean government is always worried about their citizens trying to defect.

My favorite souvenir that I got from the tour was a bottle of blueberry wine that was made in North Korea. Communist blueberries taste just as good to me

거제도 (Koje Island)

This last Sunday (Aug 2) I went all the way across South Korea again to a place called Koje Island.  난영 and I took an early morning bus down, met her old friend from high school, and went to a pebble beach where apparently its illegal to take a pebble off the beach. The last time I remember being on a beach that warm was when I was in Hawaii back in high school. The pebbles were so hot that they burned the soles of any bare feet that touched them. The water was really warm too, and it was a refreshing escape from the midday heat. After the beach we had a fresh fish and rice lunch under an umbrella. We were planning on taking a ferry to small island nearby but there were no tickets left. Traffic was horrendous in that area and the buses weren’t coming to the stops, so we just decided to hike to our alternate destination, the windy cliffs. It took about two hours to get there and it was worth it. There were a lot of people there too soaking up the crisp sea air constantly blowing past. We didn’t bother waiting for a bus back and just split a cab back to the intercity bus station. It was definitely a solid day trip, but it left me with slight fever and cold, the first time I’ve gotten sick at all on this trip. I guess it had to happen sometime and there is nothing like Korean ginseng drinks to help me feel better, plus I finally put my travelers medical kit to use.

동숙인 (Roommates)

My biggest connections to Korea before I came here were my two Korean roommates: Chris from Washington State and my current roommate Steve at Notre Dame. It just so happened that I got to meet both of them here in Seoul.

Chris is serving a two year term in the Korean military as a translator. As I found out from talking to him, he works very long hours and isn’t allowed to leave the base except on vacations. Fortunately, he had a few days of vacation that started July 24. I met with him and his brother Sam that Friday. They came over to Korea University to catch me as I was getting done with work. We got some Korean junkfood, which Chris misses, and then we went to his parents house and stayed up late watching movies and catching up.

Saturday, we took our time getting back to central Seoul, and met up with a few of my friends for dinner and an outdoor opera in front of Seoul city hall. We didn’t pay too much attention to the opera. There were plenty of distractions such as kids playing in a lighted water fountains and the fact that we were surrounded on all sides by hundreds of policemen. There was no rioting going on near city hall that day but I guess they wanted to be careful. Around 11pm we went an joined our fellow EAPSI friends who had gathered in Seoul again for another round of late night of clubbing and Korean nightlife. The group got smaller as the night went on, but somehow I managed to stay up all night again and got to sleep around 7am. At 10am, I got a call from 난영 (NanYoung) and Ethan telling me to wake up and get down to the bus station so that we could go to a water park called Caribbean Bay.

So on 3 hours of sleep (plus some that I got on the subway and bus) I spent the sunday getting tossed around with everyone in a wave pool, waiting in line to get dropped down various waterslides, and floating around water canals on inner-tubes. Since my camera isn’t of the waterproof variety I didn’t get pictures of the park, so you’ll just have to imagine the best water park in Korea, and the best one that I’ve been to in my life. The only thing that would make it better is short lines.

On Wednesday of that week I had a chance to meet with my current roommate Steve for an evening. We ate dinner at an Italian restaurant that he remembered going to when he was young, and the chef used to be a comedian but then he recruited some chefs from Italy to come to his restaurant in Seoul and it became so popular he retired from being a comedian. He greeted us as we sat down and spoke in Korean to Steve about his caricature on the menus. Afterwards, we went and had some Korean shaved ice which Steve was surprised I hadn’t tried yet. It was green tea flavored with some red beans mixed in. To end the evening, Steve translated for me as a palm reader told me that the lines on my hand are all good (long life, big brain…etc) except he said to be careful about spending money, because I have a tendency to spend too much. We’ll see how true that palm line thinks it is

Solar Eclipse

This morning in Seoul, around 75% of the Sun’s light was blocked by the moon, and lots of people were outside watching it. I posted a few of my pictures of the eclipse on picasa.

Doctor Fish and the 63 Building

These are the two things of note that from this past weekend.

Doctor Fish: We were trying to figure something to do after dinner on a Saturday night in Seoul, and Laura said that we could go this place with Doctor Fish, which eat the dead skin off your feet and legs. I thought that sounded cool, and its something that you can’t do in the US (unless you buy your own fish I guess). At the cafe it was expected that you order something, and the cheapest beverage was about 6,000 won, but then paying for the doctor fish pedicure was only 2,000 won (USD ~1.80). There were two tanks, one with smaller fish and one with bigger fish, and of course we got stuck with the bigger ones. When I first put my feet in all the fish started nibbling at once and it tickled so much. I was wincing and laughing, which must have been entertaining for anyone who was watching. It took me a minute or two to get used to it, and then I was able to sit calmly for the rest of the 15 minutes. My legs and feet did feel cleansed afterwards, but I don’t know if it was just the water or if the fish actually cleaned me well.

63 Building: I wanted to change things up and break my climb a mountain on Sunday’s streak, so I decided it would be fun to rent bikes and follow the bike path along the Han river. My Lonely planet guidebook (copyright 2007) said there would be a bicycle rental place next to 63 Building, but when Paul and I got there, we found the discarded bike rental kiosks in the middle of a few patches of construction work. There were a lot of people biking around and we thought we might get lucky and find another bike rental place if we walked a ways. A few km later, we ended up on an island in the middle of the Han river and decided that we just weren’t meant to get bikes that day. We walked back to the 63 building, went to the small aquarium in the basement, and then up to the top floor where they have an art gallery and and you can walk around and get a 360° view of the city. The elevator went up the side of the building and you could see out the windows the whole way which was pretty cool. On the ride up was crowded and we were the last ones in so I couldn’t see very well, so on the way down I made sure to maneuver myself close to the window. We ate a cold noodle dinner back on the bottom floor and then took the subway home. Despite the lack of bicycles, the day turned out pretty well.

Busan Story ( 부산 이야기 )

So this week has been very busy and so I am just now getting around to writing about my trip to Busan this last weekend.

Saturday afternoon, I took the express bus down to Busan, which is at the southeast corner of South Korea. I thought it was pretty cool that a five hour bus ride gets you across the whole country. When I got there, I met my friend Jake at the subway station and we wandered around the shops and restaurants below Pusan National University and found a place that served us a chicken dinner, with the waiter cooking it right in front of us. Afterwards, we went out to a few places and had a little soju, and we ended up hanging out with some locals for a while, talking in slow english about the Lotte Giants baseball team and trying speak a few Korean words.

The next morning I woke up early and felt pretty good so I decided to go climb the mountain right behind Jakes apartment building. The trail on the way up was nice, and I even came across a mountain gym again, and got a few upperbody and abdominal workouts in. On the way to the top of the mountain it rained on me a little bit, and I had to take shelter under a giant rock for a little while. At the top, two Korean hikers asked me to come over and join them for lunch. They were having rice cakes and plum wine.

When I got back down Jake was awake and we decided to go to the Jagalchi fish market, which was the biggest outdoor fish market in Korea. We saw all sorts of squid, octopus, crabs, snails, eels, and fish. We also saw two old lady vendors in the market yelling and fighting with each other. It looked like they were pretty mad but when I told my one of my Korean friends about it he said it was probably more like friendly banter; hard for me to imagine though. Jake really likes king crab so when we saw a place that had some and the lady out front begged us to come in we decided to try it out. I’ve never had a whole king crab to eat by myself before, it was really good.

I decided it would be easier to take the train back to Seoul, its more expensive but its two hours shorter and much smoother and comfortable, and I wanted to see how similar Korea’s bullet trains are to Japan’s.

Night Under and Over Seoul

This Saturday I came into the lab in the morning because I wanted to finish collecting some data so that I could have more to show at the group seminar on Monday. In the afternoon the 3 guys also in the KSI program here took trains up here and I met with them at my apartment before going out for the night. For dinner I went out to downtown Seoul with my Notre Dame roomate’s friend Ethan and his friend Nan Young. I tried a Korean drink called makgerli (막 길리), which made from rice, has a very milky color, and tastes really sweet. Afterwards, we walked around and ended up at the Seoul river walk again. We caught a little bit of the laser light show there before going to another bar, where along with beer we had peanuts and a whole dried squid, which we had to peel into little stringy pieces, and even those were tough to chew. The night was just getting started though… I took the subway over to Gangnam which is busy all through the night with people. After some confusion I finally found the bar where most of the KSI people + friends were gathered. At about midnight we headed over to a club called the Noise Basement, which is an accurate description. I definitely lost a few decibels of hearing sensitivity and I only had the endurance to keep dancing until about 3 or 4 am. I hung outside with my fellow clubbed out friends waiting for the subways to start again at 5 am. When I got back to my apartment I fell into a coma until 2pm.

on top of Bulamsan (불암산)

Then I thought there is probably no better contrast to a Saturday night in a noise basement then hiking up in the calm Korean mountains on a Sunday afternoon. So I called Paul and we took the subway to some mountains in the Northeastern part of Seoul. There were much less people on this trail. We came across a kind of mountain gym, complete with hula hoops, weights, and a mirror. We ran into another old bunker and then at the top of one ridge a small restaurant. Apparently it only served a couple of drinks and some ramen soup. There were stairs up to the top of 불암산 ( Bulamsan / Bulam Mountain ). We hung around there and talked to another Korean hiker named Kathy, who spoke fluent English since she lived in Canada for a while. It got dark very fast and so we had to quickly find our way back  to the street lights. After taking a wrong turn or two and running into some random people praying by candlelight, we made it back down and went to dinner. When I got home it was 11:30, but that seemed so early compared to the previous night.

Yesterday after the group seminar Professor Lee and my labmates all went out for a big dinner, beer, and soju. I made the mistake of not pacing myself, not realizing that we were going to 3 other places afterwards for more food and drinks. I came into the lab a little bit later then usual this morning, along with my labmates.

Wandering and Hiking ( 방황과 등산 )

on a giant rock

This past Saturday I wandered around the city with Laura, another EAPSI member staying in Seoul. We went to the COEX mall and the Kimchi museum first, then wandered around that general area and after a little bit of confusion found a temple nearby that we were looking for. In the evening we went to a night market called Namdaemun which was a whole bunch of street vendors and stores selling food and random other things, like socks.

On Sunday I went hiking with my friend Paul who I knew from WSU. We hiked around some mountains in Northern Seoul. There were lots of other people hiking there, and almost all of them were over the age of 40. As we were hiking up a couple signaled us to come and eat some cucumbers with them, which I’ve definitely never had happen before. It was a good thing that Paul speaks some Korean so that some conversation could take place. Further along the ridge we saw an old Korean war bunker, and then we scrambled through some rocky areas with the help of some poles and rope. We saw other people out on top of large rocks doing some repelling. Apparently there was a famous climber who used to live in these mountains and practiced his climbing skills there so that he could later scale 16 peaks in the Himalayas.  My legs have been sore the last two days, but I can’t wait to do more hikes like that when I have time.

Settling into the “Nano-Spin” ( 나노 스핀 ) Lab

attatching gold wires for magneto-transport measurments

On Monday I took the subway over to Korea University and met with my lab-mates for the summer and the professor I’m working for. After I got situated in the lab everyone in the group went out to lunch. Just next to campus is a block or two with lots of restaurants and various other little stores. Everyday for lunch so far we have gone to a different place to eat.

Monday afternoon I went and got checked into my studio apartment. Its about a 15 to 20 minute walk from the lab. Wednesday evening one of my lab-mates took me to a Home-plus store here in Seoul, which is a multi-story Wal-mart like chain of stores. The one thing in there that you won’t find in America is a refrigerator specifically for Kim-chi.

Since we started measurements on a sample today in the lab, I consider myself officially settled in. I still only know a few very basic Korean words and phrases, and I am getting better at reading. But since I can get by speaking English so well, I think I might have a hard time practicing Korean diligently. On Monday at the group seminar I went to, everyone was talking in Korean, but the slides were in English and about stuff that I had at least a basic understanding of, so I wasn’t completely out of the loop.

Back to Seoul

Sunday morning we took the bus back to Seoul. We watched another Korean movie about a monster that comes out of the Han river and eats a bunch of people. For lunch we had a boiled chicken, and afterwards we went to Seoul Tower, which is kind of like Seoul’s version of the space needle. They have a big observation deck at the top and I took lots of pictures before my camera battery died.

We checked back into the Koreana hotel for our last night and then went out shopping to find gifts for our great orientation guides. That night we went out shopping again in an area with a bunch of department stores. The only thing I ended up buying was some soft-serve ice cream. Also, while we were walking through the crowds of people there, I happened to run into a Notre Dame grad student HyaeJeong that I met a couple of months ago. Probably one of the most improbable coincidences that has ever happened to me. I was planning on meeting with her anyway at some point, I just didn’t expect it to be that impromptu.