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Dreams of kimchi-land

August 13th, 2010

“We live, as we dream – alone…” Joseph Conrad

There is nothing quite like travelling alone to a foreign country to isolate one. This is not to say that I haven’t been loving every moment of seeing friends and family since returning. It’s amazing to see everyone but it also a reminder of how experiences isolate us. As a friend observed the other day, it’s the little things – the food, the household practices, cultural idiosyncrasies of a place far, far removed from anything those around me have ever known. A couple of months returned and I am particularly aware of those little things. I keep thinking of something or noticing things that remind me of Korea. It doesn’t seem rational. I am so very happy to be home and have no desire to go back. I guess when you live in a place for month upon month it gets under your skin and I always miss the places I’ve called home.

Some of the things I miss are obvious. I’m still subscribed to the ROKetship feed so I get each new cartoon and find myself laughing and thinking of the people who share that context. Some mornings I also wake up full of the urge to head to DongDaegu to take a train or a bus to Gyeongju or Busan or Seoul and go exploring. It’s a lot harder without that super-efficient public transport system. It’s also harder without a thousands-of-years-old Silla Capital and museums around every corner. Or an Opera House just across town. I miss living in a country that invests heavily in history, tourism and the arts.

I miss the little things too. Not even miss – I’m just aware of the difference and less comfortable in my own culture than I used to be. I feel just a little bit uneasy every time I suddenly register that I’m wearing shoes in the house. Anyone’s house. I miss having a ‘mart’ on every corner selling the basic essentials – like garlic and instant rice and plastic cheese slices and Spam. The shops are lovely and western and modern here – not to mention clean and pleasant – but they are so far away and wandering down aisle after aisle makes everywhere feel like Costco or HomePlus (which isn’t as good a thing as it seems like it should be). I find myself reverting to Korean – strangely most often when I’m trying to use a language other than English. Saying ‘Kam-sa-ham-nida’ to an Afrikaans-speaking bag-packer at the local PnP gets odd looks.

Other things are less expected. I miss eating with chopsticks. It’s not intellectual, either. I miss the feel of metal chopsticks in my hands. I feel the need to eat (ramen) noodles with chopsticks just to be eating with chopsticks. But really what I want is pajeon or galbi. Korean food. Proper Korean food, with all the side dishes – even the ones I don’t like. And, of course, kimchi. I miss kimchi. It is strange and odd and a little embarrassing, but I really do. I keep thinking about that Galbi place next to Festival downtown. Or the Hut. I miss the Hut. I miss the people and the place and the music and ‘Congratulations’. And dongdongju. Bizarrely, I miss Korean beer, but I think more for the sake of Somaek. Some days I want nothing more than to be able to head to the Hut after work at 9pm.

I miss that part of my life – far enough away now to be something that happened, another chapter. Missing places and people, like regret, is probably futile, except that it strengthens memories, histories. Things experienced alone only really exist in the mind of the experiencer. In remembering, we travel back to those places and those times and revisit, reinforce, sometimes recreate, what exists nowhere else. At least, that’s how I think of it – with a secret, private smile – when I suddenly feel that crazy urge to go to the hut or drink dongdongju or eat kimchi with metal chopsticks.

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Posted in Daegu, travelling in Korea

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DMZ

June 7th, 2010

On Tuesday, I was up and ready to leave by 8am. Outrageous, I realise, especially for a non-working day, but worth it for what was to come. I was going on a tour to the DMZ. There are two kinds of DMZ tours. The longer, more expensive option takes you right up to the Joint Security Area, where you can actually enter the room where talks are held, through the middle of which runs the border between North and South Korea. The border never used to be enforced in this UN-controlled area until the axe murder incident between some US soldiers and the North Korean army, after which it was enthusiastically insisted upon (mostly by the North, if reports are to be believed).

I opted for the shorter tour, which takes you to the edge of the DMZ. I was picked up at the backpackers at around 8:15am, just as I took the first sip of a destined-to-be-abandoned cup of coffee. I joined the rest of the group in the small bus and we headed off. There were 6 of us on the tour that day, two New Zealanders, an entertaining American (as opposed to the annoying type) and two possibly-Canadians who didn’t say all that much. I was the only woman, apart from the tour-guide, which bothered me not at all, although the guide seemed a little concerned about it.

Our first stop was Imjingak. This is the site of the second-last station on the North-South line and the closest any civilian can get to the North without being part of a specially arranged, guided tour, complete with military checkpoints and permissions. All the way to Imjin, the road followed the line of the Han River (or Hangang – for some reason generally translated as Hangang River). For most of the way, the pretty area of forest beside the road was separated from the river by a line of barbed wire fencing, dotted with guard posts with  armed guards. This line, the guide explained, is the civilian control line. The demilitarized zone stretched for roughly 2km in either direction north and south. On the Southern side of this (and presumably mirrored on the North) is an extremely heavily militarized zone stretching between 5km and 20km (depending on where you are in the country) to the civilian control line in the South.

Imjingak is along the civilian control line. It also has huge symbolic and historical importance. It is here, for example, that ‘freedom bridge‘ stood (stands?). During the Korean War, the bridges that had existed over this river at what, several times, was the front, were destroyed. Once the truce had been signed, the ‘Bridge of Freedom’ was built, theoretically to connect the two Koreas but really for the express purpose of facilitating the exchange of POWs. On that bridge, thousands of Koreans were asked to choose, very finally – they would never get the chance again, whether they wanted to belong to the North or South.

Also at Imjingak are various artefacts from the war, including a locomotive that was shot to pieces as it tried to deliver supplies, as well as a bell dedicated to unification (Peace Bell), a wall dedicated to unification and various other testaments to (some of) the South Korean people’s hope for the reunification of the peninsula. The most poignant, at least for me, was the shrine. The idea and role of ancestors in Korea differs from that in South Africa and is intrinsically tied up with place. So, each Cheosak and New Year, families travel to their ancestral homes to perform the rites that show their respect for or veneration of those who have gone before them. During the Korean war, the front-line between the armies moved back and forth several times and civilian populations scattered before it, trying to avoid the fighting. At the end of the active war, therefore, many were far from their homes. Prior to this conflict, Koreans could move across the peninsula but once the truce was signed, the 38th parallel became a fixed barrier and many Koreans found themselves cut off from their homes and ancestors. This point at Imjingak is the closest they can get and over the years many families began coming here to bow towards their homes and make their sacrifices here. Eventually, the South Korean government built them a shrine – a tiny gesture that is really all the still-technically-at-war nation can do to ease their loss. Just near the shrine is a monument recognising all those nations who fought as part of the UN force on the Southern side. I had a moment of ambivalence about my own country’s involvement.

After half an hour or so, we were all hustled into a larger tour-bus. Because the rest of the places we’d see on the tour are in an area under heavy military control, all small tours are bundled together (with their tour-guides) onto larger buses driven by specially accredited drivers. We were on our way to see the 3rd Infiltration tunnel, also known, according to Wikipedia, as the Third Tunnel of Aggression. Once there, we watched a video that was surprisingly un-anti-DPRK but concertedly, explicitly and emphatically pro-unification. This was followed by a walk through the exhibition hall with our guide – a great chance to ask questions and get a clearer sense of the history.

And then the tunnel. This is one of the bits of the tour I was looking forward to most, perhaps because the infiltration tunnels are less well-known and so less propagandised, perhaps because there is something so classic-war-novel about tunnels underground. Perhaps because allowing people to visit these tunnels is a recognition that hostilities still exist, something that doesn’t seem to happen often in the RoK, particularly in the expat community, where most people dismiss the North as a joke. This tunnel, and the others like it, are clear evidence that the DPRK didn’t just lie down and give up in 1953. It appears that the North Koreans decided in the 1970s that the best way to get around the DMZ was to tunnel under it, all the way to Seoul, so that ground troops could move through the tunnels to back up an air assault (it is assumed). The first tunnel was found in 1974 and the most recent (4th) in 1990. There are probably at least 3 to 5 tunnels as yet undiscovered.

This third tunnel was found in 1978 after a tip-off from a defector. It is estimated that it took roughly 6 years to construct, using dynamite and then (probably) human labour to clear away the rock. It is just over 1600m long, 400m of which are on the South Korean side. In order to get to the tunnel, tourists must don hard-hats and walk down the steep access shaft. The North Koreans are apparently pretty good at tunnels – our guide informed us that they have a subway system up to 100m deep. They must have perfected their skills here – it was a long way down.

Once in the tunnel itself, I found myself wishing – for the first time ever – that I was average Korean height. Scores of Koreans wandered effortlessly past as the Westerners bent and ducked to avoid knocking ourselves out on the solid rock above us. The rock dripped and glistened as we walked. Dynamite holes were ringed in white paint to mark them. On the walls and the roof, if you touch them accidentally, is the black ‘coal’ they were dusted with by the retreating North Korean soldiers, the basis of the North’s later claims that the tunnels were in fact part of a coal-mining operation.

The end of the third tunnel is blocked by three solid concrete walls. Tourists are able to go as far as the Southern side of the first. The space between the first and the second is monitored by CCTV and beyond that second barrier, land-mines protect from any invading force that might successfully overcome the final wall. The area around the first wall is now also monitored by CCTV, too, replacing in the early 2000s, the previous human-plus-dog-plus-canary early warning system.

The tunnel is fascinating, particularly to someone with an interest in history, if only to get a real idea of just how determined the North Koreans were (and possibly still are). It should, however, come with a warning – coming back up to the surface required a hike of nearly half a km up an 11 degree incline.

Our next stop was Dora Observatory – an opportunity to look across the DMZ into North Korean territory, or at least at the Kaesong Industrial complex and the DMZ ‘peace’ villages. You are not allowed to take pictures beyond the ‘photo line’ at the observatory, apparently because they’re scared you will capture on camera images of a South Korean military base in the DMZ, but that makes no sense to perhaps there is another reason. This means that it is impossible (at least without a fairly substantial zoom lens) to capture images of the villages and the border.

The view is awesome, though. We were lucky to be there on a perfectly clear day and so were able to see far across the DMZ, even without the binoculars (500 won per view). The DMZ is, these days, a precious nature preserve in a peninsula where not all that many creatures survive. This provides an even more stark contrast that would exist anyway with the massively deforested hills of the North’s side. On the Southern side, forests blanket the hills with lush green (happily concealing their carpet of deadly landmines). To the North, the hills are bare and huge patches of erosion glaringly scar the landscape. Of course, this area is near the border and it is possible that some of the clearing has been intentional, but there is an awful lot of ground cleared, suggesting that the North’s insatiable and unfulfilled need for energy is a more likely explanation. What little is known of the North suggests that they are anything but a thriving country, struggling to produce sufficient food, power and other goods. A far cry from the North Korea that existed not so long ago, when the North’s standard of living in fact remained higher than that of the South right up until the 1970s and the South’s economic miracle.

From this look-out point, we could also see the two flags, the North’s bigger after they finally won (at least for the moment) the bizarre my-flagpole-is-bigger-than-yours stand-off, building one of the world’s highest. Also visible was the North’s ‘model’ village, often referred to as a ‘fake village’. I was a little sceptical of the story that the North maintains this village that no-one lives in, but looking closely through the binoculars, it does appear that the windows are empty and the buildings are just shells. The South’s own ‘peace village’ has a population of 500, with a maximum of 200 allowed to live in Kaesong-dong, from what I could gather.

The observatory was good but soon it was time to move on to Dorasan station, the last station on the Southern side – or fist station to the North as the information boards and pro-unification propaganda proclaim. This sparkling, modern station complex, complete with customs, cargo storage area and ticket office, has never been used and stands as a symbol of Kim Dae Jung, President’s Sunshine Policy towards North Korea. The train to the North (to Kaesong, not any further) apparently runs past here but this station, situated as it is within the civilian control area, is not uses. At the deserted counter, tourists pick up info pamphlets and use the commemorative stamp to prove they were here or shop at the tiny café. Nothing else happens here and guards walk back and forth, dealing more with tourists than anyone else.

The final stop on the tour was unification village, where we visited a ‘market’ (read: souvenir store) selling products made in the DMZ and North Korea. They sell a variety of goods, from T-shirts and key-rings to roots and herbs grown in the DMZ. They also sell North Korean beer. Once the guide mentioned this, several of the group jumped at the chance to try it. It was very good, actually – rich and refreshing and beating hands-down the South Korea offerings.

And then it was time to return to Seoul. As we drove back, we chatted with the guide about the situation and the history, learning more about the two Koreas. Back in the city, we were dropped in Itaewon and went our separate ways. I had a last lunch in Korea’s foreigner-central and let myself process and think about all that I had seen and learnt in my 4 hour tour to the DMZ.

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Posted in Adventures, Seoul, travelling in Korea

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Stopping by Hongdae

June 6th, 2010

Korea has had both good and bad moments. I’ve travelled more than ever before and learnt to enjoy exploring by myself, among other things. The place where I spent the most time, however, was a relatively small (by Korean standards), fairly conservative and determinedly ‘normal’ city. A city unlike any other I’ve lived in or known. In order to ease the transition, and also to take in one of the major Korean tourist experiences I’d so far missed, I decided to spend a few days in Seoul in the way out. This ended up being just one day and two nights, thanks to the usual Korean complications of bureacracy and poor planning, but turned out to be a particularly choice.

I arrived in Seoul on Monday around 5pm. I took the KTX up from Daegu. It would probably have been simpler to take a bus, with my life-for-one-year-in-a-foreign-country-sized suitcase, but the KTX was faster and I wanted to travel on a high-speed train just once more. Once in Seoul, I hopped in a cab and headed for Hapjeong Subway, where I found myself at completely the wrong entrance for the directions I’d been given. After lugging my large case up and down various staircases, I found the right exit and set off, dragging said suitcase behind me. I was booked in a Kims’ Guest House which was perfectly nice, if rather annoyingly far from the subway when dragging 20kg of luggage.

Having settled in and dumped the bags, I headed off to explore a little and find some dinner. I vaguely thought about going to the area I’d visited with a friend not too long ago (Hongdae) but wasn’t particularly concerned, really. I was just walking. How strange to think I’ve become comfortable and confident enough in Korea to set off ‘just walking’ in a city I barely know. A year ago, I would most certainly not even have come close to considering it. As it turned out, my wandering led me, by gradual and unintended twists and turns, to something that looked familiar. Sure enough, before long, I spotted the bar I had visited with that friend.

I was pretty tired, thanks to all the suitcase-lugging and leaving-Daegu admin, combined with a late night on Sunday, so my first thought was to stop into the first place I liked the look of and get some dinner. But then I saw another place that looked interesting. And another. And another. Each with its own unique style and atmosphere. Each as interesting as the last.

As sunlight faded into romantic dusk (with candles on tables and couples sipping wine), I wandered the streets of Hongdae, almost overwhelmed by it all. French Bistros sat next to Spanish grills. Japanese Sake Bars shared pavements with galbi-on-the-street. Cafés offered coffee and wine. One place was selling pork cutlet pizza (pizza topping on a giant port cutlet). Another offered “ethnic oriental food”. And the music! Sophisticated wine bars spilled elegant jazz onto the pavements. Rasta-style taverns echoed with laid-back rhythms. Cafés moved with hip-hop. Bars pounded old-style rock. Cellphone stores and clothing shops kept the usual K-pop in the mix. Music drifted and mingled and enveloped.

In restaurants, on streets, tripping up the stairs to drink cocktails and beers, Koreans (and not a few foreigners) of all shapes and sizes, styles and fashions populated the area. There were punk rockers, emo kids (appropriately blonde in contrast to the standard black), jocks, tattooed bikers, pretty girls in summer dresses, stylish women in six-inch heels and all manner and form of doc martens. Hair ranged from black, through red and orange and purple to white-blond and yellow with a streak of pink. It’s hard to accurately express the significant difference between Daegu downtown and Hongdae but I suppose the key is contrast – Daegu’s peaceful, controlled, highly-(over)valued normality against Hongdae’s effortless, unconcerned energy and variety.

I stopped into a lovely place called Piccante and had a simple (but good) thin-base margherita pizza and a glass of wine. Wine by the glass? What a novel idea. Behind me, on the raised edge of the main restaurant level, was a row of wooden letters, table-high (and holding up a glass counter) spelling out PIZZA&PASTA. Just great.

I could have wandered Hongdae all evening but I was tired and had a (relative to what has been my usual) early morning planned, so I went back to the hostel and slept like a baby.  I went back the following evening, though, and spent a very happy few hours – my last night in Korea – with pen, paper and glass of wine, in a delightful Italian Restaurant and Bar called The Gabriel.

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Posted in Food, travelling in Korea

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Travelling solo

May 29th, 2010

A lot of the exploring I’ve done in Korea has been on my own. I’m a fairly flexible and accommodating travel-mate, however, so when others have expressed interest in joining me on particular adventures, I’ve generally been more than happy to let them join and, on more than one occasion, to shift the plans to accommodate their tastes and whims. That really doesn’t bother me. These various trips with different people have given me an opportunity to watch how different people travel and I think it’s taught me something about choosing travel companions. Not that I’ve gotten it right yet but I think I have a better idea of the difficulties and risks of choosing people with whom to share adventures. This is not to say that one should refuse the opportunity to travel when it presents itself. If you’re like me, and willing to be flexible and put up with things, you will probably enjoy it anyway, but it’s a really, really good idea to be fairly explicit about expectations. Or at least for someone to be explicit so that there is one solid set of expectations out there. If everyone is constantly tiptoeing around, worrying about inconveniencing the others, it may end up being a fairly miserable trip for all. And sometimes, just occasionally, it is better to travel alone.

It wasn’t until Sunday that there was finally an opportunity to do some Island-hopping. As a result of bus-related delays and a taxi not able to take us to a ferry in Jindo, we had moved on to Wando for the night (Wando is highly recommended, btw). It was a wild, wet, windy night. I love nights like that. I got soaked, but it was beautiful and coastal. It felt like the sea. In the morning, it was still wet, but seemed – to me at least – less bitter. They said at the ferry terminal that there was a slight chance the ferry wouldn’t be able to come back immediately, but there were many ferries running during the day (every hour) to and from this particular island. My travel companion chose not to take the chance. I don’t know that she really enjoyed the weekend. I know I spent more time worrying about how she was enjoying it than I wanted to. Especially because this was always meant to be a solo expedition for me – a chance to travel and be in motion and experience things more roughly and with more difficulties than usual. I think perhaps I should have trusted my instincts on this one and insisted on doing it alone. Either way, by the time I got on the ferry at 8am on Sunday morning, I was on my own.

It felt so free, standing on that ferry. I love boats. There is a mystery and a wonder about sailing across open ocean or, as in this case, between distant islands. It is particularly free and wonder-filled when the clouds are lying low across the see and rain is falling on your face as you stand at the railing and look out at the blue-grey-green water. Perhaps it is my British heritage and in my veins flows the blood of centuries of sea-faring explorers (by which I mean generically as someone with an historical link to the UK – I have no idea, really). I felt the powerful pull of going, of the freedom of the sea. I was the only foreigner on the ferry and I think the Koreans thought I was a little odd, standing there in my jacket, in the wind and flurrying drizzle, looking out as we passed by islands and ships in the distance.

Once on the island, Cheongsando, I stood for a while and watched the tour-buses drive off the ferry. A lot of the people there were obviously on package tours. I drifted past them, walking past rows of cars, along the little harbour looking around at the little town. Not far along the road, I saw a sign for a beach. I didn’t know where it was or how far away it would be but I decided to take the chance. I walked past an old, falling-down house, windows empty, paint peeling, grey in the grey morning. I passed a school, the sandy playground lying muddy and empty on that Sunday. After a while, I left the buildings behind me and was walking between watery, green rice paddies, terraced up the hills. The road rose up towards forested hills. I passed a man and a woman with a little tractor, working their lands. The sound of a tractor engine broke the silence. The sound was familiar in the foreign fields.

Over the hill, the road dropped down again. I turned off towards the little beach. There was an information board saying that this was the most popular beach on the island. I stood and looked out across the curve of the beach to the buildings on the other side of the green-grey water. The small waves broke on the sand. Another foreigner passed by, covered up in a bright orange raincoat. We didn’t interact at all. It seemed inappropriate to make any sort of contact on this deserted beach in the rain. Beyond the surf were rows of what looked like some sort of fish or seafood-farming activities. A man in a little blue Korean truck drove along the pier and clamoured aboard one of the small boats moored there. In the distance, the orange raincoat took a path up a hill into the forests. I headed in the same direction, not following, just coincidentally taking the same route.

The paved path rose up between the trees. On my right, I could see the sea, stretching out to islands and horizons, through the tree-trunks. It was peaceful. I could hear birds singing.

At the top of the hill I rounded a bend and looked down on a little pebble-beach. Brush and trees stretched down the hill towards it. Around a corner, the forests opened out into ploughed fields. The pebble beach bay was still below me. A brown cow stood under a tree, tethered to a post. It’s huge brown eyes watched me as I followed the path towards it, past it, onwards, always onwards. Around another corner, I came to a freshly ploughed field on my right, all sandy except for the two grassy mounds in the middle of it. Grassy mounds, in this country, are graves. They sat in the middle of a field where the farmer had lovingly ploughed, ever so carefully, around the final resting place of his ancestors. Two black goats chomped on grass in the fenced-off field beyond. I stopped to look down again at the pebble beach. The water was dark blue and crystal clear. A tiny islet rose just beyond the little bay, between the big island I was on and another just a little way across the sea, creating a silhouette line of rocks-in-water.

The path wound back down between the rice paddies. The farmer I had seen earlier was struggling with his little tractor in the mud. Another farmer stopped to help him, leaving his own tractor standing on the path, idling. I edged past and suddenly caught the familiar scent of diesel engine. Strange that island hopping would have lead me to, for the first and only time, a place where I could catch a glimpse of rural Korea; just a glimpse, a last goodbye from Korea.

Back in the little town, I walked past a fish restaurant than smelt fantastic. I thought about stopping for some food but there was no-one around. The door stood open, but no-one was there. I moved on. I passed a modern and very clearly ‘designed’ coast-guard building. Just beyond it, a metre from the edge of the land, was a basketball hoop standing forlornly in the rain. I could picture the island boys playing here, experts at shooting without falling backwards into the sea.

I stopped for coffee at a little shop – that said ‘coffee’. There were people here. A family. They looked bemused when I came in but showed me to a seat, clearly wondering how we would communicate. I asked for coffee. They relaxed a little until they realised they’d have to ask if I wanted cream (milk). They looked relieved when I said no. The coffee was gloriously warm and sweet. I stared through the doorway at the falling rain and surreptitiously watched the family. A mother sat with her baby and chatted to a friend. A little girl walked around with her toddler brother, making sure he didn’t wander out into the rain. The father sat with a friend in front of the TV, clearly engaged in serious conversations (possibly about the Korean game show on the television). I finished my coffee and paid, grateful that I know enough Korean to recognise money numbers. As I left, the little boy, the toddler, came to the door and insisted on showing me, before I could go, a dog’s footprints in the cement outside the door. With no words, he earnestly shared his secret, his serious little eyes demanding that I pay attention.

I thought I should wander back to the ferry dock and find out what time the next ferry left. I had 50 minutes left, so I bought a ticket and took another walk, past houses and rice-paddies next to the water in another direction. I walked along a road between two hills. Next to the road were two more grassy mounds. Next to one was a bunch of flowers.

Below some rocky cliffs, was a manufacturing area of some sort. A boatyard? I stopped and looked for a while but my ferry had arrived and I knew it was time to head back, so I walked back around the little bay. At the ferry, I handed my ticket to an island police-man and then ducked between cars and buses boarding the ferry, and up the stairs. As we left the island, I stood on the top deck of the ferry, looking out at the island and the sea.

There were more people on the ferry this time, so the upper deck was a little crowded. After a while, I went back down to the area below and found a familiar spot along the railing. Fragments of songs drifted through my mind. The smell of the sea mingled with the Korean-food smells from the little restaurant/food (ramen) shop behind me. I was alone with my thoughts and the sea.

Coming back into Wando, we had perfect views of the huge, forested rock in the harbour and the bridge connecting this island to the next one. Bridges and rivers and mountains and sea. My Korea.

I was sad to leave the island and the ferry but the time had come to start the journey home. There were no cabs outside the ferry terminal, so I started walking in the direction of the bus station. The rain was getting heavier. I was very thankful for the built-in-rain-cover on my backpack. After a few long blocks, a taxi picked me up and dropped me off at the bus terminal. I picked up a ticket to Suncheon and grabbed some kimbap for lunch while I waited. Kimbap is rice (bap) rolled around egg, ham, kimchi, radish and whatever else you have lying around, with a layer of seaweed (kim) around the outside. This cylindrical roll is then drizzled with sesame oil and sliced up and eaten with chopsticks. It’s not particularly tasty, but it is conveniently quick, cheap and ubiquitous. I ate it on the bus, watching the world pass by. We drove through rice paddies, barley fields and forested hills. I let my mind wander and watched the scenery, the words of Simon and Garfunkel’s America singing softly in my mind.

It took several hours to reach Suncheon, where I would change buses. The afternoon stayed mostly grey but occasionally we would pass through an area where the clouds were thinner or there were holes in the overcast sky and sunshine drenched small towns and forested hills in summer light. It was beautiful.

Suncheon was small and damp but seemed pleasant enough. A multi-story motel proudly sported the name ‘BMW motel‘, complete with BMW emblem. I wondered what international copyright laws would have to say about that. It doesn’t seem to matter here, as long as the brand is not Korean. I had a few hours to wait before the express bus. I could have taken a slower bus but it would have arrived at a terminal I don’t know, so I opted to wait. In the meantime, I explored the area around the bus terminal. A lot of people feel that a city is just a city. I disagree. I think each place has a sense of place, an identity that is unique. I relish the chance, even for a few hours, to wander around and guess at what that might be. I stopped into Lee’s Sandwich and Coffee for a cappuccino before returning to the bus station and finding a quiet corner to settle down with Douglas Adams.

And then I was back on the bus, travelling through the rapidly descending evening to reach Daegu at around 10pm. As I sat in the cab on the way home, I still felt the lingering sense of freedom and movement. I hadn’t originally intended this trip to be my last real adventure in Korea, but it has turned out that way. In just a few days, I will board a plane and travel home. I’m glad I had the chance, the moment of solitary freedom to glimpse a different side of Korea – a rural, island world, small cities and towns, buses full of people, rivers and bridges and mountains and sea and movement. This is the Korea I carry with me as I prepare to depart for good.

Travelling solo

A lot of the exploring I’ve done in Korea has been on my own. I’m a fairly flexible and accommodating travel-mate, however, so when others have expressed interest in joining me on particular adventures, I’ve generally been more than happy to let them join and, on more than one occasion, to shift the plans to accommodate their tastes and whims. That really doesn’t bother me. These various trips with different people have given me an opportunity to watch how different people travel and I think it’s taught me something about choosing travel companions. Not that I’ve gotten it right yet but I think I have a better idea of the difficulties and risks of choosing people with whom to share adventures. This is not to say that one should refuse the opportunity to travel when it presents itself. If you’re like me, and willing to be flexible and put up with things, you will probably enjoy it anyway, but it’s a really, really good idea to be fairly explicit about expectations. Or at least for someone to be explicit so that there is one solid set of expectations out there. If everyone is constantly tiptoeing around, worrying about inconveniencing the others, it may end up being a fairly miserable trip for all. And sometimes, just occasionally, it is better to travel alone.

It wasn’t until Sunday that there was finally an opportunity to do some Island-hopping. As a result of bus-related delays and a taxi not able to take us to a ferry in Jindo, we had moved on to Wando for the night. It was a wild, wet, windy night. I love nights like that. I got soaked, but it was beautiful and coastal. It felt like the sea. In the morning, it was still wet, but seemed – to me at least – less bitter. They said at the ferry terminal that there was a slight chance the ferry wouldn’t be able to come back immediately, but there were many ferries running during the day (every hour) to and from this particular island. My travel companion chose not to take the chance. I don’t know that she really enjoyed the weekend. I know I spent more time worrying about how she was enjoying it than I wanted to. Especially because this was always meant to be a solo expedition for me – a chance to travel and be in motion and experience things more roughly and with more difficulties than usual. I think perhaps I should have trusted my instincts on this one and insisted on doing it alone. Either way, by the time I got on the ferry at 8am on Sunday morning, I was on my own.

It felt so free, standing on that ferry. I love boats. There is a mystery and a wonder about sailing across open ocean or, as in this case, between distant islands. It is particularly free and wonder-filled when the clouds are lying low across the see and rain is falling on your face as you stand at the railing and look out at the blue-grey-green water. Perhaps it is my British heritage and in my veins flows the blood of centuries of sea-faring explorers (by which I mean generically as someone with an historical link to the UK – I have no idea, really). I felt the powerful pull of going, of the freedom of the sea. I was the only foreigner on the ferry and I think the Koreans thought I was a little odd, standing there in my jacket, in the wind and flurrying drizzle, looking out as we passed by islands and ships in the distance.

Once on the island, Cheongsando, I stood for a while and watched the tour-buses drive off the ferry. A lot of the people there were obviously on package tours. I drifted past them, walking past rows of cars, along the little harbour looking around at the little town. Not far along the road, I saw a sign for a beach. I didn’t know where it was or how far away it would be but I decided to take the chance. I walked past an old, falling-down house, windows empty, paint peeling, grey in the grey morning. I passed a school, the sandy playground lying muddy and empty on that Sunday. After a while, I left the buildings behind me and was walking between watery, green rice paddies, terraced up the hills. The road rose up towards forested hills. I passed a man and a woman with a little tractor, working their lands. The sound of a tractor engine broke the silence. The sound was familiar in the foreign fields.

Over the hill, the road dropped down again. I turned off towards the little beach. There was an information board saying that this was the most popular beach on the island. I stood and looked out across the curve of the beach to the buildings on the other side of the green-grey water. The small waves broke on the sand. Another foreigner passed by, covered up in a bright orange raincoat. We didn’t interact at all. It seemed inappropriate to make any sort of contact on this deserted beach in the rain. Beyond the surf were rows of what looked like some sort of fish or seafood-farming activities. A man in a little blue Korean truck drove along the pier and clamoured aboard one of the small boats moored there. In the distance, the orange raincoat took a path up a hill into the forests. I headed in the same direction, not following, just coincidentally taking the same route.

The paved path rose up between the trees. On my right, I could see the sea, stretching out to islands and horizons, through the tree-trunks. It was peaceful. I could hear birds singing.

At the top of the hill I rounded a bend and looked down on a little pebble-beach. Brush and trees stretched down the hill towards it. Around a corner, the forests opened out into ploughed fields. The pebble beach bay was still below me. A brown cow stood under a tree, tethered to a post. It’s huge brown eyes watched me as I followed the path towards it, past it, onwards, always onwards. Around another corner, I came to a freshly ploughed field on my right, all sandy except for the two grassy mounds in the middle of it. Grassy mounds, in this country, are graves. They sat in the middle of a field where the farmer had lovingly ploughed, ever so carefully, around the final resting place of his ancestors. Two black goats chomped on grass in the fenced-off field beyond. I stopped to look down again at the pebble beach. The water was dark blue and crystal clear. A tiny islet rose just beyond the little bay, between the big island I was on and another just a little way across the sea, creating a silhouette line of rocks-in-water.

The path wound back down between the rice paddies. The farmer I had seen earlier was struggling with his little tractor in the mud. Another farmer stopped to help him, leaving his own tractor standing on the path, idling. I edged past and suddenly caught the familiar scent of diesel engine. Strange that island hopping would have lead me to, for the first and only time, a place where I could catch a glimpse of rural Korea; just a glimpse, a last goodbye from Korea.

Back in the little town, I walked past a fish restaurant than smelt fantastic. I thought about stopping for some food but there was no-one around. The door stood open, but no-one was there. I moved on. I passed a modern and very clearly ‘designed’ coast-guard building. Just beyond it, a metre from the edge of the land, was a basketball hoop standing forlornly in the rain. I could picture the island boys playing here, experts at shooting without falling backwards into the sea.

I stopped for coffee at a little shop – that said ‘coffee’. There were people here. A family. They looked bemused when I came in but showed me to a seat, clearly wondering how we would communicate. I asked for coffee. They relaxed a little until they realised they’d have to ask if I wanted cream (milk). They looked relieved when I said no. The coffee was gloriously warm and sweet. I stared through the doorway at the falling rain and surreptitiously watched the family. A mother sat with her baby and chatted to a friend. A little girl walked around with her toddler brother, making sure he didn’t wander out into the rain. The father sat with a friend in front of the TV, clearly engaged in serious conversations (possibly about the Korean game show on the television). I finished my coffee and paid, grateful that I know enough Korean to recognise money numbers. As I left, the little boy, the toddler, came to the door and insisted on showing me, before I could go, a dog’s footprints in the cement outside the door. With no words, he earnestly shared his secret, his serious little eyes demanding that I pay attention.

I thought I should wander back to the ferry dock and find out what time the next ferry left. I had 50 minutes left, so I bought a ticket and took another walk, past houses and rice-paddies next to the water in another direction. I walked along a road between two hills. Next to the road were two more grassy mounds. Next to one was a bunch of flowers.

Below some rocky cliffs, was a manufacturing area of some sort. A boatyard? I stopped and looked for a while but my ferry had arrived and I knew it was time to head back, so I walked back around the little bay. At the ferry, I handed my ticket to an island police-man and then ducked between cars and buses boarding the ferry, and up the stairs. As we left the island, I stood on the top deck of the ferry, looking out at the island and the sea.

There were more people on the ferry this time, so the upper deck was a little crowded. After a while, I went back down to the area below and found a familiar spot along the railing. Fragments of songs drifted through my mind. The smell of the sea mingled with the Korean-food smells from the little restaurant/food (ramen) shop behind me. I was alone with my thoughts and the sea.

Coming back into Wando, we had perfect views of the huge, forested rock in the harbour and the bridge connecting this island to the next one. Bridges and rivers and mountains and sea. My Korea.

I was sad to leave the island and the ferry but the time had come to start the journey home. There were no cabs outside the ferry terminal, so I started walking in the direction of the bus station. The rain was getting heavier. I was very thankful for the built-in-rain-cover on my backpack. After a few long blocks, a taxi picked me up and dropped me off at the bus terminal. I picked up a ticket to Suncheon and grabbed some kimbap for lunch while I waited. Kimbap is rice (bap) rolled around egg, ham, kimchi, radish and whatever else you have lying around, with a layer of seaweed (kim) around the outside. This cylindrical roll is then drizzled with sesame oil and sliced up and eaten with chopsticks. It’s not particularly tasty, but it is conveniently quick, cheap and ubiquitous. I ate it on the bus, watching the world pass by. We drove through rice paddies, barley fields and forested hills. I let my mind wander and watched the scenery, the words of Simon and Garfunkel’s America singing softly in my mind.

It took several hours to reach Suncheon, where I would change buses. The afternoon stayed mostly grey but occasionally we would pass through an area where the clouds were thinner or there were holes in the overcast sky and sunshine drenched small towns and forested hills in summer light. It was beautiful.

Suncheon was small and damp but seemed pleasant enough. A multi-story motel proudly sported the name ‘BMW motel’, complete with BMW emblem. I wondered what international copyright laws would have to say about that. It doesn’t seem to matter here, as long as the brand is not Korean. I had a few hours to wait before the express bus. I could have taken a slower bus but it would have arrived at a terminal I don’t know, so I opted to wait. In the meantime, I explored the area around the bus terminal. A lot of people feel that a city is just a city. I disagree. I think each place has a sense of place, an identity that is unique. I relish the chance, even for a few hours, to wander around and guess at what that might be. I stopped into Lee’s Sandwich and Coffee for a cappuccino before returning to the bus station and finding a quiet corner to settle down with Douglas Adams.

And then I was back on the bus, travelling through the rapidly descending evening to reach Daegu at around 10pm. As I sat in the cab on the way home, I still felt the lingering sense of freedom and movement. I hadn’t originally intended this trip to be my last real adventure in Korea, but it has turned out that way. In just a few days, I will board a plane and travel home. I’m glad I had the chance, the moment of solitary freedom to glimpse a different side of Korea – a rural, island world, small cities and towns, buses full of people, rivers and bridges and mountains and sea and movement. This is the Korea I carry with me as I prepare to depart for good.

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K-pop for democracy

May 28th, 2010

After a hair-raising culinary adventure in Mokpo, we high-tailed it onto a bus (sadly there was no ferry) and spent Friday night in Jindo. And on Jindo. Jindo-eup (town) is the main town on Korea’s third largest Island (also Jindo) and the largest city in Jindo-gun (county). It gets confusing.

Friday night, after a safely reassuring dinner of galbi, we found a lovely little jazz bar, complete with appropriate décor, jazz music and good cocktails. In Jindo. Jindo is tiny. Ok, it has a few apartment blocks and a large school or two but by Korean standards it’s a small town. Sometimes it’s amazing the hidden gems you find tucked away in the most unexpected places. Finds like these make me feel sorry for travellers who won’t ever venture off the beaten track, beyond their 5-star resorts and guided tours, for fear that they might be bored/in danger/unable to find somewhere appropriately trendy where they can ‘be seen’. If you ever make it to Jindo, try and find All That Jazz. The proprietor, who is friendly and professional, spend some time in Paris and has put together a delightful little spot to stop for a cocktail or two in a sophisticated yet comfortable bar.

The following morning, I was up early and off to explore, leaving my travel-mate to sleep in. Our plan was to move on fairly soon, so I wanted to get a look at the town before we left. I headed vaguely in the direction of the PB to get something for breakfast, but soon got distracted. By politics. A quick point here: I like politics. I find it fascinating and scintillating and other words a large portion of the population would never in a million years apply to the democratic process (or, most of them, be able to spell). I am most interested in South African politics, but also follow elections and other major political events in other countries, too. This is the first time I’ve been exposed to politics in Korea. It seems there is an election – local government, I think – coming up. Jindo was a great opportunity to watch, as a completely disconnected foreigner, democracy happen.

We had seen the previous day a few vehicles driving around playing bad K-pop-style music at high volume. It took some time and rather a lot of figuring out to realise these were part of the politics. Towards the evening, one of these covered trucks drove past with a man plonked on a stool on the back wearing a smart shirt with a yellow sash. The man waved enthusiastically as the noise assaulted our senses. The truck was yellow with some hangeul writing and a large number. It appears each candidate gets a number, I assume to make the process easier. Each also seems to pick a colour. In Jindo, the highest number I saw was 12. 12 candidates. That’s a lot in what is really a small place. I love that. I love that there are 12 candidates standing in a local election in a small place. And I love how enthusiastically they campaigned.

My travel companion coined the apt term: cute politics. Korea has cute politics. Everything seems to happen on a diminutive scale. Back home, political rallies involve the candidate standing on a big-rig talking and singing and dancing with a crowd of thousands. In Jindo, I found myself at what seemed to be the main intersection of the town’s two major roads (which wasn’t very big at all). Four corners to a busy intersection. On each corner stood one of the noisy little campaign trucks, each barring it’s own pop-ey exhortations for a particular candidate. In front of each truck was a row of women (ranging in age from early 20s to middle-aged), all in the identical, colour-appropriate outfits (with sashes), dancing to the music. When I say dancing here, you should be picturing a row of small Asian women all doing coordinated, very simple, pop-dancing moves. In fact, the dancing consisted mostly of coordinated hand-gestures. But they were determinedly enthusiastic about it and they were all in time. Duelling political campaigns, except that there were four of them. All out in full force, not only at that section but all along the main street where a Saturday-morning street market was taking place, in between the foot-traffic and car-traffic and the political vans and the dancing women. And all of this in the pouring rain.

I was fascinated, I just kept walking along the road and finding more and more of them. It was amazing. I was simultaneously amused (okay, very amused) and elated. There is a moment in the West Wing when CJ says that the small town that votes before everyone else is important because it teaches us about democracy. I felt a little like that, that Saturday morning in Jindo. Here we were, in the rain, in a small town, on an island, in the forgotten south-western corner of Korea but these people believed; they believed so strongly that there are 12 different candidates standing and each and every one has a little van of pop-music-noise and at least one row of well-rehearsed dancing followers. These people believed in democracy. And they were celebrating that belief. They were celebrating their right to vote and to dance for their candidates and to choose their leadership.

The south west (Jeollanam-do) was the birthplace of Korean democracy and the area that bore the brunt of the painful transition from dictatorial rule. Just days before, the country had commemorated the hundreds who fell during the Gwangju massacre on May 18th, 1980. And here, in this small town, were people standing up and honouring them in the truest way possible: by engaging fully in the democratic process. It was a little awe-inspiring, in a K-pop-ey, dancing-women kind of way.

(PS Can’t add photos to this post but this is hands down my favourite pic of the day)

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