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Mandoo, bibimbap and a good steak

August 29th, 2009

All seems beautiful to me,
can repeat over to men and women You have done such good to me
I would do the same to you,
I will recruit for myself and you as I go,
I will scatter myself among men and women as I go,
I will toss a new gladness and roughness among them,
Whoever denies me it shall not trouble me,
Whoever accepts me he or she shall be blessed and shall bless me.
Walt Whitman, Song of the Open Road

A friend sent me this link just at a moment when I was ripe to read these beautiful words and share in the joy of travel. It’s been a long week with many complications and a surfeit of politics and issues but there have definitely been some high points, notably a delightful evening that just ended.
One of the fascinating, and often frustrating, bits of being in another country is the food. Particularly if that country has culinary habits and traditions which are completely alien to your own. To be honest, in Korea, I have eaten mostly Western food, cooked by me in my flat, with the occasional trip to a restaurant with friends, and once Vietnamese noodles. In the past couple of days, I’ve been exposed (thanks to a colleague with excellent taste) to some local food.

The first experience was Wednesday evening when we popped up the road from the school to grab a bite to eat. We work rather odd hours – 3pm to 11pm(ish), so dinner tends to be a rather haphazard affair grabbed in breaks between classes and in free periods, or delayed until the end of work. On this occasion, we had limited time, so we went somewhere close. I wasn’t really hungry, but this colleague is on a mission to expose me to some local food (and feels that I don’t eat enough), so he ordered way too much on the grounds that I would have to try some if it was there. We went to a place that makes Mandoo. The shop/restaurant opens onto the pavement and I walk past it every time I go to the bus stop and have been secretly fascinated by the place billowing steam onto the pavement. Of course, I had no idea what it was and didn’t bother to ask in between the many new things I wanted explanations for. It turns out it sells a Korean food that is described in some of the literature as ‘Korean dumplings’. This may be a little misleading to those who are used to dumplings being bits of dough added to stews. In fact, Mandoo are parcels of meat, vegetables, rice and/or fish wrapped in a thin layer of dough. Sometimes they are served in a beef broth (mandoo-guk), but often they’re fried or steamed (hence the billows of steam). The bit I tasted was a pork, rice and vegetable parcel in dough, steamed. Minced pork is not always particularly attractive as a food but it worked really well in this case. The vegetables were spring onions, I think, and mixed up with the rice and pork, and worked really well. It wasn’t all plain sailing – the dumplings were rather large and complicated to cut up with chopsticks, or to eat whole with chopsticks (which probably indicates a deficiency in my ability with chopsticks rather than a problem with the food). A good snack, though, although I’m told this wasn’t a very good example of Mandoo. In my inexperience, I wasn’t complaining at all.

Wednesday had originally been intended to start with an adventure in local food but work complications got in the way, so the adventure was shifted to Friday, when we had to be at the office early (2pm), so three of us headed off today to a lunch of Korean food. I was running late, partly because I felt the need to shop after I eventually woke up and partly because of misunderstanding of instructions on my part, but I eventually got to the school, where we all hopped into a colleague’s car and headed off to one of the large department stores in Daegu. I was a little unsure of exactly what to expect, but new places, especially with the security of people who you know, are always a good option. The restaurant was on the 11th floor of the building. Part of me is still a small-town Eastern Cape girl not used to very tall buildings. Also, I don’t like elevators, so, having parked in the basement 3 (-3F) level, the elevator ride was not exactly super-fun. When we eventually arrived on the floor we were looking for and found the restaurant, we had to wait about two minutes and then headed for the table. My colleagues ordered, of course – I am nowhere near knowing enough to order – and the food arrived with remarkable speed. Korean food tends to be of the many-side-dishes-around-one-central-bowl type, which I’m still getting used to after English-type meat-and-three-veg meals most of my life. The serving of this meal began with the waitress bringing each of us two bowls of soup, followed by many side dishes and then the central part of the meal, Bibimbap (I think) – literally ‘mixed rice’, a bowl with rice topped with a variety of vegetables and, in this case, tiny strips of seasoned raw beef, which is all mixed together like (my colleague’s analogy not mine) tossed salad. And eaten with a spoon. I, of course, made the faux pas of trying to eat it with chopsticks before someone gently (and only laughing at me a little) corrected me. The dish has a variety of vegetables including (but by no means limited to) spinach (yay!), bean sprouts and beans of some sort. It was quite delicious and definitely not a taste I’m familiar with. Side dishes ranged from fried tiny fish (which tasted extremely fishy), kimchi (vinigery and hot) and fermented soy-bean soup, to pumpkin fritter (or something Koreanly similar – definitely pumpkin). My Korean-American colleague also tried to teach me to use chopsticks, unsuccessfully – the lack of success being a reflection of my ineptitude rather than his instruction.

On the way back to the car, we stopped for a moment on the grocery level. I’m still getting used to department stores but there seem to be levels for every type of bought good imaginable, each section with it’s own check-out point. In the food section, I was momentarily sidetracked by the cheeses. Since getting here I have been singularly disappointed by the cheese, so I was thrilled to see something other than plastic-tasting, processed, gouda-like pale-yellow stuff. They actually had Brie and Camembert. At which point I was further sidetracked by the fact that the Brie and Camembert claimed to be Danish. It appears Koreans are under the impression that all good dairy products come from Denmark. I have no idea where this impression comes from but it was confirmed by a colleague (who also couldn’t explain it). I wonder if the French know that the Koreans think Denmark invented their cheeses? There was also a wine section but, alas, no South African wines.

At this point we headed back to the school and began a long day of work. My day was less tiresome than my colleagues because Fridays are my good day – when I finish at 21:30 instead of after 10pm. This evening, I popped in to say goodbye to a colleagues and was persuaded to stick around with the promise of dinner and a few drinks after work. I sat in on the colleague’s last class. It was informative and somewhat reassuring to see that he runs his classes the same way I do (we teach various classes at the same level), although it’s easy to see how much more experienced he is in this field. After class we waited around while others were working on something else and eventually decided to give up on them and head off.

By this stage I was tired. A night-time life is fine but my body still notices when it’s after 11pm and I was feeling a little like it was time to head home. My colleague (my lift home) was hungry, however, so we headed to one of his favourite restaurants. It turned out to be a delightful corner of Western civilization in the middle of Asia. The restaurant is near to the lake I explored last weekend (was it only last weekend?) and just a few doors down from the almost equally marvellous Africa Café, where we had the most delicious African coffee and honey bread (while talking about work, of course) just the other day. Honey-bread, by the way, is a half-loaf of fresh white bread drizzled with honey, sprinkled with nuts and baked for just long enough to warm it in the oven. Daniel’s Story One is a whole different level of civilised.

I’ve been glad, since I arrived, to discover that there are several places in the city to find steak. I still never expected to find really good steak in Korea. I was wrong. I had steak in a red wine sauce and my colleague had rib-eye steak with mushroom risotto (real risotto so the Italians tell me). In typical Korean fashion, the starters and coffees/desserts (though they’re not great at desserts) come free with the main course. The starter was a cream of broccoli soup (we think), which was good. The steak was fantastic. Perfectly medium-rare, soft as butter and tasty and rich, just the way it should be. With the meal, we ordered a reasonably-priced French Pinot Noir. I was a little dubious about ordering something called ‘Hobnob Pinot Noir (2007)’ but it turned out to be very pleasing and a great accompaniment to the steak. The setting suited the civilised nature of the meal – white table-cloths, with gentle pinky-purple place-mats, and proper silverware and glassware, in a place with many water-features and a few plants and (possibly fake) branches of peach blossoms tastefully arranged. The music was also lovely – the type of gentle, classical, background music that makes such a lovely change from the incessant Korean pop which blares forth in most surroundings. When you sit down at a Korean restaurant – another thing I’m still getting used to – they immediately bring you glasses of water and there are always unexpected and free side-dishes, such as, in this case, a variety of pickles and bread, which form a lovely accompaniment to the meal. To end of the feast of luxury, my friend had a chocolate mousse and iced coffee/milkshake and I had a perfectly civilised coffee. The mousse (yes, I tasted it of course) was oddly watery, while simultaneously being bitter, but the coffee was good. We spent ages over the meal and the desserts, enjoying the peaceful atmosphere and good conversation, before eventually heading home. It wasn’t until we got to the car that I realised it was 2am. I suppose one advantage of becoming nocturnal (a reality of a foreign teacher’s life here) is that late nights no longer seem a bother, but this was definitely also also just one of those evenings when you don’t even notice that time has passed.

As wonderful as it is to try new things and experience new flavours, there is little to compare to the pleasantly familiar luxury of a place like Daniel’s, particularly when there is good steak and red wine and good conversation. I’ll definitely be returning, probably with the same friend. I never thought I’d find a place quite as civilised and Western in my random Asian country but it feels a little good to know that I may just have found my favourite Western restaurant in all of Daegu.

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Downtown 2: Nightwalking

August 27th, 2009

After a lovely afternoon at the Lake, I decided to continue the exploring with another attempt at Downtown. The main reason for this is that Downtown is the night-life hub of the city, so it really should be experienced at night. Also, I have been wanting to spend some time trying to figure out how to take pictures at night. Oh, and there was rugby – the first Tri-Nations match not in the middle of the night (even if it was just New Zealand vs Australia).

So, armed with camera and some cash, I headed down to the bus stop for the second time in a day. One of the things I find odd about Daegu is that the city seems to get busier as the day goes on, so that by Saturday evening the streets are bursting with people. This is the reverse of SA, where people go home as dusk approaches, especially on a Saturday when they need to fire up the braai and chill the beers before the Rugby. One advantage of the Korean approach is that there are regular buses late into the evening. I contemplated taking a bus directly to downtown, but the last time I did that it was rather a long trip. Also, the website I’ve been using to find my way around suggested that the best way to find the area I wanted was to aim for one subway station short of Banwoldang (where the buses go). It turns out that Downtown is divided into two parts and last time I visited it, I stayed on the East side. This time I needed to be on the West, so I took my usual work-bus (number 1-1) and hopped off opposite the Fashion-Exchange, which was disco-ing away happily into the night. This is my personal transportation hub. I’m more familiar with the buses here than anywhere else and my nearest subway station is here. Nearest to the office, anyway, but I think possibly also to where I live, because the subway line doesn’t come that far – I live on the South-Eastern edge of the city, so it’s a little out of the way for subways.

So Manchon Subway Station is a station with which I am now familiar. I’ve been here often and know my way around. Unfortunately, knowing my way around the station hasn’t helped me find my way around the travel-card-reloading machine. I keep asking people about it but so far everyone I ask has a car and knows nothing about the bus. Luckily the universal language of holding out a travel card and a W10 000 note is intelligible to the nice people working at subway information offices. The nice man loaded my card and I headed down to the tracks and caught the next train in the direction of Munyang (subway directions are indicated based on the name of the last station on the line in that direction). I got off at Kyungpook University Hospital Station, as per website directions, and started to head up into the night.

There is something a little eerie about subway stations, particularly at night. Something about going down and down into the depths of the earth where everything is run by machine seems rather like the plotline of a weak horror movie. Apart from the information offices, the subway systems here don’t seem to need all that many people. The turnstiles are electronic, people needing to buy single tickets can do so from automatic machines, all the directions are given by brightly lit signs and an electronic voice announces when a train is about to arrive and the next station on the train. Perhaps this is part of the reason that the Kyungpook University Hospital Station was strangely silent when I got off the train and followed the ‘Way Out’ signs up a flight of stairs on Saturday night. As I reached the top of the stairs a man passed me rushing in the opposite direction. And then I was alone. Utterly alone in a world of tiles and artificial lights and yellow and green and white signs pointing in various directions. My South African woman-alone-at-night-in-isolated-place hackles were raised but it didn’t really feel dangerous in the criminal sense. It felt more like a bad horror movie. Thankfully the next set of stairs brought me to a level with other people. There even appeared to be a table-tennis place on this level, where people could go to play table-tennis.

At the top of the final flight of stairs (Exit 1), I stopped and took in the warm summer night. I was next to a busy road with huge buildings all around me except for the ivy-covered older building across the road. The contrast of the older building against the huge, brightly lit skyscrapers behind it was a perfect picture of how Daegu has grown upwards in between the older bits of the city that remain.

I headed off down the road and after a block turned right into a busy street (busy with pedestrians as well as cars). The first part of the street was lined on both sides with various businesses including what struck me a lot of wedding dress shops. Shops here seem to cluster together by type an awful lot. About a block or two up, I glimpsed the sign for the bar where they were likely to be showing the rugby, down a road to the left. This is the place I wandered around looking for for ages last time I went downtown. Clearly it is actually very easy to find if you come from the correct direction. Before heading there, I thought I’d wander up the road a bit. The pavements were filled with people and I wanted to get a sense of what else was around the area. There were bakeries and fast food places and restaurants and I saw the Samdeok police station. And then I crossed a road and got distracted by a park.

My last trip downtown was partly inspired by a desire to find two parks, one of which I stumbled upon after wandering for a bit, but I still hadn’t seen National Debt Repayment Movement Park (Gukchae-bosang Memorial Park). On the off-chance that this was the park I’d been looking for, I wandered in. Before I go any further, I have to say: imagine living in a country where it is perfectly safe to wander through a park at night all alone. It blows my mind a little. This park was well-lit and full of people. From where I walked into the park, I could see a group of teenagers and young adults playing basketball. Watching them, under arbours covered with creepers and vines, were couples chatting and sitting together and holding hands. I wandered along a path between trees, looking out over the playground and found myself in another section of the park. The first thing I notices was a large rock with a lily pond in a depression in the top of it. I walked slowly on. Parks are often peaceful places but this one, despite various ponds and walks and beautifully designed places, was more busy than peaceful. An impression possibly partly created by the huge screen splashing its garish music videos and advertisements across the paths and gardens.

In the corner of the park is a huge bell that is apparently an important part of New Year’s celebrations for many Koreans. It rests in a Korean style display building (floor, walls, roof, ornate dragon designs). Beyond that were teenage boys on skateboards and BMXs. Along the paths, a pair of children were playing an informal game of badminton. People walked along in pairs or couples, sometimes trailing children on tricycles. On the benches, people sat in couples, friends shared take-away dinners and one little boy sat with his grandmother. As I walked along, I was thinking a lot about how necessary parks like this are in cramped urban surroundings where gardens are a relatively unknown luxury. I can’t imagine growing up without a garden, but in some ways I suppose parks are the normal alternative for thousands, maybe millions of people. Strange how far apart childhood experiences can be.

As I was leaving the park, I saw something strange. Occasionally I will spot something in Korea that makes me stop and take another look because I’m not sure I trust my eyes. The whole park is laid out with beautiful gardens, exquisitely manicured and populated with local trees and flowers, some (like hibiscus and pines) familiar, others unknown to me. On the way out of the park, I passed some mielies (maize). I’m not sure I’ll ever quite get used to the idea of mixing flowers with vegetables in this way, partly for the simple reason that I can’t imagine a world where the mielies wouldn’t get stolen. These plants were not just in a square patch, however, they were planted in a circle around a tree, like sentries around the tree, so that the tree actually seemed to be growing out of the mielies. Very odd.

By this stage, of course, I’d missed most of the rugby but I headed to the bar anyway, via a gentle strolled through the incredibly crowded night-life streets – packed with bars and restaurants, but also baby-clothes shops, shoe shops and many others that I’d never have associated with night-life but which were all open on a Saturday night. Commune’s (the bar) was open and full of people watching the last few minutes of the match. Commune’s is the kind of slightly dingy place that reminds me of the club we used to go to at varsity and a place with many happy memories, CJ’s. It is situated in a basement and the walls, under various murals and pictures, are a dark colour, possibly black. It is also regularly full of foreigners (some of whom are not American/Canadian), so it’s a good place to go to immerse yourself in cultures-not-Korean for a little. Also, it’s sometimes nice to hear a whole room full of people speaking English. As soon as the rugby was over, some of the customers insisted that the Ashes cricket be put on. I felt almost at home.

After a drink at the bar (their G&Ts are not up to Moz standards), I headed home. It was now too late to take the subway/bus route home, so I took a deep breathe and went to find a taxi. This is the first time I’ve taken a taxi entirely on my own and I still don’t know exactly how to tell the taxi driver where to take me. This is one of the reasons that I find public transport easier to manage – because the stops are fixed, I don’t have the challenge of explaining where I want to be. Thankfully, my taxi driver knew some English. I had written down on a piece of paper what I needed to say, but it turns out the different ways of pronouncing the ‘g’ sound were causing me problems. In spite of this, I got home, happy with a good night’s exploring, even if I did miss the rugby, and glad that I’ve finally found the park.

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Suseong Lake and some ducks

August 24th, 2009
The other day I was driving with a colleague and we passed what looked intriguingly like a lake. On inquiring, I was told that it is – a man-made lake called Suseong Mot (pond,  lake). As artificial as it sounds, I’ve always been a fan of dams and lakes, particularly those surrounded by gardens and with beautiful fountains. Terribly unsophisticated but sometimes the great joy of life is taking pleasure in the simple things. So, on Saturday afternoon, I set off to find Suseong Lake.
The first challenge was, as usual, figuring out how to get there. The Daegu tourism site was no help but thankfully the Galbijim wiki (the best source of info I’ve found) provided a list of buses that go to the lake. I wrote them down and headed off to the bus stop to see if any of them also passed by my stop. With great timing, the 564 bus from the list arrived almost immediately so I climbed aboard and headed off on another adventure.
I’d only seen the lake once, of course, so the next challenge was where to get off. It turns out, you can’t see the water at all from the side where the bus was driving, but I thought the area looked familiar so, when the bus turned off that road heading in another direction, I decided to take a chance, figuring that I could get the next bus if I wasn’t able to find it.
Heading up the road, I came across a huge crab statue mounted on a wall. By huge I mean more than a metre across and over a metre high, mounted about a metre up the wall outside what I can only assume is a crab restaurant (this being the place where beef restaurants have pictures of cows on the signs and fish restaurants have tanks of fish outside). Honestly the stuff of nightmares.
Moving swiftly along, I crossed the main road and found myself looking up at a raised area, with some stairs to reach it. Next to me, slung between two lampposts was a sign that said Daegu FC and something in Korean. I could also see lights and suddenly I wondered if I’d accidentally found the home-ground of the local soccer club, instead. I walked up the path and climbed the stairs and there, nestled below the mountain peaks stretching into the clear blue sky, shimmering in the Summer sunshine, was the lake.
Suseong Lake is a roughly oval shaped body of water with fountains in the middle and an island off to one side. All around the edge is a perfectly kept, broad path for walking, scattered with benches to sit and think, and lined with lampposts and flowering shrubs. Each lamp post also doubles as a speaker streaming music. The music was bad Korean renditions of such pop masterpieces as the Titanic theme song and ‘Then I got High’ but it was thankfully relatively quiet. Music played through a speaker system seems to be a standard part of the Daegu park experience. It’s certainly different and something that may take a while to get used to. I’m working on ignoring it as much as possible in the meantime.
The place where I’d joined the path around the lake was wonderfully sunny and I found a bench and just sat and watched the fountains for a while. Along the path, couples strolled slowly, hand in hand , friends walked chatting and one or two people in exercise clothes powered their way. I saw a Korean teenager pick a daisy and tenderly slide it behind his girlfriend’s ear. The fountains and the flowers were both beautiful and the sun was glorious.
One of the distinctive features of this lake is Duckboats. A lot of bodies of water in the middle of cities have boats for hire. Zoo Lake, for example, where couples have been taking romantic outings to row on the lake for years. These boats are powered by foot-pedal but the concept is roughtly the same. They are also shaped like ducks. Duckboats. The lake was dotted with couples and families paddling happily around. And exhausted pedlars recovering their breath in the shade of the little island.
After watching for a while, and soaking up some much-needed sun, I set off to wander around the lake. After a time, I saw on my left a play-ground area, with basketball and tennis courts and children chasing pigeons. Families also sat around on benches. What looked like an ice-cream van was parked on the road just near the playground area selling slushies and candy-floss and  popcorn. At the end of the lake, just in the slightly more shady area, I was a little bemused to see a stretch in the middle of the path that looked like someone had taken smooth pebbles and cemented them end-up into the ground, until I saw someone take off his shoes and walk along the pebbles. They’re obviously meant to be good for your feet. When I tried walking on them, the did feel quite good, even through my shoes. This part of the lakeside is dotted with tall trees making it a pleasant place to sit or walk in the dappled sunshine.
The lake also has some real ducks, as well as the many habituated pigeons (and the duckboats, of course). It was good to see some birds. The birdlife in Daegu seems to be a little thin on the ground, I suppose because it’s so built up. The ducks raced around on the water and followed me as I walked, clearly hoping that I’d brought some bread. It reminded me of feeding ducks at places like Zoo Lake all those years ago. Clearly ducks are the same wherever you go.
On the far-side of the lake, I found rows of duckboats moored to a small jetty, so I could get a closer look. The roof is shaped like a duck, painted white and with a duck-head. Below this are plastic seats for two to four people and open sides where you can reach out your hands, like windows onto the water. All the people I saw in duckboats were wearing life jackets, so I assume that life jackets are madatory. There were also groups of people sitting at plastic chairs and tables set in the shade of some trees, with beer and peanuts and various other bits and pieces (picked things and eggs, for example) from the little stall of a lake-side vendor, enjoying the afternoon. At one of the duckboat hire places, I saw the kind of bar that in any other place would be a typical backpacker’s slightly dodgy beach bar. A lake-bar, I suppose.
There was also outdoor exercise equipment. Almost every park I’ve been to in Korea has exercise equipment. The machines are pretty much the same as those you’d find in a gym except that they’re just sitting there in the open for anyone to use. Most of the time, the only people on them are children playing in the parks but this time I did see a few elderly Koreans doing sit-ups and crouches at some of the machines.
At one point the path leaves the lake-side and merges with the pavement of the road that runs along the shore in order to go around a building. I’m not completely sure, but I think the building is some sort of fancy restaurant. The area around that side of the lake seems to be fairly upmarket. I stopped on the pavement to take a look around and there, across the road, was a coffee and pasta place called ‘Kenya’. My experience of Korea is that most people here have limited knowledge and really no experience of Africa, so it’s always gratifying to find somewhere named for an African country, even if the link is that Daegu has recently developed a taste for coffee, so that their interest is limited to coffee-producing nations. I had a great cup of Tanzanian coffee at a place called ‘Cafe Africa’ today.
As I meandered on, I watched the people. A man walking along, watching his little son run backwards and forwards chasing a magpie. An elderly gentleman taking his constitutional. A group of Korean Gogos having a picnic on a blanket and – I’m pretty sure although I can’t be certain – gambling over a boardgame. At the end of the lake, a small structure with whisteria growing up the pillars and over the roof was the gathering place for the grandfathers’ Saturday afternoon gambling over their own boardgames. There was also a roofed platform on the water, where you could hire more duckboats or by the looks of it take short tours on a slightly larger boat, or simply get something to eat or have a drink at the bar. On rails were rows of life-jackets drying in the sun.
As I rounded the end of the lake, I came upon the small amusement park (Suseong Park) next to the lake. The sounds were so familiar – the music of the rides, the shouts of children and that same ringing bell of the small amusement-park train that you hear at Gold Reef City. There were children enjoying some of the rides but it didn’t seem too busy and the merry-go-round was still. There was also a plane. A whole 737-sized plane parked right there in the amusement park, which I later discovered is a restaurant, although the food is apparently appropriate to the aeroplane setting.
Looking back across the lake, I could see the Beommul-dong area (I think) across the blue, blue water, nestled between tree-covered mountain peaks and looking quite beautiful in the sunshine. At one point the breeze died down and the fountains had stopped and I could even see the white buildings and the trees and the duckboats reflected in the water. There are times, particularly  looking across water on a sunny day, where time seems to stand still and everything is wonderfully, beautifully calm. This was a little like that. Perfect late Summer afternoon sunshine, blue water dotted with the occasional duckboat and nowhere to be and nothing to do but stand still and enjoy the moment.
After a while, I headed back to the road and caught the bus back home, happy with an afternoon of exploring and many, many pictures. Oh, I also managed to buy a pair of shoes. I’ve been meaning to buy some for a while after two of the three pairs I brought with me died and the third is nearing its last legs, but I haven’t managed to find any that weren’t extortionately ‘designer’. On the way to the Lake, on the bus, we passed a shoe-shop having a sale, so on the way home, I popped in and found a nice, cheap pair of shoes that fits (Extra Large).

The other day I was driving with a colleague and we passed what looked intriguingly like a lake. On inquiring, I was told that it is – a man-made lake called Suseong Mot (pond,  lake). As artificial as it sounds, I’ve always been a fan of dams and lakes, particularly those surrounded by gardens and with beautiful fountains. Terribly unsophisticated but sometimes the great joy of life is taking pleasure in the simple things. So, on Saturday afternoon, I set off to find Suseong Lake.

The first challenge was, as usual, figuring out how to get there. The Daegu tourism site was no help but thankfully the Galbijim wiki (the best source of info I’ve found) provided a list of buses that go to the lake. I wrote them down and headed off to the bus stop to see if any of them also passed by my stop. With great timing, the 564 bus from the list arrived almost immediately so I climbed aboard and headed off on another adventure.

I’d only seen the lake once, of course, so the next challenge was where to get off. It turns out, you can’t see the water at all from the side where the bus was driving, but I thought the area looked familiar so, when the bus turned off that road heading in another direction, I decided to take a chance, figuring that I could get the next bus if I wasn’t able to find what I was looking for.

Heading up the road, I came across a huge crab statue mounted on a wall. By huge I mean more than a metre across and over a metre high, mounted about a metre up the wall outside what I can only assume is a crab restaurant (this being the place where beef restaurants have pictures of cows and fish restaurants have tanks of fish outside). Honestly the stuff of nightmares.

Moving swiftly along, I crossed the main road and found myself looking up at a raised area, with some stairs to reach it. Next to me, slung between two lampposts was a sign that said Daegu FC and something in Korean. I could also see lights and suddenly I wondered if I’d accidentally found the home-ground of the local soccer club, instead. I walked up the path and climbed the stairs and there, nestled below the mountain peaks stretching into the clear blue sky, shimmering in the Summer sunshine, was the lake.

Suseong Lake is a roughly oval shaped body of water with fountains in the middle and an island off to one side. All around the edge is a perfectly kept, broad path for walking, scattered with benches to sit and think, and lined with lampposts and flowering shrubs. Each lamp post also doubles as a speaker streaming music. The music was bad Korean renditions of such pop masterpieces as the Titanic theme song and ‘Then I got High’ but it was thankfully relatively quiet. Music played through a speaker system seems to be a standard part of the Daegu park experience. It’s certainly different and something that may take a while to get used to. I’m working on ignoring it as much as possible in the meantime.

The place where I’d joined the path around the lake was wonderfully sunny and I found a bench and just sat and watched the fountains for a while. Along the path, couples strolled slowly, hand in hand , friends walked chatting and one or two people in exercise clothes powered their way. I saw a Korean teenager pick a daisy and tenderly slide it behind his girlfriend’s ear. The fountains and the flowers were both beautiful and the sun was glorious.

One of the distinctive features of this lake is Duckboats. A lot of bodies of water in the middle of cities have boats for hire. Zoo Lake, for example, where couples have been taking romantic outings to row on the lake for years. These boats are powered by foot-pedal but the concept is roughly the same. They are also shaped like ducks. Duckboats. The lake was dotted with couples and families paddling happily around. And exhausted peddlers recovering their breath in the shade of the little island.

After watching for a while, and soaking up some much-needed sun, I set off to wander around the lake. After a time, I saw on my left a play-ground area, with basketball and tennis courts and children chasing pigeons. Families also sat around on benches. What looked like an ice-cream van was parked on the road just near the playground area selling slushies and candy-floss and  popcorn. At the end of the lake, just in the slightly more shady area, I was a little bemused to see a stretch in the middle of the path that looked like someone had taken smooth pebbles and cemented them end-up into the ground, until I saw someone take off his shoes and walk along the pebbles. They’re obviously meant to be good for your feet. When I tried walking on them, the did feel quite good, even through my shoes. This part of the lakeside is dotted with tall trees making it a pleasant place to sit or walk in the dappled sunshine.

The lake also has some real ducks, as well as the many habituated pigeons (and the duckboats, of course). It was good to see some birds. The birdlife in Daegu seems to be a little thin on the ground, I suppose because it’s so built up. The ducks raced around on the water and followed me as I walked, clearly hoping that I’d brought some bread. It reminded me of feeding ducks at places like Zoo Lake all those years ago. Clearly ducks are the same wherever you go.

On the far-side of the lake, I found rows of duckboats moored to a small jetty, so I got a closer look. The roof is shaped like a duck, painted white and with a duck-head. Below this are plastic seats for two to four people and open sides where you can reach out your hands, like windows onto the water. All the people I saw in duckboats were wearing life jackets, so I assume that life jackets are mandatory. There were also groups of people sitting at plastic chairs and tables set in the shade of some trees, with beer and peanuts and various other bits and pieces (picked things and eggs, for example) from the little stall of a lake-side vendor, enjoying the afternoon. At one of the duckboat hire places, I saw the kind of bar that in any other place would be a typical backpacker’s slightly dodgy beach bar. A lake-bar, I suppose.

There was also outdoor exercise equipment. Almost every park I’ve been to in Korea has exercise equipment. The machines are pretty much the same as those you’d find in a gym except that they’re just sitting there in the open for anyone to use. Most of the time, the only people on them are children playing in the parks but this time I did see a few elderly Koreans doing sit-ups and crouches at some of the machines.

At one point the path leaves the lake-side and merges with the pavement of the road that runs along the shore in order to go around a building. I’m not completely sure, but I think the building is some sort of fancy restaurant. The area around that side of the lake seems to be fairly upmarket. I stopped on the pavement to take a look around and there, across the road, was a coffee and pasta place called ‘Kenya’. My experience of Korea is that most people here have limited knowledge and really no experience of Africa, so it’s always gratifying to find somewhere named for an African country, even if the link is that Daegu has recently developed a taste for coffee, so that their interest is limited to coffee-producing nations. I had a great cup of Tanzanian coffee at a place called ‘Cafe Africa’ today.

As I meandered on, I watched the people. A man walking along, watching his little son run backwards and forwards chasing a magpie. An elderly gentleman taking his constitutional. A group of ajummas having a picnic on a blanket and – I’m pretty sure although I can’t be certain – gambling over a boardgame. At the end of the lake, a small structure with whisteria growing up the pillars and over the roof was the gathering place for the grandfathers’ Saturday afternoon gambling over their own boardgames. There was also a roofed platform on the water, where you could hire more duckboats or by the looks of it take short tours on a slightly larger boat, or simply get something to eat or have a drink at the bar. On rails were rows of life-jackets drying in the sun.

As I rounded the end of the lake, I came upon the small amusement park (Suseong Park) next to the lake. The sounds were so familiar – the music of the rides, the shouts of children and that same ringing bell of the small amusement-park train that you hear at Gold Reef City. There were children enjoying some of the rides but it didn’t seem too busy and the merry-go-round was still. There was also a plane. A whole 737-sized plane parked right there in the amusement park, which I later discovered is a restaurant, although the food is apparently appropriate to the aeroplane setting.

Looking back across the lake, I could see the Beommul-dong area (I think) across the blue, blue water, nestled between tree-covered mountain peaks and looking quite beautiful in the sunshine. At one point the breeze died down and the fountains had stopped and I could even see the white buildings and the trees and the duckboats reflected in the water. There are times, particularly  looking across water on a sunny day, where time seems to stand still and everything is wonderfully, beautifully calm. This was a little like that. Perfect late Summer afternoon sunshine, blue water dotted with the occasional duckboat and nowhere to be and nothing to do but stand still and enjoy the moment.

After a while, I headed back to the road and caught the bus back home, happy with an afternoon of exploring and many, many pictures. Oh, I also managed to buy a pair of shoes. I’ve been meaning to buy some for a while after two of the three pairs I brought with me died and the third is nearing its last legs, but I haven’t managed to find any that weren’t extortionately ‘designer’. On the way to the Lake, on the bus, we passed a shoe-shop having a sale, so on the way home, I popped in and found a nice, cheap pair of shoes that fits (extra large).

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Pizza with potato and Vietnamese noodles

August 20th, 2009

Monday saw me trying Korean Pizza for the first time. Pizza here isn’t a completely different experience from pizza in other countries. For the most part, in fact, it’s pretty much the same. Inevitably at this distance, however, there are small variations. Previously, I have only tried Pizza Baguettes from the bakeries – pizza topping on baguettes. They’re convenient and small enough to be ideal for just one person. The only odd thing is that the tomato base includes what appear to me to frozen vegetables – little squares of carrot and meilies or sweetcorn. After a while, I’ve stopped worrying about why. Living in a foreign country is teaching me to accept the way things are without asking questions sometimes. Also, of course, the bits and pieces of low GI-diet information I’ve picked up over the years and far too many episodes of Jamie’s School Dinners, have taught me that adding random vegetables to things like the tomato base on a pizza makes food healthier. On Monday, I discovered that adding sweetcorn is a general rule, rather than a health-enhancing tactic of small bakeries. It’s considered normal for the pizza’s tomato topping to include sweetcorn. And Koreans are a little taken aback when someone suggests that it might not be the way it’s done everywhere.

Another discovery is that Korean pizzas are heavy on the potato. I’m not sure that I’ve ever eaten, or even thought about, potato as a pizza topping before. Here it seems to one of the standard toppings. Potato pizza right there alongside ’salad garden pizza’ and ’seafood pizza’. But it gets better. When the potato pizza arrived (I was with a group so we ordered a variety of pizzas rather than each person getting one), it was tomato base (with sweetcorn), topped with cooked potato slices (skins on), a few bits of green pepper and tasteless olive, and cheese, all on a sweet potato crust. The cheese here all seems to be an insipid, processed version of something very mild and soft like Gouda. The cheese on the pizza was no exception, so the cheese taste was rather mild. This meant that the taste of the pizza really was potato on sweet potato. I’m a huge fan of potato in most forms, but I’m not at all sure that I’m sold on the idea of potato pizza. Actually, given the standard reason for me to eat pizza is that I love melted cheese, I’m not sure how much of any pizza I’ll be eating here.

Yesterday I had another meal out, this time far from disappointing. I have the advantage over some first-time foreign teachers, in having at least one foreign colleague who has been here for ages and knows his way around the place, including knowing all sorts of delightful places to eat. Yesterday, he and I had lunch/dinner (what do you call a meal you eat at 4pm?) at a Vietnamese restaurant. The diversity of my culinary experiences in the past has been woefully limited, largely because I’m attached to steak and it’s a wretch to go anywhere else when out to eat. As a result, I’ve never actually eaten Vietnamese food before. So yesterday was a culinary adventure. We ordered beef noodles and lemon chicken. The beef noodles, for anyone who is as uneducated about foreign food as I am, consist of ‘flat meat’ (slices of beef) with rice noodles and some vegetables and herbs in a beef broth. To this you add bean sprouts and coriander (cilantro) and a squeeze of lemon juice. With this they bring you chopsticks and a spoon for the broth. It’s a little difficult to eat because the rice noodles are ridiculously slippery and the broth splashes all over, particularly if one is as inept as I still am with chopsticks. But quite yummy. Wonderfully meaty and savory without being too rich and filling. The lemon chicken was strips of tendarised chicken served in a sticky, sweet-tangy lemon sauce with little pieces of bread/toast. With all this was served some kimchi. It’s really quite terrible that it has taken me so long to taste Korea’s national dish. My colleague was rather shocked. I have now tasted it, however. It’s an interesting combination of experiences that is probably best described as spicy and crunchy. I think I liked the pickled radish better – it tasted a little like pickled onions.

It was really a very good meal but I fear that my uneducated palate, unused to quite such a wide range of flavours and textures, prevented me from appreciating it fully. I’ll have to make sure I go back and try Vietnamese again.

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Downtown part 1: A park, a church and Herbal Medicine Street

August 8th, 2009
Downtown part 1: A park, a church and Herbal Medicine Street
I started teaching on 6 July 2009, so Wednesday this week was exactly one month. Given that and the fact that I’m also finally comfortable with the complicated bus system (and I know how get a taxi if I’m stranded because one of the other foreign teachers wrote it down for me), I decided to do some exploring. One of the things that I’m always surprised by – although I’m as guilty as anyone else – is how little any of us tends to explore the fascinating cities and towns where we live. It’s so easy to get sucked into everyday life drama and forget to make the time. Also, and I suppose this is quite natural, people tend not to think of their home city as filled with fascinating places. We do it with our countries, too. It’s one of the reasons I’m such an avid follower of the fantastic road-trips one of my travel-addicted friends takes from time to time. It’s one of the reasons he and I headed off to find something interesting in Joburg on my last weekend in SA (Westpark, for the record – yes, cemeteries count).
I am determined not to do that here. So, I headed off today to see some of the city. My initial idea was to get on the first bus that came along and see where it took me. I’ll probably still do that but I’ve been meaning, since I arrived, to head Downtown and look around a bit. It’s the one place the guidebook (which is not particularly complementary about Daegu) recommends, plus everyone around me keeps telling me that I need to go there. So, armed with my trusty umbrella and the guidebook, I set off, feeling like an explorer from times gone by. I also took a quick look at the Daegu tourism website and thought it might be nice to try and find the two parks in the Downtown area that are mentioned – for the sake of a little bit of open space, as well as their historical value.
The adventure began a little frustratingly. My travel card is out of money, so I decided to go into the bank and load some more. I’ve loaded money onto the card once before, but it was at the subway station and I took the easy (i.e. English) way and got the man at the information centre to do it. The standard method is to use the ATM-type machine at the bank. I went in, found a machine that had a card reader (there was a picture), put in my card and then tried to figure out what to do next. 20 minutes later (luckily there was no-one else waiting), I gave up. Some Korean-language machines are relatively easy to use because they have pictures and numbers. The card reloading machine doesn’t. Luckily, the buses accept either card or cash, so not a huge hassle (although I will have to find someone on Monday who can show me how).
I decided to go to the bus stop where I usually leave for work and take the first bus that said ‘Banwoldang’ – which I know is downtown because that’s the subway station I took when I went to get my medical check. Oh, and because the guide book says so. Plus, I know I’ve seen it written on the route-indicators on buses at that stop. I took the 414-1 bus. This bus does a circuit of the city, including Banwoldang and returns to my stop (Beommul-dong). I was somewhat comforted by the knowledge that if nothing looked like the place I wanted to be, I could always just stay on the bus and come home (because I am a control freak who needs exploring-safety-nets). The first bit of the bus trip was the same route my bus takes to work. But then it turned off and we were driving through entirely new parts of the city. I revelled in the totally new sights. Ordinary places, like car-repair shops and Hofs (beer bars) and homes and Family-marts, but still new and different. Subways are great for speed, but there is nothing like watching the world from the window of a bus to get a real sense of the city. The bus I’d taken took quite a long loop to get to Banwoldang (at least 45 minutes), so I got to see lots of fabulous places that I can go back and explore. At some point, while driving through Chilseong market area – although I’m not sure why what appears to be a wholesale-household-goods (plastic baths, plates and cups) area inspired this thought – it occurred to me that this wonder, this fascination with things that other people might find mundane, may well be something like the wonder of travel/meaning of life concept about which some of my friends have ongoing conversations.
Eventually the announcement of the next stop (a disembodied voice announces each stop on the bus) said something that I thought sounded a bit like Banwoldang and things began to look somewhat familiar, so I hopped off the bus and headed for the major intersection. Of course, I was on the wrong side of a road without pedestrian crossings again, so, taking a deep breathe, I braved the Balwondang subway complex (the Metro Centre). This time I took careful note of the number of the place I came in, so that I wouldn’t get lost trying to leave. And promptly got lost. I have a reasonable sense of direction most of the time, but I tend to navigate by landmarks and, it appears, sunlight, but an underground shopping complex with a rabbit-warren of passages, all lined with shops selling roughly the same thing or one of the same limited variety of things, is a bit of a nightmare. After walking around for a while (at least 20 minutes), I started to recognise places in relation to each other. The forth time I passed the Paris Baguette, for example, I knew that I was about to reach the central arena area – partly because I was gaining some sense of direction and partly because I was hit, yet again, by a wall of sound created by a terribly distorted version of English songs sung by a Korean who really shouldn’t, and who seemed to be singing the same songs again and again – although it’s possible the lack of talent and distortion just made it seem that way. Tired of lingerie shops and desperate to escape the bad music, I took the plunge and rushed up the first available exit-stairs. I was close, too. I only had to go back down and try again twice before I found what I thought might be roughly the right area.
After a quick look at the map outside the Daegu Bank building – which turned out to be useless  because, of course, it was all in Korean, I headed in what I thought must be roughly a northerly direction. I am, for the record, considering buying a compass to help navigate the city – at least then I might be able to make use of the sometimes-useful maps. Bravely (at least it felt brave), I took the first left and headed off down a smaller street. I rapidly became aware of a rich, somewhat sensual smell. I’ve been very aware of smells since I got here. My initial impression, and if I’m honest one that resurfaces often, is that Korea smells funny. I don’t mean that in a derogatory way but it is not what I’m used to. After eating some take-away fried chicken and coming across the same smell (and taste), I have now deduced it must have something to do with the cooking. Perhaps it’s the red-bean paste that Koreans (according to super-reliable internet sources) eat with everything. The smell of this street was not that. It was the smell of spices, a scent that, for whatever reason, I’ve come to associate with Asia. I stopped and looked around properly for the first time, and discovered why. I was walking down the famous Herbal Medicine street – famous according to the guide book, at least. Or Oriental Medicine Street. I’m not sure which is more correct. It is a street lined, up and down, block after block, with shops selling oriental medical remedies. Most of which, judging by the gorgeous scent, have to do with spices. Some shops had horns and stuffed animals on display and through doorways and glass windows, I saw women and men sorting racks of plants and trays of seeds or nuts. I wandered all the way down, looking into the windows and doorways of every ‘Oriental Drug Store’ (spot the American influence), drinking in the wonderful strangeness and trying not to get knocked down by Korean drivers and people strolling past.
About half way down the street, I turned from avoiding yet another impatient Hyundai driver and found myself looking at something I’ve wanted to see since I first arrived in Daegu. This city owes it’s prosperity and growth partly to the arrival, late in the 19th century of Presbyterian missionaries who, among other things, grafted American apple trees onto the local crab-apple trees and gave Daegu the apple farming industry for which it is well-known. I’ve grown up in the South African Presbyterian church, so I was eager to find the first Presbyterian Church in the area, the first protestant church in Daegu, about which the guidebook and websites had all talked so much. And here it was. A lovely double story, ivy-covered, red-brick building, with a beautiful bell tower and stunning,, arched light-wood doors (which look remarkably like yellow-wood). I didn’t go in, it being a Saturday afternoon and the place being well-and-truly closed, but I did stop to take a really good look. There is a plaque outside, as with all Daegu’s important buildings, explaining the history of the place. This church is called Jeil (Jae-il according to the guide book) or ‘First’ Presbyterian Church. The church (congregation) was established in 1898 and the building was first built in 1907, in mixed Korean-Western Style, and then rebuilt in 1933 to become the beautiful Gothic building that now stands here. The bell tower (steeple) was added later (1937) and is, according to the information plaque, five stories high. It’s a very attractive building (and I say this as someone who has seen a lot of churches). It’s set a little back from the road (Herbal Medicine Street) with a little courtyard and garden and rows of bamboo and other plants to protect it from the neighbouring buildings. I’d love to come back some Sunday and attend a service there (even if it is in Korean) but the building is beautiful and of course, the history of it makes me happy, if only because it gives me a connection to my current home city.
Carrying on down Oriental/Herbal Medicine street, I noticed thick poles with what looked like super-large metal kettles (round belly and spout but without handles) on top. I saw pictures similar to the statues on some windows, so I’m assuming this is the symbol for herbal medicines here. At the end of the road, just where it intersects with a busy city arterial, there is the West Yangnyeongsi Gate. Not a gate in the sense of something that closes but a structure along the lines, I suppose, of what we’d think of as a Lapa at home – a platform with pillars and a roof. Although, of course, not a thatched roof. This Gate (again, thanks to the English language information) was built in 2002 to recognise the contribution of the Herbal Medicine industry and this particular street to Korea and Daegu. The structure has an ornate Korean roof, complete with intricate tiling and shape, dragons, colours and designs and at each end of the top of the roof what looked to me (in my uneducated state) like statue reindeer heads with antlers. At the base of each of the four pillars is a statue of a woman kneeling over one of the kettle-without-handle shaped bowls. It’s not dramatic in the sense that it stops traffic or that people would travel half way round the world to see it, but it is definitely fascinating and beautiful to look at. It’s also, it would appear, a good place for people to sit and wait for a lift or the bus – there were several women waiting when I was there.
After the joy of Herbal Medicine Street and Jeil Presbyterian Church, and the Western Gate, I headed back up another street (which doesn’t seem to be one of the named-for-its-single-purpose ones) and further into Downtown. I had come here seeking parks so, armed with the map, I tried to do just that. One of the websites had said that, to get to one of the parks, you should get off at Jungangno subway station and walk in the direction of the MMC cinema complex. Inadvertently (because I really had no clear idea of where I was going), I found myself outside MMC, with the subway station several blocks behind me and no sign of the park. I did see the catholic cathedral in the distance, which I also want to have a look at, but I was now on a mission to find the parks, so I turned around and went back the way I’d come. When I found myself back at the Jungangno subway-station intersection, with roadworks leaving me no way to go any further on the pavement, I took a deep breathe and headed down into yet another underground shopping centre. I determined to avoided getting lost this time and thankfully I succeeded this time, coming up on the other side of the street, exactly where I’d hoped to be. At this stage,though, I was really just moving for the sake of moving, because I had no idea how to get to my destination. Just past a ‘youth-themed’ department store and yet another cinema complex, I turned left into a pedestrian mall absolutely packed with people and lined with a mixture of clearly-designer stores and what appear to be cheap-rip-off-goods outlets. I am not a huge fan of crowds or overkill commercialism, so after one block, I grabbed the chance to go somewhere else and randomly wandered along a road to the left..
At which point – surprise, surprise – I found the park. Well, not the actual park I was looking for at the time, but one of the two I’d wanted to see. For the record, looking at the hurried notes I took from the internet earlier, this was actually the one I was supposed to find with the directions I had been sort of following. As I walked into the park, the whole world immediately seemed calmer. Even the cicadas seemed quieter. It’s amazing what well-maintained open spaces and gardens can do. Gyeongsang-gamyeong Park is not a park in the sense of large open space that I’m used to – it’s more like a small-ish garden area, but it is still beautiful. Daegu city officials have decided to do an interesting thing with their park areas: each park (green lung?) is also somewhere that is historically or culturally important. It makes a lot of sense when there is limited space and is also convenient for tourists. This park is situated the site of the first provincial governor’s offices (dating from about 400 years ago when the provincial headquarters were move to Daegu).  In the park are two halls (platform-pillars-roof with typical Korean colours and dragon roof motif) marking where the repeatedly-destroyed-by-fire buildings used to stand. There are also a variety of important (indigenous) plants marked with plaques that I assume give information about them (in Korean), as well as a beautiful water-feature/mini-lake. Water is scarce where I come from, so that’s is probably the reason that I love fountains and outdoor water features. This one is a little different. Instead of a large fountain, they use bubbles from between the bed of rocks to create circles and patterns on the water’s surface. Really quite beautiful and definitely with that Asian-garden-of-calm feel to it. There are various other bits and pieces in the park, including a row of what look like stone monument grave markers (without the crosses, of course, but with a similar feel). I couldn’t read the marble-tablet of information this time (in Korean), except to note that it included a list of dates from 1637 to 1878, so I’m guessing this is a monument to a lineage of people – perhaps the governors of the province. The park was also full of people, in groups ,or couples, enjoying a warm, Summer, Saturday afternoon, sitting around on benches, chatting, or walking the little paths. Some of them looked at me a little strangely – maybe surprised to see a foreigner in their park. In one corner, at a little collection of benches and tables under a roof, there was a gathering of men watching and playing (and I would imagine betting on) two or three obviously crucial and rather intense board games. I couldn’t help but think of grandfathers and young men gathered on Kasi street corners back home, playing games of chance and skill on a Saturday afternoon. I have heard similar tales from cities like New York, too. Perhaps a phenomenon that exists in slightly different ways many different cultures. I was also greeted enthusiastically by a man dressed in what looked to me (again, in my uneducated state) like Middle-Eastern/Arab dress, although his features were definitely Korean. I had noticed him as I walked along the paths, effusively greeting many people. I was a little surprised, when he greeted me warmly, to hear a Middle-Eastern accent. Perhaps a Korean Muslim?
By this stage, I was ready for a break, so I thought I’d see if the Expat bar, Commune’s, that I’ve been to a couple of times, was open. I even managed to find it on the guidebook map. It turns out the guidebook map is a very bad map (or I can’t read it) and that I am totally unable to find in daylight a place I’ve only been to at night. After walking along many streets, up roads and down alleys, I eventually gave up. I know the place is there, and I’m sure I’ll find it again some evening but by this time I felt like I did the day that Richard decided we should see all of Maputo on foot in one day, so I headed back to the bus-stop and caught the 6pm (and still light) bus home.
A good day of exploring, I think. I didn’t see everything I wanted to see – another church and park for a start – but it’s kind of nice to know that there is more of Downtown to explore another time. Right now, I’m sipping a glass of dry, white wine, looking at the (not very good) pictures I took and loving the fact that the city I chose to live in, no matter what the guidebook says, is full of fascinating places and wonderful moments of adventure.

I started teaching on 6 July 2009, so Wednesday this week was exactly one month. Given that and the fact that I’m also finally comfortable with the complicated bus system (and I know how get a taxi if I’m stranded because one of the other foreign teachers wrote it down for me), I decided to do some exploring. One of the things that I’m always surprised by – although I’m as guilty as anyone else – is how little any of us tends to explore the fascinating cities and towns where we live. It’s so easy to get sucked into everyday life drama and forget to make the time. Also, and I suppose this is quite natural, people tend not to think of their home city as filled with fascinating places. We do it with our countries, too. It’s one of the reasons I’m such an avid follower of the fantastic road-trips one of my travel-addicted friends takes from time to time. It’s one of the reasons he and I headed off to find something interesting in Joburg on my last weekend in SA (Westpark, for the record – yes, cemeteries count).

I am determined not to do that here. So, I headed off today to see some of the city. My initial idea was to get on the first bus that came along and see where it took me. I’ll probably still do that but I’ve been meaning, since I arrived, to head Downtown and look around a bit. It’s the one place the guidebook (which is not particularly complementary about Daegu) recommends, plus everyone around me keeps telling me that I need to go there. So, armed with my trusty umbrella and the guidebook, I set off, feeling like an explorer from times gone by. I also took a quick look at the Daegu tourism website and thought it might be nice to try and find the two parks in the Downtown area that are mentioned – for the sake of a little bit of open space, as well as their historical value.

The adventure began a little frustratingly. My travel card is out of money, so I decided to go into the bank and load some more. I’ve loaded money onto the card once before, but it was at the subway station and I took the easy (i.e. English) way and got the man at the information centre to do it. The standard method is to use the ATM-type machine at the bank. I went in, found a machine that had a card reader (there was a picture), put in my card and then tried to figure out what to do next. 20 minutes later (luckily there was no-one else waiting), I gave up. Some Korean-language machines are relatively easy to use because they have pictures and numbers. The card reloading machine doesn’t. Luckily, the buses accept either card or cash, so not a huge hassle (although I will have to find someone on Monday who can show me how).

I decided to go to the bus stop where I usually leave for work and take the first bus that said ‘Banwoldang’ – which I know is downtown because that’s the subway station I took when I went to get my medical check. Oh, and because the guide book says so. Plus, I know I’ve seen it written on the route-indicators on buses at that stop. I took the 414-1 bus. This bus does a circuit of the city, including Banwoldang and returns to my stop (Beommul-dong). I was somewhat comforted by the knowledge that if nothing looked like the place I wanted to be, I could always just stay on the bus and come home (because I am a control freak who needs exploring-safety-nets). The first bit of the bus trip was the same route my bus takes to work. But then it turned off and we were driving through entirely new parts of the city. I revelled in the totally new sights. Ordinary places, like car-repair shops and Hofs (beer bars) and homes and Family-marts, but still new and different. Subways are great for speed, but there is nothing like watching the world from the window of a bus to get a real sense of the city. The bus I’d taken took quite a long loop to get to Banwoldang (at least 45 minutes), so I got to see lots of fabulous places that I can go back and explore. At some point, while driving through Chilseong market area – although I’m not sure why what appears to be a wholesale-household-goods (plastic baths, plates and cups) area inspired this thought – it occurred to me that this wonder, this fascination with things that other people might find mundane, may well be something like the wonder of travel/meaning of life concept about which some of my friends have ongoing conversations.

Eventually the announcement of the next stop (a disembodied voice announces each stop on the bus) said something that I thought sounded a bit like Banwoldang and things began to look somewhat familiar, so I hopped off the bus and headed for the major intersection. Of course, I was on the wrong side of a road without pedestrian crossings again, so, taking a deep breathe, I braved the Balwondang subway complex (the Metro Centre). This time I took careful note of the number of the place I came in, so that I wouldn’t get lost trying to leave. And promptly got lost. I have a reasonable sense of direction most of the time, but I tend to navigate by landmarks and, it appears, sunlight, but an underground shopping complex with a rabbit-warren of passages, all lined with shops selling roughly the same thing or one of the same limited variety of things, is a bit of a nightmare. After walking around for a while (at least 20 minutes), I started to recognise places in relation to each other. The forth time I passed the Paris Baguette, for example, I knew that I was about to reach the central arena area – partly because I was gaining some sense of direction and partly because I was hit, yet again, by a wall of sound created by a terribly distorted version of English songs sung by a Korean who really shouldn’t, and who seemed to be singing the same songs again and again – although it’s possible the lack of talent and distortion just made it seem that way. Tired of lingerie shops and desperate to escape the bad music, I took the plunge and rushed up the first available exit-stairs. I was close, too. I only had to go back down and try again twice before I found what I thought might be roughly the right area.

After a quick look at the map outside the Daegu Bank building – which turned out to be useless  because, of course, it was all in Korean, I headed in what I thought must be roughly a northerly direction. I am, for the record, considering buying a compass to help navigate the city – at least then I might be able to make use of the sometimes-useful maps. Bravely (at least it felt brave), I took the first left and headed off down a smaller street. I rapidly became aware of a rich, somewhat sensual smell. I’ve been very aware of smells since I got here. My initial impression, and if I’m honest one that resurfaces often, is that Korea smells funny. I don’t mean that in a derogatory way but it is not what I’m used to. After eating some take-away fried chicken and coming across the same smell (and taste), I have now deduced it must have something to do with the cooking. Perhaps it’s the red-bean paste that Koreans (according to super-reliable internet sources) eat with everything. The smell of this street was not that. It was the smell of spices, a scent that, for whatever reason, I’ve come to associate with Asia. I stopped and looked around properly for the first time, and discovered why. I was walking down the famous Herbal Medicine street – famous according to the guide book, at least. Or Oriental Medicine Street. I’m not sure which is more correct. It is a street lined, up and down, block after block, with shops selling oriental medical remedies. Most of which, judging by the gorgeous scent, have to do with spices. Some shops had horns and stuffed animals on display and through doorways and glass windows, I saw women and men sorting racks of plants and trays of seeds or nuts. I wandered all the way down, looking into the windows and doorways of every ‘Oriental Drug Store’ (spot the American influence), drinking in the wonderful strangeness and trying not to get knocked down by Korean drivers and people strolling past.

About half way down the street, I turned from avoiding yet another impatient Hyundai driver and found myself looking at something I’ve wanted to see since I first arrived in Daegu. This city owes it’s prosperity and growth partly to the arrival, late in the 19th century of Presbyterian missionaries who, among other things, grafted American apple trees onto the local crab-apple trees and gave Daegu the apple farming industry for which it is well-known. I’ve grown up in the South African Presbyterian church, so I was eager to find the first Presbyterian Church in the area, the first protestant church in Daegu, about which the guidebook and websites had all talked so much. And here it was. A lovely double story, ivy-covered, red-brick building, with a beautiful bell tower and stunning,, arched light-wood doors (which look remarkably like yellow-wood). I didn’t go in, it being a Saturday afternoon and the place being well-and-truly closed, but I did stop to take a really good look. There is a plaque outside, as with all Daegu’s important buildings, explaining the history of the place. This church is called Jeil (Jae-il according to the guide book) or ‘First’ Presbyterian Church. The church (congregation) was established in 1898 and the building was first built in 1907, in mixed Korean-Western Style, and then rebuilt in 1933 to become the beautiful Gothic building that now stands here. The bell tower (steeple) was added later (1937) and is, according to the information plaque, five stories high. It’s a very attractive building (and I say this as someone who has seen a lot of churches). It’s set a little back from the road (Herbal Medicine Street) with a little courtyard and garden and rows of bamboo and other plants to protect it from the neighbouring buildings. I’d love to come back some Sunday and attend a service there (even if it is in Korean) but the building is beautiful and of course, the history of it makes me happy, if only because it gives me a connection to my current home city.

Carrying on down Oriental/Herbal Medicine street, I noticed thick poles with what looked like super-large metal kettles (round belly and spout but without handles) on top. I saw pictures similar to the statues on some windows, so I’m assuming this is the symbol for herbal medicines here. At the end of the road, just where it intersects with a busy city arterial, there is the West Yangnyeongsi Gate. Not a gate in the sense of something that closes but a structure along the lines, I suppose, of what we’d think of as a Lapa at home – a platform with pillars and a roof. Although, of course, not a thatched roof. This Gate (again, thanks to the English language information) was built in 2002 to recognise the contribution of the Herbal Medicine industry and this particular street to Korea and Daegu. The structure has an ornate Korean roof, complete with intricate tiling and shape, dragons, colours and designs and at each end of the top of the roof what looked to me (in my uneducated state) like statue reindeer heads with antlers. At the base of each of the four pillars is a statue of a woman kneeling over one of the kettle-without-handle shaped bowls. It’s not dramatic in the sense that it stops traffic or that people would travel half way round the world to see it, but it is definitely fascinating and beautiful to look at. It’s also, it would appear, a good place for people to sit and wait for a lift or the bus – there were several women waiting when I was there.

After the joy of Herbal Medicine Street and Jeil Presbyterian Church, and the Western Gate, I headed back up another street (which doesn’t seem to be one of the named-for-its-single-purpose ones) and further into Downtown. I had come here seeking parks so, armed with the map, I tried to do just that. One of the websites had said that, to get to one of the parks, you should get off at Jungangno subway station and walk in the direction of the MMC cinema complex. Inadvertently (because I really had no clear idea of where I was going), I found myself outside MMC, with the subway station several blocks behind me and no sign of the park. I did see the catholic cathedral in the distance, which I also want to have a look at, but I was now on a mission to find the parks, so I turned around and went back the way I’d come. When I found myself back at the Jungangno subway-station intersection, with roadworks leaving me no way to go any further on the pavement, I took a deep breathe and headed down into yet another underground shopping centre. I determined to avoided getting lost this time and thankfully I succeeded this time, coming up on the other side of the street, exactly where I’d hoped to be. At this stage,though, I was really just moving for the sake of moving, because I had no idea how to get to my destination. Just past a ‘youth-themed’ department store and yet another cinema complex, I turned left into a pedestrian mall absolutely packed with people and lined with a mixture of clearly-designer stores and what appear to be cheap-rip-off-goods outlets. I am not a huge fan of crowds or overkill commercialism, so after one block, I grabbed the chance to go somewhere else and randomly wandered along a road to the left..

At which point – surprise, surprise – I found the park. Well, not the actual park I was looking for at the time, but one of the two I’d wanted to see. For the record, looking at the hurried notes I took from the internet earlier, this was actually the one I was supposed to find with the directions I had been sort of following. As I walked into the park, the whole world immediately seemed calmer. Even the cicadas seemed quieter. It’s amazing what well-maintained open spaces and gardens can do. Gyeongsang-gamyeong Park is not a park in the sense of large open space that I’m used to – it’s more like a small-ish garden area, but it is still beautiful. Daegu city officials have decided to do an interesting thing with their park areas: each park (green lung?) is also somewhere that is historically or culturally important. It makes a lot of sense when there is limited space and is also convenient for tourists. This park is situated the site of the first provincial governor’s offices (dating from about 400 years ago when the provincial headquarters were move to Daegu).  In the park are two halls (platform-pillars-roof with typical Korean colours and dragon roof motif) marking where the repeatedly-destroyed-by-fire buildings used to stand. There are also a variety of important (indigenous) plants marked with plaques that I assume give information about them (in Korean), as well as a beautiful water-feature/mini-lake. Water is scarce where I come from, so that’s is probably the reason that I love fountains and outdoor water features. This one is a little different. Instead of a large fountain, they use bubbles from between the bed of rocks to create circles and patterns on the water’s surface. Really quite beautiful and definitely with that Asian-garden-of-calm feel to it. There are various other bits and pieces in the park, including a row of what look like stone monument grave markers (without the crosses, of course, but with a similar feel). I couldn’t read the marble-tablet of information this time (in Korean), except to note that it included a list of dates from 1637 to 1878, so I’m guessing this is a monument to a lineage of people – perhaps the governors of the province. The park was also full of people, in groups ,or couples, enjoying a warm, Summer, Saturday afternoon, sitting around on benches, chatting, or walking the little paths. Some of them looked at me a little strangely – maybe surprised to see a foreigner in their park. In one corner, at a little collection of benches and tables under a roof, there was a gathering of men watching and playing (and I would imagine betting on) two or three obviously crucial and rather intense board games. I couldn’t help but think of grandfathers and young men gathered on Kasi street corners back home, playing games of chance and skill on a Saturday afternoon. I have heard similar tales from cities like New York, too. Perhaps a phenomenon that exists in slightly different ways many different cultures. I was also greeted enthusiastically by a man dressed in what looked to me (again, in my uneducated state) like Middle-Eastern/Arab dress, although his features were definitely Korean. I had noticed him as I walked along the paths, effusively greeting many people. I was a little surprised, when he greeted me warmly, to hear a Middle-Eastern accent. Perhaps a Korean Muslim?

By this stage, I was ready for a break, so I thought I’d see if the Expat bar, Commune’s, that I’ve been to a couple of times, was open. I even managed to find it on the guidebook map. It turns out the guidebook map is a very bad map (or I can’t read it) and that I am totally unable to find in daylight a place I’ve only been to at night. After walking along many streets, up roads and down alleys, I eventually gave up. I know the place is there, and I’m sure I’ll find it again some evening but by this time I felt like I did the day that Richard decided we should see all of Maputo in one day on foot , so I headed back to the bus-stop and caught the 6pm (and still light) bus home.

A good day of exploring, I think. I didn’t see everything I wanted to see – another church and park for a start – but it’s kind of nice to know that there is more of Downtown to explore another time. Right now, I’m sipping a glass of dry, white wine, looking at the (not very good) pictures I took and loving the fact that the city I chose to live in, no matter what the guidebook says, is full of fascinating places and wonderful moments of adventure.

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