All posts by Claire

About Claire

Wandering (and wondering) development professional and aspiring aid worker. Contact me on anticipationofwonder[at]gmail[dot]com

Snow Day (except without the time off)

Daegu,

This has been a strange week, weather-wise. On Monday, when I checked the extended forecast, I was somewhat dismayed to discover that there was snow predicted for Wednesday. I have nothing against snow in theory, in fact I quite like it, but I’m trying very had to convince myself that spring is on the way, so the idea of more cold did not thrill me.

On Tuesday night when I went to close the windows before going to bed, I looked out at a world sprinkled with pure white snow. I say close the windows here to mean the same as closing the curtains would at home. Houses in Korea, or at least the ones I have lived in, don’t have curtains. There are no curtain rails and no pretty coloured fabric framing the windows. Instead, there are sort of double-windows, the outside layer being proper windows and the inside layer being opaque panes, providing the privacy normally provided by curtains. Oh, and the outside-outside layer being mosquito netting which somewhat annoyingly obscures the view but is essential when Daegu’s super-sized mozzies descend on the city.

As I looked out at the snowy world, I was excited. I didn’t want the snow to come because of the cold, but a wintery world in the dark of the night is really quite pretty. I assumed the snow would melt fairly quickly, as it has the last few times there have been a few stray flakes floating down, which, each time, melted as they hit the ground. This time, however, it was different. I woke up to a world positively blanketed in white.

Under normal circumstances, this would have been a great excuse to stay in bed and savour the warm but I was feeling adventurous so, after wrapping up in layer upon layer of warm winter clothes, I headed out to see what Daegu snow looked like. I took my camera, of course, and was taking pictures before I even reached the street.

In spite of my aversion to cold, there is something enchanting about a fresh fall of snow. As I turned up my street, towards the main road, I looked up at the wooded area across the main road. Each tree and fence-post had a layer of snow turning it from ordinary into fairy-tale. I walked along the road towards the lake, enjoying the novelty of the unexpected layer of white.

The lake lay grey and cold as it reflected the heavy clouds, but no rain or snow was falling as I walked towards it. All around me, tree trunk stood out black against the fallen snow. I felt like I’d walked into the stories and poems I’ve read for so many years. The day was warming up a little and water was starting to drip from tree branches and flow in tiny rivulets towards the lake. As I stopped to take a closer look, I saw water flowing in twisted paths between layers of ice. I walked on.

At one point, I found myself confronted with a path dotted with pools of melt-water and piles of snow. On the edge of the path, sitting on a bench, was a little 30cm snowman someone had build. I took a quick picture before picking my way between the puddles and moving on. At the edge of the lake are two trees, naked of leaves at this season and always making a dramatic picture against the sky and the water. This time, the drama was enhanced by a layer of white snow against the trunk and the branches and a dark and foreboding sky for a backdrop.

At the duckboat rental places, the cheerful little duckboats bobbed and splashed in the water, looking chilly and abandoned under a layer of fresh snow. My camera batteries died at this point. I kept walking and drinking in the prettiness. As the path wound on to the pavement, around the waterfront restaurant, the snow was yellow-brown with the mud below it.

I popped into the Family Mart next to the amusement park and bought some more batteries for the camera. I stopped to take some pictures of the amusement park, dark and silent under the steel-grey cloud, the rides silent as the melting snow lay in piles and water dripped and ran in rivulets.

As I walked back along the shore of the lake, I got some stunning pictures of the tree-covered mountains covered in snow. It struck me as I was walking along, that these images, so novel, so enchanting for me, must be ordinary for so many people. Growing up amidst the wide-open grasslands and rolling hills of Africa, it’s so easy to take for granted how beautiful it all is, a fact I’m reminded of whenever I watch the reaction of people who are seeing it for first time. I suppose this is the reverse of that. I’m glad I have an opportunity to enjoy it.

After the invigorating walk, I returned home and took full advantage of the joy of underfloor heating. The rest of the day was warmer and by the time I came home from work, most of the snow had started to disappear, trees were once again bare and grey-brown and pavements were wet but no longer white with snow. Sadly, we didn’t get the day off work. I’m fairly sure that this amount of snow in SA would have resulted in a complete shut-down of productive activities but I suppose the novelty wears off when it happens every year.

By the next day, the field of white in the vacant lot next to the bus stop had shrunk to a thin line of snow against a fence, where small boys threw watery snowballs at each other in the sunshine. The wind was still chilly but the weather had warmed up otherwise and the beauty of sunlight on snow was almost overwhelmingly amazing. I do hope that this is the last snowfall of the season, because I’m holding thumbs that winter will end soon, but I’m glad I got the chance to see it in all its winter-wonderland, enchanting beauty.

Walking in the rain

Daegu,

Yesterday I went for a walk at Suseong Lake. Now that I’ve moved, the lake is very close by. I stepped out of my building and slipped the half-block up to the main road that runs past the lake. I walked along the block as the cars rushed past, past the Italian restaurant and a town-house complex with enough security to be in a Joburg suburb, towards the huge intersection. This intersection is where 5 roads meet, most of which are at least 4 lanes wide, two double carriage-ways. Just crossing the road is an exercise in patience and coordination involving three different traffic-phases to cross three different major roads. It’s highly advisable to wait for the pedestrian light each time. In fact, it’s the only way to survive – the traffic is fast and the drivers have no sympathy for careless pedestrians.

It was a chilly, overcast day and I was wrapped up in a water-proof jacket over my sweatpants, top and takkies. I walked past the artificial waterfall, not currently functioning because of the winter, and towards the lake. A light drizzle was settling in as I reached the water. I spent some time looking at the view. The water was grey-green, the buildings in the distance were misty-pale-grey, the bare tree trunks and branches were grey-brown.

I set off at a brisk pace. Old songs that I’ve sung many times before were playing in my mind, so I sang quietly as I walked along. Near the outdoor exercise equipment park-let, I stopped to watch the ducks swimming by.  There were no duck-boats on the lake.

Further on, I stepped through a muddy patch and made my way around a party of people who had just left the restaurant on the water. At the gazebo, the old men were playing boardgames, as usual, with plastic linings protecting them from the dripping rain.

Along the far side of the lake, the paved path disappears. I’ve never noticed that before. I walked along the muddy ground past the amusement park. Through windows, I could see employees sitting at deserted ticket offices next to wet and silent rides. The pathways sat slick and damp. Everything was wet and still. There is something eerie about a silent, empty amusement park. The low clouds turned the afternoon dusk-grey.

I walked back towards the intersection. The wind blew the falling rain into my face. The noisy geese that have recently taken up residence on the lake swam along on the other side of the lake, keeping pace with me as I walked. Their cries sounded like creaking doors or the screek of metal-on-metal. I could hear the quiet splashes of cars driving along the wet roads on the other side. I walked along and let the rain fall onto my face. Walking in the rain always makes me feel alive.

By the end of the walk, I was also starting to feel cold. I popped into a Family Mart to pick up some ice-cream – because there is nothing better on a cold day than Belgian Chocolate ice-cream – and a couple of other bits and pieces before heading home. The day remained cold and drizzly. Most of the days are like that at the moment. Bare trees against rolling grey clouds dominate the scenery. Walking in the rain makes it better. Walking near the water, in the wind, on a cold, miserable day feels better after hours and days inside heated buildings. Sunshine would be better, but fresh air and rain and wind on skin feels a little bit like freedom.

A stadium and some buses

Daegu,

I’ve been listening to South African radio a lot in the last week and it’s full of the count-down to kick-off. So, in honour of the 100 days to kick-off which is just around the corner, I decided on Sunday to visit another World Cup Stadium.

I woke with the sun peaking through my windows and making me smile. It’s been raining for a few days and the weather forecast predicted this would be the only day of sunshine this week, so I climbed out of my nice warm bed to take on the day. Of course, the sun faded behind misty clouds within half an hour but I held out hope that it would return.

Before I left, I did some laundry and tidied my flat a little, but by 11am I was leaving my little home with camera and bus-card and an umbrella just in case. I got on the 403 bus and headed off. This is a part of town I’ve never been to before, so I was watching the road with interest. The bus headed off onto a highway and through a toll-booth. We had driven away from the skyscrapers and were passing wooded hills on either side. I was a little concerned that we had in fact left Daegu. I got more nervous when we turned off the highway and onto – I kid you not –  a semi-dirt track. After a couple of twists and turns, we were back on a road that looked like a road and the bus announcements said we were approaching ‘World Cup junction’.

I got off at the next stop and looked up at the huge form of the Daegu World Cup Stadium. The  stadium was built for the 2002 Soccer World Cup which was jointly hosted by Japan and Korea. Korea isn’t really a sports-mad country, barring perhaps a national obsession with figure skater Kim Yu-Na who recently won gold with a record score at the Vancouver Olympics. For the most part, however, they’re about as far from the sports-craziness of  South Africa as it’s possible to be. Some people play sport, but mostly for exercise, except for the kids who try desperately to fit in a little baseball or basketball between the homework and the long hours of school and academies. Many of these kids have dreams of being sports stars but in their world it’s a futile dream. They’ll go off to university and be doctors and lawyers, just as like their parents. Not for them the dream of playing rugby or soccer for a living, even if it’s for a second-string club team in a European country. Their national team can play soccer and has made it to the Soccer World Cup this year. I’m sure they’ll have support – the country is very loyal to the people who make them look good. 2002 was like that. Their team came from nowhere to make it to the semi-finals, where they lost to Germany, eventually placing fourth after losing to Turkey in the third-place play-off.

The hosting of the tournament also saw the country pouring millions of won into infrastructure development, not unlike South Africa, including building stadia in host cities, although I imagine after we’re done South Africans will simply use the stadia for sports events rather than advertising them as tourist attractions. The Daegu Stadium seats 68000 and claims, amongst other things, to be able to get people out in just 7 minutes. It was the largest of the World Cup 2002 stadia in Korea. It towered over me as I walked around. The design uses simple shapes like circles and triangles and hexagons. There is a row of very tall cylindrical towers at the front, which are the ticket-booths. On one side, there is an open area where kids were roller-blading and playing tag. A tarred path curves around the stadium where old men were walking and doing stretching exercises. I couldn’t get into the actual stadium, which was a pity but not hugely surprising. At one point, up a hill, there is a set of steps leading to a (non-functioning) fountain, so I was able to see the multi-coloured stands and the logo for the next big event that will use this stadium – the 2011 IAAF World Athletics Championships.

Continuing around the stadium I reached another metal-and-glass modern designer building. This had two large signs, one saying it was the Daegu Sports Museum – of which I had never heard in all my searches for tourist attractions in the city (the Stadium, by the way, is listed as a tourist attraction). The other sign designated the place as what I assume, from the number of suited men standing around outside, it is generally used for: World Cup Convention Wedding. Weddings in Korea seem all to take place at dedicated wedding venues and this appears to be one of them. The wedding guests, in their suit-and-tie finery, mingled outside with more kids on skateboards, rushing between the few trees and occasional, odd (and often soccer themed) statues.

There is also a park area, with walkways and grass and pillars, as well as more odd statues. It’s a fairly pleasant place to walk, although the wedding rush on a Sunday morning makes it a less peaceful. Also the music. I don’t think I will ever be able to get my head around the fact that all Korean outdoor living areas have speakers set along ever path playing panpipes or canned elevator music. It’s as if no-one is sufficiently able to handle silence to enjoy it while walking in a quiet park. It’s particularly annoying in a place like this which, set as it is against mountains and in between little fields of grapevines and vegetable patches (which are themselves, as is typical of Korea, right in the middle of the urban area), doesn’t even need the music to block out traffic noise. Apart from the ‘music’, it was a pleasant walk and the mist that had been hiding the sun burnt off, so I was able to get some much needed sunshine-time. As I was leaving, I even saw some people in hanbok, rushing to a wedding, I assumed.

The time now was just after noon and I was enjoying being out and about, so I decided to trek across town to Homeplus. This is probably one of my favourite shops in Daegu for the simple reason that it feels like a supermarket instead of a department store, so it’s a little more familiar. Also, it’s a Tesco store so they occasionally stock things that look like home. Getting there was a-whole-nother story. Many foreigners in Korea take taxi-cabs everywhere. This is expensive but, provided you know how to say your destination in Korea or have it written down, you are guaranteed to get there fairly quickly and with little risk of being lost. I don’t. I was exposed to the bus system right from the start because I had to take a bus to work. The guide books warm foreigners that the bus systems in Korean cities can be very confusing. There are some attempts to make them foreigner-friendly, so the names of the bus stops are written in English as well as Korean. But only on the actual stops, meaning that you don’t know where you are until you drive past it.

Standing at an unfamiliar bus stop, reading the route maps in Korean, I realised I’ve pretty much cracked the system. This is not to say that I find it simple – it is definitely not – but am able to read enough, and know the names of enough places, that I could figure out which bus to take so that I would be able to change buses a few times and get clear across town to where I was going. I suppose it shouldn’t be weird that 8 months in I’ve figured out a public transport system, but it is reassuring to know that I can do it and it feels a little bit good to know that I have cracked a transport system that baffles many people and is almost entirely in a foreign language that uses a different alphabet.

The route of the 849 bus, between the Daegu Stadium and the Nambu Bus Terminal, is really pretty and peaceful, it turns out. I spent a pleasant while watching the world go by from the window of my bus. At that time of day on a Sunday, it’s also a reasonably quiet world, which is always welcome. Three buses later (intentionally – it’s the quickest way), I reached my destination and did a little bit of shopping. I managed to pick up some microwavable lasagne, about which I am rather excited, as well as some beef and seaweed soup (Miyeok Guk). Another two buses and I was home by 3pm with the sun still shining. A good day with some sunshine and some shopping and a good way to get a little excited about the major happening of the year back home, kicking off in just over 100 days.