All posts by Claire

About Claire

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

Settling in

Daegu,

Today has been a productive day. After just less than 48 hours in the country, I’m finally set up with crucial things – like washing powder and bread. This is thanks to the director of my school who, with his wife, came and picked me up and took me shopping this morning.

Arriving at the shop – a local grocery store – I realised just how lucky I was to be there with someone who could translate for me. Largely because I would have had no idea how to ask for – or find – dishwashing liquid, washing powder or toilet paper. For those who are wondering, I have no Korean at all. I probably should have tried to acquire a basic level before I arrived, but even then I doubt I would have been able to figure out this selection of things. Thankfully, it wasn’t a problem today. And now that I know what to look for, I can probably manage in future on my own. Interestingly, the washing powder looks a lot like Skip. But the dishwashing liquid looks nothing like Sunlight (picks on fb).

I also picked up some food. After reading guide books and forums about Korea, I was a little concerned that I may find myself staring at lots and lots of foreign looking foodstuffs with no idea what to do with it. Not at all. Not only can I get all the usual things I’d pick up at home – potatoes, cheese, ham, butter, pasta, etc. – but they all use pretty much the same pictures on packaging as we do. Lots of them even have English names on them, along with the Korean. The only place where not being able to read Korean would have been a problem is with the salt and sugar, which look remarkably similar except that the packets are different sizes. But that one is really not that hard to figure out.

A few first impressions about Korean groceries:

1. Some of their packaging is really not particularly intelligent
(she says with the smugness of someone who has decided that, in some minor manner at least, her home country is superior). The eggs, for example. Eggs are normally (by which I mean ‘in South Africa’) packaged in these wonderful cardboard egg boxes that fairly efficiently stop them breaking and keep them safe until they hit your fridge and/or frying pan. It’s a simple system and, just to add to the beauty of it, the boxes (at least the cardboard ones) are biodegradable. I bought eggs this morning packaged in very thin plastic which did nothing more, really, than coat the eggs with a layer of think, pink stuff and was stapled closed. The (I think probably inevitable) result was that, by the time I got home, one of the eggs had broken. It just doesn’t make sense to me to use this silly packaging when there is another, easily accessible way of doing it. Unless this is cheaper. But even then, you’d think the customers would complain, wouldn’t they?

2. The Babushka doll-approach to packaging
It seems – in my very limited experience – that there is a tendency here to pack everything inside a packet/box/container of some sort which is inside another packet/box/container of some sort. Like those little Russian dolls. So, for example, the butter I bought this morning (which seemed to be the only kind available at this shop), is a whole box full of ‘mini-butter’ containers – just like those you get at hotels and restaurants – complete with their own individual foil and plastic. A box of butters as opposed to just a tub of butter. Similarly, the cheese (oh, how I’m going to miss real cheese) is packing in three 100g packets, all contained within a larger packet, to the front of which is taped yet another packet, this one containing four slices of cheese. I looked for a block of cheese but unfortunately could only find grated or sliced. Everything pre-packaged for convenience – sliced bread, sliced cheese, etc. The coffee also comes in little sachets inside a box, instead of in a tin.

3. Cooking oil can be made from anything!
This will perhaps not come as a huge shock for other people, but I’ve never seen anything other than sunflower as a basic, ordinary cooking oil. I realise you can also get olive oil, and recently avocado oil, in SA. But all of those seem logical – they’re all oily fruits (nuts? Seeds?). And all familiar, which I suppose is part of the reason. I’ve never before seen bean-oil, though, or… wait for it… corn oil. For cooking. More and more I think someone needs to do something about the USA’s ridiculous overproduction of corn. Or give the excess to starving Africans instead of turning it into cooking oil. I’m intrigued (but not hopeful) about the taste of  ‘Pure Corn Oil’.

4. Processed, processed, processed

After enjoying a reasonable steak lunch yesterday (with my boss’s boss – probably. Still figuring the hierarchy out), I was optimistic about the food choice in this country – steak available suggests there will be much fresh meat and happiness (says the Eastern Cape girl, before anyone makes any comments). Unfortunately, it appears not. I’m told that most of the food in South Korea is imported, mostly from Australia. This is not surprising, given that 75% of the land is forests and lakes and quite a lot of the rest is covered with industry and a population of roughly 50 million – all of whom still need to be fed. I assume it is as a result of this that most food seems to be super-processed and/or tinned. This makes me somewhat sad but I’m sure it’s not the end of the world.

Also, it doesn’t apply to fruit and vegetables. These, it appears, are available on the side of the road. It feels a little bit like an extension of the type of market experience in Mozambique – with trays and boxes and plastic bags of tomatoes and potatoes and what in SA is called ‘Chinese cabbage’ – except simply as road-side hawkers rather than in organised markets. Which makes sense given the South Korean shopping set-up seems far nearer to the British ‘high-street’ system than American malls.

So vegetables shouldn’t be too much of a problem. Also, I am quite excited to explore the area around my school (the place where I’ll be working) because – from the very little bit I saw yesterday in the rain – it looks like it’s surrounded by a maze of the type of little alley-ways full of stores that you see in movies of ‘The East’, with everything from umbrellas to socks to lots of fresh vegetables. The idea makes me happy, even if I won’t be able to bargain any time soon unless I miraculously acquire the language overnight.

Another productive part of today has been doing laundry. I spent the last week in SA staying with friends in Joburg, so had a load of washing which needed doing from the moment of arrival. Luckily, my flat comes equipped with a washing machine. It’s a large, 10kg LG washing machine. Just like the washing machines we have at home in SA. I was pleased to see, when I was unpacking and rearranging things that there is even an instruction manual. Which is great. Except for one minor detail: It’s in Korean. Both the instruction manual and the washing machine are in Korean. Korean instructions and wash cycles and buttons. This resulted , this afternoon, in me standing in the wet-room with an armful of washing and a bag of washing powder, trying to figure out how to make the washing machine work and, equally importantly, how to make it work without flooding the whole flat or destroying the clothes. This was before the internet was working at home, so not even any chance of checking there. Eventually, after much guesswork and trying to remember what buttons did what on the washing-machine back home (which I don’t think is an LG but looks a little bit similar), I chucked in the clothes and washing powder, took a deep breathe and pressed the ‘play’ button. Amazingly, it worked. So I now have clean, if damp, clothes. I also have a bathroom floor covered in water but that’s apparently what is meant to happen – the used water runs right down the wet-room drain in the middle of the floor.

So, I now have food and the ability to wash things, as well as internet and a phone – even if the phone seems to have trouble sending international smses and is terrible at anything internet-related. All in all, a productive day. I start work on Monday, so am planning to spend the weekend curled up in my flat going over the teaching material. Or perhaps not curled up, given the weather. A little warm for curling up. Not ridiculously warm, though – at least not today. In fact, after a couple of days here, I am starting to think that all those people who write guide books that say that Korea in July is unbearably hot and humid have never been to Mozambique in summer. Or to Durban, for that matter. It’s warm but pleasantly warm, with lovely thunderstorm-y weather and the kind of mild humidity that is only really a problem if you’re trying to dry your clothes or have hair that tends to frizz. So perhaps I’ll just sit in the flat instead, perhaps with an ice-cold coke and some chocolate, and get ready to teach debating.

There’s a washing machine in my shower

Daegu

So, I have a new flat in a new city, half a world away from the country where I’ve lived all my life – and which I love very dearly. It is not a tiny flat. It’s smaller than the places I lived in Rondebosch but I think it’s probably roughly the same size as the flat where on Katherine street in Sandton.

The Katherine Street flat, however, was modern and western and super-secure. This is not. I knew before I left home that I would be in a fairly student-y flat. Given that I’m doing what for many people is a student-type, just-post-varsity, almost-backpacker-nomad thing, it really is to be expected. That doesn’t stop me being sad that my flat is not pretty. My life for the last few years has been a succession of pretty homes which I have generally chosen myself (or which were my parents’) and which required very little effort to make them comfortable and homely.  Even my res room didn’t take much to make pretty. Apart from the ages spent in hotels over the past 10 years, this is the first time I’m in a place that I haven’t chosen myself and which is likely to require quite a lot of effort to get it looking the way I’d like. Or perhaps it really won’t and I’m just feeling a little intimidated by the idea of being so far from home and am taking it out on the poor apartment.

The flat has 4 rooms. The main bedroom is big enough to fit, with reasonable comfort, a double bed and cupboard. It also contains a modem – which I’m hoping means that I will shortly be able to set up internet at home – which would add greatly to the flat’s appeal. The bed is reasonably comfortable even if it does creak. It appears to be one of those that you put together yourself from a kit, but which hasn’t been put together particularly well. The cupboard is fine, if rather plastic and even comes with coat-hangers – a huge relief given that I left mine at home as part of an effort to stay within weight limitations. The particularly interesting feature in this room is the window. Or rather the window covering. Most of the windows in the flat have 2 sliding layers on the inside-side of the burglar bars (if this country really has no crime, why are their burglar bars?). The layer just inside the bars is a fly-screen. Or rather a mosquito screen. This makes me super-happy – mozzies and other summer-heat-related bugs are my nemesis. The next layer is a clear sliding window (side-to-side, not sash). The final layer is smoky, patterned glass which, I’m guessing, is intended to replace curtains. In the main bedroom this is supplemented by a layer of thick and violently blue plastic. I initially thought that this was because there were no windows. Further investigation, however, suggests that it is probably just there to keep out the sun in the mornings. I feel that I may well remove it sometime soon. Especially because the noise from the middle-school across the road will probably be more of a wake-up call than the light.

Not that there is much natural light that will reach the windows anyway. This area of Daegu is fairly built-up. Actually, it appears that every area of Daegu is fairly built up. The view from the kitchen/dining-room, which is also where I have my computer set up, is of the next building’s stairs and front doors. Sigh. The kitchen/dining-room itself has some of the necessities of life. It has a cooker-thing (although I haven’t yet tried it), a lovely fridge, a microwave which is not plugged in – which may indicate that it does not work – and a semi-functional air-conditioner which is situated over the table and no longer has a remote, so that you have to stand on a chair and balance precariously in order to make it work. It also smells a bit mouldy.

The kitchen also has a typical student-digs collection of plates, cups, glasses and cutlery. I’m currently drinking espresso out of a tin (with ice) from a wine glass because there aren’t really any ‘normal’ glasses. The kitchen does have a table, which although not all that stable (I wouldn’t try sitting on it for example), is very convenient and would even mean that I could probably invite people to dinner if I had any people to invite. Or something to feed them. Apart from Spam. Why is it that in every digs you will invariably find some weird thing left by the former tenants? In this case that includes a large cardboard box – sort of a gift or presentation pack – of Spam. I’m thinking that perhaps the former tenant was American. Tenants, sorry. Apparently the previous person to live here had a wife. Not entirely sure how she coped. They have also left behind one egg, some store-bought ice – which is super given that the water here is apparently not great for drinking – and, oddly, a pack of cigarettes in the freezer. This last mystery I intend to explore further. Does everyone in Korea keep their cigarettes in the freezer? Does it keep them fresh? Were they hiding them from someone?

The kitchen is missing a kettle, which makes me quite sad. Once I have finished the tinned espresso my recruiter (who picked me up at the airport and brought me here last night) was kind enough to buy for me (along with some orange juice, some bottled water and some tomatoes), I will boil a pot of water on the stove to make coffee. Or tea, even. I wonder how anyone in a tea-addicted nation manages without a kettle? The kitchen/dining-room/now-study area also has space for sitting and to put stuff on the walls. So I will be putting up some lions and African-people-pictures just as soon as I can find some prestic-like-substance. Or perhaps drawing pins.

The second-bedroom-come-lounge contains one times single bed (cream), one times 3-seater couch (brown ‘leather’), one times big TV on stand (brown and with possible cable decoder) and one times fancy-ass Hi-Fi – that I’ll probably never be able to figure out – (in brown stand). And a coffee table. Everything in the room is brown or cream. If I end up spending a whole year here, I will most definitely be opting for a slightly less res-common-room circa 1970s (without the psychadelica) feel.

Which leaves the final room in the house and definitely the most interesting. And disconcerting. The whole place is a little bit like a cross between a Mozambican backpackers (mostly because it needs a good clean and the furniture looks like something someone else threw out) and a dodgy Grahamstown student digs of the sort that has been a digs for a very, very long time – and still has the original not-expensive furniture and obligatory  bottle-opener. The one thing every digs and backpackers has, however, is at least one bath and/or shower. This flat doesn’t. Or at least, it doesn’t in the traditional west-European (and, let’s be frank, urban African) sense. It has what is known in some places (Turkey, possibly?) as a Wet-room. What this means is that the toilet and, in this case, washing machine sit in a tiled room, which has a drain in the centre and a tap and shower-head on the wall. In order to have a shower, you simple close the door and stand in the middle of the room and turn on the shower. I have already discovered one of the major drawbacks of this system – which is damp toilet paper. I also feel that it, surely, cannot be good for the washing machine to sit in a wet room and get showered on every day. Given that it’s a Korean-made washing machine, that this type of bathroom is apparently normal in this country and that washing machines apparently always live in bathrooms here, it’s probably fine. It just feels odd. Although, come to think of it, perhaps this is why washing machines, which used to be metal and occasionally rusted, suddenly started to be made of plastic at about the same time as the economic miracle in this part of the world. Food for thought. In the meantime, I’m going to have to used to a very different kind of shower-experience. And a perpetually damp bathroom floor.

But as much as I may bitch about it, there is a certain charm and sense of potential to a student-like place and I’m sure I’ll be able to make something of it for as long as I’m here. The only thing that concerns me a bit is security. There is only one door without any security gate and only one lock, for example. Not even a bolt. This is within courtyard reached by a locked gate. But the gate could be easily climbed over. According to the guidebook to Korea and all of the many forums (fora?) on-line, this shouldn’t be a problem. There is supposed to be a distinct lack of crime in this country. So even walking up a not-particularly-well-lit alley-like road, to a dark and not very well lit locked gate, through a courtyard and up the stairs, after a bus trip back from the school, should be fine. I am meeting my director shortly and hope to be able to confirm this with him. I’m guessing – given that the last two teachers who did my job lived here quite happily – that it is true. Which is going to require me to overcome all of the instincts which make my hairs stand on end and my shoulder muscles tense immediately at the very idea of walking anywhere alone at night. You can take the girl out of South Africa but it’s a whole lot harder (especially because the trip was hassle-free) to take the South African vreemdeling-vrees out of the girl. I anticipate a series of rapid, slightly terrified runs up the hill before I settle in. And that it’ll take time for me to get used to sleeping soundly with only one locked door and one locked gate as security.

It’s possible I may be moving at some point to a place within walking distance of the school. This would be preferable purely for convenience. But for now, this is home – many, many miles and a world of difference away from a small town in the Eastern Cape where I grew up.

3 July, 14:00 – PS Internet now set up in flat. Appeal greatly increased.

Journey to a place far, far away

Airports, Travel, , ,

In the last 24 hours, I have managed to get a little bit lost in three different major international airports. Not sufficiently lost for it to be a real problem, just lost enough to wander around reading all the signs with a determined expression and a little bit of a hasty step (particularly in those airports that are big enough to house an indoor marathon).

The most panic-stricken part of the whole journey was probably at the beginning. I know what everyone says and that it’s supposed to be relatively simple to get through check-in, customs, security, etc. and get on the plane. In fact, for most people, I think the plane ride is probably the most annoying part. I think this is partly because they have either forgotten or were too young to remember their first experiences of the terrifying bureaucracy. I hate doing this sort of thing for the first time – when I don’t know what I’m doing and I am terrified of something going wrong. Yes, I’m paranoid. The marvellous friend who took me to the airport just about had to push me through the door.

Once I was on the plane I was fine. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a window seat for the first stretch. I am very partial to a window seat. But I was on the aisle and Emirates has a wonderful entertainment selection, so I happily whiled away a good eight hours catching up on movies (Madagascar 2 – finally – and duplicity) and various series. Oh, and good food. And wine. I tasted foreign wines. In the duration of the trip, I tasted an Australian Chardonnay and a Chilean Chardonnay and a French white, the name of which is lost in the mists of time-zone changes. I liked the Australian.

Landing at Dubai was a pleasure, if rather warm. I found myself wandering into the terminal humming ‘hot in the summer’. And then down the stairs. And round the corner. And up the stairs. A bit of a round-about route to get to the departures area when you’re in transit there. That said, Terminal 3 at Emirates is beautiful. It has a beautiful water-feature, elegant design, sunning, high ceilings and beautifully etched windows reaching from floor to roof. All they need to do to make it perfect is get rid of at least half the shops and most of the people. I’m not particularly interested in shopping when in transit. I suppose really, it’s that the thing I love about airports is their emptiness and elegance, and masses of people spoil the effect somewhat. I spent quite a lot of the 3-hour lay-over at Dubai wandering around looking at the building and out of the windows and being looked askance (skeefed out) by slightly more seasoned and shopping-approving flyers. Things became more exciting when I missed an announcement that my gate had changed and returned from my wanderings to find no-one there. A frantic hustle (through the crowds) to the departures board sent me racing from a gate in the 200s to find one in the early 100s. Those who have walked the length of Dubai airport will perhaps understand that this did require some racing. Ok, it probably wasn’t that bad. I was disappointed, however, that I ended up racing past so many of the fascinating and bizarre other sights without being able to take the time to really look. The rest of the airport seems to have picked odd over spacious and elegant, but perhaps that was just my rushed impression.

Having checked my bags right through to destination (again, thank you Emirates), boarding was easy. Although, they do that silly ‘boarding by zone’ thing the Americans do. I’m absolutely unconvinced that it speeds things up in any way or makes them any more efficient. Given that this time I did have a window seat, as well as an empty seat next to me, I got over it quickly. This second flight left Dubai (a whole 15 or so minutes late) at around 3:15am local time. Flying from Joburg to Dubai had eliminated 2 hours (as far as I could figure out) so it was sometime around the middle of the night. It was also sometime around the middle of the night after quite a lot of stressful anticipation and a day of customs and SAA ground staff (my first flight was a code-share), so I was pretty destroyed. Luckily I can sleep on planes. I did. For two whole hours. At which point the sun came up and they woke us up for breakfast. My body was still trying to convince me that it was 3am in South Africa in winter, so it took a few befuzzled moments to figure out what was going on. At which point I got to watch a stunningly beautiful 33 000ft sunrise over the very edge of the Indian subcontinent. Sometimes travelling is amazing.

Once the sun had risen, unfortunately, the airline staff insisted that all the window blinds be closed. This irritates me no end – partly because I’m slightly claustrophobic, mostly because I like watching the pretty world go by  below, and a little because staying awake from sunrise while travelling East seems to me to make sense. When they finally let us open the blinds again – I lose track of how long that took because I was fast asleep – we were flying over China. The second amazing sight of the day, partly just for the bragging value, was watching a huge thunderstorm front develop over China and the Yellow Sea. If you’ve never flown through a thunderstorm that is developing, you can’t imagine the magnificence of the anvil-shaped billows, the light and shadow playing around the edges of this incredible force of nature.

The descent into Seoul (Incheon airport) was quick and steep but not quick enough to prevent my stomach knotting itself into knots of terror. Not because I am scared of landings – and in fact this wasn’t a bad one – but because of the more bureaucracy. In fact, the immigration and customs points were almost disappointingly quick and boring. Almost, not quite. The most entertaining part was a particularly overzealous security guard at immigration who kept moving people from one queue to another to make them get through more quickly. Which was fine but whenever the immigration people sent someone back to be checked through the security point (which was to one side before the counters), this over-enthusiasitic security guard would shout at them in Korean and try and make them get back into the queue. I giggled quietly to myself and exchanged amused looks with the British girl in the queue in front of me and tried not to laugh out loud in case it offended someone and jeopardised my chances of getting into the country.

Incheon Airport feels like it is designed to keep you inside forever (cue sinister music). Seriously – and keep in mind that I’d lost many, many hours and not had much sleep by this stage – we arrived and went along a corridor, along a travellator, down two escalators, into an underground train (Incheon airport has it’s own subway system) and up the steepest, longest escalator ever which makes you feel as thought you’re ascending into some sort of upside-down underworld (c.f. Various world belief systems that think heaven is underneath). Eventually through immigration and baggage collected – perfectly in one piece without wrapping pierced at all – and through customs, you emerge into the less sinister and worrying arrivals area – with actual doors to the outside. At this point, I headed off to find the domestic check-in area to get ready for one more flight. Perhaps I should say at this point that Korea is not really an air-travel-addicted nation. At least not internally. They have a super express and almost-express train system, I am told, as well as regular buses, and the country is actually quite little (smaller than the UK – the South, I mean). So they don’t fly that often. Which means that there aren’t very many domestic flights. It does not mean, however, that there aren’t many check-in counters/areas/black-hole-like-expanses. Because Incheon is a popular transit airport and Koreans generally fly to get overseas – the land route requiring transition through the North and the rest being sea – there are many, many international flights leaving from there, so it is a bit of a needle-in-a-haystack situation to find the one small area dedicated to the few local flights. Particularly when at least 65% of the signs are not written using Western characters – never mind in English.

Standing around looking lost works wonders, however. The friendly staff were able to speak English and point me in the right direction. Eventually I boarded my last flight for the day, this one a Korean Air flight from Incheon to Daegu. It was a 737, which always makes me happy. I realise  it’s a bit odd to have a favourite aeroplane but I’ve just spent so much time flying on 737s that it’s become my happy-plane. I was rather tired by this stage and thought I must have dozed off because after what felt like a ridiculously short time, I opened my eyes and we were on the ground. Turns out we hadn’t taken off yet. I began to wonder if we were taxi-ing to Daegu. By the time we landed, about 35 minutes later, I wondered if it wouldn’t perhaps be less costly and air-polluting to have done so. Daegu airport is about the size of PE but has three sky-walks and is all  glassed in corridors – which appear not to do much other than force you to walk the perimeter of the airport to get to the one luggage carousel (ok, smaller than PE). There is also a military base there, apparently, which would explain the large and army-looking helicopter I noticed on the way in.

Daegu was the end of a rather long and tiring, but largely hassle-free trip to Korea. I’m now here and looking forward to a good long sleep in a non-moving bed – with no midnight stops in the Middle East to change planes