Category Archives: Daegu

Another washing machine in another shower …

Admin, Daegu, ,

I am not a fan of moving house. Some people find the change exciting and enjoy the packing and the unpacking. I’m not one of those. I don’t mind unpacking as much – creating order out of chaos appeals to my OCD side – but it takes ages for me to settle and I really, really hate packing. Moving house in a foreign country is a whole new level of misery.

The question of me moving has been discussed on and off for months. When I first moved here, I was told I would be living within walking distance from the school. Then that changed and I was told it would be a few months before I could move. Then, in November, I was told I’d be moving soon. Then I was told I’d move at the end of January. And so on and so on. So, you can imagine my dismay when I discovered on Tuesday that they wanted me to move now, only to a place not anywhere near being within walking distance of the school. In fact, when they first mentioned it, they referred to an area that isn’t even on a bus route. I was, I think understandably, unimpressed. After explaining repeatedly, to people who only use private cars, that a place not on any bus route may as well be in Siberia in terms of convenience, they finally got around to explaining where the place actually is, at which point I – being the only person familiar with the bus routes – figured out that there would be a bus. After a lot of stress I really didn’t need.

Then I discovered, on Thursday evening, that I would be moving on Sunday. The practice of only informing people of things three minutes before they happen seems to be a Korean ‘thing’. Several of my friends have also commented on it. Perhaps there is something cultural that de-prioritizes proper advanced planning. It bothers me. A lot. Particularly in a case like this, where the short notice meant that all the work of sorting and packing, along with all the emotional ups and downs of moving, has to be squeezed into three days. I asked how the move would happen. They said they’d organise movers to come in and move the furniture. I also got to pop into the new place so that I’d know what I needed to bring with me. Armed with this information, I started packing on Friday. This largely involved taking everything out of cupboards and all the pictures off walls and putting them in piles.

On Saturday I was woken early by worries about moving. I spent the morning sorting through things and then made a couple of trips to the new flat with a backpack full of things like books and plates and frying pans. I would have continued during the afternoon but I had plans to meet a friend downtown, a friend who is leaving shortly and whose company was infinitely preferable to the packing.

As happens when the company is congenial and there is ice-cream and strawberry dessert, the time just flew by and before we knew it, it was evening and we decided to grab some dinner before heading home. The ice-cream and strawberry creation, accompanied by miniature bottles of Rose, was at Café Lucid, which I hadn’t discovered before but which was lovely and quirky and the perfect place for sitting and chatting for hours. For dinner we ended up, after walking in a large circle, at Gulliver’s Travels – an ‘antique restaurant’. An antique restaurant is not, for the record, a place that cooks and serves up antiques, as the name may suggest. Rather, it is decorated with an eclectic collection of antique bits and pieces, paired with old record covers, big wooden tables and comfy chairs. The food was pretty good and the atmosphere lovely so we, not surprisingly, lost track of time all over again and before we knew it, it was nearly 10pm.

Sunday was far, far less fun. I woke up early so that I could get everything done. The movers were coming at 2pm so I had time to finish packing once I actually managed to drag my exhausted body out of bed. I packed up another backpack full of stuff, as well as a grocery bag (think Woolworth’s canvas bags) full of tins and dry pasta, and headed to the new flat. At the new flat, I unpacked the bags and put stuff in cupboards and drawers and then headed back to the old place to get the next load. These trips involved me walking down the hill to the bus stop (5 to 10 minutes), waiting for the bus (10 to 15 minutes), taking the bus the 10 or 15 minutes to the area of my new flat, unpacking (15 minutes), and taking the same bus back and walking back up the hill (20 minutes). I managed two more trips across to the new place before 1pm, taking everything I wanted from the kitchen.

The person from my school who was organising things phoned me at 2pm to tell me that he wasn’t able to be there just yet but that the movers had arrived. I let them in and watched in frustration as they packed everything in the house into the same crates to move them, as if they were all going to the same place. They spoke no English and my very few words of Korean had deserted me, so we were entirely unable to communicate. I was moving from a two-bedroom apartment to a one-room flat. The new place is just a bit bigger than a university res room. There was no way all this stuff would fit. The Beommul-dong flat is also the place where a series of foreign teachers have lived over several years, many of whom have left things behind: basketballs, weights, a large table, books and videos in which I have no interest, a huge hi-fi system with speakers and radio and tape deck, a pressure cooker. None of these are things I wanted, especially in my tiny new flat. I watched with growing impotent panic as they packed them all up.

Just then, to make things worse, the landlord’s wife came in and started talking at me in Korean. I couldn’t understand her. And I was already miserable and stressed and tired. I tried to explain that I didn’t understand. She just kept on and on talking at me in Korean, getting louder and more and more annoyed. By the time my boss arrived, ages and ages after he was supposed to be there, I was close to tears. He proceeded to have long conversations with various people before we could finally leave. I suspect that the problem was that the landlord and his wife – neither of whom I had actually seen much of at all before this horrible day – had not been informed that I’d be moving out. Either way, it was not a fun few hours.

We arrived at the new place and I had another struggle to convince the movers and the person from my school that they could not just dump all the stuff at my new place. I stood my ground fiercely and eventually got just the few things I wanted moved in. They left and I went upstairs and collapsed on my couch and stared at the the things I needed to unpack.

The silver lining of the whole experience is that I quite like the new place. It really is tiny, one room which includes sleeping area, sitting area and cooking area – picture a bedroom closet next to a refrigerator and the sink and cooker, just a couple of feet from the edge of the bed and the couch – plus a little bathroom. But it on the second floor on the top of a hill and the windows that look out across the top of buildings towards tree-covered hills and, most importantly, I can see the sky. Blue sky and clouds and stars and everything. Just up the road is a large art gallery and theatre (Suseong Artpia) with another small tree-covered hill. Nearby (probably within 10 or 15 minutes walking distance) is Suseong Lake. The hill I have to climb to get home is much, much gentler than the one I used to walk up from the bus stop and also shorter. There are better and closer little shops. At the end of the road, literally 10 minutes walk away (I timed it) is The Hut where we generally gather on a Friday night to drink dongdongju and eat kimchi pancakes. Almost all my friends live in the area. There is a range of little restaurants and take away places within a couple of blocks. A lot of the top fancy restaurants in town are nearby. Inside, the flat is done in a colour scheme of back and white, instead of the sickly, faded pink and green which was starting to drive me mad. And there is far more light and air because the windows aren’t shaded by other buildings.

So the destination isn’t all bad, but I think I’ll try and avoid the experience of moving house in a foreign country again, at least unless I can be absolutely sure that the people involved all speak English and I have a little more time and a little more control. Oh, and just for the record, there is a washing machine in my new shower, too. Only in Korea…

‘Proper’ winter

Daegu, ,

I think a lot of people I spend time with in Daegu are under the impression that I truly and deeply hate winter. They’d be wrong, as it happens. I am quite fond of winter, actually. I find it exhilarating and invigorating and quite often beautiful. The difference, of course, is that I like the winters I have grown up with and grown to love over many years, rather than the torturous cold I’ve experience for the first time in the last few months. This is not to say that it’s been all bad. Seeing snow was great and the ski trip has been one of the highlights of my time here in Korea. Going to work and especially coming home late at night in the freezing, freezing cold, however, has been horrible.

In the last few weeks, though, the weather has begun to change. It’s not the beginning of spring, which apparently is still a month away. The first stirrings of spring, the swelling buds on trees and the first beginnings of green on the hills are nowhere to be seen. Instead, it feels a little like Daegu has passed out of whatever horrible aberration was the iciness of recent months and into ‘proper’ winter weather (like that I’m used to). Suddenly, day-time temperatures are above freezing and the sun shines strongly enough to make you warm if you can find a sheltered spot. And the air is dry, dry, dry and static-y. And the best of all is the light. One of the reasons I have always loved winter is the clear, crisp air and the winter light that make you feel like you can see for a million miles.

I popped out to the shops at lunchtime today and bravely left a good deal of the winter clothing that I normally drag around with me behind. I was determined to take advantage of the slightly warmer weather and wear normal clothes. I stepped out into crisp but not freezing air. Occasional little gusts of colder air swirled past but for the most part it was perfectly still. I turned a corner and found myself walking in bright sunshine. The glorious rays of light and warmth rained down on me and made me feel like myself again – the same person who used to find a sunshiny spot to sit during school breaks in Queenstown, who used to sit in the library quad soaking up the sunshine in Grahamstown, who could spend hours and hours curled up with a book on the sunny enclosed verandah in Rondebosch.

In the clear air, the park I walked past looked pristine and perfect and each leaf of the trees outlined against the buildings and the sky. The sky. The sky in winter fills my heart with joy. The blue is empty and empty and feels like it goes on forever and ever. On the bus, on the way to work, we came over a hill and the view opened up to a picture of mountains and hills stretching to the sky with a white day-time moon hanging above the horizon. Even the crowded skyscrapers that clutter every corner of this city look sharp and sketched and beautiful in this weather.

I don’t know if it will last. Last year’s February temps suggest that it’ll still be chilly but I might get lucky with weather mostly above zero. I hope it does last for a while, partly because I dread the thought of returning to the bone-chilling weather that marked the first part of this month. But also because I want time to enjoy the kind of winter I love and to spend as much time as possible curled up, cat-like, in the warmth of the winter sun.

Murphy’s Law and a Museum

Adventures, Daegu,

Every day for the past six months my bus trip to work has taken me past the Daegu National Museum and at least once a week I’ve thought that I should visit the museum. Until this week, however, I have been distracted by other new places and adventures and haven’t gotten there. January, it turns out, is a rather quiet month in Korea, or at least in Daegu, so this week I decided it was time for a museum-day.

I caught my usual bus (the one I normally take to school) and enjoyed the fact that I was taking the bus to somewhere other than work. I hopped off at the ‘Daegu National Museum’ stop and headed for my destination across the street. One of the things I have learnt about travelling in a foreign country where English is very definitely not the national language, is that it is often a good idea to do some research before heading out. I know some people prefer to travel spontaneously but on expeditions like this, along with things like Opera, where there is no guarantee of English information, I like to know what I’m going to see beforehand.

Like many museums, this one has a few artefacts in the garden area. One of these is 5-story stone pagoda from the early Goryeo period (918-1392), originally from the Jeongdosa Temple site. The pagoda is built in the style of pagodas from the earlier Unified Silla period (676-935). An inscription on the upper basement layer apparently says that it was made in the 22nd year of the reign of King Hyeong (1031). Before I came to Korea, I didn’t have a very clear idea of what a pagoda is but these days I can spot them a mile away. This one is like most of the others but is particularly pretty in it’s garden home outside the museum.

At this point, I tried to go inside and discovered the main doors all closed up. A vague memory of reading something about the Daegu Museum being closed for a while surfaced. Murphy’s law that when I finally decide to visit the museum it would be closed. No signs in English to indicate why it was closed or what was going on but there was a large banner advertising an exhibition of ‘National Treasures’. I was disappointed but not completely daunted, partly because the museum’s website – which never mentioned the closure, by the way – did mention an area where old tomb-structures are displayed, so I decided I could go and see that anyway. I headed in the direction I assumed, based on the map on the site, was most likely to take me to what I was looking for.

On the way I reached a square where children and adults were playing games. I remembered seeing something on the map about an area where people could try traditional Korean games. I stopped to watch for a bit. One of the games looked exactly like a hacky-sack-type traditional game I have watched many times in South Africa, except that they were kicking sparkly objects that looked like they may have come from a ‘my little pony’ set. Another game a Korean family was playing seemed to involve throwing sticks with the intention of successfully throwing them through one of three cylindrical goals.

As I watched I noticed, next to the game area, another banner and what looked like a second  entrance to the museum. Relieved that at least I would be able to see something, I headed towards the doors. Just inside the entrance was an information desk where a very friendly and non-English-speaking museum employee laboriously explained to me that I didn’t need to pay money. We exchanged big smiles and I went in. The building is very modern and spacious. I followed people down a passage. Banners at the top of the passage said ‘Reminiscing Daegu 1954’. Along the passage, on both sides, were pictures of Daegu in that year. The pictures were of ordinary things – families harvesting crops, women doing laundry, children playing – and terrible things, like buildings destroyed and many, many people standing in queues for food or water or assistance of some kind. 1954 was the year after the end of the Korean war, a war that devastated a lot of this country and particularly badly affected Daegu, where several battles were fought. The pictures were beautiful and moving just as art but they also represented a particular time in the history of this place and of the families of people I probably know. It was fascinating to be able to look into the life of Daegu just over 50 years ago. The place in the photographs is familiar – with the same mountains and scenery – but there were no skyscrapers or fast cars. Everyone in the photographs was ordinary and, to be honest, rural. Strange to think that this big city of millions of people didn’t exist in the not-very distant past and that ‘here’ consisted instead of farmland and a group of war-ravaged families just trying to survive.

At the end of the passage, I reached the ‘National Treasures’ exhibit. I am sad not to see a whole museum – the Daegu museum normally has 3 permanent exhibition halls ranging from archaeological displays to folk history – but these few treasures were still fascinating. ‘National Treasures‘ has a specific meaning here. These are artefacts and historical sites designated by the Korean government as important in the history of the country. A little like national monuments in South Africa, except that they can be anything, from a bit of china to a 4m high stone Buddha-statue. The Daegu National Museum is responsible for several treasures from this area.

A board at the entrance to the small exhibit room explained that the main exhibition hall of the museum is being renovated, which is why it is closed. There was a group of kids and parents with a tour-guide next to one display. I looked around the rest of the room. Some of the artefacts didn’t have English explanations, like a parchment-like document in one of the glass display cases. I stared at it for a while, willing it to reveal it’s secrets, but to no avail. There was also a musical instrument, which I assumed was the six-stringed Sitar to which the info board at the entrance had referred. I was struck by how long it was and wondered if it was played sitting with it across the lap or rested on the ground. There was also writing (in – I think – Chinese) carved along the side of the instrument. Next to this were two stone lions from a Buddhist temple, the date of which, from what I could gather, was around 300AD.

In the middle of the room, in another glass case, was a huge gold-ish dragon’s head. My minimal research had informed me that this was a ‘Dragon’s Head Flagstaff Finial’ from the 8th or 9th century. The flagpole outside the museum is modelled after the type of pole this one would have topped. Again, I was struck by the size. These ‘flagstaffs’ stood outside Buddhist temples and the ‘heads’ were set on wood and rested on stone foundations. The head was at least a metre high and looked solid. The replica model outside the museum is also extremely tall – almost as tall as the building . The wood must have been extremely strong and thick.

On the other side of the room were three small Buddhist statues. Buddhism has been an important factor in Korea for a long time, although Confucianism became the ruling national ideology during the Joseon Period (1382 – 1910). The middle one seemed fairly plain but the smaller two on either side (National treasures 183 and 184) were extremely detailed and delicate. The statues were roughly 30cm high. According to the information cards, they are both Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva in gilt-bronze from Bonghan-dong in Gumi, dated to the 7th century (late three kingdoms period). They were apparently made separately around the same time.

Against the back wall was another display. Once all the crowds and the guide moved on, I stopped to look at it. For me, it was the highlight. All the objects in this display were found in a tortoise-shaped box during a repair of a pagoda at Songlimsa Temple in 1959. The box contained a variety of artefacts, including various pieces of jade jewellery and a lidded, decorated box. It also contained a gilt-bronze and glass, palace-shaped Sarira Case. Sarira is not a term with which I am familiar but wikipedia suggests it has something to do with cremation. The tortoise-shaped box also contained what are assumed to be the decorative parts of a crown, also in gilt-bronze. It sparkled in the lights of the display, an invitation to imagination, especially in conjunction with all the other artefacts found with it, found just at a point in time when small kingdoms across the Korean peninsula were falling as the three great kingdoms were slowly brought together into one nation.

I did try and find the ‘relic park’ after visiting the National Treasures exhibit but managed, inevitably, to take the wrong path. I’m sad that I wasn’t able to see the whole museum, and am determined to visit another museum soon satisfy the urge escape for a little longer into the past, but I am glad I got to see these amazing artefacts and I’ll be back just as soon as I can figure out when the whole museum opens to the public again.