Monthly Archives: August 2009

Pizza with potato and Vietnamese noodles

Daegu, Food, ,

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.

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

Daegu, , ,
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.

Health check and Banwoldang

Daegu, , ,

Last week was included a visit to a hospital, not because I was ill or injured but because part of moving to a new country (or at least Korea) is a health-check. And Korea does not trust foreign doctors, or at least not doctors from SA, so I had to have the health check here. For the record, as a result of a largely serious-injury and -illness free time so far, I am not at all familiar with hospitals or medical tests on any continent.

There has also been a bit of a drama recently about this medical check. It seems some teachers object rather strongly to, particularly, the drug and HIV tests. The tests are seen as discriminatory against foreigners (and particularly foreign teachers because other visa types apparently don’t have the same regulations). There is also the concern that testing may result in some serious stigma and ostracism issues because HIV carries huge social stigma here and confidentiality is apparently not very confidential. I’m not really sure where I stand on the issue philosophically, but personally I have no objection to the tests.

So, off I went on Tuesday to the hospital. My boss drove me – thank heavens – and filled out the forms (which were all completely unintelligible to me – because they were in Korean, not because they were in medical-eze, although for all I know they were that too). I was then handed a stack of forms and a piece of paper telling me where to go and directed to the second floor as me boss went off back to work. On the second floor, I found a passage leading to the right and walked tentatively along. Eventually a passing nurse took pity on me. My Korean being non-existent, I was unable to tell her where I needed to be. It turns out this is the wisdom of the piece of paper. She read it and pointed to the entrance to the ‘migrant workers’ clinic’.

The people there didn’t speak English either but they welcomed me in and walked me through various standard tests with well-practised hand gestures obviously developed over many, many such encounters. Once the ears, eyes, height, weight, etc. tests were done, one of the nurses walked me into the passage and handed me over to a man who – wonder of wonders – spoke limited English (no condescention intended – I realise I’m in their country). He took me to the next place, explained that I needed a chest x-ray and pointed towards a curtain, having explained as we walked that I would need to pop in the following day to get my results. He then went off, leaving me sharing a somewhat bemused look with the lady at the desk. She gestured towards the curtain, where discovered instructions (in English). I was relieved.

After the X-ray, I was directed (amazing what can be communicated without words) up a little side-passage, where I found a lab technician, who also spoke little English but did have the words for blood test and urine test. This bit went off fine. Except for one thing. When I watched her take a needle out of a bundle of other needles to draw blood, I found myself wondering if the needle was clean. It’s strange and unexpected, particularly when I know these tests are intended to check for foreign things in the blood. Suddenly scattered, random bits of HIV-prevention knowledge surfaced and I forgot that I was in a sophisticated, mostly modern country and worried about whether they were using clean needles. I have no idea where the thought came from. Remnants of a deep-seated and hotly denied xenophobia? Or racism? A little odd.

The medical check felt like forever but really only took an hour and then I headed back to the ground floor. At this point, I would like to wander off on a tangent and ask: do we, in South Africa, start counting floors from zero or from 1? Is there some sort of standard that is country-specific or some international norm? In my head, when I think of F1 (floor 1), I expect to be on the level above ground level, the first floor. If I want to leave a building, I take the lift (elevator) down to ‘0’. But I nearly got completely lost the other day because I tried to find something on the first floor which was a level below where I was looking. Is the norm actually to start counting at 1 and I’ve been lost all these years?

Back on the same level as the pavement  (sidewalk) outside, I headed out of the hospital with a piece of paper saying that I could collect the results the following day after 11:30am and took a deep breathe of  fresh air. Or at least a deep breathe of air that is as fresh as is possible on the pavement between a row of skyscrapers and a 6-lane major road. The area where the hospital is, is near downtown – a by-now almost mystical place I keep meaning to explore but which I have only seen (once) in the middle of the night. I considered crossing the road to explore right there and then, until I noticed that there didn’t appear to be any of the usual pedestrian crossings and pedestrian robots (traffic lights).

My boss, before he left, had said that I could take a subway or bus back (and then home) but suggested I take a bus. The problem  is that the bus system, wonderfully regular and widespread once you figure it out, is not easy to fathom up until that point. This tends to result in me standing around trying to figure out if one of the bus numbers is familiar. On this occasion, I decided I’d have enough new experiences for one day and looked around for the subway entrance.

This is when I discovered that the subway is not just a subway. There were three or four entrances nearby. Most subway stops, have two entrances. This one had many. I picked one and headed down… into a whole new world. Below the road and the hospital and the middle downtown area is an underground mall. Passages meander right and left, lined with little shops selling everything from CDs and cellphones to pastries and underwear. A world of artificial light, crowds, noise and consumerism. It took me so much by surprise initially that I forgot to take note of the entrance number I’d come in by.

I wandered up and down between the shops until I found a sign saying ‘tracks’. I am forever grateful to whatever benevolent Korean decided that the subway signs should be in both English and Korean. I would spend an awful lot of time being lost otherwise. The way Daegu subway works is that you wander downwards, following the signs that say ‘tracks’, until you reach a row of turnstiles, where you put your travel card on the reader and pass through. For the record, the barriers and turnstiles would not stop even the most desultory attempts by criminals to jump them, which of course isn’t a problem here. Also, the turnstiles aren’t – they’re like a low gate-ways with two little gates (about 20cm square at waist height) that snap out if you try and go through without paying. Once you’re through the turnstiles, you follow the signs to different  platforms depending on the direction in which you’re heading . It turns out that this station – Banwoldang – is the intersection point for the two subway lines. Despite having a population of 2.4 million people, Daegu isn’t all that big, so there are only 2 subway lines. One runs roughly East-West and the other (very) roughly North-South. The two cross at Banwoldang station. This means increased danger of getting incredibly lost. If you follow the different coloured arrows on the floor, however, you should find your platform. It’s a little like following breadcrumbs, especially if you’re not exactly sure what the name of the direction you’re going in is. The directions are indicated based on the name of the station at the end of the line (in that direction). I’m getting better and now know that the line I usually take – the green or number 2 line – runs between Sawol and Manyung, so I just have to figure out each time which way I’m going. Luckily, there are maps of the subway lines, with English, on the walls.

The following day I rushed down there during lunch to go and pick up my results from the hospital. Of course, as a result of not paying attention, I found myself, now with limited time, frantically wandering around the underground mall trying to figure out which exit to take. Eventually I took exit number 5 at random and popped up on a corner I didn’t recognise at all, so I rushed back down and – hoping that my sense of direction hadn’t abandoned me completely – attempted to cross under the road and come up on the other side. This time things looked a little more familiar but I was still not in quite the right place. The underground mall area and subway are not just under a road, they’re under a major, large intersection (one road is 6 lanes, the other I think 5) and I was now on the right side of the main road, but on the wrong side of the smaller road that crosses it. I went back down and walked further along until I came to exits 22 and 23 – at which point, of course, I remembered that the one I’d come down was 22 – and headed upwards. This time I was in the right place and happily collected the precious piece of paper I needed to hand in at the immigration office. I even got back to work with time to spare before my next class.

The sequel to all this is that, when I saw my boss later in the day, he was taken aback that I’d gone off on my own and fetched the results. I didn’t even realise that there was an option. Go figure. Oh, well, no harm in him thinking I’m competent. I also noticed this morning that one of the buses that stops at my home bus stop (where I leave from to go to school) also goes to the downtown/hospital area, so if I need to go to the hospital for any reason again, I won’t need to risk getting lost in the still rather terrifying underground mall at Banwoldang.