Monthly Archives: September 2009

Park-hunting

Daegu, ,

I teach several classes that revolve around helping teenagers learn to answer questions articulately in their second language. One of the questions they always seem to struggle with is the question of what there is of interest to see and do in their own city. I’m sure the question is included because it seems like it should be easy. Their struggle to find something to talk about always reminds me of how little we pay attention to the places where we live. We all do it. People who live in Johannesburg look a little bemused and generally resort, after a long pause, to suggesting a favourite restaurant or perhaps Gold Reef City. Cape Town people get stumped, too.

It’s difficult to pinpoint the moment when life in a completely new and foreign place stops being filled with the sheen of strange-ness and becomes familiar, but I think that is probably the moment when it becomes hard to think of places and things that are exciting about the city you live in. It’s also the moment when it starts to take definite effort to go out and find things to see and write about, not because things have become less interesting but because their familiarity makes them seem less spectacular. The fact that the place feels familiar, because it’s the place you live and not a place you are visiting, means there is less urgency to go and see things, instead of sleeping for another hour or sitting in your flat.

I’ve been very aware of that tendency in myself recently. It has taken me a long time to get back in touch with the fact that I want to live deliberately, consciously and, to quote something I once wrote “experience each moment before it is gone”. Choosing to do that, not just on exciting, brief trips, but in the place where you live and work, requires effort. One of the reasons I was originally so pleased with the idea of my rather odd working hours was because it would give me the opportunity to see the world I am living in. Recently I have been forgetting that and allowing myself to be dragged back into the mundanity of office politics and the stress of new classes and the sagas we create for ourselves to occupy the time that we would otherwise have to fill with things that take effort, like exploring. Today I dragged myself out of the house, determined not to drown in the lethargy of feeling like it’s too much effort and the excuse that I only have a few hours before work.

I really did only have a few hours before work, but I’ve been meaning to visit one of the parks slightly further away from home for a while now and this was the day. I hopped a bus and headed for my usual subway stop and down into the depths of the Daegu subway system. The bus was marvellously without the masses of school-children who usually crowd onto it on my way to work (they were still at school) and the train arrived almost immediately and was also pleasantly empty. The train-ride to Duryu from Manchon takes about 15 minutes. I am clearly becoming inured to subway travel because my mind drifted and I nearly missed my stop. Nearly but not quite.

From the platform I headed up and sought exit 12, as recommended in the directions I was following. I emerged from the subway exit and found myself on the usual busy intersection, except with slightly smaller buildings and a little more open space, which is always a welcome relief. The instructions said turn right, which was a little unclear as right would have meant walking into a brick wall, but I assumed (correctly as it turned out) that they really meant ‘go right along the big road crossing the intersection’.

As I walked up the road, I was struck by the feeling that this was a somewhat different part of the city to what I’m used to. For one thing, there weren’t signs for English academies everywhere and the shops didn’t all have fake-English names. I got the sense that here I had found a corner of the city not designed specifically for foreigners. This might make it slightly less attractive to occasional travellers but it’s somehow comforting to know that it’s not all one giant amusement park for the ‘others’.

A block or so up the road, I saw lots of trees and headed in that direction. This park (Duryu Park) is different to the ones I’ve visited so far. The parks I’ve been to have been tiny, perfectly manicured, carefully designed tourist attractions. This is just a park. A park with far more trees, well-maintained benches and old people playing board-games than I’m used to, but an ordinary large park on the gentle slopes of a hill. This means that every patch of ground is not covered in lawns and flower-beds. It really felt as if this is an ordinary place that is an integral part of the life of an ordinary community.

I wandered the paths for a while, enjoying the shade of the trees and the people living their lives and the gentle ordinariness of it all. At one point, I sat down on some stone stairs under some huge plain trees and just sat listening to the wind in the trees and the birds singing (or squeaking – strange birds) to each other. Down the slope, people were having quiet picnics or sitting in groups on benches chatting. It was wonderful to hear the wind.

At the top of steps, the world opened out into an open-air stadium. I assume that the stadium is used for sport, based on the soccer goal-posts on either side, but it looks more like a dusty school playground in rural Limpopo (in the middle of perfectly clean and maintained stadium seating) due to the distinct lack of grass. Perhaps this is because the stadium is also used for other things. I know there is a concert there next month as part of the Daegu Opera Festival. In the distance, I could see Woobang Towerland, an amusement park with rides and roller-coasters and the big swing/boat swinging from side to side.

A little more wandering brought me to a pond with purple and white water-lillies. I had astrange moment of trying to remember what Waterblommetjie Bredie is called. I also passed some fruit trees I was unable to identify the fruit of (the fruit of which I was unable to identify?), although one of them may have been a crab-apple tree. Near the exit of the park there are some fountains. Nothing spectacular or huge, but pretty water, arranged in a pretty way in the pristine light of an early Autumn afternoon.

On the way back, I stopped past the entrance to Woobang Towerland – the entrance is shaped and coloured like a Disney fairy-tale castle – and was taken by complete surprise by the sight of a scurrying grey-brown squirrel. It was rushing around, as squirrels should, I suppose, in Autumn, and wouldn’t hold still long enough for a photo but I saw it several times so I’m dead sure I wasn’t imagining it.

On the way back to the subway, I walked across a large pedestrial bridge. It was one of those that winds up the one side and then stretches across a busy road and winds back down the other. I’ve always thought that there is something ‘twirly’ and a little insecure about these bridges. At the same time, I love standing in the middle watching the traffic pass under you. It feels as though you have a unique opportunity to stand still just for a moment and watch the whole world rushing by.

Back on the platform of Duryu subway station, I saw a sign that said “origins of the name” and went to go and investigate, keen to find out all I could about the area. Unfortunately, the extent of the explanation was that the park was called that so the street was called that so the station is. Sometimes Koreans can be rather unpoetic with their explanations.

On the way back, I’d thought about stopping at the major downtown station to try and find the bookshop there that reputedly carries an English selection, but time was passing quickly and I still had a lesson to finish preparing so I decided to leave it for another day. I got off one station sooner than I normally do, just for the sake of variety and walked the two blocks or so to work.

At this point, I realised I was feeling a bit hungry so I went into the K-Mart downstairs from the office (school). This is one of the most mini-super-market-like shops I know in Korea (sort of like a Kwikspar only not sophisticated) but nothing looked appealing until I noticed that they were selling single apples. Daegu is famous for it’s apples, so they tend to be everywhere. I bought one and headed up to my desk. It seemed doubly appropriate to have an apple for the teacher. Most teachers, though, probably don’t end up with apples that take ages to eat because they are absolutely monster-sized and sweet and juicy all the way through. By the time I finished the apple (in between lesson prep), the afternoon of exploring was gone and my first class was beginning.

It wasn’t until I got home this evening that it dawned on me that a disproportionate number of posts on this blog so far have involved parks. It is a little odd that parks would be the places I seek out, although it’s probably appropriate given the excessive urbanisation of the place. I think the attraction is partly that and partly that parks are easy to find, always-open places which don’t involve conversing with any gate-keeper or teller who can’t speak English. Also, I happen to be a fan of parks, so it all works out for the best. Perhaps I have founded a whole new hobby – park-hunting, anyone?

Costco – like Makro for Americans – and yummy Indian food

Daegu, Food, ,

Sundays are generally quiet days for me – either because the ridiculously late nights of the week have worn me out or because I don’t really have anything to do and have run out of the energy for exploring. This week was different as my colleague and I headed off for a long-promised visit to Costco. Although we’d planned to head out early, he and I both live on nocturnal time (he even more so than I) so he picked me up at 11:30am and we went to get something to eat before heading to the shop.

Unlike most of the places I’ve visited in Daegu, this is not that close to where I live because it’s situated near the main American military base in order to capitalise on the foreign market. This meant that lunch needed to be somewhere on the way, which is how we ended up parking on KNU campus and heading for an Indian restaurant. In all my years in SA, I haven’t eaten all that much Indian food, and particularly haven’t spent much time in Indian restaurants – as opposed to meals shared in people’s homes and at parties or from street vendors.

That said, Indian is practically South African as far as some part of my brain is concerned and walking into the Indian restaurant brought on strange bouts of feeling terribly at home. Terribly because it could have been designed to induce homesickness (given that I don’t come from an Indian community) but also wonderfully, comfortably familiar. I felt myself relax and take a deep breathe of calm. This was perhaps exaccerbated by the fact that I’m finding Korea particularly noisy at the moment and this was an oasis of calm and quiet with nothing but gentle music with rhythms that made me recall the occassional belly-dancing class and a smiling, non-Korean waiter (who rocked).

We poured over the menu. Or rather, I poured over the menu, as my colleague knew immediately what he wanted to order – a spinach-based vegetarian dish. I eventually settled on a North Indian Chicken and vegetable curry thing (which has a name, which I currently cannot remember) and rice. My colleague also ordered Naan bread with cheese (real cheese!). After seeing me struggle with Korean food, I think he was a little taken aback to see how easily I took to the Indian menu and food. I struggle to explain just how comfortably multi-cultural home is and this was one of those situations. The food was fantastic. I honestly found myself having to stop eating because I was full but wishing that I wasn’t because it tasted so delicious. Of course, it also had the advantage of not requiring chopsticks – which at this point is always a bonus. But I was seriously impressed. The atmosphere was great, the staff were amazing and the food was marvellous. It sounds odd that in Korea the place I now want to take visitors is an Indian restaurant, but that is a little what I’m feeling.

I also wondered a little if the waiter hadn’t spent some time in South Africa. The accent sounded so familiar and I felt that he smiled a little wider when he noticed the SA rugby jersey I was wearing (in honour of the Boks Tri-nation victory) but apparently they’re all from Pakistan and India so perhaps that is just wishful thinking. Either way, this is another place to add to my list of amazing discoveries in Daegu. When I mentioned later that I want to travel around Korea, my colleague said that all Korean cities are the same. Thinking about it now, I should have pointed out to him that it’s gems like this place that make every city different. I also failed to explain – because I don’t know how – just how much this place felt closer to home than any Korean restaurant I’ve walked into since I’ve been here. Perhaps having so many wonderful cultures at home prepares you for foreign travel not just in terms of dealing with other cultures but because you can always find a piece of Africa, even if it comes from India.

The cultural differences came up in conversation again when we reached Costco. This colleague, as an American, has serious issues with people not respecting personal space. Coming from Africa, I have a far smaller concept of personal space, so this doesn’t really bother me. In fact, I sometimes find it difficult to understand the extent to which it bothers other foreigners. I did, however, still feel a little claustrophobic on a lift with nearly 20 other people. We parked on the roof so there were several floors to go down and at each stop more people kept getting on. I think some of them were getting annoyed with me because I wasn’t moving back but I was very aware of the mother with a small, energetic child standing directly behind me.

When we finally reached the actual shopping floors, we had to go to the information desk and sort out membership. Like Makro, you have to have a membership card to shop at Costco, and because I don’t currently have my alien card (because my boss needed it to do some paperwork) we needed to renew my colleague’s. This involved a stop at the information desk and then a somewhat-meandering trip back up the stairs one floor (avoiding the overcrowded elevators) before it was finally sorted out.

And then, membership secured, we walked into what could be an American replica of Makro. Except American. I’ve heard a lot about Costco since I arrived here. It seems to be the place that keeps most foreigners happy. It was easy to see why, walking through the place with an American. I didn’t recognise as much stuff (except from American TV programmes) but I can see how it would make anyone from North America feel like they’d rediscovered home.

The first aisle we stopped at was the stationery. I am desperately trying to find the Korean equivalent of ‘prestic’ and have so far failed (including today). In the process of  searching, we both got distracted by the large packs of white-board markers and the multi-packs of gel-pens in many, many colours. I definitely had a moment of being reminded that whatever else we are, when we’re here we’re all teachers first and foremost.

Once we dragged ourselves away from the stationery, we found the very small book selection. Apparently the store used to cater far more for foreigners than it does now (presumably because they’ve discovered a lucrative Korean market just dying to buy American-style products in bulk) and their book selection is now extremely limited. We did find an audio (casette) kiddies version of Aesop’s fables but other than that nothing of interest – which is a little frustrating for two book people.

On our way out of the maze of books and stationary and house-hold items, we found a shampoo/toothpaste/multi-vitamin section and I picked up a huge pack of multi-vits (400 per pack), so I should be good for a year or so. I also looked longingly around the shampoo/conditioner section while my colleague tried to find an Omega-3 supplement that wasn’t all fish oil (don’t ask) and then had to explain that the reason I wasn’t buying any shampoo was because none of it is made for curly hair (which I think he still doesn’t believe in spite of all the straight-haired people as evidence to the contrary).

So, on (up the horrible moving walkway) to the food. Costco is known for having a wide variety of the type of foodstufs that Koreans just don’t eat and which, as a result, are not available in Korean shops. The first stop was the vegetable storage walk-in fridge. I was on an (unsuccessful) hunt for Rocket (Arugula in the States). I did find a variety-pack of lettuce which is a welcome relief from the ice-berg lettuce I’ve been reduced to so far. My colleague found pine-apple, which was very exciting – don’t laugh, it’s unusual here. There were also some very tempting packs of brown mushrooms, which I resisted on the grounds that they’d just go off in my fridge before I finished them (and I don’t have an oven to cook stuffed mushrooms), as well as some rock-hard New Zealand Avos, which I (sorrowfully) rejected for the same reason.

On to the meats and cheeses. Costco is apparently the best place to find meat in Daegu and there was a better selection than I’ve seen elsewhere, but it still wasn’t anything like what I’m used to. I don’t think we, as South Africans, really appreciate the variety of reasonably-priced meat we have easy access to at home. Here finding good meat, especially in the cuts we’re used to, is a struggle. And even this place didn’t have the lamb/mutton I’ve been craving.

They did have cheese. As a wholesaler, they sell to restaurants so it was good to see real Parmesan, Edam and some Munster and Gorgonzola. I was a little frustrated (perhaps something approaching frantic) not to be able to find Cheddar. At which point, we both got distracted by the wines. The wine selection in Korea is erratic to say the least. Some places have some great wines at reasonable prices but always mixed up with some extortionately priced rather unexeptional ones. And, of course, they’re always foreign (to me) so I’m never sure what I’m getting. I was happy, today, to find a less-extortionately priced 2006 Cab/Shiraz/Merlot from Australia. And then I noticed the Amarula and nearly wept for joy, and spent several minutes (unsuccessfully) trying to explain Amarula to an American. And then I saw a South African wine. This is the first time, despite much searching, that I’ve seen a South African wine in Korea. Unfortunately it was a rather mediocre semi-sweet red Simonsvlei (try explaining how to say that to a foreigner) but it has excited the hope that I might find more soon.

We then moved on to find other good things. I was very excited to find Olive Oil and Balsalmic, a feeling which my colleague of Italian heritage appreciated, and eventually Cheddar Cheese, and took great enjoyment in his excitement at the most amazingly huge Apple and Pumpkin pies (which we didn’t buy but were excited about nonetheless) and a huge variety of candy (to use the American term) from the States and other places, as well as a variety of biscuits – sorry, cookies – and cereals and other foods. We both got excited about finding cranberry juice until I read the packaging which said that it was a juice blend including cranberry, made from a concentrate, at which point I lost interest. There was also Ceres Apple and Mango juice but only in monster-packs so it seemed excessive so I didn’t buy it.

Finally we paid for our meagre wares – I will never get used to paying hundreds of thousands for what would cost just thousands in Rands – and headed out. This required us to get our trolley checked by the nice receipt-checking lady (oh, how I miss SA security guards) and getting onto the moving walkway to go up and up and up. My colleague is, by this time, aware that I’m not a fan of escalators. Moving walkways (they are called travellators at the airports) are even less fun, especially when they start out moving flat and you can feel through your feet when they start to go up the slope. On a busy Sunday afternoon at Costco, the women who check the till-slips also make sure that there aren’t too many people and trolleys (shopping-carts), ie weight, on the moving walkway. The first flight was fine but I was decidedly less than happy when, half way up the second, the moving walkway suddenly stopped. I realise that there is no rational basis for my paranoia about escalators and moving walkways but they still make me decidedly uneasy, so the 10 minute wait while the Koreans tried to figure out how to communicate with each other between floors (in the abscense, of course, of walkie-talkies or other radio devices) made me very unhappy.

Eventually we reached the parking lot and – box of happy foods in hand – took the steps to the roof parking instead of waiting for the elevator. Once there, we stopped for a minute to enjoy the beautiful views. It had rained while we were inside, so the world had that newly-washed feel to it, and from the rooftop of Costco we could see across Daegu to beautiful mountains all around (in between the apartment blocks).

We stopped for a coffee on the way home. I am reminded regularly of how good it is to get reasonably coffee all over the place. All in all it was a good day of exploring and discovering and my kitchen is now significantly enriched by olive oil, balsalmic vinager, cheddar cheese and proper italian pasta (which I wouldn’t even have at home) for when I get really hungry for proper food.

Banking

Admin,

Thursday was the day when I finally got a Korean bank account. I’ve been here for two months now, so it has become something of an inconvenience not to have the modern conveniences of life like an ordinary debit card. I dislike the admin of being in a foreign country but, as a friend pointed out when the whole process leading up to my trip was getting me down, that’s the price you pay for wanting to work in a strange land. And I’ve handled the frustration of the admin, as well as things not always going exactly according to plan at work, fairly well. Colleagues and superiors here have commented several times on how well I handle the semi-chaos and that I never complain. It’s something of a vindication after being called a difficult employee by more than one boss in the past.

On Thursday, however, all the admin of getting my alien card had finally passed and I headed off with my boss to set up a Korean bank account. I’ve never been a particular fan of banks. I find them annoyingly beauracratic and time-consuming, particularly with SA’s FICA system. I am starting to think, however, that the annoying South African banks are really the best of the bunch. Apart from anything else, it’s intimidating to be setting up an account in a place where no-one speaks English. For this reason, I was glad to have my boss with me. He did all the talking and got me set up with a foreign currency account which should, at some point in the near future, allow me to send money home, as well as a Korean account so that I can move money around here. I would have preferred to be able to set up one account for everything but apparently here you have to have a separate account if you want to do internet banking. That said, the initial hassle is probably worth it to be able to move money, particularly because the ATMs are all in Korean and close at midnight. Of course, I’m still in the process of setting up my computer so that I can actually do internet banking but I’m sure I’ll manage. The site has an English version, so I will hopefully be able to manage and navigate it.

The bank itself was a strange experience. I’m used to banks being cool, quiet places of organisation, security and order. At a South African bank you have to enter through a double security door, where there is almost invariably a security guard, and a place to check any weapons. Cellphones are not allowed and the staff are serious people, going quietly about their business. Everyone speaks in hushed tones and the tellers are all (at least seemingly) discrete and professional. Compared to that, this felt a little like a circus. The place was warm and welcoming with balloons and bright colours and posters and ads for (I assume) special deals and accounts. There was minimal security. The staff all seemed to be wearing different outfits and behaved, really, just like ordinary office workers. There were numerous customers chatting on cellphones, a baby crying and a toddler wandering around in shoes that squeaked like a child’s squeaky toy. A man I assume was the manager wandered around having loud conversations with staff and customers. One teller was sitting at his desk with a cup of take-away coffee-shop iced coffee. People ambled backwards and forwards with wads of cash and with people’s cards and bankbooks. Once I handed over my passport and alien card, the person who was helping me chatted to the person next to him and wandered off with it and had loud conversations with my boss, possibly about how to write ‘South African’ in Korean. I then had to sign a small forest of forms – all in Korean, so that I have no real idea what I signed (I’m relying on my boss and hoping that I haven’t just signed over my entire life to the bank).

After what felt like an age of signing forms and entering secret pin codes (you have to invent your own pin number here, instead of them assigning you one – which seems to me to be somehow less secure) and listening to harried conversations in Korea, I eventually left with two bank books. The bank-book concept has fallen out of favour in SA as a result of its inconvenience but seems to be alive and well here. It wasn’t until we got back to the car that I timidly asked about a debit/ATM card. Either this is not standard practice here, or it just hadn’t occurred to anyone that I might want to be able to access my money using quick and easy modern methods. I’d assumed that they’d immediately issue a card – as they do at home. In fact, given that I am likely to have trouble communicating my requirements to every bank teller I ever deal with, and that I won’t be able to read any of the Korean forms that I assume are required to withdraw and/or transfer money, I would think it would be in their own interests – purely for the sanity of their bank tellers. Apparently not. My boss has promised to go back to the bank (there are several branches near work) at some point next week to sort that out.

On the advice of a foreign colleague, I also set up the service that sends a text message every time a transaction is complete. I’m very used to having ‘In-contact’ on my SA accounts and have some of the South African paranoia about crime, so it’s good to know that I’m able to do that here, even if it does cost me a little.

On the plus side, I now have an account into which they’ve been able to pay my August salary, so once the card is sorted out I will have money and- provided I go into the branch with confirmation from my school that the money comes from my salary – be able to send money out of the country.

As frustrating as the admin can be, it’s good to know that I now have an alien registration card (although it’s currently with my boss who is registering it with the Department of Education) and a bank account or two. As far as I know, that is all the admin I need to worry about for now, unless of course – which is entirely possible – there is something else which no-one has told me about, but I’m hoping to be admin free for the next couple of weeks at least.