thduggie’s blog

I had decided against writing about Engrish T-shirts on this trip, but when I saw the second girl with a shirt that said “POODLE BUTTS” I saw that as a sign.  So now I can mention the guy with the shirt that said “Be your Gender,” and I can invite you to speculate with me on why so many Koreans wear shirts that say “DOHC Revolution.”  They can’t all be car freaks, can they? 

We had our first day of the show and lo and behold, equipment had arrived the since day before, such as the badge reader and the extra chair.  The badge reader caused some trouble because we had to buy a Korean extension cord to get it to work and the convenience store only opened the same time as the show.  The badge reader also had a spell of bad ethernet connection and at one point decided he needed to restart Windows. 

The show went well, and most the visitors spoke at least a smattering of Korean, so I could at least hold them until our distributor arrived to take over.  I did spend a lot of time walking around and talking to other exhibitors, especially a guy from Minneapolis who’s also responsible for roughly the same region as I am. 

After the show ended, the organizers had set up a reception.  Only I went, and realized once I was there that most people were either Koreans that I could barely communicate with or foreigners talking to Koreans.  I ended up talking to another Swiss guy and to the majority of the Japanese delegation, although right after the flowery intro speeches about conviviality and making new acquaintances a band of young Koreans took the stage and proceeded to blast the attendees out of the room as soon as they had filled their stomachs.  At one point, after being introduced to the organizer of the Nano Korea despite being nearly unable to communicate over the din, I walked up to the cute Korean girl that had emceed the event in immaculate English (she’d lived in the US) and asked if there was a way to turn the volume down.  I think there wasn’t, for by the time the band got to a medley with Y.M.C.A. (original lyrics) and “Play that Funky Music” among others the hall was empty of most delegates; only the many college-age Nano Korea staff members remained close to the stage. 

I walked home and bought a stapler with staples on the way.  I’m almost certain that store would have had string and cable ties, but I purposely didn’t look. 

The lady I feel is hitting on me manned the reception.  Maybe she’s just trying to be friendly, but there’s that something extra in her look and her smile that confuses me.  I don’t know what it is, but it’s weird.  I was glad I’d gone ahead and bought a stapler and didn’t have to have a strained conversation about needing a stapler replete with deep looks.  After getting to my room, I was already on my way down again to ask for a bottle opener when I realized I’d packed my Swiss army knife this time.  McGyver saves the day! 

I’ve noticed most taxis have “Free Interpretation” written on their back door window.  I’ve got a guess at what they mean, but I’m sorely tempted to jump in one and say: “Listen, I’ve been struggling with Isaiah 53:9…”

Today we set up the booth.  The shipment arrived as scheduled, and if I hadn’t forgotten a few small things in the lid of a box we left in the crate they wouldn’t have had to make another trip and we would have been finished even sooner.  I also got a free sauna and a good deal of frustration when I tried to obtain some string.  After about 20 minutes of walking in the sun and “asking” several people I got a white “string,” actually labeled “rope,” but in truth closer to an endlessly long and thin WalMart plastic bag.  I got some cable ties, too, and they did a lot better in the end, especially because they can be ratcheted tight without an advanced boy scout degree in knotsmanship.  Or is that knottery? knotation? knotwork?

In the end we finished by about three o’clock, and the booth next to us hadn’t even started, despite being twice the size.  I’m curious to see the overnight metamorphosis that is bound to happen. 

The hotel manager suggested we go to a Japanese restaurant if we have time, because he, too, is learning Japanese.  That morning I’d asked as best I could if the other staff whose English is minimal might perhaps know some Japanese.  I haven’t yet had much luck with that question in Korea, but I figure it’s worth a shot.  While all my language adventures here should give me excellent practice for charades, I’d rather be communicating, and not being understood is a feeling I find revolting.  It prompted me to write a little ditty to be sung to the refrain of the Village People hit Y.M.C.A.

I’ve got to say that I’m in-com-pe-tent.
I’ve got to say that I’m in-com-pe-tent.

Not a word of Korean that would do any good,
I can’t make myself understood …

I’ve got to say that I’m in-com-pe-tent.
I’ve got to say that I’m in-com-pe-tent. 

I can never connect, no one gets what I said, 
They must think I’m dumber than bread …

I ate an odd mix tonight: skewered chicken bits and a “Chinese pie” with honey and cinnamon from a street vendor, two donuts from the Dunkin Donuts shop, and some stuff I bought at the supermarket I discovered on my hunt for string.  It still beat the “Freshness Burger” for lunch, the one with the cold tomato, soggy bun, and pasty cheese.  Oh well, bachelors are supposed to eat junk, right? 

Nothing much to report today.  I checked out of my hotel in Seoul and our distributor drove me northwest to Ilsan, to the Regent Inn Hotel, which is closer to the exhibition center I’ll be frequenting the rest of the week. 

We went to lunch at a restaurant called “VIPS,” which takes its name from “V.I.P.” but has it pronounced “Beeppsuh.”  It’s got a large salad buffet including tacos and Korean wraps, where I got a fajita of sorts with a big dollop each of nacho cheese sauce and sour cream.  That gave me the idea of trying to make a bulgogi fajita when I’m home.  The fajita wasn’t the main dish - that was a sirloin steak of ho-hum quality. 

As we were winding down with tea and coffee (and in my case, way too much dessert), a table of six arrived near us and prayed together before the meal.  My face must have given away my surprise at seeing Asians publicly praying like that, because my business partner explained that they were Christians.  (That, I found out, meant protestant.  Catholics are referred to as Catholics, not Christians.)  He wrinkled his nose and said Christians are very influential but not always very popular.  Apparently there had been scandals among the priests (which term confuses me, but probably he means pastors and other leaders), and some churches are quite involved in politics and have also gained economic clout in the measure that their “real estimate” has gone up in value.  [I note again my perplexity at his English.  He has a hard time understanding me and a hard time expressing simple things, but then he’ll refer to Sunday’s temperatures as “sizzling” and suggest waiting for the rain to “let up” without apparently even having to rack his brain for those words.]  I said I was surprised anyway that in Korea there were so many Christians compared to its neighbors in Japan and China.  He said that was because of the strong US influence after liberating Korea from Japan, and because after the Korean war, when Korea was dirt poor and starving, US military used food rations to bribe people into converting to Christianity.  His grandmother had done that.  Although I don’t doubt such things happened, I have a hard time accepting that as the reasons for the spread of Christianity, because it had flourished in Korea already fifty years earlier - so my basic question remains unanswered. 

After watching some TV in the hotel (and finding out, with relief, that apparently the salacious channels had been dropped since my last visit) I walked over to the exhibition center to scope out the place.  I haven’t seen the halls yet, so I’ll withhold my final judgment, but so far it looks promising.  At least they have a decent ice cream vendor. 

One thing I’ve now noticed repeatedly are the handicapped parking signs that look like a guy propelled off his feet by a great burst of flatulence.  I’ll have to take a picture of one of them. 

No, that’s not a way to smoke pot, it’s where I hiked.  But before I start, I need to mention the many shiny grey suits I’ve seen this week.  I hope the fashion stays in Korea.  It makes guys look like they wanted to keep the street parade alive at work. 

So I went hiking.  There’s a national park just north of Seoul called the Bukhansan national park.  The mountains there reach up to over 800 meters; Seoul itself is close to sea level.  I thought I’d attempt the Baekundae peak, the highest at 836 meters. 

That was Friday.  Saturday I got up tired, ate late, and figured that I should probably aim for Bibong, 560 meters high.  Bibong is closer to the metro and would allow me to return conveniently and quickly.  I took the metro to Bulgwang station, where I followed other hikers until they turned off the road.  They’re easy to spot, Korean hikers: they wear hiking boots and hiking backpacks and hiking clothes that wick away sweat and they carry hiking sticks and wear gloves and some sort of outdoorsy head covering.  Every single - well, not quite, I did spot one other person wearing jeans, but I’m sure I was the only one hiking with a laptop backpack.  I was also wearing a T-shirt I won’t describe because some people don’t like it. 

I figured I’d buy water on my way to the trail, but there was no store.  The gas station sold no water, though the attendant was nice enough to give me a cup of water in return for my improvised sign language for buying water.  I think the word for water is “mul.”  Finally, where the trail left the road, there stood a little store on wheels.  I asked for three bottles of water and the guy gave me three with a frozen core.  Neat, I thought, I’ll have cool water all the way.  That proved true, but misleading.  I carried the water in my backpack, and all the padding for the computer insulated that water well.  Each time I stopped for a drink, all I got was three mouthfuls.  (I would finally return to my hotel with ice still clanking around in those bottles.) 

Soon I realized that trails in Korea are different from our manicured paths in Switzerland.  They don’t switchback up the mountain, they head straight up the ridge, sometimes straight up bald rock face at what must have been a 45-degree angle, exposed to the noontime sun.  Sweat ran down my arms and I soon understood why the Korean uncle with the calves of steel kept going on about the heat, but I’m not sure why he insisted on talking to me all the way up even though it was very soon apparent that we didn’t understand each other. 

At the top I got a fresh burst of energy when I realized I was near the peak and scaled the last rocks.  I was a bit worried by the sign that said “safety restricted area,” but everyone else seemed to be going up and I wasn’t going to miss the view because of an indecipherable sign.  For a few moments I stood on the summit just rotating and taking in the panorama.  To the south, in the haze, lay Seoul, the Han river glistening in the sun.  At the foot of the mountain, too, lay Seoul - houses and apartment buildings everywhere.  Seoul is a concrete cornucopia pockmarked with green mountains and gashed by a river, and off to the southwest there was obviously a new construction project going on to make Seoul even bigger. 

To the north the peaks of the national park rose in their speckled brown and green, exposed rock and pine trees intermingling like some sort of camouflage print.  Two or three sky-blue power line masts marred the park’s perfection, but I’ve learned selective vision in Japan.  The steely uncle called me down to an oddly formed rock and climbed onto it.  I took his picture, and then he said “Jokduri-bong.”  I made my face the question mark to my unspoken question: “You want to take my picture?”  “Jokduri-bong,” he repeated and made hand motions above his head.  My question mark remained: “You’re so hot you’re smoking?”  “Jokduri-bong,” he said again, this time crooking his elbow, marching two steps, and singing a few notes from what I figured must be a wedding march.  “Jokduri-bong,” he said, and I finally figured out he meant that we were standing on Jokduri-bong, and that the name of the peak came from the term for the Korean women’s traditional wedding headdress.  (I later, after much internet search frustration because I can’t remember Korean words well, found that the headdress is just “jokduri,” and I suppose “-bong” means peak.  I also found out Jokduri-bong [bottom left, the triangle below “Eunpyeong-gu”] was only about 360 meters high.) 

So I wasn’t on Bibong, but I knew I wasn’t going further.  Steely uncle took off down a rock face that turned around a boulder and dropped out of sight.  I sat in the shade of the malformed boulder and rested, with the water bottles in the sun in an attempt to melt the ice.  I took a picture of myself next to the boulder and another steely uncle in pretty much the same uniform offered to take one for me.  Then I walked with him a ways to the other uncle’s path, where steely uncle #2 asked me to show my shoes.  He gave them a skeptical look and pronounced them unfit.  “Ridgi,” he said, leaving me wondering whether he meant the shoes lacked ridges or were unfit for ridges.  “Dangerousu.  Bye-bye.”  And he cautiously walked down, then crossed the rock face using his hands and feet and passed out of sight.  I walked back to the shade of my boulder and lay down.  A little beyond the boulder the rock face seemed to drop more steeply and I could see the dark marks left by water run-off down a few gullies.  I’d just finished thinking man, that’s steep, I wouldn’t want to fall down there, when the head of a Korean woman about my age appeared.  Step by unwavering step she walked up the rock, hands on her hips, heading for the peak. 

My pride was piqued.  Unfit soles, pah!  I looked at them again.  They were perfectly fit, and the material made for good grip.  I decided I’d try them out by climbing my funny boulder that steely uncle had climbed.  At first it looked difficult to get on the first step, but that was because I’d missed the lowest one.  Once I’d found that getting up was easy, thanks to what little I’d learned two weeks ago on my first rock climbing outing with Valda and some of her friends.  I’d learned patience, mostly, taking time to find the next grip and the next foothold.  Up on the boulder I realised that I didn’t know how to get down.  I tried another side, which went well for two steps and then I got scared.  I wasn’t sure of the next hand placement, I wasn’t sure of whether I could reach the next foothold, and it looked like no matter what I’d have to jump off at the end onto the inclined rock.  A bad landing would send me off the mountain, adding in meaning to my T-shirt statement what it detracted from my life.  Shaking, I climbed back up and decided to try the way I’d come up.  At least there I was on the uphill side of the boulder.  I somehow got my left foot into the foothold I’d used for the right coming up and vice versa, which made for a more awkward descent, but I managed.  Again, I rested in the shade of the boulder for a while and took three sips of water from my bottles. 

I walked around the peak to try to scope out the steely uncle trail.  There was one spot where I could see nearly all the way down, and I watched two guys help another find his way down a part I couldn’t see that was near where the trail leveled out.  Only trouble was that the reason I could see was that I was standing on a steep incline, and somewhere in between the incline dropped out of sight.  There were no ropes in sight, and no trees - nothing to hold on to in case I slipped.  The Korean woman, hands on her hips, headed down there as if nothing was the matter.  I retreated to where the uncle had gone down and gave it another look, and let it be.  My shoes were okay, but a size too big and you don’t want give when you’re climbing.  I was weak from the climb up and couldn’t entirely depend on my left knee, and I had no experience on rock and nobody to guide me.  I’d left my organ donor card at the hotel.  Besides, I was afraid.  So I chose life over pride. 

But even so, I still had to find a way.  I’d seen people come up another way than the one I’d taken and figured it might be a bit easier.  I asked a couple if it was steep by inclining my lower arm at various angles and took the answer to mean it was manageable.  It turned out to be true, for the most part.  I took one detour when I followed a solo woman hiker (you’d think I’d learned something about solo hiking Korean women) which took me across a slippery rock face that one could only cross because of the steel rope railing.  Now I knew why our distributor had asked me if I had gloves. 

The rest of the path was pretty much a staircase of logs and here or there patches of gravel or rock.  I passed a few hikers coming up: some ignored me, some said “Anyeong haseyo,” and some tried to strike up a conversation.  In one case, just as we’d approached to about three meters, I slipped with my left foot on the gravelly dirt and sat down on my right haunch, left foot extended to touch a rock, left hand grabbing a tree and right hand breaking the fall.  But guess who exclaimed “Ohhhhh?”  That’s right, the other hiker.  I remained mute.  Sometimes I think my “esprit d’it’s already over” can be a blessing.  I wonder if I’d think quickly enough to scream if someone pushed me off the Eiffel tower. 

At the bottom (of the mountain, not the Eiffel tower) I filled an empty bottle I’d picked up on the way down at the bathroom that had won best Seoul bathroom in 2001.  I hope it looked better then.  A few steps beyond stood two restaurants with shady terraces.  The terrace floor was bare dirt, the chairs a jumble of styles and all the furniture looked like it had never been new, but the beer was cold and the fan trained on me a delight. 

From there I walked toward the metro by walking to where oncoming hikers came from.  Then I followed two returning hikers until they got sidetracked at an open market.  I followed another, this time asking him, who led me to the metro even though apparently he didn’t need to go there.  I got home, lazed about, went to the gym to loosen my muscles on the bike, and finished it all off with the lavender hot tub.  I had another buffet dinner and again stuffed myself with the lamb leg with the mint jelly. 

I thought I’d go to bed early, but somehow the internet refused to work after I’d written half this entry, and so, frustrated, I watched TV and read until midnight. 

In the morning I went to the Seoul International Baptist Church, where I yawned aplenty.  I should have just gone to bed earlier…  After the service I went out for lunch at Itaewon with Jeff and his family.  I’ll not explain how I know Jeff, because it’s a bit complicated, but it was fun to have someone to talk with and spend time with.  Solo travel can get lonely. 

From Itaewon I took the metro to Anguk near Insadong, because I was to meet up there with a business partner and his American guest whom he was showing around Seoul.  I was early, so I decided to head to the palace the name of which I always need to look up - Gyeongbokgung palace.  (It’s not really a distinctive, because I need to look all of them up.)  A little signpost on the way changed my mind.  It read: Seoul Museum of Chicken Art. 

Chicken Art, I thought.  Art brut taken to its logical extreme, with chickens doing the painting?  A kitchen museum - I’ve already heard a few Koreans confuse “chicken” and “kitchen?”  Servile art under dictatorial regimes?  Or something like the “Körperwelten” show with chickens?  After getting lost and getting help from the friendly girl at the World museum of Jewellery I found it, and it turned out to be a private collection of painted and stitched and blown and formed and moulded and carved chicken, mostly our of wood and for Korean funeral purposes.  Apparently, the chicken symbolises four things in Korean tradition: fertility, success & wealth, fatherhood, and salvation from evil spirit.  I’ll quote from the note I received:

“On this exhibition, we are focusing on the fourth meaning of chicken in Korean culture. […]  The wooden carved chicken that decorates the traditional Korean funeral bier are called Kokdoo.  Kokdoos are usually various symbols of animals or generals and priests who are believed to protect the dead pperson over his/her long journey to the other world.  Of these Kokdoos, Chicken Kokdoo notices the other world the dead person’s departure and guides the dead person to the other world with safety.” 

It was a small museum, just right for my purposes, bright and quirky. 

I met my acquaintance and the American, Nancy, as agreed.  We had a traditional Korean dinner of many courses and many dishes, with lots of different tastes assaulting the palate.  I can’t remember how many variations of Kimchi I tried.  After dinner my acquaintance wanted to take us to Gyeongbokgung palace, but it had closed, so instead he drove us up Buk’ak mountain, from where we had a neat night view of Seoul.  Then, because he and Nancy have to get up early tomorrow and she’s still jet-lagged, we headed home. 

Today I met with our distributor here, went for Japanese food with him, went back to my room to write e-mails and reports, and decided I’d go see the show “Jump” tonight.  Now I think the show’s flash player killed my browser last time, so let me save this before I go copy the link for you.  (See, I can learn from past heartache!) 

It didn’t kill my browser.  You can click on it without worries. 

I walked there from the hotel and got there so quickly I had to wait for the ticket booth to open.  When it opened and I got to the counter, the seller asked if I’d reserved a seat.  Uh-oh, I thought, it’s sold out.  I can’t say my heart sunk too far, because I’d passed a movie theater on the way and almost given in to the temptation of watching the Bourne Supremacy dubbed in Korean.  But apparently there was just one seat left, P17.  It sounds like what it was.  No, not a hip-hop artist or a secret governmental organisation.  It was an aisle seat in the penultimate row. 

There was still time to kill until the show.  Following my nether instincts, I walked toward where Burger King was on the map, but I caught myself and stepped into Caffé Pascucci on the way, where I got a bulgogi panini and, in a judgment lapse, a raspberry ice tea.  Without a book on me, I leafed through a Korean translation of MOTOR TREND.  A Giugiaro looks the same in any language - slick and out of any thinking person’s reach.  The combination of bulgogi, cheese, and bread was worth the wait and makes me want to find a recipe for bulgogi to try other combinations. 

I got an ice cream on the way out and trolled around town, looking for a bookstore, not realising I’d probably be kicked out with ice cream in my hand.  I wanted to see if I could find a copy of Archiworld.  Instead, I found countless restaurants that would have been more interesting, but you can’t regret bulgogi.  I walked along the giant double row of piano keys to the elevated granite keyboard, which had two children jumping from key to key, and passed on to the Cheonggyecheon creek, which has been remade as a walking course.  It had looked pleasant when I first passed on my way to the theatre, but now the lights were one and I, for one, would have preferred the stepping stones not to have inlaid blue LEDs.  Blue LEDs somehow fail to emanate that natural look the designers seemed to have been striving for. 

Back at the theatre I was thirsty and still early, so I drank ice tea in the Coffee bean and tea house.  They charged 50 won extra for the cup, which they refunded upon return, so now I have two 50-won coins to give away. 

I walked downstairs to the theatre and took my seat way in the back.  I heard Japanese and Korean in the hall, Japanese next to me, and looked around.  I couldn’t spot another Caucasian in the audience.  All the more authentic an experience, I figured. 

Jump doesn’t have a lot of plot.  Think of a series of goofy Jackie Chan martial arts comedy routines strung together by some bare-bones story about a family preparing for a guest, who turns out to be the grandfather’s pick for the daughter’s husband, and a break-in that pits the family against two burglars.  For the same reason, there’s no character development to speak of - the characters barely talk, and instead let their smooth moves speak for themselves.  And they manage to get the audience roaring with laughter at their highly acrobatic and well-timed slapstick goofiness. 

After the initial part of the show, the grandfather stepped into the audience and after a few steps up the aisle his eyes locked onto me.  So that’s what a deer in the headlights feels like.  Oh well, being singled out in Asia is almost routine for me, so I stood up when he asked me to and told him I was from Switzerland and bowed a little.  Then he told me to come out into the aisle and defend myself from his fan.  He showed me how.  So when he moved toward me, I held up my left forearm to ward off the blow that didn’t come.  Then he told me to follow him on stage. 

Of course I followed.  Not because I love the stage, but because he asked me and I couldn’t say no.  I didn’t really think about stage fright or what to do, and once up there I realized that stage fright is pointless because when you’re in the limelight, you can hardly even see the audience.  That made it easy to focus on the actors.  Besides, the grandfather guy was telling me what to do.  I had to imitate the drunk uncle character’s moves.  The first was some fighting kick.  I imitated, swaying after landing my kicking foot.  Trying something like that shows you how much skill goes into their performance.  Next he followed up a forward somersault with a backward somersault into a handstand.  Right.  I mastered the forward somersault.  I managed a graceless backward somersault.  I didn’t even attempt the handstand.  Even when we practiced those in middle school I never managed one, so out of a backward somersault?  But thinking back, maybe I should have tried.  It might have added to the comic momentum to see the big guy flop on his face, and the stage was springy enough for it not to hurt. 

Then the father character came to pat us down before the fight.  I didn’t understand that he was going to pat me down, too, so I faced the uncle guy and only on the grandfather’s direction stood with my arms spread like at the airport for the father to pat me down.  A quicker mind would have taken off his belt, watch, and wallet, or maybe initially refused the pat-down on grounds of pride, but I was not in my character, whatever it was.  But maybe that was the point…  The father patted me down, and I turned to face the uncle again, but he was looking at the father.  The father was carrying an axe, and in rapid sequence the other characters behind me “pulled out” a whole arsenal from my clothes - sword, chain, stick - dropped them in the middle of the stage and fled to the other side.  I looked around with a grin and moved toward the weapons.  They yelped and shrank back.  I moved another step - they yelped and shrank back again.  I tried to be like one of them and picked up the sword in a swift movement, then stood clueless in what I hope was at least a moderately menacing pose brandishing a sword with a floppy blade.  A quicker mind might have repeated the move and yelp routine, or brandished his chapstick, but even more clueless as to what to do next, I just put the sword back down.  I’m not even quick enough for esprit d’escalier, mine’s an esprit de chez soi…  I don’t really remember what happened between then and the grandfather declaring me the winner and the uncle guy giving me a glossy “Jump” program book and beckoning me to stand in the middle of the stage.  I think people applauded, but I only remember walking back up the aisle with a silly grin and the three people sitting next to me applauding for me as I sat down again. 

Drunk uncle picked a cute Korean girl next, who was spared the patting down routine only because the mother anticipated the father’s intentions and challenged the Korean girl to a slow-motion fight which ended with her punching the mother K.O.  That punch, as all other punches and moves, came with the typical over-the-top sound effects, which in retrospect makes me think the sound guys really also ought to take a bow at the end.  I was well entertained and by the end my cheeks hurt from laughing, but next time some guy says there’s only one seat left and it’s an aisle seat I’ll slit my eyes, wrinkle my nose, growl, give him a mean stare and buy the ticket anyway.  I don’t mind being the fall guy if it makes people laugh. 

Anyway, go see the show, and choose your seat wisely.  I hope they tour Switzerland sometime! 

What also struck me as funny in a much more low-key way was that at the end of the show the guy next to me and I conversed in Japanese about how cool the show was and whether I was in on the stunt without him batting an eye.  It was pleasant in two ways: first, to be able to talk with someone at all, and second, to be able to talk with someone in Japanese without him making a big deal of it. 

I had no appointments today except a phone call, so I spent just over an hour working reading and writing e-mails and the rest of the day lazing in bed, reading and watching TV and telling the hotel staff that yes, it was ok for them not to make up my room. 

Now I’ll go for dinner, my only meal today, and perhaps a soak in the hot tub.  In keeping with the much-needed restful day I’ve had, I’ll spend a minimum of time blogging. 

Wednesday, August 22, 2007

Myeong-dong - Seocho - Myeong-dong - Coin Laundry - Dinner

I got up early, so as to be able to not only shower and eat and get dressed (in not quite that order) before being picked up at 10am, but also read work e-mails and prepare the meeting that was to follow.  One of the employees of the business I was meeting today picked me up at my hotel and drove me across the river to the Seocho district in his Hyundai station wagon.  I later found out the car used to be his father’s, who stopped using it because it afforded too little protection in the case of an accident.  The father now uses an SUV.  This is not the sort of thing to tell a passenger in Seoul traffic, where half the cars already have a scrape or dent. 

It never ceases to amaze me how different basically similar companies can be.  Premises, office setup, protocol, A/C levels, technical equipment, order, language ability - they vary wildly.  But at the current outside temperatures, they have one thing in common: all offices are cooled down to frigid levels.  When you think of it, cooling systems are pretty silly: It’s hot outside, so to feel good inside, you pump more heat outside (and generate a little more), which contributes to the heat outside, so to feel good inside… 

For lunch we went to a nearby Italian restaurant.  It was over thirty degrees out, so the company owner suggested driving there in his car.  Only hitch: the car had black leather interior and took as long to cool down as it took us to get there.  He realized himself on the way back that this bet hadn’t paid off, when we went through the same routine again. 

Between when his employee dropped me off at my hotel in Myeong-dong again and my next meeting I decided to do some much-needed laundry in the coin laundry room for guests.  I took my revelatory book with me and read while my laundry sloshed around in that bathtub of a top-loader and then tumbled dry.  To buy soap and run the machines I required 500-won pieces, and behold! the changing machine there accepted my 5000-won bill just fine.  It can be done, Seoul metro, it can be done!  All the while I was wearing my dress pants and a T-shirt that said “I’m Big on the Pig” on the back and showed the Piggly-Wiggly logo on my tummy.  (Thanks, Westfalls!)  I do think I got a funny look or two in the elevator. 

I’m starting to tire just a bit of my revelatory author’s tendency to load his story with purple prose (and some obvious plot twists).  As usual, he praises his editor and agent in the overleaf, but after he’s had people wait with baited breath (did they eat worms?), made uneven use of contractions, and bloated a couple sentences too many, I think he may need a stricter one, not just one who’s a good friend.  But what has become most tiresome are the chapter headings, just like the heading I used for this entry, a blurb stating time and location.  Many thriller authors use and abuse this device, which I find pointless.  Does it really add extra realism to state that something happened on Thursday, April 14, 0746 hours?  Or just extra tedium?  I for one almost immediately forget the information thus proffered.  It means even less when, as in my revelatory book, the section under that heading includes flashbacks. 

Now I jump back and forth myself in this blog, I know, but that’s precisely because I’m too lazy to edit it to perfection, and because it’s not going to print.  So, if I ever write a book with those silly section headings, someone please slap me hard.  And if someone ever publishes this blog unedited - well, then someone please slap him hard. 

Thanks in advance. 

Oh, I almost forgot dinner.  I had an evening meeting that finished just in time for me to make it to the buffet dinner.  They don’t have bulgogi in the buffet, but they did have a nice selection of grilled meat and other tasty bits to satisfy me.  Their dessert, however, reinforced my prejudice that Asians have a hard time making European sweets.  I don’t know what it is, but something was wrong with that walnut pie and that crème brulée.  During dinner soccer was on and I kept ogling at the TV to see South Korea beat Uzbekistan in a pretty nasty match with two red cards, but the second Korean goal was well worth being distracted for. 

Last night, after writing my entry, I switched on the TV and watched some sports.  I first watched some soccer, but began to channel-surf and ended up at the channel called Xtreme Sports.  I can’t remember ever being as baffled as I was watching their billiards competition, which pitted two beautiful young women against each other, both dressed in high heels, daisy dukes or mini skirt, and a skimpy bra-type thing with a sponsor logo.  Never had billiards looked as awkward.  The one girl didn’t make a single shot: I could have beaten the pants off her, and that’s saying something considering how tight they were.  Or maybe not saying much given their diminutive size.  Whichever you pick, the other girl at least made shots, but you could tell she wasn’t comfortable with the gig because she kept shielding her cleavage with her hand when she bent to get a better look at the lay of the billiard balls.  Pure, rarified absurdity.  I watched until my reason overcame my initial bemused disbelief and the train wreck effect - which was about until they brought on the next contestants and I figured this was probably a round robin and could drag on in near infinite pointlessness. 

This morning, I had bulgogi for breakfast (yeah!) and ended up sitting close to the TV showing CNN.  I had to grin at their news ticker at the bottom, which ran the two following mis-categorizations:

Sports: EU suspends payments for fuel shipments to Gaza

Sports: EU suspects Hamas of diverting funds

This time, I took the subway without the suitcase.  I found out that the minimum fare is 1000 won, but that most locals use magnet cards rather than tickets, so they probably don’t care that the ticket vending machines don’t take the 1000-won bill.  I changed at Chungjeongro, and after a long walk I got to the other platform just in time to see the train leave, both going and returning. 

I’d skipped lunch after a late breakfast, so by the time we went for shabu-shabu at six I was hungry.  Not hungry enough, though, to eat up: we finished the meat fine, but they served too much seafood.  I also learned that when they say seafood shabu-shabu, they don’t mean fish, they mean a few shrimp and a lot of rubber.  At the end, colored noodles go in the broth, and then after eating those, rice and egg, until there’s no broth left except for a burnt layer stuck to the pan.  (Shabu-shabu is basically “fondue chinoise” in a wider pan and with lots of veggies.) 

So, to the last point.  I have an automated Japanese-style loo in my hotel room.  Whenever I turn on the light in the bathroom, apparently the toilet’s power also goes on, and the little spraying arm moves to the center of the bowl and back again.  The motor hums at a cantabile frequency, but right at the outset it hums a diminished third lower for a short moment (I mean “kleine Terz” and hope I’m right with my English musical terms).  It does the same when it moves back again.  For some reason, from the first time I heard that, it reminded me of the main theme of “The Magnificent Seven.”  Considering that movie is a remake of a Japanese classic, and I’m looking at a remake of another Japanese classic, the automated toilet, I think in the most unlikely of places we’ve come sonic full circle.  Or full oval, perhaps, in this case. 

After writing yesterday’s entry, I got dinner at two street vendors’.  The second one’s chili-sauce chicken skewer tasted great, but the first one’s offering took the prize for the most bizarre: a corn dog studded with stubby French fries. 

I strolled through the department store after that and in the end gave in and bought a tie.  It’s hard when you don’t know the language to merely window-shop.  You can’t talk your way out of a purchase - you can only shake your head and walk away, leaving the salesperson with no idea as to what they did wrong.  Anyway, it’s a great tie, but I realized after buying it that I don’t wear ties nearly enough to need any more.  For work, I usually wear the one with the company logo, and I don’t wear ties often outside of work.  So if you see me any given Sunday with a tie, chances are I’m only trying to justify its purchase. 

I slept for twelve hours.  My back hurt after that.  The mattress must be too soft. 

Breakfast buffet: too much.  As always.  The biggest bummer was that they had scrambled eggs in the steamer labeled bulgogi. 

I took the subway to a business meeting.  Counting on the subway being like Japanese subways, I estimated two minutes per stop and four for changing.  I was dragging along a large suitcase with a microscope and first realized I might have been wrong in my estimate when I couldn’t find an elevator from the street level down.  Then I headed to the ticket machines and found that they didn’t accept bills.  The Bank of Korea had issued new 1000-won bills in January and the machines still hadn’t been replaced.  Because I don’t have the vocabulary to ask a random vendor to give me coins for my bill, I had to walk to the other end of the station to buy the ticket from a station employee.  Then, the turnstile wouldn’t let me pass with my suitcase: I had to lay it on the long side and shove it underneath first just to get through.  And of course the subway was again down a flight of stairs.  They really wanted me to get my workout. 

And get it I did: I needed to transfer twice.  Here or there I’d find an elevator, but I wonder how the subway system handles the wheelchair-bound, if even able-bodied people like me struggle with a suitcase. 

Of course I was late, at least fifteen minutes - quite the embarrassment, especially with the weather as hot and humid as today and my business partner waiting outside.  After he’d asked me if I had any diet restrictions, which I’d denied, we went for lunch together at a Japanese restaurant, but I’d eaten so much for breakfast I couldn’t finish my rice bowl with eel. 

One of his associates drove me back to my hotel after our meeting.  It wasn’t a whole lot faster than by subway, but a great deal more convenient.  His car was under-cooled, like the meeting room and the restaurant in my hotel.  Even so, I ate there tonight, too lazy to venture out and look for something crazy.  I had bulgogi - wonderful sliced beef made I don’t know how, probably stir-fried, with some delicious sauce I can’t quite pin down.  As usual in Korea, I got a number of small side dishes along with the main food, and one held mussels in a chili paste.  This - if I knew what it was called - would make it on my list of dietary restrictions.  The mussels tasted of briny sea something fierce, and their slithery texture with the goopy feel of the fermented paste made me proud of even swallowing that first mouthful.  Needless to say, I left the rest be. 

Just in case I spit it out next time, I asked the waiter what “excuse me” is in Korean.  Shillaehamnida!

I just made it to Seoul, and true to form, the first thing I do isn’t to eat, or to walk around the city for the rest of this sunny and humid Sunday afternoon, but to go online.  Sometimes I think I need to Get a First Life…

I’ll start with working until 23:00 on Friday and getting to bed at about 01:00.  When I got up the next day at seven, I had to pack, tidy up the place enough for people to not dread entering in my absence, buzz my hair and beard, do dishes, and fold laundry, all by about noontime.  In an uncommon display of efficiency, I actually managed all these things (although perhaps the tidying bit could be disputed and I found a number of hairs I missed with the trimmer today).  I headed out in good spirits, turned the corner, and realized I’d forgotten my passport.  Some thought about driving in Australia had triggered that realization - I will never know how my brain works.  Anyway, I turned around and asked the guy who seems to spend all his days drinking beer outside the Nikolic corner store to keep an eye on my luggage.  When I returned, I showed him my passport and he wished me a good trip. 

That incident set me back a few minutes, but I was still well on schedule.  I got lucky with the airport bus leaving a minute after I boarded.  In the Basel airport, as usual, there was hardly a wait; I checked in and found myself with over an hour left.  Since I hadn’t packed any book besides my Bible, I went to the kiosk and picked one of the five English books.  I still get sticker shock when I buy paperbacks in Switzerland, and I was born here.  The jacket enthused about how Tim Willocks revives historical fiction in “The Religion” and called the book “revelatory,” but I picked it by elimination.  The others seemed by turn too short, too crude, or too uninteresting. 

I didn’t realize until I passed security that Basel has a Swiss International Air Lines business lounge, or I would have headed there directly to read.  As it was, I only slipped in to peek around the light and spacious lounge and score an ice cream.  I haven’t seen a lot of lounges yet, but this one’s my favorite so far.  I think I’ll start flying through Basel more often.  The lounge is circular and situated at the juncture of the Y-shaped terminal.  When you walk in, you find a bar and a few tables with chairs set up in al fresco dining style adjacent to a small pond with a wooden bridge across it and a couple palm trees.  On the far side of the bridge, the stairs lead up to the first floor, which has full-length windows in all directions and enough leather chairs and recliners to cater to a small army of readers.  I didn’t go all the way up to the next level, but from the looks of it it’s as flooded with light and tastefully decorated with leather and wood as the rest of the lounge. 

The flight to Frankfurt took us in a circle over Basel and then north parallel to the two ribbons of water that make up the Rhine between France and Germany.  What a weird idea to build a canal right next to the original river!  After the short and bouncy flight and a short transfer in the unsightly agglomeration of reflective slabs I headed to one of the Lufthansa lounges to wait for the flight to Seoul.  On the bright side, the Lufthansa lounge has Weissbier; on the unsettling side, the designers decided to use corporate colors wherever they could.  Now I don’t think the logo colors themselves are a particularly pleasing combination, but sitting in a world of badly coordinated blue and yellow provides even less relaxation.  Still, free food, free beer, and a grey one-seater with sunflower yellow trim beat sitting in one of the regular airport chairs. 

The plane to Seoul had been outfitted with new seats, it seemed; seats that in true Lufthansa style had converted the individual TV into a stow space by replacing the TV with an elastic band.  When I folded down the cupholder from the back of the seat in front of me, I noticed it was cracked and it was all I could do not to break it even more when trying to return it to its original position.  The closest TV screen was two meters off at two o’clock, the next one five meters away at one o’clock; both must have been no more than 17 inches diagonal and if their awkward position hadn’t been enough to keep me from watching Superman 3, the broken button in my armrest that refused to switch from radio to TV sealed the deal.  I read, ate, slept, talked with my seat neighbor Lily, who works for Archiworld, then read and slept some more. 

The most striking feature of this plane was the location of the restrooms.  They were a flight down, which allowed them to deserve the term “restroom” instead of merely “lavatory” because of their increased spaciousness.  It didn’t really help with the waiting, though.  A sign forbid waiting on the stairs, but people weren’t willing to crowd the anteroom and so either everyone transgressed that rule or stood atop the stairs in confusion.  The guy in line in front of me thought it was funny that in a new plane they still had ashtrays.  I hadn’t thought about that.  I wonder why?  Are there airlines that still allow smoking?  Or do the airlines worry that by removing the ashtrays they’d lower the resale value?  Or do the airplane makers have a contract they must honor with the ashtray manufacturers? 

We skidded and swerved to a stop at Incheon and I shunned the peoplemover in favor of a brisk walk that I hoped would wake me up a bit.  By the time I got to the KISS, I was awake.  (The odd thing about Incheon airport is that the walk to KISS looks the same every time.  Surely I haven’t always docked at the same gate?)  Perhaps as a result of winning the UNPSA this year, they brandished the slogan “beautiful country, wonderful immigration.” 

Does using a Korean ATM count as something eventful?  Does taking the KAL limousine bus?  Does dodging taxi drivers offering their services?  Does realizing I was speaking the truth last weekend when I admitted to no longer being able to recognize cars the way I did when I was a boy?  (In my defense, half the car brands these days use an oval logo - Mazda, Toyota, KIA, Ford, Land Rover, Hyundai, Renault Samsung Motors, Daewoo, Ssang Yong Motors, etc.)  I sat next to a Japanese man in the bus and noticed that he was able to use his Japanese phone in Korea.  He was using a standard NTT docomo FOMA n903i (he showed me).  In other words, the cell phone I have been waiting for must be available somewhere: one that will work in Europe, Japan, Korea, and in the US.  I’ll have to follow up on that sometime. 

But now I’m going for dinner.