Korea, Part 2

Kyeunju had no shortage of sites to keep tourists occupied. The city and surrounding area are dotted with royal tombs...mainly big parks you pay to enter and you walk around large mounds in which kings and queens are buried. One had been escavated and you could see the inner workings of these things: a mix of wood structure, rock piles, earth, and precious belongings. I also saw an ancient astronomical observatory, a sacred pond, a few more temples, and an ancient traditional city that had been preserved. Tourists are able to walk around and experience what it was like hundreds of years go, but the town still has inhabitants. So you get tourists snooping around while these people are just going about they daily chores, tilling their small crops with their Toyota Corollas parked out front.

What definitely takes the cake for me in this city was an early morning hike I undertook on my last day there. It started snowing, which was an unexpected but welcome surprise. This hike took me to a scenic lookout wayyyy up in the mountains, but not before passing several Buddhist landmarks, including a giant Buddha carved into the rock face. The view from the top allowed me to witness the full scope of this thing in comparison to the people standing around it. It was pretty freakin big! Like 25-30 feet high.

Just beside my hostel, there was a Korean bathhouse. I was told to try this out. Basically, there were two big rooms, one for men, one for women, with many shower heads and stools with scrubbers beside them. In the center there was a big hot tub, in the corner a cold tub, and a dry and wet sauna. The idea is to lather, scrub, rinse, soak and repeat for as much time as you have to spare. I didn’t have much time, but I can see how you’d come out of there like jello. Also heard there are sometimes old men who’s job it is to scrub down your back for you. I didn’t encounter said old man for I was the only one there at the time, but I can envision the naked ackwardness.

I forgot to mention that on my second night at this hostel, upon walking into the common area, who do I come across? Bazu. Reunited at last. He and I, along with however else was game out of the hostellers, checked out a few really nice restaurants over those couple of days, one in particular with the cushiony floor sitting that I had grown to really enjoy. I also forgot to mention that Bazu was a drinker. Every night he would bust out the Japanese Sake he had brought from home, or the Sodju and Mackaulay (both very popular Korean boozes….booze….boozei??), and he wouldn’t take no for an answer. As you’d try to finish your 8th glass, he would tell you another of his countless travel stories accrued during his time on pretty much every continent. Quite the interesting character he turned out to be indeed. Sadly, when I left in the morning he was still in bed, so I left him a goodbye note with my email on it, but when I returned to pick up my bag and catch my bus, the note was still there, untouched, and he had checked out, so it would seem I just took off without saying a word. Hope he’s still doing ok.

Now I’m on the bus to Seoul. I have my 2nd couchsurfing stay lined up with Meg, an English teacher from Canada. Within 10 seconds of being on the bus, I met a guy from the states and we chatted the entire 4 hours there. Went by pretty quickly. Thanks to some directions from Meg, I made it to her place to find that she had a loft apartment, with the whole upstairs section just for me! Also, I got to be her first couchsurfer. Her friend had collected so many good stories from CS that she wanted to give it a try too. We got along spendidly. So much, in fact, that I extended my stay for an extra weekend. While in Seoul there was never a dull moment. Actually, minutes after meeting her at her apartment, she took me away to collect some more friends, and we all walked over to a party, where there were like 6 guitars laying around, with even more guitar players, and everybody was singing along to songs that I knew. A much missed slice of a home. I nearly shat myself. They even had the fabled acoustic basses that I had wanted to try for years. We rocked out until the wee hours and had a great time.

The next day, I picked myself up a subway pass, because traveling around Seoul requires a ton of commuting if you aren’t living right downtown. Seoul seemed like an old cartoon where the characters are running and the same background is passing by over and over, except this background was Starbucks, Holly Coffee and Pizza Hut. Don’t let me give you the wrong impression because there was a lot of local food too.

I managed to fit a lot into the 9 days I stayed with Meg. We all went snowboarding twice...yes, snowboarding...not many runs upon yet but one of the hills was nominated for the winter Olympics that hit Seoul in the 70s I believe, so the runs that were open were pretty long and pretty sick. We just rented the gear at the hill, and the people I went with were nice enough to hook me up with hats and gloves and everything else I couldn't rent.

I caught a Korean Basketball League game, in which each team has a height restrictions of 6 foot 5, and each team is allowed 2 foreign players. Coincidentally, each team had 2 6'5" guys from the states.

Also caught a b-boyz show…highly recommended if you’re ever in Seoul. It’s a breakdancing show at a small venue, but its mixed with several styles of dancing, like the ROBOT, lots and lots of the robot, and the whole thing follows a plot. Its very up close and personal and extremely entertaining.

I met up with the Russian girls from Busan again and Natalya showed me around Suwon, where they were just wrapping up their semester at uni. We walked along the fortress walls that surrounded the small city just outside of Seoul, and hung out at a little pub until my bus arrived. I rode the bus for an hour into town, and took a cab for nearly another hour from there to Meg's. Turns out, it was just a big triangle, and I could have caught a cab straight to Meg’s for half the cost and a quarter of the time.

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