October 14, 2002
Royal Hotel
Busan, South Korea

Letters of Transit

Linda, Gene and I hop a van
from the airport to the hotel. We congratulate ourselves on how easy it was. When we try to check into the hotel however, the clerk stares at our printed reservation and starts hitting a buzzer for the manager. For a few scary minutes, we were sure she would send us into the night with no survival skills.

When the hotel manager arrives, he explains the problem--there are no western-style rooms available for us.

Just the Bear Necessities

Oh, is that all?
When we realize the management's dilemma, we are suddenly very happy to take a Korean-style room. The rooms have thin bedding rolled out on yellow linoleum flooring. Atop the bedding are two small fuchsia brocaded pillows that feel like they are stuffed with dry leaves.

A Long Way from Manhattan

Jungle Fever
We stop in a bar down the street from the hotel called Jungle Fever.

It is a combination art/standing bar. Whatever that means, it’s an important designation in Busan. As we enter, the four employees jump off their barstools and go to their posts. There is no one else in the place.

They hand us a cocktail menu in Korean with English translations. It takes a second to realize we have to point to what we want: a Midori Sour, a Manhattan and a Black Russian. The staff takes ten minutes (with much consultation amongst themselves) to make the drinks. We receive some “side dishes”: spicy sticks, seaweed squares, roasted pumpkin seeds and chocolates shaped like stones.

Won to $ Cheat Sheet

All this and more
comes to only 18,000 Won which is about $14.

We leave Jungle Fever after one drink because we want food. We find a place that sounds promising:
the sign says “restaurant” and that's good enough for us. We sit at a sofa cluster by a second-story window. The waiter brings the drink menu and tells us his beers. Encouraged, Linda asks about whiskey, but he looks confused. She orders a beer.

Because Linda cautions us about drinking the water, even ice cubes, I say “wine?” Another blank look.

But the waiter returns with an ice bucket and a split of wine. We ask about food and he says “side dishes”. Side dishes only, we presume.

He leaves the wine corked. We’re afraid to touch it because we don’t want to offend him. When we're certain he is not returning to open it, Linda brings the bucket with the split to the front for uncorking.

After that, no more nothing. No more drink offers, no side dishes. Guess it wasn’t a restaurant after all. Or did we do something wrong?

The last laugh is on us. They charge $32 for the little split.

Linda craves noodle soup
and so we stop at an outdoor restaurant in the alley next to our hotel. The waitress seats, but then leads us to the porch to show us pictures of the food.

There are about five options, none of which are appealing. We point to some selections anyway, but the waitress seems to be telling us that we are ordering inappropriately. We come to an impasse of non-understanding, so we leave hungry.

We enter the familiar safety of the 7-11 on the corner

We stock up on bottled water and a few beers. Gene buys a can of Pringles.

Linda with the feast. The water bottle is full of vodka.

We spread out our feast on the floor of our room:

--Leftover mini-ham sandwiches from the flight
--A couple of Oreos (also from the flight)
--A partial bag of trail mix

It tastes great.

The floor bedding is uncomfortable and we are happy to shift to a western-style room this morning. We are happy to sit in chairs.
Breakfast in the hotel coffee shop is easy. We point to things on the menu. We are a bit humbled by the small portions—we know it should be enough.

Typical City Driver on Scooter

Spend the day walking around, going in and out of shops. Men on scooters ride dangerously on the sidewalk, but no one seems fazed.

"Get Out of the Street!": Gene and Linda

My ATM card does not work in any of the ATM machines we try. This may become a big problem since I don’t know the PIN numbers for our credit cards.

LINDA:
“Well the whole time in Pusan was about food and feeling totally helpless—looking for a restaurant with pictures! Lunch turned out to be great. A Japanese restaurant. Gene pointed to sushi on the wall and waitress kept saying sashimi, but we weren’t sure . . I went safe with chicken and Gene with fried shrimp. Kate, nothing but Coke, which was fab and we had four (real sugar?) Cokes."

They throw us off with a surprise fish: head, eyes, and all, which we assume is instead of the chicken and fried shrimp.

GENE:
October 14, 10 am
"Finally managered to steal this book back from Linda, who has recently developed a cleptomanical streak. Drinks, clothes, phrasebooks . . . we have to closely watch all our possessions.
We also managed to score some Korean currency using our debit card. We were getting a little worried that we would not be able to do so.
We'll be moving on to Changwon today. Nigel won't be able to join us until about 9:30pm. We were going to join up with Brian and Adele in the interim but Nigel told us that would be too complicated.
I hope our quest for food will be more successful in Changwon. I’m sure Nigel will be a tremendous help in communicating with the natives. We had a disgustingly huge breakfast this morning (at least by Korean standards) at the hotel. The waitress actually had to bring an extra table to accommodate us.
“Oh, the embarrassment. Oh, the despair,” as Ray Davies would say.
I secretly think the natives are laughing at us (not without good reason, mind you). They present us with what they call “American” meals that are anything but. Naturally, I’m sure they are trying, but part of me thinks that they are testing us to see what we will accept. Yesterday at lunch, I ordered Shrimp Tempura, which was excellent, but it was accompanied by something that looked like Mint Leaf Tempura. It was this enormous leaf encrusted in breading. I swear they were taking bets in the kitchen whether or not we would eat it.
In all honesty, the natives are incredibly nice and it is humbling to go to a country that doesn’t kowtow to absolutely every American need."

Lost in Translation

Busan, Night Two
We set out again to find noodle soup or something we can eat. Now we are too intimidated to go in restaurants with no pictures of food or with English subtitles. So every place we end up at is mediocre at best. We know we need Nigel’s guidance.

The Infamous, Dreaded Squid Jerky	No, Linda, what do you really think?

We go to a second-floor restaurant that looks promising from the outside. Linda boldly points at a random menu item. How bad could it be, she thinks. The waitress snickers. She brings a large plate of fried, flat something (squid?). Linda says it tastes like Squid Jerky.

At first we think the dried squid is some bonus appetizer. But when it is followed by a plate of fried potatoes, Linda knows her main course had arrived.
I order a ham-and-cheese appetizer for my meal, figuring that is safe. Spam slices and American cheese triangles. On Ritz crackers.

Wednesday, October 16
Changwon
Brian, Adele and Nigel show up at our hotel last night around 11. Linda is sleeping already. We had also fallen asleep. Nigel seems preoccupied, but probably just tired after a long day teaching.
We have a drink in the Sky Lounge at our hotel.

Mini Malls Everywhere

After breakfast, Gene, Linda and I wander around Changwon, a more industrial town than Busan. The shops and restaurants are all stacked up on each other and the signs wrap the entire surface of the building.

Nigel Robson: Teacher Extraordinare

NIGEL'S BASIC KOREAN:
"Hello = Arnyon Ha Say-O
Goodbye = Arnyon Gar Say-O"

This is Nigel’s phonetic guide to basic Korean. We discover later that it is not American-phonetic, but Australian-phonetic, as Americans would pronounce those Rs in “Arnyon” that Aussies would disregard. American-phonetic would be “Ahn-yon”.

MORE NIGEL'S BASIC KOREAN:
Yo-gi-o = here
Chick-chin = keep going
Je-say-o = please
Mac-joo = beer
Mashi-say-o = delicious
Mian ham mida = I’m sorry

We’re getting braver about attempting to communicate with Koreans. But our attempts are confined to pointing at phrases in our book. Even learning to say “thank you” is daunting and hard to remember. Even when I think I remember the syllables, I feel shy to say them.

Nigel turns up on his break and takes us to lunch. We take off our shoes and sit at the low tables. Almost instantly, bowls and bowls and utensils and mugs appear. We get a boiling cauldron of soup with a whole chicken which we mash with a ladle. We pick the bones out with metal chopsticks then spoon the chicken pieces into a dish with noodles. Real food, finally.

Learning to Pour Politely

We have ginseng wine which Nigel teaches us how to pour. The polite way to pour is with one hand supporting the arm that is pouring. The receiver holds his cup with both hands.

Thieves in the Temple

We take a taxi to a small Buddhist temple. We stop for a beer in a tent-like watering hole down the path from the temple. With Nigel’s coaching, mastering four basic phrases seems more manageable.

GENE:
"Nigel gives us one useful piece of information today. When arriving at the Buddhist temple, Linda attempts to exit the taxi from the left-handed side. Unbeknownst to her, the door is bolted shut. The cab driver yells at her in Korean, presumably calling her some variation on “bitch”. Nigel afterwards informs us that “Koreans don’t generally like Americans”. The sentiment is mostly due, he says, to a recent incident where two GIs ran over two children with a jeep. The GIs were not prosecuted due to governmental immunity of some sort. So recently, the climate has been a tad hostile."

Thursday, October 17
Gene, Linda and I walk to the big department store, Lotte. In most respects, it is an ordinary upscale department store except the abundant staff is pristinely uniformed and lined up as the store opens. Nothing specific interests us there so we cross the street over to EMart. Only after I browse awhile does the connection dawn on me:

EMart EQuals KMart

The store is massive even by Kmart standards. The packaging of toothpaste, laundry, soap, you name it, all fascinating in its differences and sameness. But the common denominator—much more cute that the US stuff.

Gene and Linda shocked at EMart Pet Containers

EMart, very pet-friendly, has lockers to store your (small) animals outside the entrance. Note convenient poop tray.

"Garu is the boy whom Pucca likes very much. Soundless Jumping power and remarkable landing is his ability"	"Lovely gangster Matoda fall from the heaven with mission. But this mission is so, so, difficult"

We buy Pucca, Garu and Matoda notebooks and pencil boxes, plus gee-gaws promoting a few other Korean pop-culture characters. We are fascinated by these characters and the awkward, yet strangely poetic, English descriptions of their beings.

Adele and Brian enjoying Korean Barbeque

Korean Barbeque
Dinner with Brian and Adele— we do much better than we did in the restaurant our first night. Adele points to the table behind us to indicate that we will have what they are having. But the waitress shakes
us off, knowing the “migooks” won't like what they just tried to order.
She brings a platter of raw beef to the table and gets it started in the grill. Linda is anxious to turn the meat, but the waitress runs over to stop her. It is yummy and we order a second platter.
We never seem to get rice with any meal though that is supposed to be the Korean staple. Maybe I should find the word for “rice” in the phrasebook.

Above: Nigel, Kate and Gene; Below: Brian, Adele & new friend

After dinner, we cab over to Clara’s, a coffee shop near Nigel’s school, to meet up with him. He brings one of his students. The one he’s sort of seeing, I assume. I can’t remember her name, but truthfully, I don’t think I caught her name to begin with.
We have Coffee Kahluas and share cake slices.
Brian and Adele come back to our hotel. I wake Linda (who had bowed out of Clara’s). We have a nightcap, finishing off the bottle of Smirnoff that had taken us so long to hunt down that afternoon.

VIDEO: Adele explains the "fire safety" features of our hotel (Click on image to download)

We get hysterical over the fire escape system that is apparently mandatory in all Korean hotel rooms.

GENE:
“Bi Bim Man Doo” are the words for the best fucking dumplings I have ever had. I just wanted to write that down before I forgot it.

BiBimMandoo storefront

We eat at least three times in this non-descript storefront restaurant.

The Beatles Bar

Changwon Nightlife
Just returned from Bar New York where we were served M&Ms and dried silver flaky anchovies—separate dishes, at least!

Mobbed by American-curious field-tripping schoolchildren

Our young friends

These girls follow us home from EMart. I think they have a crush on Brian. One tells us her American name is "Nancy".

Friday, October 18
Last night, Nigel introduces us to two of his co-workers, but again, I couldn’t catch their names. We meet up in an area that seems to be the main restaurant/bar district. Nigel can’t find the crab restaurant he has in mind, but we quickly find a worthy substitute

Nigel with two fellow English teachers

We have two large dishes of spicy crab, in a stew-like sauce. The crab is difficult to dismantle despite lots of equipment. Gene thought it was impossible; Linda says they weren’t too meaty.
More Bek se ju, traditional Korean wine. We love it. We’re going to try to find some to take home.

Saturday, on the bus to Masan
Brian and Adele pick us up at 11. They stop for egg sandwiches served out of a flat-bed truck with
an awning. The proprietress is cooking on the grill and frying fish-shaped date-filled cakes that are supposed to be sweet and yummy, but I am too full from our hotel buffet breakfast to try it. The truck
smells like pancakes. They also serve an accordion-speared dough thing that Adele says tastes like fish.

We taxi to Nigel’s academy. He has a room on the eighth floor, with “Nigel” written on the door. The room has a tiny, full kitchen. Cute and functional, but harsh fluorescent lights.

Last night, we bowed out early and bought chocolate chip cookies, scooter-pie-like things, noodles, chips and fake cheese in yellow tubes. And banana milk. We listened to Tom Waits’ Blue Valentine on Linda’s ibook before calling it a night.

"Drinking Chivas Regal in a 100,000-won room"

Back to the bus . . .
Gene hits the “Stop” button, lighting up all the buttons on the bus . . .
Before our snack-food binge last night, we had drinks in Brian and Adele’s motel room. Their room was spacious and about one-quarter of the price of the Changwon Hotel. Much nicer than either the Korean or western-style room at the Royal Hotel in Busan too.
Brian busted open a bottle of Absolut, purchased duty-free in Tokyo. (Vodka is difficult to find in Korean liquor stores.)

Sunday
Nigel says most foreigners in South Korea are either teachers or engineers—few tourists. A large percentage of teachers here are social outcasts in their own countries, he says. “Outcasts” might be too strong, “misfits”, probably better. Many with drinking problems; some just don’t play nice with others. He tells us about a teacher at his academy who tried to steal a car buck naked.

I wonder how happy Nigel is teaching here in South Korea. I asked him that right off. He said, you know, it’s just a job. Sometimes he drops out of the conversation, obviously deep in thought.

Masan Fish Market

The fish markets in Masan might be the most visually memorable thing we encounter on our trip. Millions of fish—dead ones laid out on the ice, live ones swimming in red plastic tubs. Not only fish, but a myriad of sea creatures, including live squid and octopus and the fat pink “sea worms” that look like live dismembered human fingers sans knuckles.

Don't Try This At Home

Pig parts—
some plain, some slathered with barbeque sauce, stamped out in rows down one aisle of the market.
The severed heads of the pigs are displayed like trophies on the tables.
Near the Daewoo Department Store, we stop at a food stand that sells American-looking corn dogs and sausages on sticks. Next to the skewered sausages is a big bowl of brown stuff. Sauce, it looks like at first. But the sauce is moving, wriggling like bees or worms. Nigel says it is larvae and that it is indeed a condiment for te sausages and a treat for the kids.

Gene buys some percussion instruments at a Buddhist shop. Wooden gongs with curved handles and a long wooden stick clacker.

Ending Impressions:

LINDA:
"Its really hard cuz everyone has to eat the same thing . . . we came home and had fabulous ham and cheese sandwiches. That was my theme for the trip. I'm not sure we actually ever had ham - sometimes it was Spam and sometimes it was bologna"

We never figured out the definition of Art Bar versus Standing Bar, but we do know what Soju is—a sweet potato alcohol that tasted like vodka.
We had a Helen Keller moment about that first night in the noodle shop . . . Everybody Eats the Same Thing! The poor waitress was trying to tell us!

Our favorite random street sign