Me Update & The DMZ

This blog post is dedicated to one of my regular readers, who always emails so politely to enquire as to my health when I haven't written for a while. Apologies for the big gap between posts, a full explanation is below.

I'll start with the me update then, before I get on to the interesting anecdotes and pretty photos. I know I spend most of my time complaining about how busy I am in almost every blog post, but this time I really, really am. The first, and saddest, reason is that Linda has now gone back to the USA after her year in Korea. I'm not sure this is the appropriate place to say much about it, but what it did mean was that the weekends before she went were filled entirely with crossing things off the Korea bucket list. Again, more on that below.

Professionally things are getting more interesting right now. As well as teaching and studying (though I'm now a bit behind on my MA stuff) I'm also doing some extra work as a workshop presenter. Last weekend I gave a three hour workshop at a middle school in Gangneung on the application of technology for teaching writing, and in a couple of weekend's time I'm presenting at the Gangwon KOTESOL meeting on taking advantage of your student's expertise. The technology was great, and went really well, but required a couple of nights spent practising in front of the mirror, plus a while learning how to use and abuse Prezi to make a fancy presentation in keeping with the technological theme.

I can't remember, and can't be bothered to look, if I had made a decision on my future last time I wrote, but I have now finally decided to change jobs next year. As much as I love my little town, and my school, it's getting frustrating teaching students from whom perhaps two or three per year will go on to study English at university, despite it being one of the four core subjects in the curriculum. I feel I would be better served trying to help some students who actually want to speak English, rather than just pass their exams. Anyway, job hunting takes even more time, but I have a couple of interesting options for next year already, and hopefully a few more to come. I'm going to stay coy on those before they have actually happened, but I will be in Korea for sure next year.

I think that's most of the news about me for now. Oh, I will be back in England some time in the first couple of months of the year, but only for ten days at most. Once I have figured out when, I'll let you all know and see if we can figure out a time to have an ale or two.

The DMZ

One of the items on the above mentioned 'Korea bucket list' was to visit the DMZ, or demilitarized zone, a 4km wide area that runs the width of the peninsula and divides the two Koreas. A few weeks ago we booked ourselves on a tour, and on Saturday morning climbed on a bus and set off North Westwards from Seoul.

A brief history lesson then, to set you off. On 25th June, 1950 the Soviet supported Northern region of the Korean peninsula invaded the US and UN supported South. They made huge gains, driving the Southern forces several hundred km back almost to Busan on the south-east tip. Then MacArthur made a famous landing at Incheon, getting behind the North Korean troops and causing havoc. This meant that the UN forces drove the North back almost to the Chinese border, at which point the Chinese entered the war and pushed the UN forces back to more or less the 38th parallel, where everything had started. With something like 2 million casualties suffered by the two sides and the civilian population, a truce was called. Significantly though, this was not an armistice, and so technically the war continues to this day. Under the terms of the treaty, both sides pulled back their troops 2 km, a border was set up and thus the DMZ came into existence.

The first stop on the tour is the third infiltration tunnel. This was the scene of an attempted Northern incursion, which was promptly ended when an SK agent discovered the plot and grassed them up. Seemingly (and this is the impression I got, as I was chatting to someone during the talk) the North Koreans tried to claim it was a coalmine, to the point of covering it in coaldust. The South wasn't buying it though, and set up huge concrete barricades as well as flooding parts of the tunnel. Whatever, as an example of digging it's pretty impressive, being several hundred metres below ground and hewn through hard rock. Typically, with anything North Korean, it was also intended for people about 4 foot 6 high. I'm noticing a strong correlation between NK sightseeing and safety helmets. Due to it being a tunnel, and thus not particularly photogenic, you'll have to make do with this description.

Next stop was the observation platform. This gave us our first real glimpse of the DMZ, and it's only human settlements. Under the terms of the treaty two villages were allowed in the DMZ, one North and one South. There is also the Kaesong industrial region, where North and South Koreans work side by side, though they are not allowed to talk to each other. If you look at the photo below, you can see Kaesong to the left, The North Korean village in the centre, and the white flag on the far right is the South Korean village of Daeseong. This was the tallest flagpole in the world when the South donated it to the village, until of course the North built a bigger one. Life in the DMZ seems pretty sweet. You don't pay taxes and the government buys 100% of your rice crop. You also dodge the mandatory national service that the rest of the country has to do. The flipside is that you havea midnight curfew, and absolutely bugger all to do seemingly. Interestingly, if you meet a girl from Daeseong you're not allowed to marry her and move into the village to escape your military service.

The three settlements in the DMZ.

Yeah, I'm wearing a lumberjack shirt. Yes, I'm annoyed that it suits me.

After that we headed down to the last station in South Korea. Trains obviously don't run any further than this, but the tracks run on into the DMZ and allegedly link up with the trans-siberian railway above North Korea. Apparently this is a sentimental place for Koreans, which is odd as it's a large, clinical and deserted modern station.

If it wasn't for Kim Jong Il I could go home on the train!

"To Pyeongyang" is more in hope than timetabling.

The checkpoint that leads to the Kaesong industrial complex.

After a stop for lunch, we got to the highlight of the tour - a visit to Panmunjeom. This is the village that contains 'Conference Row', where negotiations between the two sides usually take place. We get an official American Military Police escort, the aptly and brilliantly monickered "Specialist Blood" (some wit on the bus asks him if it's his real name) and a briefing in which we are told that the North Koreans might come down to look at us, and on no account to communicate or make eye contact with them. After that it's off to the real thing. Panmunjeom is even more eeriely quiet than the rest of the DMZ. The sole signs of life are the three Korean MP's (there for our protection) who stand in Taekwondo poses staring blankly across the border to the NK side. The prospect of being investigated by the North Koreans doesn't really materialize, except for the lone soldier on the Northern side steps who picks up a pair of binoculars for a better look. I wonder what he makes of us photographing him. From what I read of life in the North, very very few people have cameras of any sort, let alone ones built in to phones like the one I'm wielding. Does he think we're just propaganda paraded by the Imperialist South? (Are we?)

Conference Row and the NK building.

Specialist Blood.

I might be wondering if I'm about to get shot in this photo. More likely I'm just hating having my photo taken.

Being observed by the North. Look closely and you can see the guy with his binoculars.

Probably the most exciting part of the tour is going into the centre building of Conference Row. The building itself is pretty unexciting, just a blue hut with a large wooden table in the centre. We're asked to file around the table, and being near the front we find ourselves on the far side. It's at this point that Specialist Blood informs us that we just wandered into "Communist North Korea". It feels a bit odd to be honest, standing in the country that is always slightly overshadowing our lives here. We get told a couple of good stories, one about a South Korean guard who was left alone in the building and was dragged through to the Northern side, and another about a Northern soldier who got into the conference room, whose feet were so rank that whatever was on them ate the varnish on the table away. We pose for some photos with the guards, and then leave North Korea again.

On holiday in the North.

"I know what'll be really original. I'll copy this soldier's pose. No-one else will have though of that..."

Straddling the border.

The point of the soldier's pose, expression and glasses is to convey no emotion whatsoever towards the North. Has Linda grasped this fact? I'll let you decide.

The final part of the tour takes us out to Guardpost Three, and then the Bridge of No Return and the Axe Murder Incident Memorial. Guardpost Three is one of the furthest advanced points in the DMZ, surrounded on three sides by North Korean territory. From here you get an excellent view of the North Korean Propaganda Village, which is entirely unoccupied, except for the enormous flag fluttering above it. I say fluttering, it's probably more of a flap as the flag weighs enough that it takes 30 men to raise and lower it, which happens quite often as in strong winds it's heavy enough to tear itself to pieces. For any potential mercenaries out there, a 1m by 1m piece of the flag carries a significant bounty from Soldier of Fortune magazine.

The white posts there mark the border between North and South.

There's the flag, and your bounty. Don't be fooled by the pastoral appearance in front of it though. It's mostly a minefield.

Linda, backed by North Korea.

I rank North Korea among the prettiest of communist pariah states.

The last two sights on the tour are the site of the Axe Murder Incident and The Bridge of No Return. You can read the Wikipedia entry for the full story. I did think the soldier that told it to us told it with a little too much relish for one talking about the death of a fellow serviceman (think huge emphasis on "Bruuuuuuutal"). The Bridge of No Return was the site of prisoner exchanges once hostilities had ceased, and is no more accurately The Bridge of No Crossings At All, seeing as nobody has set foot on it since then.

The axe murder memorial.

The Bridge of No Return.

After those visits the tour finished with a trip to the gift shop, and then a bus ride back to Seoul past the Korean parliament building (below). If you happen to be in Korea, I can highly recommend this tour, but make sure that you do the USO one, as it's the only one that gets you into Panmunjeom, and hence allows you to bore your friends senseless with stories of the time you "went to North Korea". I'll be back soon, you lucky, lucky people.

Adios,

A

Jeju in a day and a half

Jeju Air ad campaign: "Look! Whiteys fly us too!"

This summer in Korea has been, not to put too fine a point on it, shit. The two week spring rainy season that usually marks the beginning of summer came, and was still going three months later. It rained almost constantly, with tragic consequences for some of the country. On my side of the country it didn’t rain quite so hard, but it did rain persistently, destroying many of the local farm crops and much more importantly (ok, not really) my football season.

Korea is a very outdoorsy country. The fact that it’s almost entirely mountainous and a small country surrounded by the sea on three-sides means that a lot of the summer is spent hiking, going to the beach and picnicking. This means that if it rains all summer, life gets very boring. After finally getting a weekend of some promise a couple of weeks ago, the forecast returned to rainy. A certain someone declared that if she spent another weekend in the rain, she was going to go “literally insane”. As Mr. Rochester well knew, it’s not becoming of an Englishman to have a mental significant other and as my apartment has no attic space, drastic action became necessary.

Jeju is often called “the Hawaii of Korea”, mostly due to the fact that it’s an enormous volcano and the weather’s hot. Not surprisingly it makes for a popular holiday destination for Koreans and foreigners alike. It also happened to be the only place blinking out from underneath a swathe of cloud over Korea on the weather forecast. A look at the Jeju air website (Korea’s answer to Easyjet, right down to the colour scheme) showed two tickets left for the weekend, which we decided to snap up. A note to Korean residents, it’s well worth checking out Jeju Air; even last minute tickets were about KRW90,000 all-in (one way) and if you’re flexible with your times you can get about a third off that. It felt a little louche flying somewhere for just one night, as well as wracking me with guilt about my carbon footprint having got back from Bangkok just a week ago, but I also really wanted to see Jeju.

Flying domestic in Korea was a beautiful experience. Even arriving an hour before take-off, we had plenty of time for a coffee and a snack, and I think realistically we could have got from check-in to seated on the plane in about 15 minutes if we had wanted. I’m trying to figure out how I can fly domestic back to England next time I want to come home. We pitched up in Jeju with the noble intention of climbing Halla-san, at 1950m Korea’s highest peak, but the combination of it being stinking hot even at 8am, a blackberry wine nightcap the previous evening and feeling lazy led to us taking a two hour nap at the hotel instead.

A hastily put together new plan saw us heading out to explore the north-east coast of Jeju. First stop was Gin-nyeom beach, one of what I imagine is one of Jeju’s less famous beaches, owing to its small size, preponderance of rocks and over-craning wind turbines. I thought all of that made it more charming actually, and definitely less crowded. When we got bored of paddling there were rock-pools containing hermit crabs, shrimp and small fish to explore.

Linda "wading".

Sunshine home day out.

Looking for crabs (snicker)

The wind turbines

After that it was a short taxi-ride to Mangjanggeul – apparently the world’s largest lava tube, where once molten rock from the volcano cone burrowed its way through the island to the sea. In all honesty, you should prepare yourself for a fairly cold, damp walk with only a couple of interesting rock formations to maintain interest. It is just about worth it for the petrified lava flow at the end though, which descends from the ceiling a bit like an elephant’s leg (and by extension, I reckon, like a doner kebab stick).

Just down the road from the lava tube is a rather wonderful maze park, though curiously you are given a map of the maze so you can figure out the route, which seems a bit self-defeating to me. Perhaps Koreans don’t like getting lost (the preponderance of sat-navs in this country would seem to bear this out too). Anyway, apparently about 10% of people complete the maze in 5 minutes. I’m guessing that’s with the map; it took us nearer half an hour, and that was with following a couple with a map who rushed past us at a key decision point. Still, the maze is great fun and a very entertaining diversion for a few minutes.

"I'll descend into your lava tube"

Thanks Japanese man who took our photo. Thanks for NOTHING!

The big spinning stick?

Asian maiden

The sign says "No kissing" - any excuse for a snog.

Finishee!

The maze from above.

After that we headed back to Jeju City to what was undoubtedly the highlight of the weekend – Loveland. Describing this is tricky. You’d have to describe it as an erotic sculpture park I think, but that gets nowhere near to capturing quite how much sheer fun you have there. Everything there seems to be about sex, from the giant penis and labia that form the centre-piece (lol) of the park, to the cute mating pigs which ornament the ponds. It’s not so much the statues though, as the wandering around in the dark with a bunch of half-drunk Koreans giggling at things. At one stage I joined the back of a three man queue to simulate sex with a statue. One man's heavily pregnant wife took the photo; I couldn’t really tell whether she was having a good time or not, nor strangely, whether he was. It’s a weird place, Loveland, never more so than when we get the sex-gift-shop sales pitch: “This is bestseller!” shrieks a lady at us holding a fiercely vibrating pair of beads. We blush, and leave hurriedly. Where on earth did Korea’s repressed sexuality disappear to all of a sudden? Anyway, we leave the park still giggling – Loveland comes highly recommended.

Enter!

"Wait your turn son."

Boob grab

I thought we were on Jeju, not lesbos.

Something about Linda mounting a massive cock.

"..."

Linda enjoying herself

Then it’s back into town for a pint of Jeju’s own micro-brewed ale from the Modern Time brewery. Disappointingly, anything that looks interesting on the list of beers is unavailable, so we go for a pint of stout and a pint of the regular, neither of which were anything special, sadly. I’m still waiting to have a really good pint on the peninsula, though Alley Kat deserves an honourable mention. We also end up trying a bottle of Hallsan Soju, the taste of which now makes me feel like a bit of a wuss when I drink Chamiseul.

In the morning we actually manage to get up in time for breakfast at the hotel, and then head off for the beach. A bit of a false start at I-ho beach (not that nice, but good for plane spotters) we end up at Hallim beach, which turns out to be a great tip from our taxi driver, and as you can see from the photos, is stunning. We spend the morning swimming and relaxing under a parasol (I’m going to change my last name to Kim pretty soon, but at least I avoided nuclear sunburn this time) and generally having a great time.

Well Korean

The beachee

The banana boat stand wasn't doing so well

So yeah, turns out you can do Jeju in just one night, and it’s very worth it. Only problem is, you really want to go back…

A

Goodness

Has it really been more than a month? It honestly doesn't feel like it, but it must be. As ever, I've been really busy, and I'm already back to the night before my first class of this semester. The masters project is in (all 98 pages of it) and I have a few weeks off from studying, which will be a welcome break.

The day after I handed the project in I headed off for a week's break in Bangkok. It's nice being on this side of the world and having some fairly exotic destinations close at hand, and in a time zone similar enough to negate jetlag. Thus, without really knowing much about what I was doing or where I was going, I headed off to see Adam and Kathryn.

The first thing that struck me about Bangkok is what an international city it is. Having come from Seoul it was pleasing to see so many different people and hear so many different accents. It’s been a while since I was able to play guess where someone is from (except with Americans and Canadians), especially based on what language they are speaking. Weirdly though, it was also fun to play spot the Korean. Any girls with their shoulders, and almost everything else covered with a very flashy pair of shoes poking out from the bottom almost certainly were. Men were a bit harder to spot, and I did get fooled once by a couple in couple wear. Seems like the Thais lack a sense of dignity too.

Probably my favourite way that the international nature of Bangkok manifests itself is through the food. Restaurants there seem to be owned by nationals of that country, whereas in Korea they often seem to be Koreanized. This means you can get pizza without potato wedges (actually not bad) and curry that hasn’t had half a dairy poured in it. Even better, you can get a proper breakfast with real black pudding, and rather disappointing steak and ale pie. It also gave me a chance to revisit the all you can eat Japanese meat fest (ooh-err) that is shabu-shabu. When the waitress brought out our 17th tray of meat, I was finally able to put aside the disappointment of Tokyo 2006, when I made a foolish decision not to order more meat with 10 minutes of our all-you-can-eat time remaining.

It’s also well worth mentioning the Thai food we ate. Bangkok is one of those wonderful cities with a proper street culture, and the food to match. Wherever you go in the city, you pass food stands selling a variety of meats on sticks, fried chicken or for a more substantial meal, noodle soup or rice with duck or pork belly – you choose (we chose both). The curries and coconut based soups are also spectacular – I’ve returned armed with some packs of pastes determined to recreate some. The only thing I didn’t manage to eat was Pad Thai, which loses me 100 tourist points apparently.

Being exhausted from a month of hard MA work, and several months of teaching without a break, we wisely decided not to spend all of our time whizzing around Bangkok in a tuc-tuc trying to see everything the city has to offer, figuring that drinking lots of beer in the evenings was a better way to relax than tourism. We managed to stick to the more legitimate bars in Bangkok. I don’t think I even saw a ladyboy, and disappointingly the midgets on motorbikes sex show I was promised by the guidebook never really materialized.

We did do some touristy stuff, checking out the Grand Palace (proving that the Thais are a little more decorative in their buddhing than the Koreans), Khao San Road (surprisingly only one set of dreadlocks) and a large market which sold almost everything, as long as it was what I’d classify as “ethnic sh*t”. By far the best thing we did was visit the “Ancient City”, a huge park in the shape of Thailand, with models of buildings both standing and destroyed in the position they hold/held in the country. It’s an awesome way to see a lot of Thai architecture in one place, as well as to spend your time zipping about between monuments using either a bike, golf cart or car as you choose. The only downside being that when we went it was full of obnoxious children all on bicycles, a recipe for disaster wherever you are.

On my last day I sampled a last little bit of Thai culture before getting on the plane, the Thai massage. I don’t know about you, but when I think of a massage in an exotic land, I imagine nubile young girls, candles and lots of oil. Thai massage, be forewarned, is a little different. It starts with a rather nice footbath, where the guy washing my feet does well to hide his horror at the nuclear sunburn on my legs I managed to pick up on the only day of this Korean summer. Then I get led to a darkened room, where he proceeds to sit on top of me, crack every joint in my body and dig his fingers into my muscles. Not really what I’d imagined beforehand I must say.

As an Englishman, my natural territory is not a darkened room being manhandled by a male masseur, thus I tense up. At one point he has to actually tell me to relax. My problems are compounded by the fact that having just put away a lot of thinly sliced meat swished in broth, I now need to pass gas quite urgently. This doesn’t help with the relaxation, particularly when he pumps my thing up towards my torso, almost receiving a face full of fetid air in the process. The massage ends with him sitting on my calves with me lying on my front, and grabbing my arms and pulling them back so I’m bent completely the wrong way in the middle. Twice. “Don’t worry Grev,” says Kathryn, “You might feel a bit sore now but in the morning you’ll be able to move everything and it will feel great.” Some hours later, I awake after an hours sleep crunched into an economy airline seat. I can’t move anything, and I feel rubbish. So much for Thai massage.

So lots of whinging, but I did actually have a great time. I’d definitely go back to Bangkok, there seems to be a lot to explore there and it would definitely be an interesting place to live. It’s probably where I’ll end up when I’m 40, balding and lonely, as that seems to be the type who does well with the ladies there. Thanks loads to Adam and Kathryn who put me up, showed me around and annoyingly refused to let me pay for anything. I took your advice guys and bought myself a trendy new wallet at duty free.

There’s a Flickr album of my photos here.

I’ll try to put a few more adventure photos up soon. Until then, it’s back to the kids.

Alex

Jeokdeokdo

A couple of weekends ago we set off to do some offshore exploring among the islands in the West Sea, off the (air)port city of Incheon, where Linda lives. The most famous of these is probably Yeonpyeong-do, up in the north, which was the scene of a North Korean attack last year when we all got a little nervous. We eschewed this option in favour of the more southerly Jeokdeokdo, safely out of North Korean artillery range, but more importantly with nicer beaches.

We took an early ferry out of Incheon port, which at 44,000 won seemed rather expensive, but given that it worked out to 30 pounds return for an hour trip, probably just points to the fact that transport here is usually ridiculously cheap. This gave us the chance to have a look at the new Incheon airport bridge, which really is impressive. As you can see below, it's pretty long and must have been incredibly expensive. No wonder the Korean Highways Agency is tricking people into using it.

We get off the ferry and hang around in the port town for an hour or so, getting a coffee while we waited for a bus. This duly arrived, and we set off for the beach with about 30 other people. At the beach, everyone gets off the bus, and disappears. Linda and I are the only people on a 1km long stretch of beach. We're not really that sure where everyone went, but we assume it was to the pensions (houses you can rent for the weekend) up in the village. Wherever they went, it seems that these Korean people were not big beach goers.

The beach itself was really nice, a long stretch of sand, which turned into mud flats before the sea. There were many of the shells below around, which proved surprisingly mobile. The flats were also inhabited by lots of small fish, and huge crabs like the one below.

OK, so maybe not so huge, but interesting to look at at least. We also went for a paddle, and then just hung out on the beach. I wrote lovey messages to "Rinda" in Korean, and then we went off to get some Kalguksu for lunch. This turned out to be incredibly tasty, so much so that I forgot to photograph it.

After that, it was almost time to go home again, after having a quick beer in the park. There was time while waiting for the ferry to take a photo that shows what a nice day Linda had, and how much I hate photos.

I've just realised that this is a quite horrifically boring blog post. If you get this far I apologise. I will try to write something a little more exciting.

A