Koreans Can Drink You Under the Table

I have come to realize that no plans are ever set in stone, even when you try to solidify them in your own head. I came to this conclusion last week, a couple days after that ridiculous Rugby Sevens Tournament. (If you haven't seen the pictures yet, please check them out. They only provide a small glimpse into what it was really like those three fateful days.) I said at the end of my last post that I wanted to go to Laos for the Lao new year, however, after I went to a travel agency and inquired about prices, there was absolutely no way in hell I was going to go. Then when I went back to campus and sat down next to my good friends Chloe (a French exchange student) and Ted (Dutch), who both go to the same university in the Netherlands, they said to me, "Hey, we're going to South Korea this weekend. Want to come?" I was a little taken aback, but after realizing that we had free accommodations thanks to Chloe and Ted's friends who are on exchange in Seoul, I decided to tag along. Man, what a trip that was!

South Korea is really a very different place from the rest of Asia. We walked off the plane, welcomed by a friend of Chloe and Ted named Marijn, and got on a bus heading to our apartment. Chloe and I had one place to stay, while Ted and Hana (Ted's girlfriend) were staying at a place across the river. On the bus ride, Marijn told me all about the country and the culture. The sky is covered in Yellow Dust - a yellowish smog that originates in north China and makes its way across to the Korean peninsula and mixes with South Korea's pollution to cover everything up. We couldn't see it at the time since we arrived at night, but it was definitely noticeable the next few days. I learned all about the lifestyle that the Koreans have built for themselves. The culture is incredibly Confucian-oriented. This means that working hard, striving for success, achieving greatness through activity as oppose to reclusion and introspection are all embedded in Korean families from childhood onwards. Family is also extremely important as well. Filial piety is a Confucian virtue that is held highly. Because of this, everybody works. They work and work and work - normally for 10 hours a day, five to six days a week. I also learned that this meant there are very few beggars and homeless people in Seoul, which I found pretty interesting. Now, as a result of the hardcore working values people hold, what normally happens after work is people go out to dinner and immediately start drinking. And I don't mean having a glass of red wine the way those wimpy Americans and Europeans do. They order some soup and meat dishes, and order bottles and bottles of what I assume to be the national drink - Soju. Soju is a small bottle of liquor, maybe 350-500 mL, that costs anywhere from $1 to $2 (1,000 to 2,000 won, the Korean currency). And most of the time if you start to order enough food or alcohol, restaurants simply give you bottles for free as a way of enticing you to stay or come back. Restaurants and bars flood the city, so they have to figure out some way to keep bringing customers back, and this is that way - by handing over cheap liquor. Soju is only 20% strong, so it's weak, and it's made from sweet potato. It's got sort of a bitter-sweet taste to it. It is not delicious to drink in any sense (although some may argue with this), but due to its cheap nature and accessibility (you can get this in any 7-11, Circle K, wherever), it is the only thing people drink. And it gets you DRUNK!!! I mean Koreans just gather around tables and order bottles and bottles of Soju, enough that it tallies up to around 2 bottles per person, if not more. I began this post with this explanation because I want to make sure all you readers understand the Korean culture, because we really experienced it, from our first night of arrival to heading back to the airport.

Once Chloe and I dropped our stuff off in the apartment Chloe's friend set us up with, we walked over to the center of the neighborhood, Sinchon, where bars and restaurants and more bars and convenient stores just line the streets. It's similar to Japan in that there aren't so many buildings for each establishment, but they all are just stacked one on top of the other. There could be two restaurants and three bars all in one building, but they're all on different floors, so you either take an elevator or stairs up to wherever you want to go. So Marijn took the two of us to this restaurant so we could grab a bite and we met a bunch of their exchange student friends. And first thing's first. Chloe's other friend from university, Jasper, was there and immediately ordered the following: a 5-liter barrel of beer, two pitchers of kiwi juice and Soju, and two more bottles of Soju for us to add to the alcoholic fruit-juice pitchers. And then it was just shot after shot after shot of kiwi/Soju juice. There was no messing around. That's what Koreans did. A few tables away from us was a group of Koreans just going at it with plain Soju. There were maybe 7 of them and easily there were at least 10 or 12 empty bottles of Soju scattered around the table. And to deny a shot of Soju - how dare you. Don't even think such a thought. That's not the Korean way. Just take it and kindly make your way to the bathroom, puke if necessary, and head back for 7 more shots. That's what Chloe and I saw that night. She went to the bathroom and came back with a look that just screamed "I just saw a girl puking in the sink". It was great. A few hours went by, and then we finally met up with Ted and Hana and some of Ted's friends. And then we did the next thing that Koreans do while drunk (aside from pass out on the sidewalk) - we went to noraebang (a.k.a. karaoke). We started at 3 am and made sure to bring in plenty of Soju and orange juice, singing songs, well more like shouting lyrics that appeared on the TV screen as loud as possible, everything from Elton John's Tiny Dancer to Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody to Backstreet Boys to Journey to 2Pac to Billy Joel's Piano Man to Neil Diamond's Sweet Caroline to Aerosmith to Bon Jovi. I mean how many songs can a group of six sing in 3 hours? Because that's how long we were there. We didn't get home until 6 am - and this was Thursday night, the first night we arrived in Seoul. It was an epic night for sure. And since I had the only camera with battery, I just left it on the table and let whoever had the urge to do so take pictures and videos. I woke up the next morning. One of my memory cards was full. We had taken 130 pictures.

I forced Chloe out of bed and once she had showered and woken up (in a grumpy mood as most girls are when they don't have enough sleep), we walked over to the Yonsei University, where Jasper and Marijn were studying. The campus is enormous, acting as home to close to 20,000 students (I think), stretching a good half mile length-wise. After lunch and desperately calling some tour companies to try and book a tour to the DMZ (Demilitarized Zone, 38th Parallel), and not having any luck connecting with anybody, Chloe and I made our way towards City Hall to see Deoksugung Palace. Built in the 15th Century and located in a central part of Seoul, it was very nice to walk around the gardens in peace and quiet, admiring the grandness of the buildings and being a bit surprised to see not only Chinese architecture but also Western-style buildings, with flat roofs and columns. Shortly after, we met up with Ted and Hana right as the changing of the guards ceremony was about to take place. It was incredibly touristy - a voice over a loudspeaker announced in Korean, English, Japanese, and Mandarin what was going on and giving a brief history lesson on the guards. Feeling ridiculous and forcing myself to experience the "traditional Korea", I walked over to a tent that was handing out uniforms to tourists to try on for free. Who was I to pass up this amazing authentic opportunity, to dress up as a real guard and stand next to a "commander/guard/leader" in the same uniform? So I put on the long robe and large-billed hat and "took part" in the changing of the guards ceremony. Very cheesy and corny and touristy, but still made for a good laugh for everybody. The four of us then went to Seoul's largest temple/palace, Gyeongbokgung. It was the original palace of the ancient Joseon Dynasty in the 14th century, and was mostly destroyed by Japanese invasions, and subsequently rebuilt. A huge complex with buildings for every purpose imaginable (housing, eating, hosting guests, etc...), it was really gorgeous walking around with the sun setting, turning the yellowish-blue sky into a darker orange color. After that pleasant visit, Chloe and I went back to our place to nap, since we were still so exhausted from the night before, and had set up a time to meet Jasper for dinner. The three of us went to an all-you-can-eat Korean BBQ place. Sitting around our own personal grill, Jasper brought us plates and plates of meet (pork, beef, spicy beef, and chicken) and as we grilled them to perfection, sprinkling cloves of garlic over it to give it some flavor, we started off with some beer and saved ourselves from the sickness that was a direct result from all the Soju from the night before. I have never been in a better place eating meat. The tenderness and juicyness of it all was simply unreal. It's customary to take pieces of lettuce actually and place pieces of meat inside it, smear some tangy/spicy sauce over it, wrap it all up, and just chomp down and devour it. All around us, the smell of cooked beef overwhelmed every other sense I had, as I watched tables covered in meat and Soju bottles and each table's residents just having another night of eating and drinking. Moderation is not in a Korean's vocabulary. After dinner, Chloe and I met up with Ted and Hana at a bar across town to celebrate the birthday of a friend of his, and we took it easy, only having a few drinks, enjoying the music and company and atmosphere of it all. In bed by 3ish, we felt lucky to have at least the chance to get more sleep.

The next day Chloe and I had planned on meeting Ted and Hana at a metro stop by a huge market called Dongdaemun. I was still a bit frustrated we couldn't book a DMZ tour and so I told Chloe I was going to actually go to a tour agency and try and do it. She was going to go to the metro since her skepticism kept leading her to believe it'd be impossible. I eventually found an agency in a hotel that had over 35 floors, and when I asked to book a tour for the next day, I can't imagine what the expression on my face must have looked like when she said, "No problem." It had to be somewhere between sunshine bursting in from a curtain-covered window and the smile one puts on after a few drinks have been consumed. Relief, joy, excitement - I immediately booked a tour for the four of us. Excited to tell the gang, I made my way back over to Dongdaemun and saw Chloe sitting alone waiting for Ted and Hana. After we both talked about how great it was that we would actually be able to go and see North Korea and how mad we were at Ted and Hana for standing us up, we began our trek through the Dongdaemun. The most impressive thing about that was the lines and rows and stacks of shoes. Literally hundreds of shoes just flanking the path, and calling out to Chloe. So I left her to her shopping and just wandered on my own, walking through the aisles of food stalls and clothing shops and the flea market where you can buy anything from a flat screen tv to a typewriter to second-hand guitars to porn. I met back up with Chloe for lunch and we continued walking through, just admiring all the things on sale and feeling shocked at how whenever we found anything intriguing and inquired about the price then tried to bargain, the vendors would not budge one bit. They gave us a look of disgust and insult, refusing to even think about partaking in the activity we were so used to in our travels. One of the weirdest things I did was try silkworm larvae. A huge bowl of empty shells sat next to another huge bowl of steaming larvae, and I just took a toothpick on the cart, picked one up, and bit into it. It was easily one of the most disgusting things I've ever put in my mouth. It tasted the way it smelled - old, salty, sea. It was just terribly unpleasant. And when I crunched into it, the microscopic inner organs and guts burst into my mouth and were so small that I couldn't fully swallow them, so they were stuck in my mouth and gums and I had to buy water to swirl it around and get the whole taste and feel of it out. I just went through that graphic depiction to illustrate just how gross I found it, though I'm sure locals gladly pay the few thousand won for a whole cup of it. After several hours of Dongdaemun, Chloe and I were tired but I wasn't ready to go home. She went back to our place to nap and I took a small detour to an area called Apgujeong. An exchange student from Korea told me about this place and he said it's interesting to visit because it's where everybody gets their plastic surgery done. I walked along the main street and was pretty impressed at the consecutive buildings all headlining their practice - "Plastic Surgery", "Aesthetic Construction", "Cosmetic Work". Just a couple stories high, but it was just where everybody gets that sort of work done. Kind of interesting to see that. Apparently it's a big thing in Korea for girls as a birthday present to receive a 'gift' of surgery. I went back to nap for a little before meeting up with Chloe, Ted, Hana, and some others (Ted and Hana apparently thought I was talking about another metro station and so they waited at the wrong station for an hour, thinking we would show up), but they were all very excited to know we would be going to the DMZ the following morning. That night was not that special. We actually went back to eat Korean BBQ again since Ted and Hana hadn't tried it and then we went to an area filled with bars and restaurants that is popular among university students. It was a good fun-filled night.

The next morning, the tour agency picked Ted and Hana up from their apartment, then came our way and got us, and we started the hour-long drive to the #1 destination that was on our lists when we organized our trip to Seoul: the 38th Parallel. After we got out of the city of Seoul, the road was all of a sudden walled-in by barbed-wire fences, that just followed the sides of the road all the way down. The feeling started to creep in slowly that we were about to see a country that is so isolated from the rest of the world, that is so different and controlled. We got off the tour agency's bus and got onto another bus, the official bus that would take us through to the sites that were included in our tour. The first thing we did was watch a 7-minute video of the current status of the DMZ. It opened up with a little girl in no man's land balled up on the ground with her hands covering her ears, trying to block out the sounds of explosions. Then the movie went into a narrative about the history of it and how North Korean and South Korean guards currently face each other at some parts and how it is home to "rare plants and extinct animals" (though I'm not sure how possible it is that extinct animals live there). It was just total propaganda, trying to reassure the tourist crowd that it's a safe destination and that it is and will always be a part of Korea's home and how it's not as dangerous as it really is. The closing lines of the movie were: "The DMZ is our land. The DMZ is our home." with the image of the same little girl from the beginning standing up with a big smile on her face pointing to a butterfly flying over the barbed-wire fence. How ridiculous! Walking away laughing, the four of us then descended into the 3rd Tunnel. In the '90s I think, South Korea discovered four tunnels that North Korea had dug and were planning to use to infiltrate their southern counterpart. Stretching over 1,600 km length-wise and 75 meters below ground, we were actually able to walk a couple hundred meters of it, up to this closed off door that leads through the DMZ and into North Korea. It was interesting to hear the North Korean's explanations of the tunnel that South Korea just took as a blatant lie because it was just plain false. Our next stop was the best of all, the Observatory. Located on a hilltop, it presented an entire view of the DMZ and into North Korea. The day was gorgeous and clear, so we were actually able to see all the way into Kaesong. Directly in front we saw the South Korea barbed-wire fence strangle its way along the land and then just barren dirt and grass for about 4 kilometers, and then the North Korean fence line, and along these two boundaries were guard posts. Very clearly in front of us was the 160-meter tall flagpole with the 300-kilogram North Korean flag waving proudly. This flagpole is in what our tour guide called Propaganda Village. It's an entire village, fully developed with buildings and streets and lights - but is empty. It's a ghost town. Nobody lives there. The government just built it there to make it look like a real village. Why? For what purpose? Who knows. But they're not fooling anybody. It's certain that nobody lives at there. Very creepy. We were looking out into another world. A world where Orwell's fictional 1984 is a reality. Where wiretaps are not uncommon and food is not a luxury. What's even more strange is that about 15 feet back from the front of the lookout area is a yellow line, and you cannot take pictures beyond that yellow line. The line is just far enough that you can't raise your camera above your head, take a picture, and get anything substantial, no matter how tall you are or how high you reach, and they yelled at Ted when he put Chloe on his shoulders to take a picture, and there are binoculars where you can put a coin in to get a closer look at the forbidden land set up about 5 feet apart from each other, so they block your view even more. It's virtually impossible for a tourist to take a good photo of the land of North Korea. However, Ted and I being the stupid risk-takers managed to place our bodies in front of our camera and click the shutter without the guards catching us. Well, actually as we walked away, one of the guards stopped Ted and asked to look at his pictures, and they found the illegal one he took, but it's so bad and you can't see any buildings at all that he talked his way out of it. And actually, one of his pictures is amazing. It's possible to see the flag and Propaganda Village, and he took it from behind the line. It's really incredible. The next cool destination was the last rail station in South Korea. Once/If the countries unite, that will be the way for people to go from Seoul to Kaesong or Pyongyang. And once/if this occurs, then the Trans-Siberian Railway is planned to go through the Korean Peninsula. Seoul to Paris - what a voyage that would be! That train station is pretty crazy. Completely built up, ready to go, and is actually operational, but doesn't go any further. And the South Koreans advertise it in a positive way: it's not the last station in South Korea, it's the first station to North Korea. Ticket counters, chairs, operational marquee signs with dates and times, it's all there. We went to lunch next and had traditional bibimbap. Not sure how to describe it. A mixture of rice and some meat and lots of veggies. Then we went back, and met up with Jasper and went to the Seoul Tower, a great spot to look out and see the vastness of Seoul, except that it was pretty cloudy and smoggy. Whatever. It was a good day. We finished up with a delicious fresh fish dinner, and another great repeat of Thursday night - Soju and noraebang. Turning it at 1 am though instead of 6, we got some sleep for our early flight the next day.

All in all it was a great trip and really an interesting experience. Seeing Korea and the DMZ was incredible. I feel like I've seen the real Asia between China, Japan, and Korea. And after visiting the Cu Chi Tunnels, Hiroshima, and the 38th Parallel, I've pretty much covered all major 20th century battles (with the exception of WWI). I think that's a pretty cool feat. As for the rest of my travels, I have about 10-14 days before finals to go somewhere (and it's between Malaysia, Indonesia, Brunei, or a combination of two of those three, or possibly Burma or maybe Laos and north Vietnam - I really have no idea) but I'm definitely going through Thailand and Cambodia after finals before the family comes over. It's been a great semester and I can't believe it's almost over. Check out the pictures to come.