Wally Nes’ Blog

First one of the “other stuff”
Some people I’ve been in contact with know that I’ve been bitching a lot about the lack of air conditioning in this house. This has been rectified.

We have A/C. Glorious A/C!
I can work in our office with a shirt on (to much relief of our neighbours I should think) and can now wake up/go to sleep dry. Going outside daily still means I go through 2 shirts a day, but inside our house is now as much a haven as the subway, 7/11 or any number of random other places here.

The reason I like the A/C isn’t the temperature difference. Really, between on and off is 3-4 degrees difference. No, what makes the difference is the humidity decrease.
Now, when I lived in the Netherlands I always assumed we had humid summers. I survived a 2 month assignment on a Queensland farm after all and working in 45 degrees (in the non-existent shade) was no exception. Make sure you cover up your fragile skin as much as possible, lather up on the exposed bits and hydrate. Don’t get me wrong, it was hot. But, as I hear my friend from New Mexico echoing in my mind now “It’s a DRY heat”. The Netherlands may, at one point in the last century, actually have gotten above 40 degrees. Perhaps even twice. Mostly though we have mid 30s in our summers. But it’s a lot harder being productive in that heat than it ever was in Oz. It was the humidity.

Then I came to Korea, installed A/C and after 4 hours of running the damn thing this was what our condensation run-off looked like:

That’s a 18.9 liter container. 4 hours of running it and it took that much water out of our air. I still have to empty the thing every 2-3 days now.
Usually people have the run-off outside, but the positioning didn’t allow for that, so we have this. My initial idea was to put a plant under it. I don’t think waterlilies could withstand that much water.

Another notable difference in the weather here and back home is that the heart of summer will sometimes last as long as 3 weeks there. Then the weather gets crappy again. It’s been 3 months here, and we’ve only just reached the worst part of the summer I’ve been told. Oh man.

Next on the list: The time capsule village.

It was a hot and lazy Sunday afternoon when I concluded I hadn’t really done anything touristy in a month. There wasn’t enough time left in the day to go to the area with the palaces, but on the other side of the mountain/park we live on is the Namsangol Hanok Village, featuring “Timecapsule square” which I’m sure gives you more of an idea what the village is about.

Let me first point out the deep, deep sense of authenticity they strive for:

popcorn ₩1,000. Hell yeah

The park was pretty good. It reminded me of a park we visited in Tokyo, it was with the vulcanus crew, before we took the boat to Asakusa, maybe someone remembers and has pictures of it online. Despite that I draw your attention to it, I don’t actually have any pictures to substantiate this claim. It is surrounded by city, but obviously distant, and that makes for a nice sanctuary feeling

Nice relaxing greeneries if you don’t look beyond the treeline though

And the village itself offered workshops in straw braiding


fan decoration

and many other things.

A different aspect of Korean culture, and one anyone that has ever experienced will agree with, is that rules in Korea are guidelines. Traffic lights are suggestions, striping and lanes are hardly adhered to, and signs are . . . . well, pretty.

The rest of the pictures can be found here.

The last major subject of interest is Orion.

There’s not a lot of good pictures of him yet, but we proudly present the newest addition to our family:

Orion is a Shetland Sheepdog/Sheltie of about 1 year old. We’ve had him for a week now and as an anniversary present we took him back to the vet to have his nuts removed. Lucky dog, getting adopted by us. But it’s the reason for the cone around his head. He’s not allowed to lick/chew/scratch/mouth his stitches.

He’s a sweet dog, obviously been trained before as you can see by the following exchange:

Wally: Sit
Wally: Sit
Wally: Sit!
Wally: SIT!
Wally: Ancheyou
*Orion sits*

Because why would a Korean dog be trained in English. Duh. He is a smart dog and has started adapting to English commands. He still has some weird shit left over from living in a cage for 1-2 months being walked once a week, but he’s getting along. He’s obviously a smart dog, knows when you want something, though he’s not always sure what you mean(Seriously, our Korean sucks). Wouldn’t leave the room when we got him, which I think was trained in his last life and: Poops against trees. In a country where you have to pick up after your dog if they poop on the street that’s not a minor thing. Also, I never removed any of his surgery gauze, but he got his cone of when we were out for a bit and did it himself. Gotta keep an eye on him till those stitches are removed it seems.

Pretty much all things have been positive except the early morning walks in the rain; the so called Dark side of dog ownership, the pooping in the room during his post-anesthesia recovery and the baby talk Raphaelle uses to addresses him.

We’ll get more pictures of him over time, some in more natural environments and hopefully soon enough pictures of him without a cone around his neck as well. In some future blogpost I’ll post more pictures and explain why we got this one in more detail.

And I’ll end this blogpost with a picture of one of the other animals Orion shares this house with. Bugs are kinda numerous here I’m afraid.

And in an unrelated matter. If you were to look at the picture numbering in the folders you’ll see it’s gone from 99XX to 00XX. This is the 2nd time it’s done that. 20.000 pictures taken . The camera still performs well, with the exception that it now chugs batteries.

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Quote of the day:

My goal in life is to be as good of a person my dog already thinks I am

- Anonymous

So, the Koreans won’t tolerate me for more than 3 months. We therefor headed to our old flame: Japan. We would land at Kansai airport, and Koya-san, an old destination of ours, is just a couple 10s of km east of there.
Unfortunately, there’s also some mountain stuff in between there, so we had to go to Osaka before we could go down to there. Which made our very efficient flight/travel plan somewhat less efficient.

We flew from Inchon airport with an overbooked plane. This cause many many problems and resulted in us getting businessclass seats.
Karmarific. Lotsa legroom, good service. I can get used to that.
Then there was the trainride. Nice view, good on time and it was just past nightfall when we were dropped off by our accommodation by the free bus. The free bus was free because we only had big bills and the bus didn’t accept those.
Youth Hostels are the same the world over . . . . or are they

Real rice paper walls though, which meant that we could hear the neighbour snore as well as in any dormroom the world over

Last time I went to Koya san it was packed with tourists, but last time had been a weekend. Turns out that even in summer Koya san is all but deserted by tourists during weekdays. If you ever visit this place, go on a weekday. Serene mountain monasteries come off better without crowds of tourists.

The first day we went for a hike in the peaks surrounding the temples. As women weren’t allowed in this very sacred site this was as close as female pilgrims could come to this place fro centuries. The hike started pleasantly



But it’s important to remember karma can be a bitch.
First there was a bit of this:

And then there was going down the mountain as fast as we could hoping lightning wouldn’t strike us or too near us (It didn’t oblige on the last bit) and definitely not getting the camera out for it would drown. While initially pausing for the storm to pass on the very top of the mountain, I said it would likely stop the moment we got down.

This . . . is my sock

We took off the sock, the moment we got back to civilization.
As you can tell, the rain had stopped.
2 minutes before
This is a book we borrowed for the trip

One which we will certainly replace for the owner btw.
There were 3 books in the bag at the top of the mountain.

Next time we go hiking, we’re checking weather reports.
And so, the next day, with reports indicating mostly clear skies, we set of on Saturday to hike from Koya-san to kudoyama.

A very pleasant hiking experience at times

with many bits of wildlife on the way down



And at least 3 snakes and many many spiders which didn’t make it to film.

The trail we walked has been hiked for many many many years. Centuries even, which makes the path somewhat . . . .well trodden and slightly eroded at times


It was usually well cared for

Though not always kept to its original purpose

Usually dangerous to get off the path

and many many other things. I’ll leave you with a link to the album.

We arrived after 9 hours of hiking at the bottom of the hill with just enough cash left to buy tickets to Osaka.
Last time we were in Japan we had bank cards and mobile phones which all worked there.

This time we spent 1 hour walking around after bank closing times looking for an ATM to accept our damn foreign cards already. Citibank Japan didn’t accept citibank Korea, and from there on it was an uphill struggle getting anything to accept our Dutch/French cards.

We eventually got cash, a place to sleep and the first restaurant we walked into was a damn Korean restaurant. 3rd one did the trick though and we fell in to an exhausted slumber.

The next day was spent in Osaka, lounging and getting back to the airport. Where we were told there were no seating arrangements, but there were problems with me entering Korea. Eventually they did let us on the plane, but we were removed from our bulkhead seats because we had seat 20. Karma was back with a vengeance.

We arrived just fine and I’ll leave you with a picture of one of the things that makes Japan great:

A wasabi kitkat.

And just in case Sarah reads this blog:

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Quote of the day:

What in the world was running through that warped, evil scatological mind of His when He robbed old people of the power to control their bowel movements.

- Yossarian

OK, so we’ve been here for a while and we’re starting to find our stride.
We know what we’re doing, we know how to go about things, we know how to find our way.

Important in finding our way is the Seoul Public Transportation system.
This consists of a number of different parts

• The subway
• The buses
• The trains
• Taxis

Taxis aren’t really something you’d put under the header of public transport, but you will see how it has it’s place when I get to it.

The subway is an extensive network of different lines (10 in total I think) that twist and turn and dig their way through Seoul soil. Looking something like this:

Or, if you will, something like this:

The system is vast and will take you close to pretty much anywhere you want to go. It comes with websites which will tell you how long your trip will take and the quickest/easiest route. Also available in English.

But, as we found out soon enough when we moved into our apartment, just taking the subway isn’t always the fastest way to get around. With the Han (the big river) running through Seoul choices had to be made where lines cross. With the hills and mountains detours had to be chosen.

Enter the bus system. I can’t show you a map with the buslines, as it would simply be stringy confetti. There isn’t a part of Seoul that isn’t serviced by at least one bus. The bus system is complicated, but I’ll give a stab at it.

There are 4 color buses. Blue, Green, Red and Yellow. Then there’s express buses for airport duty and stuff

Blue buses are the major arteries of bus transport. They go from one zone of Seoul to another. The zones of Seoul look like this:

The blue bus numbers consist of 3 numbers. The zone it comes from, the zone it goes to, and the route serial number. For instance, the bus we take in the morning is the 143 or the 401. We get on in 0 (which is one of the start/stop, because of course buses go both ways, zones of the 401. But is also between 1 and 4) and get off in 4. It’s the #1 bus for the 4-0 and the 3rd bus for the 1-4 zone. To give you an indicator of how many buses there are. These are the bus numbers starting in zone 1: 100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105,   106,107, 108(1), 108(2), 109, 110A, 110B, 120, 130, 140, 141, 142, 143, 144, 145, 146, 147, 148, 149, 150, 151 ,152, 153, 154, 160, 162, ,163, 171, 172.

Green buses connect subway lines and blue bus routes. They can cross zones, but only ever one. Their numbers operate the same way as the blue buses except that the serial number is a 2 digit number. Because there’s more of them. Want a list of zone 1 green buses? Go here.

Red buses connect the center with the sub-suburbs. That’s the gray bit which still have numbers in them. There’s not so many of them, and with good reason. This is a metropolitan, which in today’s world doesn’t just mean lots of people but most definitely means heavy congestion on the roads. Seriously, take a subway.

Yellow buses. Funny thing, our yellow bus is a green bus. Someone got confused I think. Yellow buses travel within a zone and connect useful points. The number is based on 2 numbers. The zone number and the serial number.  Except those called ‘city center circulating bus’ and the like.

The trains. To be honest some of the subways run above ground, which make the difference a bit hard to spot. But the KTX system stops in a couple of major hubs (Seoul station, Yeongsan and Gwangmyeong) and connects them with Busan, Mokpo, Incheon and the like. There’s also some express subway lines which may be worth mentioning*.

Example time.

We live in Itaewon-dong, a dong in Yongsan-gu.
Our office is in Garak Market-dong, a dong in Songpa-gu.

Please keep in mind that Seoul is a a BIG city. That’s about 12 km as the crow flies. The way the subway runs is this:

Birds fly more efficiently than that

Add a bus to it and you have this:

Now, I named this post ‘Public transportation in Seoul’ because it’s mostly an integrated system (Damn you, line 9). That means that while we use 2 different systems we pay one price.
By subway alone, a ride roughly 18 km, 1 hours long, costs us ₩ 1100. This translates to a whopping 72 cents (07-07-2010 conversion rate)
Bus and subway combined, 15 km and 40 minutes long, costs us ₩ 1100. Again, 72 cents

No matter where you live, that’s a deal. Japan comes close, Singapore will too. Nationale Spoorwegen (Dutch National Railways) . . . .  no. Not close. Not nearly close. You may spot it on the horizon, but you certainly won’t believe what you see.

It gets better. We live on a hill, you might’ve heard me say it’s 100 meters vertical from the subway/bus station to our house. When we get off the bus, we just wait for our green yellow bus #03 to take us up to the Hyatt hotel, and walk down to our house for no extra charge. That’s 2 transfers, 2 buses and a subway ride. Totaling 45 minutes, for 72 cents.

If you’ve been paying attention, I’ve not mentioned taxis yet.
Taxi culture here is quite different from Western Europe. Somewhere there’s a flip over point where you go from ‘very few, but expensive cab rides’, like the Netherlands, to ‘lots of readily available cheap cabrides’ and have it make economical sense. Korea isn’t the only country which has this. As Raph is quick to point out, other countries in S.E. Asia are cheaper still, but that’s probably because everything is cheaper in those countries.

When we moved from our office to our apartment I got a taxi. During rush hour, with extra costs for delay time and everything leading up to over an hour travel time, I rode a taxi across all of Seoul, for ₩ 14000. That’s €9.13. It used to costs me 6-7 euros to get a taxi from Delft station to my house. And while that is also all the way across a city, it really means 2.5 km and 5-10 minutes. During the night (High rate), coming back from Hongdae, some 11 km away as the crow flies, costs us ₩ 7000 (€4.50).

Can’t say much good about the national food identity yet, I still prefer a kroket to kimchi, but the public transportation in Seoul certainly beats what I was used to in the Netherlands.

* but I’m not going to

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I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be

- Douglas Adams

What side of the street do you walk on?

For most of us, that’s answered by a full mouthed ‘Right’. For the right is the only right side of the street.
Or is it? The side of the street on which you walk is a matter of place and time.

When I was a kid I learned basic road safety in the Netherlands. Meaning, you walk on the right side of the road, cars move on the right side of the road and bicycles move on the right side of the road. From the outside in: Pedestrians, Bicyclists, Motorists.
It was on a bike I first broke this rule. I was fast and sleek, neigh unstoppable was I, on my bike, and the traffic rules certainly didn’t apply to I.
I don’t specifically recall whether I got an earful for that behaviour, but I suppose I should have. And it’s strange therefor that the likely culprit of that earful was the man who introduced me to walking on the left side of the road.

You see, when everyone transports themselves on the same side of the road, the slowest transporter (the walker) will have everything coming from behind him at, in some cases, frightening speeds quite close to oneself. At that time (6-9 years old) I wasn’t well known for walking in a straight line, or keeping my attention focused on relevant things (like speeding cars) and would often, unexpectedly, move sideways into the path of an oncoming bike/car. I have never been like this, but there’s a few instances of word-use not fit for my virginal ears done by heavily swerving bicyclists that stand out in my memory.
If, on the other hand, as a pedestrian you walk on the left side of the street you are still in a spot reserved for pedestrians (the side of the road) and you can see things hurtling towards you prompting you to pay attention, where, had they come from behind, they might’ve caused me a nasty little surprise.

In England and Japan (India, South Africa, Indonesia etc), walking on the left hand side of the street, or, as we call it, the wrong side of the street, is normal. The rule even. Well, mostly. I think I’ve mentioned once or twice in conversation (looking back through my posts I see I haven’t really blogged about it.) You see, in Japan you walk on the left side of the street. Cars go on the left side of the street. Bicyclists go . . .  well, there’s not really a set place for them.
Osaka is the big exception. In Osaka they walk on the right side of the street, cars still go on the left hand side of the street though. Can you imagine what that would be like, changing sides halfway through a country? I think there’s a half-British Island which does this somewhere. This causes a bit of a problem, because Osaka isn’t a really clearly defined concept. It just sorta edges out, like so many other metropoli/metropolae/metropoliseses? I lived about an hour outside of what can regularly be considered Osaka, but most of the people I lived with did work in Osaka. Meaning that half the people would walk on the right (those that visited Osaka regularly) and half would walk on the left (regular Japanese). It also meant that when I was hurtling down the hill I would never be sure what instinct would be most prominent in my dodgee. Would it move to the right or left. All in all, people just sorta walked . . . wherever.

Korea now, Korea is an interesting case. Korea drives on the right hand side of the road. But trains drive on the left, as this system was built when the Japanese ruled here. The metro system though, was built with French help, so that’s on the right hand side. Except on those stations where they connect to the railway where it’s left again. So . . . . that’s kinda confusing. The walking though. Walking is done wherever and that struck me as kind of strange. The only place you’ll see indicators which side to walk on is in the subway and it’s on the right. There’s actually a campaign about it now

You see, the Koreans used to walk on the left in the subway and on the street. But then a few years ago the government said that right was the way they’d now walk. So right is the side people now walk on. Except the ajoshi and ajoma (Old man, Old woman) who will damn well walk where they’ve always walked, even if that way was initially beat into them by the Japanese oppressors.
This means though, that as a weiguk (foreigner) you will now, no matter what side of the street you walk on, be walking on the wrong side of the street for someone.

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Quote of the Day:

Work is the refuge of those that don’t have anything better to do

- Oscar Wilde

So we moved to South Korea
BIG DEAL.
How much of an impact on your life can it really have?

First of all the Vegetarianism/Veganism.
It’s not a title we claim anymore. Let’s face it, we don’t speak the language and our ordering tactic pretty much consists of looking at the wall

and picking the third one from the left. (Or right, got to mix it up a little every now and again.)

This is how we ended up with the fish head stew*.

It was part of our cultural growth, which we have now passed and will never visit on again.
The term most accurate in describing our dietary disposition now is: I’m-annoyed-by-this-but-will-eat-it-lest-we-starve-itarians.

Charades

We rock at it.
No, seriously. We have absolutely no idea what people around us are saying and vice versa. Fully submerge yourself in a country like that and your charades skills will skyrocket. I have even made charade inquisitions which lasted shorter than had I asked it in a language I’m familiar with.
Then again, it’s taken us maybe 7 hours in total spread out over 3 weeks to figure out how to get garbage bags.

You see, in Seoul, apparently, you are not allowed to put your trash outside in any old plastic bag. Nor in a generic black garbage bag. Even if the translation on the bag is “galbage bage”. No, the garbage bag you use is issued by your local gu’s office (where a gu is a part of the city, so in our case: Songpa-gu) and is clearly marked (we guess) with marking indicating that you can put this outside in your own gu.
These garbage bags, according to the guidebook, are sold by pretty much any local conbini (They have little convenience stores on every corner here, much as in Japan) except that they’re not on the shelves. The generic garbage bags, however, ARE on the shelves. But after two weeks the cleaning lady started delivering back our garbage. This indicated we were running out of time figuring this out as that stuff doesn’t stay fresh for long usually. Try charading garbage bags, I dare you. It wasn’t till one I got my hands on an actual (used) garbage bag that I was able to get my point across and I was sent to  . . . the conbini.

Armed with my used garbage bag (smelling slightly of ashes) I made my way back to the big combini. Yes, she had garbage bags. Under the counter, obviously for her own use. WHERE (어디) DO YOU BUY (wallet tapping) THOSE (point at garbage bag).

-nothing-

She kept grasping the bags desperately going for the good old “My engrish bad” option after a strained silence.
OK, luckily for us there is a guy around here who does speak very passable English (He’s modest about it, but he’s also far superior in English skill than any Korean I’ve accidentally met) who took me by the hand to a different combini and yes . . . . you have to buy your garbage bags here from under the counter. Propped away so the casual shopper won’t see it.
There’s a couple of things which spring to mind being sold from under the counter.
Garbage bags isn’t one of them

Epilogue, noone can really tell me what the things are called, so we have 4 garbage bags now and before we use the last one we will take it to the combini, wave it in the teller’s face and say MORE

Also, it would be nice if we could figure out why the old Korean ladies who take away our trash keep returning our bottles.

Being comfortable around naked Koreans

Ok, this wasn’t really a biggy, a year in Japan prepared us for this quite well. Besides, we’re both blind as a bat. I just do my business in a foggy room filled with slowly moving Korean coloured blobs.
Thing is though . . .

You feel sensitive about certain things. When I came to Korea I had a massive headcold and you know what happens when you have a massive headcold and you take a shower (or eat hot food). Stuff comes out. So you’re sitting there, in the mist, with all these Koreans and you blow like a foghorn. And again. And again. Aaaaaaand you’re starting to feel the eyes of the others on your back as your nosedrippings slowly make their way to the sink and you hope it doesn’t have to pass other people’s feet on the way.

There’s other things though. Both Raph and myself preen certain areas for euhm . . . hygiene purposes.
I’m OK walking into a room with naked Koreans.
I’m OK with them scrubbing each other’s back, and it’s been done to us, perfectly natural.
I’m OK with the genitalia flopping around
I’m OK with the little naked kids running around
I’m OK with the nose blowing
I’m OK with the deep buttcrack towel sawing

Shaving my balls in front of other people?
No, not OK with that.

Living together

We used to spend about 42 hours every two weeks together. We’d long for when we’d see/touch/taste each other again. It was torture (sweet, but torture non the less) to be apart.

Now we’re together pretty much all the time outside of when we go to the communal baths (which are segregated)

We haven’t broken up.
Yet

Spreading Happiness

We do this a lot
At random things we do we make people laugh
Haven’t quite worked out where our comedic talents spring from

But people like us a lot. Or at least, there’s the laughing.

.

P.S. Ik heb m’n blog tweetalig gemaakt voor diegene die dit liever int nederlands lezen. Bovenaan rechts vind je een keuzemenu voor English/Nederlands. Ook onderaan tweetalige posts kan je de opmerking “Deze post is ook te lezen in: Dutch” vinden.

* Picture does not represent the reality of the food we were served.

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Even a fish wouldn’t get into trouble if it kept its mouth shut

- Korean proverb

Well . . . mountain may be a big word.

Raphaëlle is a city person. I am not. I enjoy the advantages and convenience it gives, but I like my outdoors to be . . . outdoorsy. I like the green, the nature, the undulating.

Luckily for me, Seoul has much of the undulating. Most of it is still concreted over, but this city is build on a whole bunch of hills. And there’s a fair bit of these hills on the outskirts which still have the green and the nature. There’s also at least one that is in the middle of the city and we’re moving next to it (No, more on that when I have pictures and the lease is signed ) . Seems Korean’s (or at least Seoul’s) national hobby is hiking so they’re keeping many of these hills the way it is as well I think.

First weekend here I decided to go explore one. I went on google maps, found the nearest subway accessible bit of green and set off.
With note to the google maps I posted, the nearest indicated green zone is actually a golf field (another national past time) which is why you have to play with the view (top right: map, satellite etc). Also note btw the airfield in the bottom left corner. It’s military as near as I can figure and they do really take off/approach for landing quite close to our rooftop.

Anyway, the subway station I found is called namhansanseong and a quick google after the hike showed that namhansanseong is famous for this kind of thing. I should really google stuff  before setting off on a hike, I didn’t see any of that. I only really googled it in the first place to show people I wasn’t making up that name. I mean the Korean is 남 한산성입구역, who makes that shit up.

The winter has been intense here this year so spring came late. There was still ample skiing being done when I arrived 2 days before this hike (though not on the hill in question). The flowers were arriving

Unfortunately the mountain trees were without much leaf yet.

The bare trees stopped me from getting any super shots, but there’s a couple of nice shots

As I wasn’t even 48 hours out of a 11 hour plane ride with the resulting jetlag and still suffering from an enormous headcold after going up for 2 hours I called it a day, which was just as well for when I got to the subway station I got a call from the landlady of the office if I could meet her earlier than planned.

This involved some “2nd hand furniture” which will hence forth be referred to as “old crap” . I will refer you to the album in which pictures of said old crap are and refrain from any further comment. The mere thought of the stuff revolts me. Important to note is that the first 3 pictures are of after cleaning, not the other way around.

P.S. Due to the dying of the data carrier which on which I held the pictures you can find in my photopage I have to wait to get my backup sent to me here before I can alter the photopage where I usually put my pictures. Yes, there is a backup. No, my bag was quite full enough to bring 2nd backups with me. (First backup died and it seems I hadn’t actually put those pictures back after reformatting my computer. Dôh)

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Quote of the day:

Dude, did you just tell a random asian behind a counter of a KOREAN store in KOREA you didn’t speak Chinese?

- Random American in Itaewon, Seoul