Way, way back in August (August 7th, to be exact) my parents were scheduled to arrive in at Incheon Airport sometime in the afternoon, giving me plenty of time to sleep in and still get there on time. I mean, who would be late to pick up their own parents from the airport in a country where they don't speak the language? Umm.....me? Yes, that's right, thanks to being especially slow in waking up and eating and pretty much everything I did after that, I was about 15 minutes late in getting to the airport. And this isn't 15 minutes after the plane arrived on the tarmac, as there I would still have been okay, since there is all the time in baggage and immigration. No, I arrived about 10-15 minutes after my parents had passed through customs, so they had been wandering around and sitting for 10 or so minutes wondering where their sad-sack son was. Face. Palm. FAIL of the EPIC variety. Probably should have known I was cruising towards the FAIL when my building's elevator just happened to be broken, that being the first and only time in the 10 months I've lived in the building. But Im pretty lousy at reading the signs and I just went on thinking I'd make it in time. Silly me.
Here's a pic of the much delayed reunion.
After the hugs and tears and more hugs, it was time to get back to the homestead and find the parents some sleeping accommodations. Originally my father, being the incredible tightwad he is, had recommended the just crash at my apartment, despite my explanation that the apartment was simply too small for 3 people to even stand in, let alone sleep in. Thankfully, once he actually saw the apartment, he realized it would be impossible for them to stay at my place. Which meant I then had to find them some place to stay. And my neighborhood does have plenty of "love motels", so off we went. After several rejections due to all the rooms being booked (or so they said), we finally found a room. And the parents ended up only hearing "strange noises" from the room next door only once in 4 or 5 days. That's a pretty good ratio, as far as I'm concerned. As for the "strange noises"? I'm pretty sure it was somebody (well, 2 somebodies) having sexual intercourse. Gross, I know.
With the sleeping situation settled we could finally grab some food. I decided to take them to the most Korean restaurant I could find: Outback Steakhouse. In all seriousness, my dad hadn't been able to draw cash out of the ATMs yet using his new cash card and he wanted to pay for dinner with his credit card, so we needed a restaurant that would take foreign credit cards. And given many Korean ma and pa restaurants don't even have bathrooms, the chances of finding one with the ability to take foreign credit cards would have been difficult. So we settled for Outback and then wandered around the local university campus afterward before heading to bed.
Our first full day together in Korea (Sunday the 8th) didn't feature anything terribly exciting either. The parents really wanted to see the old country town, despite my pleas that there is absolutely nothing to do there or see there. As evidence that there is absolutely nothing worth visiting for, I'd gone back to the old homestead exactly zero times in the year since I had left it. That's how little I cared to go back. Not a terrible town, but just not worth going back. So I showed the family the old apartment (don't miss that POS), the downtown (all 3 minutes walk of it), the gorgeous soccer complex and artificial turf field (that wasn't completed until after I left...grumble, grumble, grumble) and that's about it. Not much else I could show them. Well, there was the Han River too, but meh.
We did luck out and head to town during one of the market days that happen every 5 days, so that was a treat. My parents, having never seen a market like this ever, were understandably curious as to what each seller had laying on their tables. Sadly, I didn't have an answer for alot of the chunks or slabs of whatever, despite having eaten the stuff for the last 2 years or so. "Eric, what's this?" "Ummm, unicorn? Basilisk? I don't know."
Despite all the staring that would naturally accompany 2 white giants and a ginger lady wandering through a very small Korean town, the trip was good, although it was a bit boring. Not much I can do about that though.
In the afternoon, we all headed up to Jamie's town to partake in a soccer game between Jamie's ex-students (now in high school) and some of Jamie's foreigner friends. I originally thought we (the foreigners) stood a chance until I watched the students warm up. And then I watched our team warm up. That didn't help either. The high school kids were a lot better than I expected. And my teammates were a lot worse than I expected. Out of shape okay, yeah I expected that. But terrible at soccer? What kind of Brits did Jamie round up that can't even play roundball? Embarrassing. And those high school kids? They could move. I'm not a terribly slow guy (being able to cover 2 miles in one stride helps like that), but I lost out to some of the faster kids in a straight footrace for the ball. And it wasn't even that close. We ended up giving a decent game of it, probably because the high school kids got winded too and they probably stopped trying (but lets not mention that...ohhhh wait, too late). Overall, it was a victory, as I actually got to play an organized game for the first time in a year or so.
The next day (Monday the 9th) found us taking the obligatory tour around all the sights in Seoul. We did the Palace, did Insadong and the tea houses, did Jogyesa temple, Cheonggyecheon stream and everything else worth seeing in the Jonggno downtown area. Sorry I'm not more excited but after the umteenth time visiting the sights they just don't get me wet like they used to. Still fun, but not worth writing 10 pages about. The highlight of the day was the Chinese ladies I met while we were walking around the palace. While the family and I were wandering the temple, we drifted around, in and past various different language tour groups. One of these tour groups happened to be Chinese (I guess they could be Taiwanese or from Hong Kong, but I really don't know the differences in Mandarin and Cantonese, so yeah), and while stopped at one of the sleeping quarters of the king or queen, I noticed that 2 young attractive girls were staring and me and whispering and giggling to each other. Here is where the difference between East and West comes in. In the West, if I saw women whispering and giggling while staring at me, I would assume I had peed myself or shit myself or something equally pleasant. In short, it is not something good. However, in the East, it seems that when ladies are seen giggling and whispering while staring at you, that is good. Sometimes very good.
Sure enough, they eventually summoned up the courage to come over and talk to me. Their English wasn't great so at first I thought they were asking me to take a picture of both of them. Wrong. They actually wanted to take a picture with me. Both of them. That's right Korea. The Chinese women would rather take a picture with a gorgeous alabaster giant than with your stuffy and lame "history". Wallin 1. Korea 0.
The day was solid, if too short. I wanted to wander around and see more, but I forget that my parents are old. Old as dirt. Hell, old as really old dirt (love you guys). My dad's knees were bothering him a lot, so we stopped alot, including a stop at the stream so we could toss our feet in the water like everybody else. Don't ever drink the stream water though. Yuck.
Well, here's some other pics from that day. Enjoy. Part 2 coming soon.
All photos today courtesy of my Mom.
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