On Skin Color, Epidemiology and Bias
10 years ago
Thursday, October 7, 2010
More Shots from the Mountain
Several days ago the really nice couple I met sent me an email to check that I made it back to Korea safely. They also tossed in some gorgeous shots of the Taipei skyline they found. I have no idea who took the pictures, but I couldn't not post them. Enjoy.
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
"My Trip to Taiwan" continued (part 2)
My first full day of adventure in Taiwan began much earlier than I liked, but unfortunately I can't sleep till 10 or 11am and then still have 12 or so hours of daylight to enjoy. Sacrifices must be made. Again, as I was in a hurry to get on my way and it was too early for most breakfast establishments to be open, I settled for 7-Eleven food for my breakfast. Yes, I am my father's son. Sadly, this wasn't the only day this happened. So when people ask me what the food in Taiwan tastes like and I respond "7-Eleven", you'll know why. Judge if you must, but its hard to go wrong with a bottle of milk and some bagels.
With breakfast out of the way, I quickly hopped the subway and after 30 minutes on the tube followed by another 30 minutes on the bus I had made it to my destination: Wulai. Now, I knew how in the middle of nowhere Wulai was supposed to be from my book, but I didn't realize just how true that was until I got there. I mean, the place is only 1 hour from Taipei and only 30 minutes from the end of the subway and Taipei's suburbs, so it can't be that isolated...can it? Well, all I can say is that mountains and trees and wildlife greatly outnumber the people. Which means its my kind of place.
As you can see, very very quiet town.
The town itself didn't seem to have anything going on outside of tourists heading in from Taipei to hike around and stay in the hot springs/spa establishments. As I had no interest in this particular type of relaxation, I moved quickly out of town towards the waterfall and hiking trails outside of town. Not too much to say about the hiking that can't be told much, much better with some pictures.
As you can see from the last pic, they actually have a little tram that runs from downtown Wulai to the waterfall outside of town. Damn it. 20 whole minutes I wasted walking, on flat ground, to get to that waterfall. Grrrr. I probably wouldn't have fit inside those little cabs, though.
At the waterfall, a mini town had sprung up to accomodate all the tourist money flowing in, from hotels and little resorts to all manner of restaurant and store. As much as I like my nature untouched by civilization, I can't complain about having lunch at a local diner and having this for a view out the window:
From here I headed on even further out of town towards what my book said was a nature reserve well worth seeing. Along the way, I met 2 ladies who told me that the preserve was closed due to landslides and other damage caused by the typhoon (damn you typhoon!!!), but there was another place to head to. Now, I know that English is the world language and all, but I still get quite a shock when I'm walking all by myself in a far away country and I happen to pass 2 old ladies who turn to me and say "Excuse me, but how far is it to the waterfall?" in perfect English. Just a little jarring. But really cool. So I can kinda understand why Koreans cream their jeans every time they hear someone (not Korean) speak their language. It is pretty cool.
After a bit more walking, I made it to the, ummm, well I'm not sure what it was. Other than a trail along the side of the river. As for chance encounters with English speakers, a Taiwanese guy with his family happened to see the Badger shirt I was rocking and inquired as to whether I was a Badger. Turns out he got his Master's at the UW. And that wasn't even the first Badger I met so far, as somebody on the plane the day before had seen my shirt and had begun discussing the utter disappointment that was Badgers football (the near loss to UNLV or somebody, not the loss to Mich St). I guess the moral of the story is that Badgers are everywhere and one shouldn't ever slag them, as it will cause an international incident.
As for this particular trail, here are some pics:
After finishing up the trail, I headed back towards town to catch another trail on the opposite side of town. This is where my day got very interesting. The trail itself was gorgeous, but not super eventful. Except for that piping running through the middle of the trail. That was new.
Not in the way at all.
The trail was, according to my maps, going to eventually lead me to some streams or ponds or something that you can swim in. And given I had been carrying all of my things on my back all day and had done a little bit of sweating while at it, I was really looking forward to the swim.
Then the trail disappeared. Or so it looked like it did. In fact, it actually went 3 different ways. But none of them looked like an actual trail. One direction had stairs leading to god knows where...but it was roped off. That's probably not it. Another direction also had stairs but the trail appeared to end not too far past the stairs. Again, no go. Which leaves straight ahead. Only that direction appears to turn into somebody's porch. I kid you not. Directly ahead was a paved patio/entryway to someone's house where folks happened to be grilling out at that particular moment. Hmmmmm.
While contemplating what to do, a nice old couple wandered up to me and asked me if I needed help figuring out where to go. Again, they spoke in very passable English and again I was a more than a bit surprised. After they talked to the folks grilling on their patio, we were able to learn that the trail were were looking for was indeed straight ahead, so we continued. I say "we" because the couple invited me to travel with them, and as they had helped me out and seemed like good company, I agreed. Turned out to be a good decision.
While we walked and talked, we discussed a great many things. I learned that they had honed their English when the husband had attended the University of Missouri some 20 years ago for his master's degree and through his work with the Taipei Power Company he came into regular foreign contacts (GE, etc) so he certainly knew his stuff when it came to English. And no Maria, I didn't really ever ask their names. But then again, they didn't ask mine until after we had been talking for few hours (and when they sent me a nice email checking to see if I made it back to Korea safely they wrote my name as "Erica", so clearly the names weren't a huge thing). We discussed Korea at length as well as the differences between Seoul and Taipei. All within the realm of normal for folks that have spent some time in both cities. What really struck me was when they started asking me US politics questions about what I think of Obama and his policies. All I could think was: "Wow, I can't even have this type of conversation with most Americans and here I am, across the globe, in the middle of a forest, talking Obama health care. Wow." And for the record, Taiwan has a national health care program too. Get with the program America. Please.
We continued on the trail, chatting as we went, until we finally found the ponds. Sadly, they were really crowded as this particular day was a national holiday, thus so many people out hiking on a Wednesday. As the new friends weren't interested in swimming and I didn't feel like fighting for pond space, we quickly turned back towards the entrance.
At the entrance, they asked me what my plans were from here. When I told them I was just heading back to Taipei, they offered to drive me back to town, as they live in town and were going that way anyways. Wow. I wasn't kidding when I said the Taiwanese are super friendly, even to strangers. As it would be easier than riding a bus the whole way back and because they seemed like really nice folks, I agreed to the ride. I'm sorry mom. All those lessons about never getting into a stranger's car, and here I am riding with strangers in a strange, foreign and scary land. And they didn't even have to offer me candy.
Ohhh, here's some pics from that particular trail:
All along the way back to Taipei, which normally takes about an hour, but with all the holiday traffic it was closer to double that, we continued discussing Korea, life in Korea, Taiwan, life in Taiwan, America, you name it. I did particularly enjoy when the discussion shifted to college. The couple's only daughter had just started college on the other side of country just 2 weeks previous and they (well, mostly the wife) were worried about the atmosphere at colleges, if she would be studying, and other general questions about college life. As you can see people and parents really aren't that different, no matter where on earth you are. I explained about some of the things that took place on colleges nowadays, but made sure to preface that with information about how Madison is more drunk than most and how their daughter would surely study more than I did. Didn't want them to freak out too bad.
The weirdest thing that came up in the conversations all night? This guy:
I shit you not, John Denver honestly came up. They actually made several John Denver themed puns and jokes. Honestly. They definitely name-dropped lyrics from "Sunshine on my shoulders", "Rocky Mountain High" and "Take me home, country roads", which all fit in quite well given all the mountain trekking and hiking and country road traveling we were doing. How did they have all this John Denver knowledge stored up? Well, they had watched a John Denver concert on TV or DVD the day before. Haha. Talk about out of left field for a American pop culture point. All in all, the John Denver stuff was super amusing, and super cute, as the old couple was riffing between each other with the John Denver stuff.
Well, the time came when we arrived back in Taipei, but the couple decided to take me up to the better national park on the north side of town for more sightseeing and some dinner. Hell, what am I supposed to say to that? Jesus, these people are way, way too nice. So we headed up north to Yongmingshan National Park. By the time we got there it was too dark to hike around, but we could still grab dinner and get some solid shots of the sun setting over Taipei.
After climbing all the way up the hill in the car, we found our way to the restaurant. And man, was it a nice one. Large spacious place, with a huge patio overlooking Taipei and the setting sun in the distance, which was where I took these shots.
We ate, we enjoyed the lovely view, we chatted, we talked about the mainland Chinese sitting at the table right next to us (you can definitely get the sense that the Taiwanese look down on the mainlanders a bit). Sadly, after several hours relaxing in the perfect weather (did I mention how much nicer their weather is than Korea's or Wisconsin's?), it was time to go. The couple again was gracious enough to drop me off at a subway station near the mountain. We said our goodbyes, exchanged emails, and I said multiple thank yous for all the trouble they had gone through. Then we parted. Sure, I'll probably never see them and maybe won't even get back to the country ever again (but I'm damn sure gonna try and make it back), but they still made a very strong impression that will surely stick with me long after the individual details of the trip have faded. It's people like these that make me feel much better about the world we live in.
Pics: See Taiwan photos, Album 1
With breakfast out of the way, I quickly hopped the subway and after 30 minutes on the tube followed by another 30 minutes on the bus I had made it to my destination: Wulai. Now, I knew how in the middle of nowhere Wulai was supposed to be from my book, but I didn't realize just how true that was until I got there. I mean, the place is only 1 hour from Taipei and only 30 minutes from the end of the subway and Taipei's suburbs, so it can't be that isolated...can it? Well, all I can say is that mountains and trees and wildlife greatly outnumber the people. Which means its my kind of place.
As you can see, very very quiet town.
The town itself didn't seem to have anything going on outside of tourists heading in from Taipei to hike around and stay in the hot springs/spa establishments. As I had no interest in this particular type of relaxation, I moved quickly out of town towards the waterfall and hiking trails outside of town. Not too much to say about the hiking that can't be told much, much better with some pictures.
As you can see from the last pic, they actually have a little tram that runs from downtown Wulai to the waterfall outside of town. Damn it. 20 whole minutes I wasted walking, on flat ground, to get to that waterfall. Grrrr. I probably wouldn't have fit inside those little cabs, though.
At the waterfall, a mini town had sprung up to accomodate all the tourist money flowing in, from hotels and little resorts to all manner of restaurant and store. As much as I like my nature untouched by civilization, I can't complain about having lunch at a local diner and having this for a view out the window:
From here I headed on even further out of town towards what my book said was a nature reserve well worth seeing. Along the way, I met 2 ladies who told me that the preserve was closed due to landslides and other damage caused by the typhoon (damn you typhoon!!!), but there was another place to head to. Now, I know that English is the world language and all, but I still get quite a shock when I'm walking all by myself in a far away country and I happen to pass 2 old ladies who turn to me and say "Excuse me, but how far is it to the waterfall?" in perfect English. Just a little jarring. But really cool. So I can kinda understand why Koreans cream their jeans every time they hear someone (not Korean) speak their language. It is pretty cool.
After a bit more walking, I made it to the, ummm, well I'm not sure what it was. Other than a trail along the side of the river. As for chance encounters with English speakers, a Taiwanese guy with his family happened to see the Badger shirt I was rocking and inquired as to whether I was a Badger. Turns out he got his Master's at the UW. And that wasn't even the first Badger I met so far, as somebody on the plane the day before had seen my shirt and had begun discussing the utter disappointment that was Badgers football (the near loss to UNLV or somebody, not the loss to Mich St). I guess the moral of the story is that Badgers are everywhere and one shouldn't ever slag them, as it will cause an international incident.
As for this particular trail, here are some pics:
After finishing up the trail, I headed back towards town to catch another trail on the opposite side of town. This is where my day got very interesting. The trail itself was gorgeous, but not super eventful. Except for that piping running through the middle of the trail. That was new.
Not in the way at all.
The trail was, according to my maps, going to eventually lead me to some streams or ponds or something that you can swim in. And given I had been carrying all of my things on my back all day and had done a little bit of sweating while at it, I was really looking forward to the swim.
Then the trail disappeared. Or so it looked like it did. In fact, it actually went 3 different ways. But none of them looked like an actual trail. One direction had stairs leading to god knows where...but it was roped off. That's probably not it. Another direction also had stairs but the trail appeared to end not too far past the stairs. Again, no go. Which leaves straight ahead. Only that direction appears to turn into somebody's porch. I kid you not. Directly ahead was a paved patio/entryway to someone's house where folks happened to be grilling out at that particular moment. Hmmmmm.
While contemplating what to do, a nice old couple wandered up to me and asked me if I needed help figuring out where to go. Again, they spoke in very passable English and again I was a more than a bit surprised. After they talked to the folks grilling on their patio, we were able to learn that the trail were were looking for was indeed straight ahead, so we continued. I say "we" because the couple invited me to travel with them, and as they had helped me out and seemed like good company, I agreed. Turned out to be a good decision.
While we walked and talked, we discussed a great many things. I learned that they had honed their English when the husband had attended the University of Missouri some 20 years ago for his master's degree and through his work with the Taipei Power Company he came into regular foreign contacts (GE, etc) so he certainly knew his stuff when it came to English. And no Maria, I didn't really ever ask their names. But then again, they didn't ask mine until after we had been talking for few hours (and when they sent me a nice email checking to see if I made it back to Korea safely they wrote my name as "Erica", so clearly the names weren't a huge thing). We discussed Korea at length as well as the differences between Seoul and Taipei. All within the realm of normal for folks that have spent some time in both cities. What really struck me was when they started asking me US politics questions about what I think of Obama and his policies. All I could think was: "Wow, I can't even have this type of conversation with most Americans and here I am, across the globe, in the middle of a forest, talking Obama health care. Wow." And for the record, Taiwan has a national health care program too. Get with the program America. Please.
We continued on the trail, chatting as we went, until we finally found the ponds. Sadly, they were really crowded as this particular day was a national holiday, thus so many people out hiking on a Wednesday. As the new friends weren't interested in swimming and I didn't feel like fighting for pond space, we quickly turned back towards the entrance.
At the entrance, they asked me what my plans were from here. When I told them I was just heading back to Taipei, they offered to drive me back to town, as they live in town and were going that way anyways. Wow. I wasn't kidding when I said the Taiwanese are super friendly, even to strangers. As it would be easier than riding a bus the whole way back and because they seemed like really nice folks, I agreed to the ride. I'm sorry mom. All those lessons about never getting into a stranger's car, and here I am riding with strangers in a strange, foreign and scary land. And they didn't even have to offer me candy.
Ohhh, here's some pics from that particular trail:
All along the way back to Taipei, which normally takes about an hour, but with all the holiday traffic it was closer to double that, we continued discussing Korea, life in Korea, Taiwan, life in Taiwan, America, you name it. I did particularly enjoy when the discussion shifted to college. The couple's only daughter had just started college on the other side of country just 2 weeks previous and they (well, mostly the wife) were worried about the atmosphere at colleges, if she would be studying, and other general questions about college life. As you can see people and parents really aren't that different, no matter where on earth you are. I explained about some of the things that took place on colleges nowadays, but made sure to preface that with information about how Madison is more drunk than most and how their daughter would surely study more than I did. Didn't want them to freak out too bad.
The weirdest thing that came up in the conversations all night? This guy:
I shit you not, John Denver honestly came up. They actually made several John Denver themed puns and jokes. Honestly. They definitely name-dropped lyrics from "Sunshine on my shoulders", "Rocky Mountain High" and "Take me home, country roads", which all fit in quite well given all the mountain trekking and hiking and country road traveling we were doing. How did they have all this John Denver knowledge stored up? Well, they had watched a John Denver concert on TV or DVD the day before. Haha. Talk about out of left field for a American pop culture point. All in all, the John Denver stuff was super amusing, and super cute, as the old couple was riffing between each other with the John Denver stuff.
Well, the time came when we arrived back in Taipei, but the couple decided to take me up to the better national park on the north side of town for more sightseeing and some dinner. Hell, what am I supposed to say to that? Jesus, these people are way, way too nice. So we headed up north to Yongmingshan National Park. By the time we got there it was too dark to hike around, but we could still grab dinner and get some solid shots of the sun setting over Taipei.
After climbing all the way up the hill in the car, we found our way to the restaurant. And man, was it a nice one. Large spacious place, with a huge patio overlooking Taipei and the setting sun in the distance, which was where I took these shots.
We ate, we enjoyed the lovely view, we chatted, we talked about the mainland Chinese sitting at the table right next to us (you can definitely get the sense that the Taiwanese look down on the mainlanders a bit). Sadly, after several hours relaxing in the perfect weather (did I mention how much nicer their weather is than Korea's or Wisconsin's?), it was time to go. The couple again was gracious enough to drop me off at a subway station near the mountain. We said our goodbyes, exchanged emails, and I said multiple thank yous for all the trouble they had gone through. Then we parted. Sure, I'll probably never see them and maybe won't even get back to the country ever again (but I'm damn sure gonna try and make it back), but they still made a very strong impression that will surely stick with me long after the individual details of the trip have faded. It's people like these that make me feel much better about the world we live in.
Pics: See Taiwan photos, Album 1
Sunday, October 3, 2010
"My Trip to Taiwan" or "I'm Dumb, Taiwanese are Super Nice, and Nature"
Super catchy title I know. But basically the whole vacation boiled down to my stupidity, the incredible generosity of the locals and lots of nature. That was pretty much it. And since the trip is still fresh in my mind, I've decided to ditch the chronological order and write about this and leave the posts about my parents visit and the batizado for some later date (hopefully soon though).
Well, thanks to Korea's big family holiday of Chuseok, where everybody has to go home and suffer the relatives, I got a long 6 day holiday, from Tuesday through Sunday. For all my wrangling over tickets, I was unable to find one that could get me into Taiwan early Tuesday, thereby giving me time to peruse the town before heading out for nature stuff on Wednesday. But with a 5pm flight you'll be sure to get to the airport on time and be in no rush to prep for the trip, right? Ummm, not really.
For starters, I got a really late start on account of spending the previous night out drinking. And really, could I have said no? The Korean class folks invited me out to a bar that shows NFL games. Exactly, I had to go. It's been a while since I've seen the games. Hell, last time I was watching the Packers, Favre was still the quarterback. Yeah. Nothing too special other than the male students ignoring the girls and watching the game instead. In our defense, the girls consisted of some of our teachers, meaning we would have had to talk to them in Korean. And there is no way I'm passing up football for korean practice. I'm pretty sure I would choose a curling broadcast over Korean practice, though. The teachers were very surprised to find how talkative I am in English. Like I'm gonna be a near mute, stuttering and stammering idiot in my native tongue? Yeesh, give me a little credit.
So I got up a bit late on my travel day. No big deal, still plenty of time to get to the airport. Well, not content on waiting till I got to Taiwan to be an idiot, I soon realized that: 1) I had forgotten to print off my e-ticket at school the day before and I have no printer at home 2) I had forgotten my umbrella at school. Now, the umbrella issue wouldn't usually be a thing, except this particular day happened to have the heavens throwing bucket after bucket down on poor Korea. And given I'll be carrying some delicate and important materials with me in a terribly un-waterproof backpack (passport, money, camera, etc), the umbrella was a must. So out I ran for a umbrella. Sure, the convenience store was only 10 feet away, but I was already soaked by the time I got there. Or at least my shoes were, meaning I would be in wet, cold shoes for the remainder of the day. Obviously not very pleasant or healthy.
With an umbrella, I was now ready to go and try to print off my e-ticket. The nearby PC room had a printer but it was working so well and my printout makes it look like I have double vision. Wonderful, but it will have to do. Load up, get on the bus, go. Now, the rain was certainly heavy, but at this point I was indoors and was pretty sure it couldn't thwart me any more....I was wrong.
Ahhhh, this is getting biblical!!! Where's my ark???
To be honest, I only chose the second pic cuz I find the man struggling futilely to pedal against the water to be very very funny.
But yeah, Seoul was flooding a little bit. And that first pic? That's the exact road my airport shuttle had to drive through. So traffic was a little backed up. Meaning I wouldn't be getting to the airport so quickly. Although, understandly, I wasn't so optimistic that the flights would even be running through this nasty of weather.
Luckily for me, the flights were all running and since everybody was tied up in family obligations and not traveling abroad over the vacation, the airport was empty. Eerily so. I got through the ticket line, got my ticket, got through security and immigration in less than 20 minutes. That is how its done.
With a quick 2 hour flight to Taiwan, then a shuttle ride that felt like it took just as long to downtown Taipei, and a brief walk to my hostel, I was finally here. And let me say right away, Taipei I'm a big fan. Seoul, if you are eavesdropping, you should be taking notes, for this is how you can go from my least favorite major Asian city I've been to to my favorite (and yes, I do rank Manila ahead of Seoul if for nothing else then being less than an hour away from some of the most beautiful places on Earth. Seoul is probably a couple of hours away from the places, maybe even a few countries away).
Taipei is/has:
1) Way less people than Tokyo or Seoul. How does 2.7 million to 15 million grab you? I never got the feeling that I could at any moment be buried under a landslide of people, like I do in Seoul.
2) Much better city planning. This one is big. The city's streets and roads are wide enough and have enough lanes to accommodate the traffic. City parking, even street side parking? Yeah, they thought of that. Lots of parks, trees and green space placed all over town? I approve.
3) Streets with names. I had completely forgotten that when looking for something, you can use the address for that establishment then follow maps to the exact location. Clear, logical and well marked major roads, set up on a grid with well marked and labeled back streets and alleys as well. Beautiful.
4) a much more relaxed populace. From the way they dress (much more casual and not as many shiny suits) to the way they behave on the subway and streets (they actually queue up for a subway and don't push over old ladies getting off the train in order to be the first one on and get a seat!!!!!! Manners!!!!), the people seemed to be less inclined to running themselves into the ground with stress and work and everything else.
5) great stuff to do within spitting distance. Taipei itself is much more navigable than Seoul due to the much smaller size, but it also has great stuff to do within an hour by subway from the city center. Beaches? Forests? National Parks? Mountains? Yeah, they got all that.
Anyways, with my shit finally settled, I headed out on the town to catch some sights and grab some dinner. Right away, Taipei caught my interest.
For whatever reason, the subway's tokens being actual tokens really excited me.
But having heard it was THE night market, I set off for Shilin Night Market for some people watching and some food. And amazingly, I was able to find the location without any trouble. Wait, that's right I'm not in Korea, of course finding the location would be easy and the maps would be very clear and well, correct.
And if you still can't find it with the maps, just follow the throngs of kids. I was able to blend in and move amongst them with little difficulty, given how Asian looking and short I am.....
Having little interest in buying clothes, which the majority of vendors were dedicated to, I set out looking to fill my stomach. Now, this wasn't terribly easy, as this was the first time really flying blind when it comes to food. When I came to Korea, I already could read the alphabet and most restaurants have pictures of their wares, so you can get a good idea of what you are eating. In the Philippines, they all spoke English and in Japan, I had Collin or some Japanese speaker to help me out. But here in Taiwan? I'm on my own. I can't speak Mandarin and I certainly can't read it. Hell, I didn't even bother to learn what "Hello", "goodbye", "yes", "no", or "thank you" were in Chinese. The restaurants, I quickly found, also don't usually have pictures. So unless I was sticking my head in the pot, I was flying blind. I eventually stopped at one place that looked good. It smelled awful around the vendor, but I'm still not convinced that that wasn't because some manner of animal had taken a dump nearby and no one had picked it up. Or it could have been the smell of whatever was cooking at one of the vendors in the area. Really don't know. But the waitress was able to convey that the food was "chicken". At least, that's what I think she said. Regardless, I sat down and was soon presented with the following:
Looked good enough, smelled good enough and tasted good enough for me. It appeared to be pieces of chicken, still on the bone, floating in a soup that also featured some noodles and veggies. Pretty tasty and satisfying for 2 or 3 dollars.
From there it was back to the hostel and into bed to rest up for a busy day tomorrow of hiking. But before that, I made a startling discovery about the nature of the universe. It now appears there are two forces in existence which one cannot escape from, no matter where they may hide. The first, unsurprisingly, is Jesus and the Christians. Obvious I know. The second, at least in Asia, is K-pop and Korean pop culture. Groan. Yes in just 5 hours in Taiwan, I saw several buses advertising the newest lousy Korean drama, a middle aged man with a super cheesy K-pop girl group song as his ringtone, and most of the songs playing in the Night Market were old, out of date K-pop songs which brought back wonderful memories of my ears bleeding and having to listen to my students sing them all the time about a year ago.
Well, I didn't get nearly as much done on this post as I would have liked, but I've gotta get some other stuff done tonight, so I might as well end this post right here. Stay tuned.
Pics: for more pics, see the facebook albums
Well, thanks to Korea's big family holiday of Chuseok, where everybody has to go home and suffer the relatives, I got a long 6 day holiday, from Tuesday through Sunday. For all my wrangling over tickets, I was unable to find one that could get me into Taiwan early Tuesday, thereby giving me time to peruse the town before heading out for nature stuff on Wednesday. But with a 5pm flight you'll be sure to get to the airport on time and be in no rush to prep for the trip, right? Ummm, not really.
For starters, I got a really late start on account of spending the previous night out drinking. And really, could I have said no? The Korean class folks invited me out to a bar that shows NFL games. Exactly, I had to go. It's been a while since I've seen the games. Hell, last time I was watching the Packers, Favre was still the quarterback. Yeah. Nothing too special other than the male students ignoring the girls and watching the game instead. In our defense, the girls consisted of some of our teachers, meaning we would have had to talk to them in Korean. And there is no way I'm passing up football for korean practice. I'm pretty sure I would choose a curling broadcast over Korean practice, though. The teachers were very surprised to find how talkative I am in English. Like I'm gonna be a near mute, stuttering and stammering idiot in my native tongue? Yeesh, give me a little credit.
So I got up a bit late on my travel day. No big deal, still plenty of time to get to the airport. Well, not content on waiting till I got to Taiwan to be an idiot, I soon realized that: 1) I had forgotten to print off my e-ticket at school the day before and I have no printer at home 2) I had forgotten my umbrella at school. Now, the umbrella issue wouldn't usually be a thing, except this particular day happened to have the heavens throwing bucket after bucket down on poor Korea. And given I'll be carrying some delicate and important materials with me in a terribly un-waterproof backpack (passport, money, camera, etc), the umbrella was a must. So out I ran for a umbrella. Sure, the convenience store was only 10 feet away, but I was already soaked by the time I got there. Or at least my shoes were, meaning I would be in wet, cold shoes for the remainder of the day. Obviously not very pleasant or healthy.
With an umbrella, I was now ready to go and try to print off my e-ticket. The nearby PC room had a printer but it was working so well and my printout makes it look like I have double vision. Wonderful, but it will have to do. Load up, get on the bus, go. Now, the rain was certainly heavy, but at this point I was indoors and was pretty sure it couldn't thwart me any more....I was wrong.
Ahhhh, this is getting biblical!!! Where's my ark???
To be honest, I only chose the second pic cuz I find the man struggling futilely to pedal against the water to be very very funny.
But yeah, Seoul was flooding a little bit. And that first pic? That's the exact road my airport shuttle had to drive through. So traffic was a little backed up. Meaning I wouldn't be getting to the airport so quickly. Although, understandly, I wasn't so optimistic that the flights would even be running through this nasty of weather.
Luckily for me, the flights were all running and since everybody was tied up in family obligations and not traveling abroad over the vacation, the airport was empty. Eerily so. I got through the ticket line, got my ticket, got through security and immigration in less than 20 minutes. That is how its done.
With a quick 2 hour flight to Taiwan, then a shuttle ride that felt like it took just as long to downtown Taipei, and a brief walk to my hostel, I was finally here. And let me say right away, Taipei I'm a big fan. Seoul, if you are eavesdropping, you should be taking notes, for this is how you can go from my least favorite major Asian city I've been to to my favorite (and yes, I do rank Manila ahead of Seoul if for nothing else then being less than an hour away from some of the most beautiful places on Earth. Seoul is probably a couple of hours away from the places, maybe even a few countries away).
Taipei is/has:
1) Way less people than Tokyo or Seoul. How does 2.7 million to 15 million grab you? I never got the feeling that I could at any moment be buried under a landslide of people, like I do in Seoul.
2) Much better city planning. This one is big. The city's streets and roads are wide enough and have enough lanes to accommodate the traffic. City parking, even street side parking? Yeah, they thought of that. Lots of parks, trees and green space placed all over town? I approve.
3) Streets with names. I had completely forgotten that when looking for something, you can use the address for that establishment then follow maps to the exact location. Clear, logical and well marked major roads, set up on a grid with well marked and labeled back streets and alleys as well. Beautiful.
4) a much more relaxed populace. From the way they dress (much more casual and not as many shiny suits) to the way they behave on the subway and streets (they actually queue up for a subway and don't push over old ladies getting off the train in order to be the first one on and get a seat!!!!!! Manners!!!!), the people seemed to be less inclined to running themselves into the ground with stress and work and everything else.
5) great stuff to do within spitting distance. Taipei itself is much more navigable than Seoul due to the much smaller size, but it also has great stuff to do within an hour by subway from the city center. Beaches? Forests? National Parks? Mountains? Yeah, they got all that.
Anyways, with my shit finally settled, I headed out on the town to catch some sights and grab some dinner. Right away, Taipei caught my interest.
For whatever reason, the subway's tokens being actual tokens really excited me.
But having heard it was THE night market, I set off for Shilin Night Market for some people watching and some food. And amazingly, I was able to find the location without any trouble. Wait, that's right I'm not in Korea, of course finding the location would be easy and the maps would be very clear and well, correct.
And if you still can't find it with the maps, just follow the throngs of kids. I was able to blend in and move amongst them with little difficulty, given how Asian looking and short I am.....
Having little interest in buying clothes, which the majority of vendors were dedicated to, I set out looking to fill my stomach. Now, this wasn't terribly easy, as this was the first time really flying blind when it comes to food. When I came to Korea, I already could read the alphabet and most restaurants have pictures of their wares, so you can get a good idea of what you are eating. In the Philippines, they all spoke English and in Japan, I had Collin or some Japanese speaker to help me out. But here in Taiwan? I'm on my own. I can't speak Mandarin and I certainly can't read it. Hell, I didn't even bother to learn what "Hello", "goodbye", "yes", "no", or "thank you" were in Chinese. The restaurants, I quickly found, also don't usually have pictures. So unless I was sticking my head in the pot, I was flying blind. I eventually stopped at one place that looked good. It smelled awful around the vendor, but I'm still not convinced that that wasn't because some manner of animal had taken a dump nearby and no one had picked it up. Or it could have been the smell of whatever was cooking at one of the vendors in the area. Really don't know. But the waitress was able to convey that the food was "chicken". At least, that's what I think she said. Regardless, I sat down and was soon presented with the following:
Looked good enough, smelled good enough and tasted good enough for me. It appeared to be pieces of chicken, still on the bone, floating in a soup that also featured some noodles and veggies. Pretty tasty and satisfying for 2 or 3 dollars.
From there it was back to the hostel and into bed to rest up for a busy day tomorrow of hiking. But before that, I made a startling discovery about the nature of the universe. It now appears there are two forces in existence which one cannot escape from, no matter where they may hide. The first, unsurprisingly, is Jesus and the Christians. Obvious I know. The second, at least in Asia, is K-pop and Korean pop culture. Groan. Yes in just 5 hours in Taiwan, I saw several buses advertising the newest lousy Korean drama, a middle aged man with a super cheesy K-pop girl group song as his ringtone, and most of the songs playing in the Night Market were old, out of date K-pop songs which brought back wonderful memories of my ears bleeding and having to listen to my students sing them all the time about a year ago.
Well, I didn't get nearly as much done on this post as I would have liked, but I've gotta get some other stuff done tonight, so I might as well end this post right here. Stay tuned.
Pics: for more pics, see the facebook albums
Friday, September 3, 2010
Still Catching Up: The School Trip
So before we get onto the teacher's trip, I need to discuss my school's tech guy, who might be the coolest Korean ever. For starters, he isn't super obsessed with appearance like most people his age (male or female) and usually just settles for a t-shirt and pants or something. He also enjoys sports, especially basketball. As you might imagine, we got along very well from the start. Sure, he's religious but he doesn't seem to be super crazy with it. He's okay with me laughing at him for having to waste his entire Sunday at church (and I mean the whole thing from 6am to about 6pm) and he always jokingly tells me he's going to pray for me to help me with this or that. Anyways, we were talking last night at the teacher's dinner and he mentioned that he had a date this weekend. In time, the discussion drifted towards sex (what? you think that only happens when I talk to westerners or in English? ahahah silly you) and I had to explain to him that "I don't want to wait" till marriage, that is. With that information and his knowledge of my general sleezy nature (I've recently been nagging him to go with me to a Hot Yoga class, where you do yoga in 90+ degree rooms, so we can creep on and maybe ask out some of the women there....he's yet to agree to it), he was able to correctly peg me in the following conversation.
Me: Hey, you should hook me up with some of your date's friends!
Tech Guy: Really? Are you sure? Because her friends are...um...they like Jesus.
Me: Oh....that's okay. I can change.
Tech Guy: Really? You would change?
Me: No.
Well played friend, well played. You understand ohhh so well and yet I've known you for such a short time. So it probably won't work out with his date's friends. But at least he'll be praying for me. And having J.C. on my team is never a bad thing, since the ladies love J.C.
Ride on my brother. You've earned it. People like you make me feel really good about the future of Korea.
Now on to the trip with my school. Back in mid-July, when the semester ended, our school decided to take a trip to the beach for relaxing and drinking (I presumed). So at 10am on the last Friday of the semester, we set off. Collin, the other foreign teacher, and I had no idea what we were getting ourselves into because, well, nobody had really told us anything. We knew that we were heading to somewhere near Boryeong Beach, which seemed like the worst time to come, as the biggest foreigner party/festival started the next day. Mud Fest, as it is called, is basically an excuse for people of all races, but mostly foreigners, to lounge around a beach, play in the water and get shit faced drunk. All the stories I've heard of it make it sound like the Korean equivalent of Spring Break. As you might imagine, I didn't really wanna be anywhere near it. We were arriving Friday afternoon and staying until Saturday afternoon, while the 2 week festival didn't really start (officially) until Saturday evening, but I still didn't like my chances for walking the beach and not running into really shady characters. But then the rain solved all of that. More on that later.
While on the bus, the foreigners kept to themselves, reading for most of the ride and avoiding everybody else. I think we would have felt worse about avoiding everybody if our co-teachers weren't in engaged in scintillating conversations about their husbands, their kids, their diets, or their clothes (they are all female) and the men on the bus weren't drinking their boredom away. Generally, I avoid the liquor in the A.M. and so far that wisdom has worked pretty well for me.
As for the rest of the 4 or 5 hours on the bus, the highlight was when we stopped at a rest station and I found the much too small swingset around the back of the station. Sure, its a little difficult to swing when you have to tuck your legs against your chest just so they don't drag on the ground and kill all your momentum when you swing through, but it was so worth it. And the old thing didn't break or kill me or anything, despite the all too frequent shudders and groaning noises coming from the swingset.
Thanks to the rain, that swinging was nearly the highlight of the entire trip. I had forgotten we were in the middle of the summer monsoon season, meaning that whatever you try to do, indoors or out, the rain will cock block it. Just how it goes. Our first item on the itinerary was to travel to some rather famous ski slope, obviously closed to skiing in July, ride the cable car/lift to the top and then hike around for several hours. Nature, you say? I'm in. However, we got shut down. So after waiting around at the slope for 30 minutes for the place to open up, and watching several of the male teachers become so bored (or so drunk?) that they started playing soccer with an empty beer can, we were informed that due to all the lightning and storms that were hanging around at the top, they wouldn't allow anybody up, for obvious safety reasons. Apparently mountains are quite high and thus make them a high risk for lightning strikes, which I'm told are bad. Boo, as it seemed like it would be really pretty.
This cancellation put us in a bit of a bind, as we had slotted 3 or 4 hours for trekking around up there. In a bit of a scramble, somebody managed to discover that there was a Wine Brewery nearby, where they kept and possibly brewed the stuff in a cave. Cool, but how are we gonna burn 3 or 4 hours there? I mean, I'm sure we tour the place then get a quick sample or something and are on our way in 30 minutes.....Ohhh, stay and buy some bottles of wine, you say. But to what end? What's that? Drink enough of them and almost anything will seem fun enough to waste 3 or 4 hours doing?....That just might work. Sadly, it did turn out to be the quick wander in, sample some wine, buy some bottles and leave. Ohhh well. I guess we had just resigned to the fact that we would be arriving at our hotel several hours early.
After more driving, we arrived at our hotel, only to find out it wasn't actually a hotel. My understanding of it was that it's a Seoul Office of Education training center/retreat complex and our school rented out several rooms for this particular weekend. Meaning that rather than a comfy bed, I would be sleeping on the floor, old school like. But its okay, as I'll be sleeping like a baby on those floor mats. You know, waking up innumerable times during the night, crying incessantly, and occasionally soiling my diapers. Ohhh, that's not what that expression means??? OOPs.
Being as we were a few hours earlier than we expected, we could have wandered around town and killed some time. Thankfully, somebody in charge had their head on straight and we immediately moved into the most important aspects of the trip. Namely the eating and drinking to excess. Once everybody was squared away in their proper rooms and had stowed their bags, the party moved towards dinner. We could have wandered the beach and most everybody really wanted to do just that, but again the heavy rain was having none of that. Straight away to dinner it is.
Dinner itself was the standard deal. Lots of food, lots of kimchi, lots of amazement about how much food I can eat, lots of men getting hammered and trying to get me to drink with them (it never works). There was, however, plenty of discussion about this "balloon volleyball" that the teachers would be playing immediately after dinner ended. As expected, Colin and I were out of the loop, meaning we were trying to figure out what the hell "balloon volleyball" even is and whose team we were on. As it turned out, balloon volleyball was exactly what it sounded like. Using one of the school's sleeping rooms, we would move some sort of obstacle into the middle to separate the two halves, then teams of two would play volleyball against each other. 3 touches per team, if the ball hits the ground the other team scores the point, etc. Rules are the same, except for the one about the men on the team having to play on the back line. Given that we are playing with a balloon, you would be correct to assume the back line players don't have to do a whole lot of anything.
Now, I thought, because this was a nice relaxing trip/retreat that folks wouldn't really care much about this silly little volleyball tourney. Man, was I wrong as usual. These people really need more competitive outlets in their lives, as it was pretty nutty watching this shit. Our team, in order to get some practice time before the matches, casually disappeared from dinner early (we really did). Colin and I happened to be on the same team and the real battle was to see who between us was less interested in the competition. It was pretty close, but I think he won. We trained with the rest of the subject teachers from the office, who weren't on our team, but again, we really didn't care. As for the training, it consisted of me lightly setting the balloon for the ladies at the front to spike. As you might imagine that required little to no effort on my part. Since it was a balloon there wasn't any need to rush to position myself properly for the contact, then all I had to do was very lightly tap the balloon over to the ladies in the front line to wack the hell out of. The ladies, on the other hand, couldn't have been more focused. They discussed how hard to hit the balloon, where on the court to aim it, whether open palm or closed fist was better for striking the ball, etc. Again nutty.
Soon enough, the games started and knew we wouldn't be doing anything in the back. That and the fellow teachers were insane. Arguing over calls, rule changes and clarifications, general bickering, sweating, you name it, it happened. And the women up front? Terrifying. The organizers had decided to use a coffee table as the dividing line, meaning the ball could fall and just rest on the table during matches while still being in play, which lead to numerous scrums and dogpiles and pileups on the table itself. The lack of concern for one's wellbeing, the aggression, the brutality....it reminded me of a rugby scrum.
Our game was no exception. Colin and I had been paired up with some ladies from the administration office and they controlled the balloon for about 99.9% of the time. In truth, I think I touched the balloon all of 4 times during the entire match. But really with 3 bloodthirsty ladies up front, how exactly is the balloon supposed to get to me? We started strong, going up 7-2 in a first to 10 game, only to lose 10-9 or something. Just like that, it was over. Colin and I had exchanged numerous glances during the match and it appeared we were feeling the same thing. Namely "What the fuck?" and "Huh?" and other expressions of incredible confusion. So we decided to use this free time to wander the beach and find some much needed peace and quiet.
As luck would have it, the rain had finally stopped. However, it was 11pm, so that made picture taking quite difficult, but still the beach walk was well worth it. The rain had kept the people at bay, so we had the beach mostly to our selves. No run ins with US soldiers, no run ins with meathead English teachers, no nothing. And for that I can be thankful. Here some shots from my night photo-deficient camera.
At this point things got fairly interesting, as Collin and I were called back to the dorm/hotel by Collin's co-teacher to hang out with the rest of the team. We were more than a bit unsure as to what was up, as the rest of our team was female and spoke minimal English, so what exactly would be accomplished was beyond us. Turns out they just wanted to drink with us. Although that was pretty surprising in itself, as Korean women usually seem uncomfortable drinking around men. Not like I can blame them. Hell, I feel uncomfortable just being around drunken Korean men (por ejemplo at school dinners) and I'm not even of the opposite sex. Then again, I have gotten some suspicious attention from the fellas at said events. Terrifying....or arousing? Could go either way.
Even being invited to such a event was quite the compliment. "I don't think you will drink yourself to a blackout or become a creepy skuzzball if you do happen to reach said blackout." Damn, that's gotta be nearly the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me. I prefer to imagine that they invited us, well me specifically, because the ladies just wanna stare at my beautiful face while listening to beautiful English words spill out of my beautiful mouth. Sadly, that probably isn't true.
Throughout the course of the drinking and game playing, I made sure to avoid as much alcohol as possible, probably due to my fear of drinking games. I assume my fear of such games stems from the first drinking game I ever played way back in Oshkosh which was named, unbeknown-est to me, "Let's shit on Wallin and make him drink alot". Frankly, I don't see my fear of drinking games to be that unusual really. Not like I had much to worry about with this crowd. Small Korean women with minimal tolerance? Exactly. Then there was poor Collin. The ladies would discuss and explain the rules of the game in Korean, meaning I could pull out the details for the most part, but Collin? Looked like a sad little confused puppy with a bunch of beers being sent his way. No idea what was going on.
Don't worry it gets more interesting. During one particular game, which required counting up to 31 (in English as Colin didn't know enough Korean to play that way), the young secretary messed up the counting. "13, 14, 19". Easy enough mistake to make, but still hilarious to everybody else, as we all work with 10 year olds that could do that in their sleep. She didn't seem to appreciate me laughing at her (getting laughed at for a second language mistake by someone who never, ever speaks Korean does seem pretty douchy, now that I think about it), and took some surprising action about it. She turned to me (we were sitting next to each other), looked me square in the face, hellbent on causing some pain (I could see the death in her eyes!), then abruptly grabbed me by the shirt collar and looked ready to haul off and smack me. Or at least that's the reasoning I'll give myself for flinching when she grabbed my shirt. I'm a wuss, what can I say? Although a lifetime of getting beat up by women would do that ya. She never did hit me though, only stared me down, then let go of the shirt while muttering under her breath about how we should play in Korean.
And what pray tell, do you think my reaction to this encounter? (Hint: it shouldn't be too hard to figure out)
If you said something about me instantly being attracted to her, you would be right. I am a masochist who seems to gravitate towards crazy or seemingly crazy womenz. In my defense though, the amount of women here that don't follow the cutesy/innocent/sweet girl act appears to be so small that finding someone that breaks that mold is really something to get excited about.
The next day, on our way back to Seoul, we stopped in at art gallery/greenhouse/place of wonder outside of town. Again, we would have liked to visit the beach. Or walk it. Or even look at it. But guess what? It was still fucking raining. So we just moved on. The art gallery, if that's really what it was, was simply a house that was filled with artwork and sculptures. Weird sculptures. I really liked the house though and its design, what with the nice balcony and the spacious sitting room and view out onto the woods behind the house. And my interest in the house had absolutely nothing to do with the naked lady (or nearly naked lady) sculptures situated across the house. I swear, hand on my heart.
Although, now that I think of it, my appreciation might just have been a result of having not been in a proper house in something like 2 years. I miss houses and all their roomy and cozy goodness.
This art park/art gallery place had a supposedly impressive sculpture park. Outside. And it was still raining, so we didn't do that. But the indoor greenhouse/forest? Ohhhh, we so did that. Twice. To say that I was caught off guard when we went into this place would be a huge understatement. I assumed it would just be like every other greenhouse I'd been in. Just rows and rows of plants. However, "greenhouse" probably isn't the right word for this place. "Arboretum" would probably be better. "Wonderland" would work too.
I think you can understand why I didn't wanna leave. It was big too. Probably football or soccer field long from end to end and twice (or maybe thrice) as wide. Filled with plants and other green things. And windmills. And those ponds? Full of fish. And did I mention the cute young girls working inside this wonderful, wonderful place? If the apocalypse does come to pass while I'm still in Korea, I know exactly where I'm going.
Sure, the place had a restaurant too, but its in the gift shop that this place really shines. Want a cute pet to take home and love until you lose interest in them? They got that.
Want vaguely or super rascist dolls to take home and disgust your friends with? What if said dolls were also super creepy? Done.
Sadly, every fairy tale must come to an end, and with heavy hearts we had to leave this wonderful place. But the memories (and/or nightmares) will remain forever.
Videos:
Me: Hey, you should hook me up with some of your date's friends!
Tech Guy: Really? Are you sure? Because her friends are...um...they like Jesus.
Me: Oh....that's okay. I can change.
Tech Guy: Really? You would change?
Me: No.
Well played friend, well played. You understand ohhh so well and yet I've known you for such a short time. So it probably won't work out with his date's friends. But at least he'll be praying for me. And having J.C. on my team is never a bad thing, since the ladies love J.C.
Ride on my brother. You've earned it. People like you make me feel really good about the future of Korea.
Now on to the trip with my school. Back in mid-July, when the semester ended, our school decided to take a trip to the beach for relaxing and drinking (I presumed). So at 10am on the last Friday of the semester, we set off. Collin, the other foreign teacher, and I had no idea what we were getting ourselves into because, well, nobody had really told us anything. We knew that we were heading to somewhere near Boryeong Beach, which seemed like the worst time to come, as the biggest foreigner party/festival started the next day. Mud Fest, as it is called, is basically an excuse for people of all races, but mostly foreigners, to lounge around a beach, play in the water and get shit faced drunk. All the stories I've heard of it make it sound like the Korean equivalent of Spring Break. As you might imagine, I didn't really wanna be anywhere near it. We were arriving Friday afternoon and staying until Saturday afternoon, while the 2 week festival didn't really start (officially) until Saturday evening, but I still didn't like my chances for walking the beach and not running into really shady characters. But then the rain solved all of that. More on that later.
While on the bus, the foreigners kept to themselves, reading for most of the ride and avoiding everybody else. I think we would have felt worse about avoiding everybody if our co-teachers weren't in engaged in scintillating conversations about their husbands, their kids, their diets, or their clothes (they are all female) and the men on the bus weren't drinking their boredom away. Generally, I avoid the liquor in the A.M. and so far that wisdom has worked pretty well for me.
As for the rest of the 4 or 5 hours on the bus, the highlight was when we stopped at a rest station and I found the much too small swingset around the back of the station. Sure, its a little difficult to swing when you have to tuck your legs against your chest just so they don't drag on the ground and kill all your momentum when you swing through, but it was so worth it. And the old thing didn't break or kill me or anything, despite the all too frequent shudders and groaning noises coming from the swingset.
Thanks to the rain, that swinging was nearly the highlight of the entire trip. I had forgotten we were in the middle of the summer monsoon season, meaning that whatever you try to do, indoors or out, the rain will cock block it. Just how it goes. Our first item on the itinerary was to travel to some rather famous ski slope, obviously closed to skiing in July, ride the cable car/lift to the top and then hike around for several hours. Nature, you say? I'm in. However, we got shut down. So after waiting around at the slope for 30 minutes for the place to open up, and watching several of the male teachers become so bored (or so drunk?) that they started playing soccer with an empty beer can, we were informed that due to all the lightning and storms that were hanging around at the top, they wouldn't allow anybody up, for obvious safety reasons. Apparently mountains are quite high and thus make them a high risk for lightning strikes, which I'm told are bad. Boo, as it seemed like it would be really pretty.
This cancellation put us in a bit of a bind, as we had slotted 3 or 4 hours for trekking around up there. In a bit of a scramble, somebody managed to discover that there was a Wine Brewery nearby, where they kept and possibly brewed the stuff in a cave. Cool, but how are we gonna burn 3 or 4 hours there? I mean, I'm sure we tour the place then get a quick sample or something and are on our way in 30 minutes.....Ohhh, stay and buy some bottles of wine, you say. But to what end? What's that? Drink enough of them and almost anything will seem fun enough to waste 3 or 4 hours doing?....That just might work. Sadly, it did turn out to be the quick wander in, sample some wine, buy some bottles and leave. Ohhh well. I guess we had just resigned to the fact that we would be arriving at our hotel several hours early.
After more driving, we arrived at our hotel, only to find out it wasn't actually a hotel. My understanding of it was that it's a Seoul Office of Education training center/retreat complex and our school rented out several rooms for this particular weekend. Meaning that rather than a comfy bed, I would be sleeping on the floor, old school like. But its okay, as I'll be sleeping like a baby on those floor mats. You know, waking up innumerable times during the night, crying incessantly, and occasionally soiling my diapers. Ohhh, that's not what that expression means??? OOPs.
Being as we were a few hours earlier than we expected, we could have wandered around town and killed some time. Thankfully, somebody in charge had their head on straight and we immediately moved into the most important aspects of the trip. Namely the eating and drinking to excess. Once everybody was squared away in their proper rooms and had stowed their bags, the party moved towards dinner. We could have wandered the beach and most everybody really wanted to do just that, but again the heavy rain was having none of that. Straight away to dinner it is.
Dinner itself was the standard deal. Lots of food, lots of kimchi, lots of amazement about how much food I can eat, lots of men getting hammered and trying to get me to drink with them (it never works). There was, however, plenty of discussion about this "balloon volleyball" that the teachers would be playing immediately after dinner ended. As expected, Colin and I were out of the loop, meaning we were trying to figure out what the hell "balloon volleyball" even is and whose team we were on. As it turned out, balloon volleyball was exactly what it sounded like. Using one of the school's sleeping rooms, we would move some sort of obstacle into the middle to separate the two halves, then teams of two would play volleyball against each other. 3 touches per team, if the ball hits the ground the other team scores the point, etc. Rules are the same, except for the one about the men on the team having to play on the back line. Given that we are playing with a balloon, you would be correct to assume the back line players don't have to do a whole lot of anything.
Now, I thought, because this was a nice relaxing trip/retreat that folks wouldn't really care much about this silly little volleyball tourney. Man, was I wrong as usual. These people really need more competitive outlets in their lives, as it was pretty nutty watching this shit. Our team, in order to get some practice time before the matches, casually disappeared from dinner early (we really did). Colin and I happened to be on the same team and the real battle was to see who between us was less interested in the competition. It was pretty close, but I think he won. We trained with the rest of the subject teachers from the office, who weren't on our team, but again, we really didn't care. As for the training, it consisted of me lightly setting the balloon for the ladies at the front to spike. As you might imagine that required little to no effort on my part. Since it was a balloon there wasn't any need to rush to position myself properly for the contact, then all I had to do was very lightly tap the balloon over to the ladies in the front line to wack the hell out of. The ladies, on the other hand, couldn't have been more focused. They discussed how hard to hit the balloon, where on the court to aim it, whether open palm or closed fist was better for striking the ball, etc. Again nutty.
Soon enough, the games started and knew we wouldn't be doing anything in the back. That and the fellow teachers were insane. Arguing over calls, rule changes and clarifications, general bickering, sweating, you name it, it happened. And the women up front? Terrifying. The organizers had decided to use a coffee table as the dividing line, meaning the ball could fall and just rest on the table during matches while still being in play, which lead to numerous scrums and dogpiles and pileups on the table itself. The lack of concern for one's wellbeing, the aggression, the brutality....it reminded me of a rugby scrum.
Our game was no exception. Colin and I had been paired up with some ladies from the administration office and they controlled the balloon for about 99.9% of the time. In truth, I think I touched the balloon all of 4 times during the entire match. But really with 3 bloodthirsty ladies up front, how exactly is the balloon supposed to get to me? We started strong, going up 7-2 in a first to 10 game, only to lose 10-9 or something. Just like that, it was over. Colin and I had exchanged numerous glances during the match and it appeared we were feeling the same thing. Namely "What the fuck?" and "Huh?" and other expressions of incredible confusion. So we decided to use this free time to wander the beach and find some much needed peace and quiet.
As luck would have it, the rain had finally stopped. However, it was 11pm, so that made picture taking quite difficult, but still the beach walk was well worth it. The rain had kept the people at bay, so we had the beach mostly to our selves. No run ins with US soldiers, no run ins with meathead English teachers, no nothing. And for that I can be thankful. Here some shots from my night photo-deficient camera.
At this point things got fairly interesting, as Collin and I were called back to the dorm/hotel by Collin's co-teacher to hang out with the rest of the team. We were more than a bit unsure as to what was up, as the rest of our team was female and spoke minimal English, so what exactly would be accomplished was beyond us. Turns out they just wanted to drink with us. Although that was pretty surprising in itself, as Korean women usually seem uncomfortable drinking around men. Not like I can blame them. Hell, I feel uncomfortable just being around drunken Korean men (por ejemplo at school dinners) and I'm not even of the opposite sex. Then again, I have gotten some suspicious attention from the fellas at said events. Terrifying....or arousing? Could go either way.
Even being invited to such a event was quite the compliment. "I don't think you will drink yourself to a blackout or become a creepy skuzzball if you do happen to reach said blackout." Damn, that's gotta be nearly the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me. I prefer to imagine that they invited us, well me specifically, because the ladies just wanna stare at my beautiful face while listening to beautiful English words spill out of my beautiful mouth. Sadly, that probably isn't true.
Throughout the course of the drinking and game playing, I made sure to avoid as much alcohol as possible, probably due to my fear of drinking games. I assume my fear of such games stems from the first drinking game I ever played way back in Oshkosh which was named, unbeknown-est to me, "Let's shit on Wallin and make him drink alot". Frankly, I don't see my fear of drinking games to be that unusual really. Not like I had much to worry about with this crowd. Small Korean women with minimal tolerance? Exactly. Then there was poor Collin. The ladies would discuss and explain the rules of the game in Korean, meaning I could pull out the details for the most part, but Collin? Looked like a sad little confused puppy with a bunch of beers being sent his way. No idea what was going on.
Don't worry it gets more interesting. During one particular game, which required counting up to 31 (in English as Colin didn't know enough Korean to play that way), the young secretary messed up the counting. "13, 14, 19". Easy enough mistake to make, but still hilarious to everybody else, as we all work with 10 year olds that could do that in their sleep. She didn't seem to appreciate me laughing at her (getting laughed at for a second language mistake by someone who never, ever speaks Korean does seem pretty douchy, now that I think about it), and took some surprising action about it. She turned to me (we were sitting next to each other), looked me square in the face, hellbent on causing some pain (I could see the death in her eyes!), then abruptly grabbed me by the shirt collar and looked ready to haul off and smack me. Or at least that's the reasoning I'll give myself for flinching when she grabbed my shirt. I'm a wuss, what can I say? Although a lifetime of getting beat up by women would do that ya. She never did hit me though, only stared me down, then let go of the shirt while muttering under her breath about how we should play in Korean.
And what pray tell, do you think my reaction to this encounter? (Hint: it shouldn't be too hard to figure out)
If you said something about me instantly being attracted to her, you would be right. I am a masochist who seems to gravitate towards crazy or seemingly crazy womenz. In my defense though, the amount of women here that don't follow the cutesy/innocent/sweet girl act appears to be so small that finding someone that breaks that mold is really something to get excited about.
The next day, on our way back to Seoul, we stopped in at art gallery/greenhouse/place of wonder outside of town. Again, we would have liked to visit the beach. Or walk it. Or even look at it. But guess what? It was still fucking raining. So we just moved on. The art gallery, if that's really what it was, was simply a house that was filled with artwork and sculptures. Weird sculptures. I really liked the house though and its design, what with the nice balcony and the spacious sitting room and view out onto the woods behind the house. And my interest in the house had absolutely nothing to do with the naked lady (or nearly naked lady) sculptures situated across the house. I swear, hand on my heart.
Although, now that I think of it, my appreciation might just have been a result of having not been in a proper house in something like 2 years. I miss houses and all their roomy and cozy goodness.
This art park/art gallery place had a supposedly impressive sculpture park. Outside. And it was still raining, so we didn't do that. But the indoor greenhouse/forest? Ohhhh, we so did that. Twice. To say that I was caught off guard when we went into this place would be a huge understatement. I assumed it would just be like every other greenhouse I'd been in. Just rows and rows of plants. However, "greenhouse" probably isn't the right word for this place. "Arboretum" would probably be better. "Wonderland" would work too.
I think you can understand why I didn't wanna leave. It was big too. Probably football or soccer field long from end to end and twice (or maybe thrice) as wide. Filled with plants and other green things. And windmills. And those ponds? Full of fish. And did I mention the cute young girls working inside this wonderful, wonderful place? If the apocalypse does come to pass while I'm still in Korea, I know exactly where I'm going.
Sure, the place had a restaurant too, but its in the gift shop that this place really shines. Want a cute pet to take home and love until you lose interest in them? They got that.
Want vaguely or super rascist dolls to take home and disgust your friends with? What if said dolls were also super creepy? Done.
Sadly, every fairy tale must come to an end, and with heavy hearts we had to leave this wonderful place. But the memories (and/or nightmares) will remain forever.
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