Somebody that was smarter than me said, "A picture is worth 1000 words". This picture might have 1000 words in it (doubtful) but the most important words are "Eating a raw mussel that I just dug out of the mud". Topics for this update include (somewhat chronologically)... peeing in a cup, being on a train, price shopping love motels, waiting outside a McDonalds for 2 hours, Soju, more Soju, being an American on the Seoul subway system, and of course, having a delicious moment with an old Korean guy in the mud of the Pacific.
The stage is set, first free weekend in Korea. Train tickets to Seoul from Jochiwan in my pocket, and that is where the well laid plans end and the vague ideas of what I wanted to do begin. But before this could happen (going out of chronological order by the 3rd sentence, this does not bode well. Bear with me.) all the scholars had to do a medical checkup. Obviously this included hight & weight (weight had dropped, I suspect the Kimchi is working it's magic), an eye test that even an eagle would need binoculars to pass, a blood test, and peeing in a cup. I hope I passed the drug test, I studied really hard the night before.
The train ride was uneventful, although I did learn to move faster than kimchi through a yankee when my Korean friend, and fellow emu said "we need to move faster!" and then a second after I had my foot on the train it started to move. We were on our own on the ride back and the train started moving before we all got off, live and learn.
Seoul is a big city, Massively so. If you told me a year ago that I would be riding the metro system in Seoul I would have called you crazy, I wonder how many americans see Seoul before NYC?
Our first evening is Seoul felt a bit like what being a chaperone with a 2nd grade class to the zoo whist walking 9 full blown Dobermans. There were 14 of us and we should have made sub groups and split up, this is how I spent 2 hours waiting outside of a McDonald's. Que sera sera, nobody was lost so cue the Soju. South Korea has a different drinking culture than the States, most evident to me is the ability to drink anywhere. Very often I will see cheap-o patio furniture outside convenience stores, this is very much like an outdoor bar, but no regulations, building codes, or servers. Korea does this on the cheap, no complaints here. I could be more forthcoming about the shenanigans, but it was really quite tame. I spent 15$ to crash in a motel with some friends (it wasn't the Ritz, but perfectly passible for what we needed). The next day we went to Itewan (in smaller groups) to shop, everybody made it to the train station and back to Jochiwan. In retrospect I think I was cautiously concerned about getting the logistics of the trip squared away before letting loose, next time I will get to take my tie off.
The next day was monday as well as Korean Independence day, the Talk program organized a field trip to some place. I signed up for it because it had pictures of people in a field (farming?), eating, and covered in mud. What we were actually going to do was up to anybody's best guess. Rumors of a farm stay floated around as well as 1 hour bus ride, these would prove to be quite wrong. After an hour and a half the bus driver pulled off into a rest area spot and smoked though a whole pack of cigarettes in 10 minutes and told us we would be there in another hour. Wrong. 2 hours later after going down roads that would have made me sweat on my motorcycle, getting lost, literally dead ending at the ocean we made it to the place. Pile on a tractor take a ride to this gigantic sea wall get out and dig for some mussels...Wut. que sera sera, lets dig for some crustaceans. Lia, Sam, Sam & I walked out barefoot in the tidal mud area (taking the long way around because some of the group felt obligated to start a mud fight almost instantly) and befriended an old Korean man (our opa) who showed us proper technique for digging for things. It took a little while to find be successful, I dug up a little crab, a bunch of nothing and stomped around in the mud of the sea (on a side note, the last time I was in the Ocean/Sea/salt water was 8+ years ago). Then eureka! We found one. The Korean man busted out his keys and cracked that thing open (it was a bad day to be a mussel in mud this day), he motioned towards his mouth at me and said "Eat, Eat". The rest of the group instantly became intensely interested...but at a distance. I hesitated for a moment and then thought "it really doesn't get more authentic than this". To make sure nothing was lost in translation I motioned to share it with him (I've only had cooked sea food for some reason), bottoms up (see picture at top of the post). And that was my second weekend in South Korea.
I had a thought today that I had forgotten that I was walking down a street in South Korea and instead was merely walking down a street.
I purchased some postcards of places that are in South Korea but have not necessarily been to, I'll get moving on those the next time I am bored (Christmas, more than likely).
Until we meet again.
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