Thomas the Train

My first 2 weekends in Korea have included a bit of traveling, both north and south of my new town, Pyeongtaek. Two weekends ago, Brandon and I decided to meet some of his friends up in Seoul (the capital of South Korea) to see an American comedian, Ted Alexandro. You can look him up on youtube- listen to him rant about Obama, gays, and Jesus. (My favorite part- the flaming rainbow flag… ya gotta check it out. The show took place in a section of the city called Itaewon (pronounced e-tay-wan), which is more or less known as the international section of Seoul, mostly due to the huge influx of American soldiers from the nearby base.

We planted ourselves at a table on the roof of this little Americanized bar, quickly downing pints of Cass and soju. We somehow cajoled our lovely entertainer of the night to sit down and talk American with us. The atmosphere actually made me think that I was back in the U.S. Butttt…that quickly changed the second we walked out of the bar, onto Hooker Hill, and immediately spotted some transies. Yep. Shemans.

We slowly, but surely, made it back to our room in the Love Motel. The best way to describe this is a cheap, but clean hotel where Korean men take women to hook up for the night and where penny-pinching Americans crash to save money while traveling. I know, a little sketch, but it does its job. The next morning, all groggy and slightly hungover, we made our way out of bed and back onto the train, heading south towards Geumsan for the Ginseng Festival. Yeah, it’s about as exciting as it sounds.

The Korean tourist website made it seem amusing, ok? But it really wasn’t worth the trip. To be honest, I totally forgot what we did on Saturday and had to browse through my camera to remember the festivities. But hey, we got called out for being foreigners. Shocking. What’s new?

So this past weekend, we vowed to have a slightly more amusing Saturday. Not sure of our weekend plans, we crashed in Pyeongtaek on Friday night. Due to the typhoon, we cancelled 2 different outdoor plans and decided to head to Daegu, the fourth largest city in Korea, known for their fashion industry and traditional medicine market. (Note: Korean fashion = under par, but there’s too much to rant about so I’ll save that for another blog).

After wondering through the city we decided to check out Daegu’s jimjilbong (an overnight spa). As usual, I got as many stares as there are temples in Korea. We “went to sleep” (and I say that loosely because I doubt we got more than 4 hours of rest) around 11pm with a maximum of 5 people at the spa. When we woke up (for the final time), the place was PACKED with drunks who had stumbled in after a long night of soju.

Excited for some hiking, we headed to Gayasan (Gaya Mountain) to hike to the pinnacle and see Haeinsa, one of Korea’s most sacred temples. Since 1398, the Tripitaka Koreana, or 81, 258 wooden printing blocks that contain the Buddhist Scriptures (basically equivalent to the Holy Bible or the Torah) has been stored here (Note: my Korean computer just tried to correct my grammar here to one of the following 1. has were 2. has had been or 3. has have been). This temple is absolutely gorgeous and I would LOVE to go back there. Well, luckily for me, we’re going to have to.

About 50 meters into our hike, we see a group of Korean hikers, decked out in the most absurd gear (obvi!), coming down the mountain, yelling “No! No!” at us. Eh??? Screw it, we’re hiking this mountain. Despite the rain and the Korean pleading, we make it about 50 more meters up the mountain, only to get turned around by a park ranger with his zipper undone (wonder what he was doing in his little hut…). So we cursed for a little, hiked down the whole 100 meters and made it back to Daegu.

Pissed off and tired, we caught an early train back to Pyeongtaek. Low and behold, we run into my co-teacher, her husband, and their 2 year old son!!! Keep in mind, we had run into them on the train to Daegu, and there must be at least 20 trains a day that run between the two cities… what are the chances?! So after thoroughly enjoying their company, we decided to get dinner together. All throughout dinner, their little boy (who is actually the cutest Asian baby alive) kept singing the Korean version of Thomas the Train. Ugh! He is sooo adorable. So although for the last 2 weekends we spent more time on trains that land, friendships were made and bits of Korea were explored! Hopefully this weekend will bode better luck for us.