Tuesday, August 15, 2006
August 8
Our boat was huge. As big as a mall. It moved quickly with a steady, smooth rumbling. We shared a cabin with a group of other guys and had folded mattresses in stacks against the wall to unfold when we needed sleep.
Having misread our itinerary, I thought our six-hour trip would take at least 16, and was surprised to see land when I went out on deck to see if the deep sea really does smell different from coastal waters, as I had read in a book.
I spent my time on the boat talking to several Koreans, and got the impression that they are far more outgoing than the Japanese. One guy came up to me and wanted me to take his picture. I thought that was a strange request and he must have actually wanted me to take his picture, so I did. He actually hadn't misspoken, and wanted to take my picture, and for that, he brought me a beer and sat next to me and we talked for hours. He spoke English fluently and had been living in Japan the last several years.
Before we left the boat, we had several offers to stay at people's houses in Seoul and a slightly chunky guy with square half-rimmed glasses, who hadn't said much the whole way wanted us to follow him when we got off the boat. He told us he wanted to show us where to find cheap hotels, and we agreed to follow him.
Our ship was grand inside. Three stories of rooms, a spacious restaurant and open commons with cushioned chairs on each storey. There were rooms for Karaoke, beer vending machines, and a long deck where we could let the wind and mist blow through our hair and watch the sea go by. Through our binoculars, the horizon was speckled with small boats.
The ship was relaxing and pleasant. I found it much nicer than traveling by plane. We were not confined to a seat next to any particular person. The whole time, we could walk around, lie down to sleep, mingle, eat in the restaurant ... Customs was also much less invasive. No x-rays, rules about what you can have in your water bottle or extensive security procedures.
The ship moved so smoothly that I didn't even notice when it began to move, and could just see the golden dome of Fukuoka disappearing into the haze when I finally went outside to wait for the ship to depart. The ocean was a deep blue until we got to Pusan and it turned a coffee brown.
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The hills around Pusan harbor just behind the docks and its huge red cranes are full of houses piled up on top of each other. Each one is a different color, has a flat roof, square windows, a blue container on the roof for water and almost no space between them. It looks almost like the Mediterranean, the colors are almost like Mexico. Our ship pulled deep into the bay with city and mountains on all three sides. Smaller boats went back and forth far beneath our deck and even larger boats sat like mountains blocking the coastline. It was a big, busy port full of containers and cranes.
With our backpacks on, we walked off the boat. Our new friend, Kwong, was telling us to follow him, we followed all the passengers into the quarantine to show our passports to Korean customs. We kept following Kwong, didn't have time to stop at Tourist Info and orient ourselves. We followed Kwong into the city, across a vast intersection with six lanes of impatient traffic. Across the street too big to have been in Japan, and down onto a neighborhood road too dirty to have been in Japan, with people standing around, talking, loitering, not as busy as people in Japan. This was definitely not Japan. We were hungry, our friend was asking around about where to eat.
Around a corner we brought our bikes up some nondescript, grey stairs into the entrance of a tall apartment building. "Lock your bikes", Kwong told us, asking if we thought they would be safe there, as if we knew better than he. Then, we went into an unmarked glass door with a red frame and found ourselves in a restaurant. A big menu hung on the wall, but we couldn't read anything but the prices.
Our food arrived sizzling loudly in thick, black stone bowls. Rice, spicy vegetables, Chile sauce and a dozen small plates of extras: Kimchi, Daikon, Chilies and other things I don't know the names of. The dish, we learned, is called Bibinbap. It's a good name, good food, and a spicy reminder that we had left Japan.
In Japan, everybody always pays for their own food. If you eat with a group, unless it is your principal taking you out on the mandatory end-of-semester lunches, restaurant tickets are always broken up. At my Conversation Night in Japan, I rounded up my tab by about ten yen and gave an even 500 to one of the ladies there. Two weeks later, she insisted that I take back my ten yen, saying that if you laugh at ten yen, ten yen will cause you problems later. I laughed and took it back.
In Korea, we were almost completely unable to pay for our own meals when we went out with other people. Kwong paid for our dinners and called his friend, Baek, who spoke excellent English and met us in the subway station. There, the team of two found us a room in the fanciest love hotel we've ever seen. It had internet, a wall-sized TV, a bath with full jacuzzi and a smaller TV built into the wall above it, a shower that doubled as a steam room, a huge bed, filtered water with a hot and cold tap and one of the fancy toilets I'd only seen in Japan with the console of buttons.
We thanked our new friends for their efforts, but that was not goodbye. Our itinerary for the evening also included drinks with the aspiring "dentalists". Our beer came in a 3 liter, mug-shaped pitcher and our table had sunken holes with cooling elements in them in which our personal beer caraffes fit and were kept icy.
Our boat was huge. As big as a mall. It moved quickly with a steady, smooth rumbling. We shared a cabin with a group of other guys and had folded mattresses in stacks against the wall to unfold when we needed sleep.
Having misread our itinerary, I thought our six-hour trip would take at least 16, and was surprised to see land when I went out on deck to see if the deep sea really does smell different from coastal waters, as I had read in a book.
I spent my time on the boat talking to several Koreans, and got the impression that they are far more outgoing than the Japanese. One guy came up to me and wanted me to take his picture. I thought that was a strange request and he must have actually wanted me to take his picture, so I did. He actually hadn't misspoken, and wanted to take my picture, and for that, he brought me a beer and sat next to me and we talked for hours. He spoke English fluently and had been living in Japan the last several years.
Before we left the boat, we had several offers to stay at people's houses in Seoul and a slightly chunky guy with square half-rimmed glasses, who hadn't said much the whole way wanted us to follow him when we got off the boat. He told us he wanted to show us where to find cheap hotels, and we agreed to follow him.
Our ship was grand inside. Three stories of rooms, a spacious restaurant and open commons with cushioned chairs on each storey. There were rooms for Karaoke, beer vending machines, and a long deck where we could let the wind and mist blow through our hair and watch the sea go by. Through our binoculars, the horizon was speckled with small boats.
The ship was relaxing and pleasant. I found it much nicer than traveling by plane. We were not confined to a seat next to any particular person. The whole time, we could walk around, lie down to sleep, mingle, eat in the restaurant ... Customs was also much less invasive. No x-rays, rules about what you can have in your water bottle or extensive security procedures.
The ship moved so smoothly that I didn't even notice when it began to move, and could just see the golden dome of Fukuoka disappearing into the haze when I finally went outside to wait for the ship to depart. The ocean was a deep blue until we got to Pusan and it turned a coffee brown.
----------------
The hills around Pusan harbor just behind the docks and its huge red cranes are full of houses piled up on top of each other. Each one is a different color, has a flat roof, square windows, a blue container on the roof for water and almost no space between them. It looks almost like the Mediterranean, the colors are almost like Mexico. Our ship pulled deep into the bay with city and mountains on all three sides. Smaller boats went back and forth far beneath our deck and even larger boats sat like mountains blocking the coastline. It was a big, busy port full of containers and cranes.
With our backpacks on, we walked off the boat. Our new friend, Kwong, was telling us to follow him, we followed all the passengers into the quarantine to show our passports to Korean customs. We kept following Kwong, didn't have time to stop at Tourist Info and orient ourselves. We followed Kwong into the city, across a vast intersection with six lanes of impatient traffic. Across the street too big to have been in Japan, and down onto a neighborhood road too dirty to have been in Japan, with people standing around, talking, loitering, not as busy as people in Japan. This was definitely not Japan. We were hungry, our friend was asking around about where to eat.
Around a corner we brought our bikes up some nondescript, grey stairs into the entrance of a tall apartment building. "Lock your bikes", Kwong told us, asking if we thought they would be safe there, as if we knew better than he. Then, we went into an unmarked glass door with a red frame and found ourselves in a restaurant. A big menu hung on the wall, but we couldn't read anything but the prices.
Our food arrived sizzling loudly in thick, black stone bowls. Rice, spicy vegetables, Chile sauce and a dozen small plates of extras: Kimchi, Daikon, Chilies and other things I don't know the names of. The dish, we learned, is called Bibinbap. It's a good name, good food, and a spicy reminder that we had left Japan.
In Japan, everybody always pays for their own food. If you eat with a group, unless it is your principal taking you out on the mandatory end-of-semester lunches, restaurant tickets are always broken up. At my Conversation Night in Japan, I rounded up my tab by about ten yen and gave an even 500 to one of the ladies there. Two weeks later, she insisted that I take back my ten yen, saying that if you laugh at ten yen, ten yen will cause you problems later. I laughed and took it back.
In Korea, we were almost completely unable to pay for our own meals when we went out with other people. Kwong paid for our dinners and called his friend, Baek, who spoke excellent English and met us in the subway station. There, the team of two found us a room in the fanciest love hotel we've ever seen. It had internet, a wall-sized TV, a bath with full jacuzzi and a smaller TV built into the wall above it, a shower that doubled as a steam room, a huge bed, filtered water with a hot and cold tap and one of the fancy toilets I'd only seen in Japan with the console of buttons.
We thanked our new friends for their efforts, but that was not goodbye. Our itinerary for the evening also included drinks with the aspiring "dentalists". Our beer came in a 3 liter, mug-shaped pitcher and our table had sunken holes with cooling elements in them in which our personal beer caraffes fit and were kept icy.
