Cafe society

Bach ... Rimbaud ... Covent Garden.

We are not in New York anymore

Click on photos to enlarge.

LO: We have continued exploring both the city and its surroundings. In the last two days we have discovered a whole new neighborhood of Wonju and climbed a mountain! Okay, we almost climbed a mountain.
The new area is actually right behind our apartment complex. The focal point of this part of the city is Wonju City Hall and the art center, Baegun Art Hall, attached to it. There are loads of great restaurants and shops, including the smallest coffee shop I have ever seen (pictured).

As for the mountain, we took a bus from outside our apartment complex for about 10 minutes, trekked through the countryside for a couple of miles to the mountain. It took us 40 minutes to hike up to the third base in the picture, before heading back down the way we came.

Why didn't we reach the summit? Did I mention I am scared of heights?

For the botanists out there - we know you are many - the trees with the yellow flowers are Japanese cornel dogwood, also known as Japanese cornelian cherry. In Korean, sansuyu. It's a food or medicinal plant.

No place like home

LO: It is four weeks since we left New York. We are slowly getting to know Wonju and what it has to offer. It reminds me of Sarajevo. In both cities the majority of people live in huge apartment complexes, where children play right in front of their buildings. Little green groceries, small butcher shops and bakeries are on the corner of each street, and every morning women air their bedding from their windows. There is an old market in both cities, located right next to the main walking/shopping district. There are beautiful mountains with ski slopes and resorts outside both Sarajevo and Wonju. And both have been savagely destroyed at some point in their history.

Punk puss in pink boots eases North Korean invasion jitters

We kid you not. Spotted in window of Wonju pet store.

Language barrier

Interesting piece on the Korea Times site.

.... Being relatively new here with almost no understanding of the Korean language yet, he said traveling outside of Seoul was a challenge and adventure...

The U.S. expatriate apparently isn't the only one struggling with these problems, however, as the Korea Chamber of Commerce Industry (KCCI) said Tuesday that 35 percent of foreigners living here feel the same way.

Read full article at:

http://koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/biz/2009/03/123_41462.html

Crossing the Han solo (sorry!)

WARNING: Reduce volume of your computer speakers before playing video.



This is our taxi ride north across the Han River to the Grand Hyatt hotel. You can just about see the Seoul TV tower up ahead, to the left of the mountain peak. Of course, it wasn't a solo journey, we were both in the cab. I just needed another lame punning headline, one the locals have probably NEVER heard before.

What's for lunch?

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LO: Last weekend we explored the old downtown where old ladies sell hot peppers and dried fish in front of Ralph Lauren, Nike and Fila stores. This area is full of fancy western clothing stores and on some of the streets cars are not allowed, so it seems like a big outdoors mall. We came across the old provincial capital buildings that Dave has mentioned before and continued on to the shopping area. We also found the old temple (not pictured here) on top of the hill. While we would have loved to climb up the hill, it seemed that the stairs were the steepest I have ever seen. Ok, I might be exaggerating here, but they seemed to go on forever and the fact that I couldn't see their end made me give up. Hey, I will be living here for some time, so I will get to it ... one day.

Eventually we got hungry and decided to get some food at what seemed like a Korean food version of fast food. The menu is not what you would have expected. It is just a list of Korean meals with a price, no translation, no pictures. We were either going to starve or try to order whatever we could. After about five minutes of studying our little menu (it's about the size of a small envelope), we managed to translate the following:

1. soegogi kimbap (Korean version of sushi with beef)

2. bibimbap (rice with vegetables and a fried egg on top)

3. mandu guk (dumpling soup)

We should get a little medal for managing to do this only two weeks after our arrival, and no previous knowledge of the language. Yes, we were over the moon by the time we got our food. It was what we thought we ordered and it was delicious!

Totally wired

LO: I have already finished my second work week here in Wonju. Time seems to fly by when everything is new and foreign. We have been busy starting a new life, getting alien registration cards, bank accounts, credit cards, cell phones, cable and internet, and figuring out our washing machine, dish dryer, kitchen sanitizer machine (its UV rays kill all the bacteria on our plates!), and our intercom system that includes a camera outside our door and a walkie-talkie to be used in case of emergenies.

My new employers have been incredibly supportive and helpful. One of the staffers helped us a great deal by driving for an hour to get our IDs from the Gangwon provincial capital, Chuncheon.

That was a comparatively easy one. Getting bank accounts and cell phones was a whole other story. The bank is located on campus, but staff don't speak a word of English, and don't have a single form in English. I felt like I was 10 years old and Mom had to do everything for me. There we were , two normally capable adults staring at these forms and feeling like two complete idiots. We kept laughing because that was the only proper response to such a ridiculous situation. Luckily, TG, the assistant, showed up and did it all again for us.

That evening, he took us to obtain our cell phones. Now, in the States if you walk into AT&Ts office, they will try to sell you everything and the kitchen sink to make sure you stay with them. Here, it's a whole different story. We walked into three or four different phone offices, and each one would send us to their competitors -- I don't know, maybe that is how they punish each other, sending clueless foreigners to the competitor who will then waste 2 hours of their time trying to translate and understand all possible plans while the other guys get all the locals.
We found one who was willing to help us. He kept telling Dave, "Oh, you like Kobi Bryant,, and shouting in Korean so we could understand him better. It was even funnier than the bank. We sat there drinking green tea the salesman made for us, and laughed. By that time I just gave up trying to understand what was going on and completely let the poor TG run the show. We rewarded him by inviting him over for some Pizza Hut pizza because he mentioned previously that he liked it. It seemed like a good idea to us as well until it arrived. It was the most expensive pizza ever ($20), it had mashed sweet potatoes as a topping and instead of the usual garlic sauce, we got sliced pickles and hot sauce. With pizza?

Another student sorted out our cable and internet, so he informed me that the cable person will come any time we tell them to. I said, 'Between 10am-12pm or 2pm would be great,' but he didn't understand. After I repeated my request two or three times, he was still puzzled. It turns out Korean cable guy shows up at exactly the time one requests - no 4-hour blocks where you have to sit and wait! I love this place.

So tomorrow at 10am, guess who is coming over?

Peak practice

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Striking skeletal shapes of Korean pae (pear) trees awaiting spring form the background on our four-hour yomp through the farmland south of Wonju. We eventually reached a couple of dragon-topped stone totems either side of the road, marking the entrance to the National Baegwoonsan Natural Rain Forest. Beyond are our closest mountains, Baegunsan and Keunbaramgolsan, the latter still topped with snow from a month ago. I'd love to tell you we hiked on, even further south, and off our map, reached ol' Golsam's shining peak by nightfall, and planted our Midtown South flag in exhausted triumph. Sorry to disappoint. (I was imagining the story at the bottom of page 4 of Saturday's New York Times: American woman in green Pumas and Briton wearing Adidas (one sneaker minus a lace) and a black leather jacket found barely alive nowhere near the summit of obscure South Korean hill. Neither carried a compass, the words North Face were found nowhere on their clothing. And they had the wrong map.)

Why, thank you

DC: Kam sa hamnee-dar. It means thank you. But it's formal, according to our young Korean pal who's been helping us with translation in various situations, including signing up for mobile phones, and ordering pizza, our reward to him last night for the phone business. "Kam sa ham-needar is too formal," he said with a big grin after we climbed out of a taxi, whose driver I'd accorded far too much respect. "You don't need to use it. It makes you sound like you are not from Korea." Apparently, you'd use it if, say, you wanted to be extremely nice to the Korean cop who'd just pulled you over for speeding on our big highway to Seoul. Or to a judge or a doctor. "Ko map sumnee-dar. Means thanks. It's better," said our friend. "More casual. It's cooler."

Let there be green

We knew there was real beauty out there, just beyond Wonju city limits. In them thar hills. We'd read about it, and several eager-to-impress locals and expats have told us about it. It's just that it appears to have been hiding beneath a lot of grey wintery cloud since we arrived a couple of weeks ago. Late afternoon today, however, the gods of those low but perfectly formed mountains to the south of us decided to stage a little spring shindig and throw the switch that produced the impressive light show you see here. Ta dah! Welcome washes of olive green finally daubed among the brownery that many associate with the rural Korean landscape. This is the view from our apartment, and pictured in the distance beyond Dongbo Nobility Block 102 (extreme left) and our neighboring complex are Mount Baegunsan and, behind it, Mount Keunbaramgolsan, part of the National Baegwoonsan Natural Rain Forest, their ravined and wooded slopes illuminated for us for the first time. Now we just have to climb the things.

Whatever will they think of next!

I know. Why didn't I think of that? A tube, um, squeezer.

Gee, it's that song again

We would hear this ridiculously infectious song in our Koreatown supermarket in New York. Now we're in the land where Girls Generation (SNSD) , a small army of up-and-coming showbiz poppets recruited specifically for a Spice Girls-like pop overthrow, is everywhere, and the Gee song is about to push us over the edge into insanity. Right now, howver, it could be the greatest song of all time. Gee gee gee gee baby baby baby!

Alphabet city

DC: I met the neighbour today. We were both waiting for the lift in our building. He's probably 4 years old. Huge saucer eyes, a pudding bowl haircut Dee Dee Ramone would have been proud of, and a back pack that sunk down to the back of his knees and seemed to fasten him to the spot. He gazed up .. and up and up at me, and I was forced to break the ice. Hi, you live here, what's your name? He didn't miss a beat, not a hint of shyness. "Hello. My English name is Edmund. My Korean name is ... " I didn't catch his Korean name. I was thinking of Black Adder. You just finished school? It was about 4.30 in the afternoon. "Yes." He's still staring up at the foreigner, he hasn't looked down yet. Where do you go to school? "I go to ABC hagwon." Hagwons are the schools many, maybe most, young Koreans attend after normal school each day to learn, in Edmond's case, obviously, to perfect, their English. We ride the lift together up to the fifth floor. He marches out ahead of me and takes a left. Doesn't look back. I go right. Have a nice day. "Have a nice day."

Larva's in the air

LO: We have been waking up pretty early every morning, but also been going to bed early, as well. I guess we are still getting over the jet lag. Every morning we sit by our living room windows in awe of the mountain chains not far away and the light fog lifting off the peaks. No wonder this country is known as the Land of Morning Calm. Even the morning rush hour seems to go quietly, no honking, no beeping.
This morning we went out in search of forks. Yes, you read it right, forks! We have brought to South Korea some chopsticks my parents got us in China last year, but nothing else. Instead, we should have brought our forks and knives. We did ship our set of big kitchen knives, but not a single fork or knife. Most of the stores here sell packs containing one large spoon with a long handle and a set of stainless steel chopsticks. Spoons and chopsticks are sold either individually, or in twos or threes. Four is not a lucky number so nothing is sold in sets of four.

We walked for an hour and a half in the sun to Daiso, a Japanese cheap household goods store. It may seem like a long way, but we were excited to see a completely different part of Wonju. We came across a wonderful Buddhist temple overlooking the entire city and a small Korean war memorial, right next to the large sports complex that houses the soccer and baseball stadiums and basketball arena.

After locating Daiso, we did find some forks, but they were part of a set that also had a spoon and two chopsticks ... the sets clearly designed for Korean children just getting the hang of chopsticks. Most of the handles have slogans engraved in English, or pictures of bunny rabbits, or Hello Kitty. Luckily, we managed to find a couple of sets without anything written on them. So we bought them and declared mission accomplished before continuing our wander through that part of the city.

The long walk made us both hungry, so we decided to go get some food. This time we skipped lunch/soup kinds of places and stopped in for some famous Korean barbecue at a place called Choisim. Within minutes, the bucket of coals in the middle of our table was glowing nicely and the waitress - a middle-aged lady whose daughter approached our table to ask where we were from and went on to inform us she was a student at a university in Seoul but was currently having a 'rest' from academia - had brought out all the little fabulous dishes to go with the pork and beef we were about to cook at the table. We grilled the meat ourselves before stuffing it into fresh lettuce leaves, topped with kimchi ... and beondegi, which pretty accurately translates as SILKWORM LARVAE! We weren't sure what these small, brown, slightly cruncy, quite sweet and very tasty tidbits were until we got the confirmation from our new student friend at the end of our meal, but we knew that it was some sort of a worm. I do have to be honest and say they were awesome! We finished them all. At the end, the waitress brought out little bowls of a half-frozen yellowish drink made, we were told, from pumpkin. What a feast!

Words from the front

Thanks to everyone for support and encouragement as we settle in to life in South Korea ... and for the following:

Notification Alert:

Due to recent cuts in employment and the rising cost of electricity,
gas, oil, as well as current market conditions, the Light at the End of
the Tunnel has been turned off.

We apologize for the inconvenience.

Culture clash

One of several small trucks that do the neighbourhood rounds selling fruit and vegetables to the numerous small restaurants. This one's flogging the spicy Korean staple radish. The trucks have loudspeakers mounted on their roofs, and a looping recorded sales pitch to lure the restaurateurs out for a look-see. This one sounded like Joe Strummer barking a Korean version of This is Radio Clash.

What is fish?

LO: So far we have eaten out a lot, but in the last couple of days we've done grocery shopping and started to cook at home a bit more. Shopping for food has actually been quite exciting not only because of the language barrier but also the different kinds of foods that we didn't encounter in U.S. supermarkets. Yesterday we bought what looked like American or European leeks, but once we got home we read the small-print label: "green onions". They are about 3 feet long! Each market also has huge kimchi sections where one can buy either pre-packaged kimchi, radishes, green beans, and other vegetables in hot pepper paste, or buy it at the special counters that resemble salad bars. Their hot pepper ko ch'i is incredibly good and we have been eating a lot of it.

There is loads of fish and seafood that at times seems to be almost too fresh. In fact, today we decided to fry up some fish without even knowing what kind of fish it is or the right way to prepare it. But hey, it's all a big adventure, so if you recognize the fish in the pictures, please let us know what we had for lunch.
We have decided to use just local Korean ingredients and not continue cooking only our Euro-American meals (chicken and potatoes now on the back burner, so to speak). Tonight, Dave has figured out how to make an excellent man doo guk (dumpling soup) with some frozen dumplings, those gigantic green onions and hot peppers, with green beans in hot pepper paste as a side dish. We cheated a little bit by using some Made in Israel Kosher Telma chicken stock (thanks Mom for sending it!). It was incredible!

Mr Cab Driver

DC: Taxis are plentiful in Wonju and cheap enough that they're far too tempting. "We should get the bus, really. We need to get fit. Let's walk. Oh, there's a cab." Sure, it would be better if we knew the language so we could be more specific with the cab driver about our destinations (and to inform the boy racer who very nearly failed to bring us back from E-mart last night, after he was cut off at some lights by another cab, that he needed to chill and slow the heck down). But we have our home address detailed in Korea on a piece of paper in my wallet, and that ol' somewhat-humiliating-but-whaddya-gonna-do? tourist stand-by (y'know, like carrying a roll of toilet paper in yer back pack at all times) has helped a fair bit.
Cabs are easy to use, and can be flagged down on the street with a raised hand, even from a distance. Vacant cabs will frequently honk for your business as they approach, but if you're not interested - cuz you're on that health drive, of course - a shake of the head or a wave of the hand appears sufficient to send them on their way. The cars, all new or newish Korean-made saloons (I've seen one new VW Beetle and nice black Porsche Targa, but foreign motors seem to be a rarity), are clean and tidy, and they smell nice. And they have good-sized trunks, or boots, for your shopping. The driver will pop open the back often without the need to be asked. Mid ride, cabbies have so far not tried to engage us in conversation, nor we them. Boy racer terrorised us into silence last night. Our trips so far have been no longer than a couple of miles each and we've yet to pay more than 3,000 won - which today is exactly two U.S. dollars. Tipping, we hear, is pretty much frowned upon, officially. Still, coming from New York, it's a hard habit to break, and the guys - all men so far, no female cabbies, it seems - have appeared grateful for a 1,000 note, or any change we might have. "Kam sa hamnida!" Even a 100 won coin would probably be acceptable. We know they love us for it!

Numbers up

DC: A trip to E-Mart supermarket, where we succumbed to McDonalds for the first time since our arrival in South Korea - bulgogi burger, anyone? - and a numbers-learning session at home tonight. Il i sam sa o yuk ch'il pal ku ship. So 30 is sam ship. Three x 10. Fifty? O ship. Ta dah! A good night's work.

Trail mix

DC: First day of the semester for the prof, so I take myself off up the hill behind our apartment complex, onto a fairly challenging trail for one as unfit as me, though it quickly leads me back to some already familiar urban territory, and snack action: at Dunkin Donuts in what, for the moment, we appear to be terming the new downtown, I resume my good book and enjoy a Double Cacao Bavarian doughnut, a square-shaped chocolate-custard-filled delicacy I never came across in nine years in the Big Apple. Soo good!

Photo second from top is the Hansol apartment complex, our neighbours to the north, and as imposing as our own Dongbo Nobility buildings. There's also a snap of the GS Supermarket, which we swung through on our first night here. It's U.S./UK style with the quality, choice and reasonable prices similar to such supermarkets in those countries. The orange-fronted place is a restaurant we took a chance on for lunch on our first full day here. We've not worked out its name yet, but Korean pals know it, and say it's a decent enough spot for cheap food. We loved it, actually, even though the waitresses didn't speak English, nor, apparently, was there a menu in English. We just pointed to the photographs of meals on the wall, and they came up with two spectacular soups for us. Man du guk for me - a spicy broth with four or five very tender shrimp dumplings - and a red spicy number with beef and vegetables for the prof.

How to put your foot in it in South Korea on day one

LO: It's exactly one week since we left NYC. We have been so busy exploring the area and walking around that we have had little time to write about our arrival. So here it is..... It took us 14 hours to reach South Korea on a Korean Air 747, and after 3 movies, 2 documentaries and 3 sitcoms, we finally landed at Incheon Airport at 4.30 on Monday afternoon. University staff assistant Taek-gun welcomed us outside the baggage claim and got us and our 6 suitcases into a van. We bypassed Seoul and continued on Highway 50 straight to Wonju. What caught our attention, and surprised us, as the night fell were the red neon lit crosses adorning churches between hundreds of high-rise apartment complexes all the way to our new city. Two hours later we arrived at Dongbo Nobility, a luxury high-rise we are going to be calling home. The apartment has three bedrooms, a living room the size of our entire NYC apartment, two bathrooms, dining room/kitchen, laundry room and a balcony. Oh, and two hallways ... one where you leave your shoes, per Korean custom, and one where you actually enter the apartment. We didn't know the footwear protocol, so we strode into the apartment in our shoes, dragging our suitcases along the beautiful wooden floor, only to be politely but firmly pulled up by Taek-gun (Teckan), who diplomatically explained that entering one's home, or anyone's home in South Korea, wearing shoes is inappropriate and rude. OOPS! I get it....but we were so tired and shoes or not, we wanted to see our new home.

Luggage dropped off, Taek-gun flagged down a taxi outside our new apartment complex to take us for dinner at a Vietnamese restaurant in a new downtown (there is also an old one). Over soup, Taek-gun let it slip that he had missed a blind date to pick us up. We felt bad and insisted we'd be fine, that he should leave us to make our own way home. We'd find a cab. Hey, we were in town for about an hour and we were already taking cabs!

Next day, we took another one, shyly succeeding in getting the driver to take us to E-Mart, a Korean version of Costco, just a bit posher. One of my new colleagues and his wife came over that afternoon to take us shopping for basics, and could not believe when they found out that Dave and I had already ventured out by ourselves. I guess living in rough, tough ol Noo Yawk City has prepared us, so we didn't even blink at the idea of going out without understanding a word of Korean. A week later, we are already reading Korean letters!



Wonju is a modern city with loads of restaurants, bars, coffee shops and small stores. Dave's height and my curly hair are not very common here so little children like to stare at us and shout "HELLO"! We live about 15-20 minutes walk from that new downtown. It's very easy to get around the city with buses that cost about 75 cents a ride and cabs that cost less than $2 to go just about anywhere. We have already discovered a couple of great Korean soup restaurants and an old traditional food market called Nambu, housed in a single large building where numerous room-sized restaurants are crammed next to each other on the ground floor. At the entrance to each is a crate on which sits the carvings from a pig's head, including an upturned snout and porky ears. Okay, not quite for the faint of heart. Like Dave! In each of these little open-plan dining rooms is just one lady cooking and serving food from a large wok. She prepares your food from scratch. We opted for bowls of black bean sauce noodles, which included small chunks of pork...and we watched the lady actually make the noodles. The food was not only amazing but we paid just $3 for both of our meals.

Talking about food has got me hungry ... off to make dinner.