(no subject)
haven't been keeping up to date with this lately.. still no internet so bare with me.
emy, mimi, diego, alvaro and i met at saiin station at 7am to take the trains to kansai airport. poptarts were enjoyed en route. we arrived at the airport and met up with yuki, mimi's friend who is fluent in english, japanese, and korean.. we all boarded the plane without incident and took off on our 2 hour flight. touched down in busan around noon and were immediately shepherded into our tour group. a couple elderly members of our group started asking us questions about where we were from and were quite surprised we were on the tour with them. for we had signed up on a full-fledged japanese four day tour of korea.. the entire tour was conducted in japanese, everyone (except diego, al and i) were japanese, and the vast majority were over the age of 60. we even followed a tour guide holding a little flag and wearing an orange vest around.
so, within the first 5 minutes of being on a tour in korea, we got seperated from the group. mimi and yuki went to use the restroom and we waited for them.. when we turned around to board the bus with the group, they were gone. this was to be a foreshadowing of the rest of our tour.
we eventually found our group and boarded our buses, everyone sporting snazzy purple and red badges to signify our relationship to the tour. our group headed straight for the back of the bus, allowing the other tour members time to register that yes, we were in fact not japanese. within 5 minutes on the bus i got yelled at for sitting in the middle seat of the back row which apparently was the "ichiban abunai" or the most dangerous seat.
the tour immediately started with a visit to king suro's tomb. let me clarify here and now that through out this post you shouldn't expect thorough explanations of the places we visited. on average we were at each spot half and hour, and as the tour was conducted entirely in japanese; there were several times that i had no idea what city we were even in, let alone what site we were visiting. it was a blitz blind tour of korea. anyway, so we went to king suro's tomb. i do know that king suro is said to have died in 199. the tomb consisted of several shrines, a large burial mound, several stone statues of warriors and animals, and a small museum of things uncovered on-site by archaeologists.
after a run through the premises, we boarded the bus (our group of course being the last on) and headed into the city. we visited busan tower for a short time to get a view of the city. what struck me about korean cities was, number one, how mountainous they were, and two, how colorful. there were many buildings painted mint greens and pepto-bismal pink scattered through out. and then there were monstrous apartment buildings on the edge of all the cities at the foot of the surrounding mountains.. usually about 10-30 of these in a grouping, all identical. a disturbing site to me.
after the tower, we got on the bus (the last ones), and traveled to the heart of busan where we all piled off and made a mad dash through a market area. none of us knew where we were going.. half the time we couldn't even see the tour group because they were flying through the area without looking at anything ahead of us. one group of women who appeared to be middle aged wives out on a trip together were the only people to consistantly be almost as behind as us. they stopped and bought every single piece of food they could everywhere we went. it was awe-inspiring. so, we ran through this market not knowing where the heck we were or where we were going, and ended up in a fish market. loads and loads of fish, more than i've ever seen, some of it just laying on the road in front of the vendors. we stopped long enough to grab a couple shots of weird fish and some random pigs heads, and skedaddled back to the bus (guess who was last).
i'm pretty sure this is where SAKAI-SAMA began. emy's last name is sakai, and for some reason the tour guide singled her out as our group leader even though mimi and yuki had made all the reservations. from then on the tour guide felt it was necessary to single out our group by yelling SAKAI-SAMA (sama is a very polite term.. by the end of the trip we were being refered to as SAKAI-CHAN which is a diminuitive.) she would routinely shout SAKAI-SAMA WASUREMONO NAI YO (don't forget anything!) HYAKU! (hurry up!) or when she gave us meeting times she would make us all repeat them to make sure we'd be there on time. it became quite the joke with the tour residents. the elderly members started yelling GANBATTE (good luck!) at us and laughing every time we were the last ones on the bus.
that night we all went to a restaurant and had our first korean meal which consisted of some kind of seafood soup that contained snails, crab, scallops, mussels, prawns, etc. each of which was the largest i'd ever seen of that particular species. our group was put at our own table. so were the housewives. the rest of the group sat at large tables together. this continued the entirety of the tour.
next morning we visited the haein temple of mt. gaya after being served an enormous breakfast of kimchi and briscut soup at 7am. the temple was up in mt. gaya and it was snowing. after our trip to tropical thailand, we weren't too impressed with the snow. we quickly lost the group on the treck up the mountain, but ended up talking to the wives group and taking pictures for and with them. the temple at the top housed some works i've studied in my monuments class of art history, so i thought it was pretty interesting. we'd barely been in the first shrine 10 minutes when we caught sight of our group speeding back down the mountain to the buses.
after this, we visited a grotto up in the mountains which housed a large stone buddha. it's a unesco world heritage site and i'll have to look up the name because i didn't write it down, but i was really impressed with it. it was a beautiful spot, high up in the snowy mountains. here is also where i was most amazed with our fellow tour-ees.. even though most of them were 60+ years of age, they were flying up these icy roads on the sides of mountains, leaving my friends and i in the dust. i was taking years walking gingerly to the top, afraid of a thailand repeat, while emy and al were falling on their butts trying to slide around in the snow.. everyone else seemed like pro mountain climbers compared to us. we were once again the last ones on the bus.
later on we visited a large wall surrounding the grounds of the old city where seoul now stands. i don't know much about it, but it was impressive architecturaly, and we were the FIRST ones on the bus that time!
once inside seoul, we visited jongmyo, another unesco world heritage spot. jongmyo houses the spirit tablets of kings and queens of the joseon era, and those given the title of king or queen posthumously. it's also the longest free standing wooden building in korea. by that time, the rest of the tour knew where we were all from and would randomly chat with us.. the older ladies took a liking to diego in particular. one woman noted that the back hems of our jeans were quite long and so were getting muddy from being trekked on, and asked emy if that was "the style nowadays."
the nights back at our hotel we'd usually wander around a little through the city we were in. that night in seoul we visited a very small karaoke bar where diego entertained us with his rendition of "a whole new world" from aladdin. i unfortunately was a little worn out and retired early.
the next day we were left with free time in seoul to shop. we visited two different shopping areas, one cheap and one nice. diego purchased a fake gucci wallet and a fake gucci scarf, and i scored a fake le sport sac bag for 15 dollars (i later saw the real version of my bag at duty free.. $92!) it was nice wondering around the city, though i must say a lot of it reminded me of japan. with one exception, and that being the prominence of the american army. it was very weird to me to see so many white men, especially since most were american. i remarked to al at one point that walking down the street in seoul in 10 minutes i saw more african american men that i had in the past 7 months in japan. it made me feel quite odd.. and i can't really describe the feeling. being so close to north korea, you can't help wondering what's really going on up there and what we're doing. it gave me a very particular feeling, a feeling i've only experienced since moving out of the states and being in countries where i'm the minority for the first time and not always sure the people around me appreciate my presence. we had the opportunity to eat where we liked that afternoon and we all ended up going to an outback steakhouse we found. two businessmen were seated next to us and i spent the majority of the meal trying to eavesdrop on them just because they were american (texans i think). when we left, we saw a large table of american army boys out of uniform. they all looked about my age and although they seemed happy and were joking with each other, it gave me what i can only describe as a great feeling of sadness deep in my stomach. i coudln't help but think about their families and their backgrounds and that, god forbid, theres a chance they might not be going home. i thought of the old neighbor from middle school who is now working on the line between north and south korea. and i thought how there's no way in hell i'd ever be capable to do what they're doing; just seeing them eating at a steak house terrified me. i'm the last person to be religious and pray for someone, but when i saw them i wanted to keep thinking of them in hopes that it'd somehow help.
anyway, after our shopping rendevous, we were all herded into a huge kimchi taste testing with enough time to buy a bunch of korean seaweed, and then back to the airport for our return home.
i can honestly say i enjoyed the trip to thailand more, but i think it was largely in part to two things. a) the weather. i hate cold weather and it was REALLY cold in korea. everything was winterized, the hills and trees were all brown and gray and so gave off a feeling of.. unwelcoming. if that's a word. i'm confident though if i went during a warmer time i'd enjoy it more. and b) we were on a really short and regimented tour. a lot of the time was spent on the bus getting to different sites and we went to three different cities in 4 days. it was a lot to see in a short time and a lot of it was really touristy. after being able to experience thailand with victor's family and see places that aren't filled with tourists, the trip to korea was a little bland in comparison. however, i think it was a really good introduction to korea and if i ever manage to get back there (which i'd like to), i'd know more of where i'd like to explore.
but for 400 dollars with airfare, hotel stays, food, everything included for a four day tour, it couldn't have been better! i'm really thankful i was able to go and i'm keeping my eye out for any other opportunity to travel abroad. talk of a road trip through mexico, a rendezvous in greece and/or italy in a year are already underway. now i have contacts in germany, ireland, mexico, italy, spain, china, korea, thailand, etc etc.. i'm going to be a regular jet-setter as soon as i figure out how to make money to do so
emy, mimi, diego, alvaro and i met at saiin station at 7am to take the trains to kansai airport. poptarts were enjoyed en route. we arrived at the airport and met up with yuki, mimi's friend who is fluent in english, japanese, and korean.. we all boarded the plane without incident and took off on our 2 hour flight. touched down in busan around noon and were immediately shepherded into our tour group. a couple elderly members of our group started asking us questions about where we were from and were quite surprised we were on the tour with them. for we had signed up on a full-fledged japanese four day tour of korea.. the entire tour was conducted in japanese, everyone (except diego, al and i) were japanese, and the vast majority were over the age of 60. we even followed a tour guide holding a little flag and wearing an orange vest around.
so, within the first 5 minutes of being on a tour in korea, we got seperated from the group. mimi and yuki went to use the restroom and we waited for them.. when we turned around to board the bus with the group, they were gone. this was to be a foreshadowing of the rest of our tour.
we eventually found our group and boarded our buses, everyone sporting snazzy purple and red badges to signify our relationship to the tour. our group headed straight for the back of the bus, allowing the other tour members time to register that yes, we were in fact not japanese. within 5 minutes on the bus i got yelled at for sitting in the middle seat of the back row which apparently was the "ichiban abunai" or the most dangerous seat.
the tour immediately started with a visit to king suro's tomb. let me clarify here and now that through out this post you shouldn't expect thorough explanations of the places we visited. on average we were at each spot half and hour, and as the tour was conducted entirely in japanese; there were several times that i had no idea what city we were even in, let alone what site we were visiting. it was a blitz blind tour of korea. anyway, so we went to king suro's tomb. i do know that king suro is said to have died in 199. the tomb consisted of several shrines, a large burial mound, several stone statues of warriors and animals, and a small museum of things uncovered on-site by archaeologists.
after a run through the premises, we boarded the bus (our group of course being the last on) and headed into the city. we visited busan tower for a short time to get a view of the city. what struck me about korean cities was, number one, how mountainous they were, and two, how colorful. there were many buildings painted mint greens and pepto-bismal pink scattered through out. and then there were monstrous apartment buildings on the edge of all the cities at the foot of the surrounding mountains.. usually about 10-30 of these in a grouping, all identical. a disturbing site to me.
after the tower, we got on the bus (the last ones), and traveled to the heart of busan where we all piled off and made a mad dash through a market area. none of us knew where we were going.. half the time we couldn't even see the tour group because they were flying through the area without looking at anything ahead of us. one group of women who appeared to be middle aged wives out on a trip together were the only people to consistantly be almost as behind as us. they stopped and bought every single piece of food they could everywhere we went. it was awe-inspiring. so, we ran through this market not knowing where the heck we were or where we were going, and ended up in a fish market. loads and loads of fish, more than i've ever seen, some of it just laying on the road in front of the vendors. we stopped long enough to grab a couple shots of weird fish and some random pigs heads, and skedaddled back to the bus (guess who was last).
i'm pretty sure this is where SAKAI-SAMA began. emy's last name is sakai, and for some reason the tour guide singled her out as our group leader even though mimi and yuki had made all the reservations. from then on the tour guide felt it was necessary to single out our group by yelling SAKAI-SAMA (sama is a very polite term.. by the end of the trip we were being refered to as SAKAI-CHAN which is a diminuitive.) she would routinely shout SAKAI-SAMA WASUREMONO NAI YO (don't forget anything!) HYAKU! (hurry up!) or when she gave us meeting times she would make us all repeat them to make sure we'd be there on time. it became quite the joke with the tour residents. the elderly members started yelling GANBATTE (good luck!) at us and laughing every time we were the last ones on the bus.
that night we all went to a restaurant and had our first korean meal which consisted of some kind of seafood soup that contained snails, crab, scallops, mussels, prawns, etc. each of which was the largest i'd ever seen of that particular species. our group was put at our own table. so were the housewives. the rest of the group sat at large tables together. this continued the entirety of the tour.
next morning we visited the haein temple of mt. gaya after being served an enormous breakfast of kimchi and briscut soup at 7am. the temple was up in mt. gaya and it was snowing. after our trip to tropical thailand, we weren't too impressed with the snow. we quickly lost the group on the treck up the mountain, but ended up talking to the wives group and taking pictures for and with them. the temple at the top housed some works i've studied in my monuments class of art history, so i thought it was pretty interesting. we'd barely been in the first shrine 10 minutes when we caught sight of our group speeding back down the mountain to the buses.
after this, we visited a grotto up in the mountains which housed a large stone buddha. it's a unesco world heritage site and i'll have to look up the name because i didn't write it down, but i was really impressed with it. it was a beautiful spot, high up in the snowy mountains. here is also where i was most amazed with our fellow tour-ees.. even though most of them were 60+ years of age, they were flying up these icy roads on the sides of mountains, leaving my friends and i in the dust. i was taking years walking gingerly to the top, afraid of a thailand repeat, while emy and al were falling on their butts trying to slide around in the snow.. everyone else seemed like pro mountain climbers compared to us. we were once again the last ones on the bus.
later on we visited a large wall surrounding the grounds of the old city where seoul now stands. i don't know much about it, but it was impressive architecturaly, and we were the FIRST ones on the bus that time!
once inside seoul, we visited jongmyo, another unesco world heritage spot. jongmyo houses the spirit tablets of kings and queens of the joseon era, and those given the title of king or queen posthumously. it's also the longest free standing wooden building in korea. by that time, the rest of the tour knew where we were all from and would randomly chat with us.. the older ladies took a liking to diego in particular. one woman noted that the back hems of our jeans were quite long and so were getting muddy from being trekked on, and asked emy if that was "the style nowadays."
the nights back at our hotel we'd usually wander around a little through the city we were in. that night in seoul we visited a very small karaoke bar where diego entertained us with his rendition of "a whole new world" from aladdin. i unfortunately was a little worn out and retired early.
the next day we were left with free time in seoul to shop. we visited two different shopping areas, one cheap and one nice. diego purchased a fake gucci wallet and a fake gucci scarf, and i scored a fake le sport sac bag for 15 dollars (i later saw the real version of my bag at duty free.. $92!) it was nice wondering around the city, though i must say a lot of it reminded me of japan. with one exception, and that being the prominence of the american army. it was very weird to me to see so many white men, especially since most were american. i remarked to al at one point that walking down the street in seoul in 10 minutes i saw more african american men that i had in the past 7 months in japan. it made me feel quite odd.. and i can't really describe the feeling. being so close to north korea, you can't help wondering what's really going on up there and what we're doing. it gave me a very particular feeling, a feeling i've only experienced since moving out of the states and being in countries where i'm the minority for the first time and not always sure the people around me appreciate my presence. we had the opportunity to eat where we liked that afternoon and we all ended up going to an outback steakhouse we found. two businessmen were seated next to us and i spent the majority of the meal trying to eavesdrop on them just because they were american (texans i think). when we left, we saw a large table of american army boys out of uniform. they all looked about my age and although they seemed happy and were joking with each other, it gave me what i can only describe as a great feeling of sadness deep in my stomach. i coudln't help but think about their families and their backgrounds and that, god forbid, theres a chance they might not be going home. i thought of the old neighbor from middle school who is now working on the line between north and south korea. and i thought how there's no way in hell i'd ever be capable to do what they're doing; just seeing them eating at a steak house terrified me. i'm the last person to be religious and pray for someone, but when i saw them i wanted to keep thinking of them in hopes that it'd somehow help.
anyway, after our shopping rendevous, we were all herded into a huge kimchi taste testing with enough time to buy a bunch of korean seaweed, and then back to the airport for our return home.
i can honestly say i enjoyed the trip to thailand more, but i think it was largely in part to two things. a) the weather. i hate cold weather and it was REALLY cold in korea. everything was winterized, the hills and trees were all brown and gray and so gave off a feeling of.. unwelcoming. if that's a word. i'm confident though if i went during a warmer time i'd enjoy it more. and b) we were on a really short and regimented tour. a lot of the time was spent on the bus getting to different sites and we went to three different cities in 4 days. it was a lot to see in a short time and a lot of it was really touristy. after being able to experience thailand with victor's family and see places that aren't filled with tourists, the trip to korea was a little bland in comparison. however, i think it was a really good introduction to korea and if i ever manage to get back there (which i'd like to), i'd know more of where i'd like to explore.
but for 400 dollars with airfare, hotel stays, food, everything included for a four day tour, it couldn't have been better! i'm really thankful i was able to go and i'm keeping my eye out for any other opportunity to travel abroad. talk of a road trip through mexico, a rendezvous in greece and/or italy in a year are already underway. now i have contacts in germany, ireland, mexico, italy, spain, china, korea, thailand, etc etc.. i'm going to be a regular jet-setter as soon as i figure out how to make money to do so