On to Seoul…
Met with some agents from TNT recruitment Thursday morning (28th) to get health checkup for residency card, work permit and insurance purposes. The drugs are working and my leg is a thousand times better, but still they give me another shot in the butt (I think they just like the novelty of my pasty-white ass). Had to do a urine test which was very difficult as I had just used the loo at home before leaving so Yohan (one of the agents) stood outside the bathroom handing me cup after cup of luke-warm water and clapping his hands in support. Needless to say he got some strange looks from the other patients walking by. I had an X-ray, sight/blood/blood pressure tests and they took my height and weight. Results came a few days later and I was quite surprised to hear that I am in perfect health, so I bought a double-sugar-coffee and smoked a cigarette to celebrate…
Have been watching a Korean TV show called “Let’s Speak Korean” which is teaching me a lot of the language and culture. eg. Many Korean shop owners believe that the first transaction/event of the day is an omen for the remainder, so it is a bad idea to ask for a refund or exchange first thing in the morning. I also learned that Hwe Chun Chokyo is the name of a school near my apartment, NOT ‘I will give directions’. This explained the confused looks of many a taxi driver over the last 6 days!.
Saturday morning I got my final butt shot and then caught the subway to Seoul to hang with Hyun for the weekend. Despite help at the station, I still boarded the wrnog train and went in the opposite direction. After a little confusing Korean discussion, I changed lines and an hour later arrived at Shindorim station. It was a while till Hyun finished work so I strolled around, bought soup and a tofu-like stick for 500 won (60c NZ). I learned to say ‘How much? (Url maeyo) which is one of the most useful expressions to date. I met Hyun and we trained to Gyeongbok palace in northern Seoul, one of the five grand palaces of the Joseon dynasty (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gyeongbokgung). Joseon was the last and most recent sovereignty that lasted for around five centuries right up until 1910. The palace grounds were huge and full of Chinese tourists (around 90%). We were asked to pose for a photo outside, probably because of my height and green eyes as most Korean’s, Chinese and Japanese have brown or dark brown.
Then it was on to the cultural museum next door, exhibiting many national treasures like the Joseon royal stamp, clothing, family tree, as well as weapons, sundials and astronomical charts etched into stone. Hyun says (quite matter-of-factly) that he is part of the Joseon dynasty, to which I reply that I am part of the Brownseon dynasty. He hits me in the arm. Then it was on to another shopping district nearby that was the size of Cuba Street, Wellington, with tons of shops and tons more people. We seized the chance to sit down and have a typical Korean lunch of cold-noodle soup, traditionally a summer dish. I bought stationery, photos for my Korean citizenship card application, and had a hit-out in a batting-pen (baseball is hugely popular in Korea).
Next it was on to Sillim, Hyun’s district. He lives in a place similar to mine except older and a little bigger (he has two bedrooms). We had a few beers and he cooked me dinner, a delicious beef and pork stew accompanied by kimchi, a national dish of spiced cabbage/turnip which is seen at 95% of meals and loved by Koreans. Today, you can even find ‘Kimchi refridgerators’ in many middle-class houses, which are a modern version of a ‘Jong-Dok’, a ceramic crockpot that they half buried in the earth to keep their Kimchi cool.
After resting we bowled over the road to a PC Room (which are everywhere in Korea - like a massive computing cafe). The Korean passion for computing would rival only that of the Amsterdam-ian passion for the ganja. Hyun talked me through www.Auction.co.kr which is simlar to Trade Me but much cheaper and containing mostly new products. We left after a couple of hours gaming to crash out with plans to hike a local mountain on Sunday.
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