Two Nights & Two Souls in Seoul

I can finally spell Seoul now, and I've finally been there.  Which is weird because I'd already been to Korea two times before that, all in one year. 

When I was there, in Seoul, I had the "I've got soul but I'm not a soldier" song by "The Shins" stuck in my head most of the time.  Becky was the only one around to hear it, poor thing, and I sometimes tried to add to the lyric: "I'm in Seoul but I'm not a soldier," but it was never as funny as I'd hoped.  Hoping that something will be funny is a good sign that it won't be.

To me it's weird to say things like "This is my third time in Korea this year."  I'm not a traveling businessman, or rich and retired, or young and trying to find myself, or whatever it is that makes people travel a lot.  Although I do like seeing new things and places I'd have to say that I have a below average desire to travel the world, I don't have a "travel bug."  But on our trip back from Seoul I was staring at the back of the airplane seat in front of me trying to remember how many times I'd been on an airplane recently, and it was a little fuzzy: China, Jeju Island in Korea, Taiwan, Beijing, Incheon Korea, Seoul Korea. So six times.

But, in case it sounds like I'm bragging too much about how many places I've been, I have a confession to all travel lovers and adventurists: I didn't really do anything in most of those places.  I am a terrible, stick-in-the-mud, traveler.

Even I, as I'm typing this, am shaking my head in disgust at myself.  All the expense, the preparation, hours of buying tickets online with bad internet connections, sitting in cramped airplane seats, trudging through airports, getting stuck in long security lines with only minutes to spare… and I'm just not motivated to do anything cool when I go places.  In Seoul we ate at Outback Steakhouse for lunch, it wasn't very good, and then we ate at Costco and had pizza and a hot dog for dinner, it was delicious!  But no Korean barbeque, no Bibimbop, nothing new and Korean.  Not even Sushi, which is plentiful in Korea.  OK I admit I really regret that last one.  I saw someone throw away a partially uneaten tray of sushi at Costco, and it broke my heart.

I should defend our decisions though.  Going to Korea is like going a little bit closer to home for us.  Korea is saturated with English, some things, signs and stuff, have only English with no Korean.  Korea also has things like Costco, Krispy Kreme, Taco Bell.  In Korea I can use a VISA card to buy things, that's pretty cool.  In Korea they have Google and our Android phones actually work, we can use  maps to navigate places!

Of course we don't have Korean, or even American, SIM cards in our cell phones so we were not able to use the aforesaid Google maps without some sort of free Wi-Fi connection.  It's actually a little bit puzzling to me that tourist brochures have websites and phone numbers on them when there's a good chance the tourists won't have working phones.  Although it might be puzzling to the people who made those brochures that I didn't buy one of those SIM cards that they are selling at the airport.  But it's hard to justify buying one when you're only there for such a short time.  Next time I think I will though.

But anyway, we were far more excited to be out of China than we were to be in Korea.  Let's just say: We miss home.

Even though Seoul Korea has so much English, and is so convenient, we did find ourselves next to a rice patty, with dirt roads leading into it, in the dark, on a pedestrian-less road waiting for a bus.  Our phones were both dead, even though they didn't have Internet connections they did have the address to our hotel in case we needed to give it to a Taxi driver or something. Not that we could really get a Taxi because we only had a few dollars left in our pockets, and I wasn't sure how much money was left on our bus cards.

And when I said there's lots of English in Korea, that means on the signs.  Bus drivers, and anyone else, get really stressed out when you try speaking English to them, they can read it sometimes but they can't speak it.  Maybe I just have a really mean scary face…

We ended up next to the rice patty (did I mention that it started to rain) because we got on the right bus going the wrong direction.  It took at least twenty minutes for me to realize that we had crossed too many bridges.  Yes, I'm getting a SIM card next time.

But the story has a happy ending, eventually we ended up back at the airport, which was one of the stops on the bus route, transferring to the next bus.  We tried swiping our bus cards (or T-Cards as they call them) but the bus driver made an X with his arms indicating that we didn't need to swipe our T-Cards, of course it was too late.  Then, after that, we were running through the rain, me in shorts, down a poorly lit street sidewalk that badly needed to be weeded, from the bus stop closest to our little hotel.  We even stopped at 7-Eleven, dripping wet, and got some Kimchee to eat in our hotel room. 

So it turns out that the Kimchee in Korea, even at 7-Eleven, is really good, so the trip wasn't a total waste after all.

Summer Night Freedom

(By the way, I have recently enabled comments on these blog entries if you want to comment the comments are emailed to me then they show up at the end of the blog entry)

Last night I got up to go to the bathroom, something I started doing at age 30 when I lived in Taiwan (I even blogged about), when I came back from the bathroom I quietly lowered myself back into the body indentation where I had been trying to sleep before I went to the bathroom, I didn't want to wake my wife.  About a week or two ago we bought a memory foam mattress topper for our bed, so now I can lay on my side without my arm and shoulder going numb, my body leaves and indentation.  This "lowering myself" down was a very unpleasant, the indentation from where I had been trying to sleep before was soaked with my own sweat, which was now cooled down from the fan that was blowing.  Are you sure you want to keep reading?

I'm not grossed out by sweat normally, actually I'd say that I almost like sweating sometimes, it feels purifying to me when sweat drips off my chin, as long as I'm wearing the right clothes.  Not only that but I sweat to some degree year round, I hear myself often brag "I start to sweat when it's 50 degrees outside," so I'd be very unhappy all the time if sweat grossed me out.  But a bed soaked in cold sweat goes over the line with me. 

Needless to say, it's been swelteringly hot here in northern China lately.  Just a few days ago we had three new fans delivered, the one fan just wasn't enough.  A friend of ours told us yesterday that it was 34 degrees! That’s 93.2 degrees Fahrenheit, even temperatures have to be translated here, I think in metric now.  Do you think I'm cool now because I think in metric?  I do.

So anyway, I'm laying in bed restlessly listening to the street noises, and then one of the noises compels me to get out of my now warmed up sweaty bed indentation.  Sweat doesn't feel as gross when it's warmed up by your body, or in this case: re-warmed.  Now, I wouldn't get out  bed for just any sound, at a subconscious level I knew that my sweat would start to cool down, getting grosser and grosser every minute I was away from my sleeping indentation, so I was reluctant to leave it.  But I heard someone yelling.

Yelling is very common here, people yell for many more reasons than they do in the Western world I grew up in, not just when they're at a sports event or when they're angry.  But this voice seemed angry, and it kept going on and on, so I got up to go the our fourth floor window and check it out.

I wish I could describe the scene below me better, but across the street, maybe 150 feet to give you an idea of distance, there was a restaurant, the one that specializes in donkey meat, that had it's lights on still and I could see the outlines of people standing in the door way and I could hear a scraping sound that sounded like someone dragging a garbage can on the sidewalk.  If memory serves, I could also hear a thumping sound, like someone was kicking a garbage can too.  I could also see a man standing on the sidewalk, it looked like he was yelling at the people standing in the restaurant doorway.

I never did figure out what he was yelling about, for anger or for some other reason, but I later figured out that the thumping sound was the sound of workers tossing bricks from the brick sidewalk into the back of a big blue truck.  I'm sorry that the mystery of the angry sounding yelling man will not be solved in this blog entry.   But, even though it's fairly common to hear yelling, it does motivate one to check it out and see what's going on, maybe it's human nature, or just me, I don't know.

There is still another mystery:  As I stood there watching the man yelling across the street some movement closer to me caught my eye: two middle-aged guys on the street in nothing but their boxers.  They seemed to think nothing of wearing just boxers on the street.   At that time of the night there were only a few cars here and there, so of course, it was logical to wear boxers since it was also very hot.  I guess I was wearing the same thing, just not on the street.  A minor detail.

Below our apartment there is one of several construction zones.  The construction zones are fenced in by seven feet tall plastic yellow barriers, you can't really see inside the construction zones unless you peak through the cracks between the panels.  Next to the largish construction zone below our window is what I'd call a blue job shack, where the two guys in their boxers apparently came from.  It looked like they were security guards making their rounds, checking on the construction equipment to make sure no one was stealing it or messing around with it.  One of them even stopped to re-secure one of the yellow plastic barrier panels after passing through it.

After my surprise subsided from seeing two security guards walking around in their boxers on the street, I felt myself smiling, "that's pretty cool," I thought.  When it's hot in China, just wear your boxers, no problem.  When I was in school I was taught that America is a land of freedom, I think those guys felt a large degree of freedom here in China, even if was surprising to see.  One of the guys even stopped for few minutes to gaze at the scenery and the night traffic in the distance, wearing just his boxers and flip flops.

After the two guys retreated back into the blue job shack I gazed at the traffic in the distance myself …also wearing boxers.  (But inside).

Crazy Taxi Drivers

A few weeks ago a friend of ours, Carol, was visiting from Beijing. We has just eaten a late dinner. It was delicious if I remember right. I don't remember exactly who we ate with other than Carol, but they had gone to the left to go home, and we had gone to the right. The buses stop running here at about 9:00pm, kind of early, so we had to catch a Taxi.

Taxis here are pretty cheap, it's about 2.20 USD to get halfway across town. A bus ride, mind you, is only about 0.20 USD, and the Subway, even though it has only one line is 0.40 USD, or 2 RMB, we usually say "two kuai." even when we're speaking English. Every single taxi I've seen is a Volkswagen Jetta, 90% of them from the late 90's. They are painted yellow and green usually and they have a little red meter usually in an inconvenient location next the driver so you can see how much you owe him. There are also blue taxis, also Jettas, but some people don't like them, they don't trust the meters.

I smile a lot when I get into a Taxi because the meter talks to you when it's started, first it says something quickly in Chinese then it switches to English: "Welcome to take my Taxi" it says with a female voice. Sometimes Becky and I laugh and try to explain to our non-native English speaking friends how that's funny. It's hard to explain why it's funny, and it took me awhile to figure out myself I have to admit. Think about it.

It's not uncommon for Taxi drivers to light-up when you're in their taxi, but don't worry they crack their window so the smoke blows into your face. Actually they are always pretty cool about putting it out, but they appreciate it if you tell them right before they light their cigarette, obviously they don't want to throw it away and waste it. But usually Taxi drivers don't smoke. Usually bus drivers don't smoke either.

Taxi drivers love their smart phones too. I don't think thirty seconds can go by without them recording or listening one of those mini-voicemails on WeChat that they love so much here. Imagine listening to a hundreds of little voicemails a day, like a voice mail conversation, the next level after text messaging. Taxi drivers are huge social-network butterflies, it's like the passengers aren't even there sometimes. They also love talking on their walky-talkies, often switching between WeChat and Walky-Talky.

But a few weeks ago we had a new experience with a Taxi driver. We had a hard time getting a Taxi to begin with, he immediately told us, before we got into his taxi, that where we lived was too inconvenient for him to take us there. Three or four other taxis before him would not let us in because we lived too far. (15 minutes away) But this Taxi driver let us in, even though he complained.

The second thing that happened was he quickly noticed Carol's Beijing accent and told us that he hated people from Beijing! While he was telling us why he hated Beijingers he was driving unusually fast, even for here, weaving around cars like a madman. I kept my mouth shut, I was sitting in the front seat next to him and he hadn't seemed to notice that I was American. You'd be surprised how often people don't look at your face. If he didn't like Beijingers I couldn't imagine that he'd like Americans any better.

The drive back home is only about fifteen minutes, and about halfway into the drive he was still talkative but as happy and as friendly as could be, totally forgetting about how he hated people from Beijing. Becky attributes his gradual attitude change to Carol's charming personality while talking to him. Well done Carol.

Of course my favorite part was when he blew past our street, a major street, and apologized for it. After he made the U-Turn and got back on our street he turned off the meter so we didn't have to pay the extra 0.20 USD for his navigation error. That was nice of him. Perhaps we can thank Carol for that as well. But the funny part is how he apologized for missing our street: He had drank too much. He was drunk. Yes, I guess it explained the extra crazy driving, the mood changes, even the talkativeness, and blowing past our street. Though I'm not sure why he told us he had been drinking, that part mystifies my from childhood D.A.R.E. & M.A.D.D. trained brain.

In spite of this craziness we made it home just fine. And I have to say that Taxi drivers are not usually drunk, just the one so far, they don't usually smoke, but you should stop them before they light up. We do not live each day here in fear of our lives. But we do have a few stories.

Midnight Snacks, Hinges, and Light Bulbs

I just got back from eating a midnight snack in the kitchen, it's about one in the morning actually.  Everyone else is asleep, and has been for at least an hour and a half.  Dave and Irene Rice have been a little extra tired with Jet Lag for the last couple days.

I ate a pepperoni stick from a bag that Dave and Irene brought back, a small slice of Pepper Jack cheese, and an even smaller morsel of smoked gouda.  Delicious.  It's the kind you get from Costco. 

I'm sure there are people who might read this and cringe at my midnight selections.  But you have to understand that I close my eyes when I eat smoked gouda, to enjoy it more, and I only eat the smallest possible pieces to make it last as long as possible.  Remember I'm ten thousand miles from where anything like smoked gouda is made, and I feel those miles in my heart.  I love cheese and I miss it, let's put it that way.

Northern China seems to be a land of contrasts, at least in weather.  For about a week it's been swelteringly hot and humid, reverse opposite of the painfully dry and cold winter we experienced not so long ago.  It's the type of muggy here that you feel yourself sweating as you towel off after a shower, wondering if you need bother take showers.

It's a good thing that it's warm outside too because the hinges broke off of our bedroom window.  One of the two large openable window panes is sitting, somewhat dangerously, on the window sill leaning against the frame.  A small pile of hinge parts and screw drivers is sitting next to it. 

The window pane that is sitting on the window sill, leaning against the frame that it once sat in, might be unlike anything you've seen before, unless you've lived somewhere cold like the Midwest.  It's a triple pane window, just imagine two double pane windows sandwiched together.  The hinges have an extra piece in them to support about 75 pounds, pretty heavy for a window barely two feet wide.  We're really lucky that the hinges didn't break all at once and crash down and hurt someone.

Even as I'm typing this I can hear men unloading a truck outside our un-closable window.  We live on a busy street.  We live on a busy street that is also a huge construction zone, they are redoing the storm drains and building a subway station pretty much right outside our window, not more than 60 feet from where I'm sitting.

The hinges we bought to replace the broken ones are not the right size.  We take this hinge-lessness very seriously.  We know that there is a clock ticking somewhere, counting down to when the temperature will drop to thirty-five degrees below zero.  Buying the correct hinge parts will be a great challenge, like climbing a mountain, I'll even be wearing my backpack.  I'll keep water, and the broken hinge parts in a little zip lock bag in my back pack so that I can point to them when I try talking to people who look like they might sell hardware.  No Home Depot here.

It's funny even when you use the simplest possible tactic you can think of for communicating:  You put a broken hinge in a bag and point to it saying "Do you have?"  A simple yes or no answer is all you want, but there are inevitably questions that are asked.  I know that my Chinese should be better, but I think the questions they ask are a lot more complicated that what I learned: "I would like to buy an apple."  or "I would like to give you these magazines.."  I can't tell you what the are asking me when they ask, but it's kind of fun to guess.

If you ever talk to someone who is learning English you might want to learn how to use simple words.  I think this is a challenge for most people, especially if they have never learned a foreign language.  You might think that the word "hinge" is a simple word.  But is the "hinge" on a door called the same thing as the "hinge" on a window?  After all a door has a "knob" but a window has a "handle."  Why is that?  Why aren't they both called "handle" all the time?  Of course if you call it the wrong thing the person you are talking to is bound to explain the difference to you, and you, who are already confused are bound to wonder what they are talking about, because you had to look up the word "hinge" on your smart phone anyway.

But the biggest thing about this word "hinge" that you are trying to buy one of, is like I said, you had to look it up in a dictionary.  Unless you work in a hardware store or in construction it's not a word that you use every day is it? 

But imagine the array of questions they might ask you about this hinge you are trying to buy:  "Do you want aluminum or steal alloy?"  "What is the hinge-pin diameter on that?"  "Are you interested in our rewards program?"  "Is that a metric hinge or some weird American hinge.?"  "Do you want a repurposed (used) one or a new one from the factory?"  "Do you want that in a set or just the single one?"

A couple of those questions would be reasonable I think, but I swear, I get the "rewards program" question all the time, and I never get it.  It's ridiculous how many places, little tiny shops and restaurants, have phone-app rewards programs.  But of course you have to fill out forms, and eventually they'll ask you for some government ID number that you don't have because you're a foreigner and they never thought about it.

But eventually, usually, they stop asking the complicated questions that they've been trained to ask every customer and they tell you whether or not they have a hinge that looks like the one you brought in the little sandwich bag.  And then the day is over, and if you're lucky you've only spent two days buying hinges.

But this morning the light in the bathroom just went out, and it's not just a normal light bulb, it looks special, a special size and a special socket, wedged between heat lamps.  I wonder where I can find one…