Caveat: East of Eagan

My close friends Mark and Amy live in the St Paul suburb called Eagan. This is a view from their front yard, looking east, at 6:20 am.

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Yesterday we drove up from Chicago, stopping to see Bob one last time at Whitewater, Wisconsin, because I forgot my phone charging cable at his house. Curt insisted, plausibly, that my subconscious forced me to leave the cord in order to compel me to see him again.

We got a tour of his work area at the Music Department at UW Whitewater. One of his fellow professors performed a spontaneous rendition of Arirang (a Korean folktune) upon meeting my two Korean traveling companions. Perhaps a video clip of this is forthcoming – if so, I'll post a new blog entry for it.

We drove the rest of the way back up to St Paul (Eagan) and spent the night at Mark and Amy's. Today, we fly back to Los Angeles.

More later.

Caveat: Chicago

We stayed in Chicago overnight – we got a last-minute super discount deal on some kind of decrepit luxury suite downtown, using the internet. Considering how spontaneous this part of the trip has been, so far it's gone well. We saw anti-the-new-guy protests in Chicago, marching through the streets.

We'll be driving back up to Minneapolis today, then flying to L.A. tomorrow.

More later.

Caveat: just google something

We were standing on a street corner. We wanted to eat Korean Samgyeopsal, so we had found a restaurant on California Avenue on the North side, but the place only opened at 4:30 and it was only 3:30, so we had to wait a while. We walked around, and Curt struck up a conversation with a Korean dry cleaner. Maybe it's true that all dry cleaners in the US are Korean – certainly I have almost never met a non-Korean dry cleaner. 
 
Curt had fixated on finding a place to get a haircut. He is pretty brave, socially, so on his own initiative, he stopped two middle school girls coming out of the nearby school. Entirely typical middle-school girls from the big American city – which is to say, the girls wore hijabs. I guess, besides the Korean businesses here and there, the neighborhood definitely had a lot of muslims – I'm not sure what ethnicity.
 
The two girls seemed disconcerted by a random Korean coming up to talk to them, but after Curt explained what he was looking for, the girl thought for a moment and suggested, tentatively but with a very natural voice full of typical American teenage intonations, that there were some stores along Devon Avenue, which was nearby. Then the one, bolder girl shrugged and smiled. "Or you could just google something," she offered, dismissively brandishing her smartphone, and they walked away. It was such an obvious answer, and I think Curt felt a bit sheepish by the response. He was just trying to be socially and linguistically brave and she stated the obvious.

Caveat: License to Drive

I had let my driver's license expire during my long stay in Korea. Given my health issues with the cancer thing, making it back to Minnesota to renew a license wasn't high on the list. 

In theory, it's possible for me to get a Korean driver's license. But that's really just theory, until I can take the driving skills test in the Korean language. I just don't think my Korean is that good.

The alternative to get a Korean license is to hand over my valid US license – they'll make a trade of it, basically. So that left me with a need to renew my US license.

I went to the Minnesota DMV (not called "DMV" in Minnesota – that's my Californese talking) and stood in line for a few hours and took a written test and paid some money and got my license renewed. This is useful not just for traveling in the US, but for traveling anywhere. 

In fact I had been feeling a lot of stress and worry about whether this would work out. There was a lot of uncertainty because the Minnesota Department of Public Safety's available online documentation was essentially useless. I felt very happy that it went smoothly.

I also visited my storage unit and my "home branch" of my bank in Uptown. 

Then I gave Curt and Mr Jin a bit of a tour of my old haunts around the University of Minnesota, and I felt nostalgic. We rewarded their patience with American cuisine by buying some 순두부 (Tofu soup) at a Korean hole-in-the-wall in Stadium Village (near the University).

[daily log: walking, 4km]

Caveat: Among Quakers

As many of you know, by birth I am a Quaker (or half a Quaker, or maybe three quarters of one). I was not raised as an active Quaker, however – both due to my parents having fairly secular attitudes as well as because in my small childhood town in rural northern California, there was no local meetinghouse.
I was probably mostly aware of my Quaker heritage during the many visits to Southern California, where my paternal grandparents were. I remember attending meeting for worship a few times with my grandmother in the late 70s and early 80s.
One of the oldest and most influential meetings on the west coast is the Orange Grove Meeting in Pasadena. My father was born into that meeting, and my grandfather was active there even while also being part of the Temple City meeting which was adjunct to his farm-cum-school in Temple City.
My own strong association with Orange Grove was indirect, arising out of my employment by the Mexico City Meeting in 1986-87. Mexico City Friends and Orange Grove Friends were (and continue to be) tightly connected through historical, financial and spiritual ties. In fact, my uncle Allen (my father’s older brother) had worked for/with the Mexico City Meeting in the late 1950s.
Mexico City is the only time I was an official member of a meeting. The only other time I was a regular attender of a meeting was also in the context of working for a Quaker institution, when I was teaching high school Spanish and Social Studies at Moorestown Friends School in Moorestown, New Jersey. That was in 1996-97.
I did attend Orange Grove Meeting itself a few times in the early 2000s, but by then I was pretty sure I wasn’t a very good Quaker. I think I have a largely Quaker value system, but I have come to feel that being a typical “values but no doctrine” Quaker has too much of a whiff of hypocrisy for me to be comfortable in that role. The idea of a “church” where lip service is paid to a bible which is not really taken seriously (or even much read) can work fine for many people, but not for me. As I’ve written before, I appreciate Buddhism – at least the variety I have interacted with in Korea – because its adherents explicitly make clear that there is no need to believe anything, unlike Quakers who tend to sweep such discrepancies under the rug. As a committed antitranscendentalist (i.e. no miracles, no magic, period), that is the only kind of religion where I could possibly fit in.
Setting aside such digressions, I attended Quaker Meeting this morning at Orange Grove Friends Meeting. This is because my father has become an attender since he has taken on the role of on-site caretaker there (a role curiously similar to what my role had been at the Mexico City Meeting).
I have enough background with it to feel comfortable – even somewhat nostalgic. Curt and Mr Jin came too, and I’m sure it was several layers of culture shock for them, being not only alien religiously but populated almost exclusively by that weird, heterogeneous tribe of hippieish, dogmatically tolerant, political radicals such as commonly inhabit Quaker meetings. No amount of exposure to heterodox American culture as consumed outside the US could possibly prepare one for this type of American.
Their cultural discomfort afterward was strongly ameliorated by a very pleasant Korean-American Quaker lady named Kwang-hui, whose company I enjoyed and who served as a nice liaison between Koreanism and Quakerism. I was particularly pleased to find that her spoken Korean was much easier to comprehend for me than most varieties. I think that it is often the case that Koreans resident abroad adopt a somewhat simplified variety of Korean, with reduced usage of the many complex verbal periphrases and less “수능 [suneung]” vocabulary (what we would call “SAT vocab” in English, meaning “high-falutin” educated words, typically of Chinese etymology in Korean).
After the meeting we went to an allegedly Mexican restaurant across the street. North Pasadena in recent decades has evolved into largely hispanic neighborhood, so although the place was undeniably Mexican culturally, the cuisine is what I would term “LA generic fast food” – mostly burgers, sandwiches, tacos and burritos, with a few vegetarian entries as a nod to Pasadena’s vaguely upscale, granola-liberal character.
Despite that, being a family-run business meant the barbacoa tacos were pretty authentic, at least to Californio standards. I had one of those, and then a fish taco. These latter only exist where gringos do, when speaking of Mexico proper, but in Southern California they come close to being truly authentic local cuisine. Of course for the Koreans along, it was more immersion in the aspect of my own country that I love and miss most – its sheer perverse diversity. And that was the point. I am working hard to expose Curt and Jin to as much different stuff as possible given the narrow timeframe.
Overall, a nice morning. Then we drove down to the airport and here I am, writing this offline while sardined into another aluminum ovoid tube somewhere over Utah. I will post it once I am online again.
Tomorrow, I will go to Minnesota DMV and then the infamous storage unit. I not sure I will actually undertake the project to move and consolidate my stuff – it feels very overwhelming and frankly I’d rather be a tour guide to my friends.
[daily log: walking, ~2km]

Caveat: Pasadenaland

I am in my "patria" (in the etymological sense of "land of my father"): Pasadena. I am staying at my father's house, which is new since the last time I saw him four years ago. He's pretty settled into it, though.

I'm pretty jetlagged, so I won't spend a lot of time blogging. 

Addendum: Picture from eating dinner at one of my dad's "regular" spots, Coco's in Pasadena on Lake Avenue. These are familiar haunts to me.

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[daily log: walking, ~4km (mostly in the airports)]

Caveat: The Air Was Clear

The day was so clear, I felt inspired to try to take pictures when I went for my little walk on the hill at Jeongbalsan, today.

I think I need a new camera – my phone's camera seemed inadequate. 

The grove of trees behind the cultural center.

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The observation platform at the top of the hill.

A picture I took

A view of Tanhyeon neighborhood.

A picture I took

A view of Bukhansan – the air was very clear.

A picture I took

A view of the Gobong hill with its distinctive radio tower.

A picture I took

A view of the Cancer Center through the trees – I probably have posted pictures looking out from one of the windows visible on the 10th floor of the main hospital building.

A picture I took

Some fall trees.

A picture I took

A trail at the bird park.

A picture I took

The weird streets of wealthy k-burbia, with their cheek-by-jowl  mcmansions. And somebody parked a Hummer on the street.

A picture I took

The weird church whose architecture I prefer to its dogma.

A picture I took

 

All these pictures are within a 10 block circle of where I live. As I was arriving back home, the heavy clouds drew together and it began to rain.

[daily log: walking, 3.5 km]

Caveat: 무의도

Today was the last of my little summer break.
I went to a little island called 무의도 (Muuido) with my friend Peter. He is returning to the US soon, and so we had decided to get together at least once before he goes, although I have a feeling he’ll come back to Korea at some point.
Anyway, this island is a small, touristy kind of island west of the Incheon Airport, which itself is on an island west of the main part of the city of Incheon, on the west coast of South Korea west of Seoul.
The airport, and thus the airport island, is easily accessible from where I live in Ilsan, so it was convenient to take the bus from where I live to make this trip.
To get to Muuido from the airport, we took a local bus to the southwest corner of the airport island, and walked across this cool causeway to get a ferry. It’s a short ferry ride – at low tide, it seems like the ferry trip was about ten boat-lengths – maybe less.
On the island, first we walked over the little hill from the ferry terminal to the west side. Off the shore on the west side there is an even smaller island, that can be reached by walking across the channel between them at low tide. We did this. Peter wanted to see this island because it had been some kind of prison camp in the 1960s, and was used to train some convicts for a dangerous mission against North Korea. Unfortunately, the convicts had different ideas, and assaulted a bus and tried to escape at some point, and were killed. This was memorialized in a movie that Peter had seen. I had no knowledge of this story.
After visiting the prison island, called Silmido, we caught a bus and rode around Muuido some. There is a beach on the west side farther south, made famous by some TV show sometime back, and now very crowded and touristy. I didn’t enjoy the beach that much, but Peter had come here before with some coworkers and was waxing vaguely nostalgic.
We stopped and had lunch. I had some 바지락칼국수 – something like a clam-broth hand-made noodle soup. Then we decided to go to the airport. This was not random – it turned out somewhat by coincidence that our acquaintance Basil was flying out of the airport this afternoon.
Basil is moving to Istanbul. He said he was giving up on Korea. He seemed in good spirits.
I have known Basil since we worked together at LBridge in 2008. In fact, we met before I started at LBridge, just walking down the street in Ilsan and exchanging greetings as two “foreigners living in Ilsan.” Anyway, Basil and I have criss-crossed paths many times, including my having [broken link! FIXME] visited him in West Virginia in 2009, and him [broken link! FIXME] visiting me a few times in Ilsan, etc.
So Peter and I saw Basil off at the airport.
Here is a map I made of our meanderings at Muuido. I drew some low-tech lines on it: red is bus trips; orange is walking; pink is the ferry.
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Here are some pictures we took.
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picture[daily log: walking, 5 km]

Caveat: Tromp

I went on a walk today, but rather than tromp around my haunts in Ilsan I took the subway to Seoul and spent money at a bookstore too. I bought a fat history book about postwar Korea to maybe read.
Downtown Seoul was crowded, some kind of special event, I’m not sure what. I took a picture that showed the old-new contrast well I think.
[daily log: walking, 4.5 km]

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Caveat: 북악산과 청와대

Yesterday Peter and I hiked along the northern stretch of the Seoul city wall, that runs up a small mountain called Bukaksan, behind (north of) the Korean presidential palace, called 청와대 (blue-roofed house). The wall is militarized – i.e. it basically forms part of the defensive perimeter for the high security areas around the presidential palace and offices even today, and thus runs through what is effectively a military base. Consequently, to hike the wall we are required show our IDs and there are soldiers and CCTVs everywhere, and some things are not permitted to be photographed.
Anyway, it was interesting.

Here are some pictures.
The wall.

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Some people blithely picnicking next to a “do not enter” sign.

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A tree with bullet holes in it from a 1960’s era commando raid that the North Koreans launched against the presidential palace (and one of the reasons the mountain behind the palace is still so fortified today).

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Jared at the peak of Bukaksan.

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One of many gates in the wall… this one, however, appears to be an at least slightly older restoration than the others, which are not weathered at all and hence have a sort of disneyesque feel to them.

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A statue of a weird chicken-creature in a plaza near the Blue House.

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The Blue House (Presidential Palace).
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Old Seoul, foreground, New Seoul, background.

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Lunch – the most I’ve attempted to eat in a long time.

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CaveatDumpTruck Logo[daily log: walking, 5.5 km]

Caveat: Year of the Blue Horse

I went walking around Seoul today with my friend Mary, who was visiting up from Daegu where she's been living.

We went to a neighborhood I'd never visited before, east-northeast of downtown, near the Seoul National University Medical Center and various universities, including the ancient Sungkyunkwan U and Korean Catholic U. There is a park called Naksan on a small mountain by the same name, where a fragment of the old Seoul city wall still exists (or rather, has been restored). Near that park there is a neighborhood called Ihwa (not sure if the name is historically related to the eponymous university spelled Ewha now located on the west side near Yonsei), and in that neighborhood is a thing called the mural park. There are murals on many of the neighborhood's modest homes' walls. So we walked around the hilly area taking pictures, went to the top the mountain, and descended into the more gentrified and bohemian area near the medical center and the Catholic U.

It was a not-quite-freezing but extremely windy day. Here are a few pictures from the murals and the old city wall – I might post more later. First of all: me as [broken link! FIXME] 좀비천사.

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One street we went up does a loop-the-loop on itself, climbing the hillside amid dense low-rise housing.

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We saw a bucket-list wall.

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The north side of the mountain had snow and a nice view of Bukhansan.

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We happened to notice an interesting house with a wall around it and a plaque indicated that it was Syngman Rhee's (이승만 = postwar South Korea's first president) private residence in Seoul, and still occupied by descendants. We were trying to take pictures but the area normally open to the public was closed due to the holiday, and so I was holding my phone over the fence taking a picture.

Here are the pictures I took.

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An elderly woman nearby gestured us over, and in the first moment I thought she'd tell us not to be taking pictures.

Instead, she invited us up to her rooftop, through her house, to take pictures from there. We did. Then she offered us persimmon-ginger tea. Then she offered us cakes and snacks and coffee and we talked for a long time, reminiscing about her career as a college lecturer and high school principal. It was impressive, and we mostly held our own with my bad Korean and her very rusty English. She was very kind.

Here she is showing us her roof.

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Here is a picture taken from there.

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Here is her foyer – it was a very posh, western-style residence, to be expected across the street from the historic Rhee family compound.

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The calligraphy says "樂琴書" (낙금서 = [the] joy [of] harp [and] calligraphy – I guess).

The title for this post comes from the woman's insistence that this New Year's Day wasn't just the beginning of the Year of the Horse (which is clearly established) but specifically a Year of the Blue Horse – something I'll have to research further.

We stayed over an hour, and finally we left, walked some more, and then my energy gave out on Mary and we headed back to a subway station.

I'm feeling like I have cold symptoms, coming on. Or something. But it was an interesting and pleasant day.

[daily log: walking, 6 km]

Caveat: All Clear

My coworker May took a lot of photos last weekend when we went to Ganghwa Island (강화도). She forwarded some of them to me today so I'll post a few here.

I like this one of me looking meditative going down the stairs. In so many pictures of me, I look like I'm grimmacing in pain. Heh. Of course.

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I like this one of Helen with Jacob. Helen told me she had a very hard time understanding Jacob, and couldn't figure out if it was his Australian accent or the fact he's 15. I suspect a combination of both.

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Today after leaving Jacob and my mom at the airport, I raced back to Ilsan to make my 1 pm appointment at the hospital. I got my CT scan and then had a short consult with Dr Jo.

"All clear."

That's good.

I'm so tired. I got home around 4 and crashed into napland. I woke up just now and will post this and go back to sleep.

[daily log: walking, 5 km]

Caveat: Driving Around Ganghwa Island

I drove around Ganghwa Island (강화도) today with my mom, Jacob, Helen and May. First we went to lunch and had traditional galbi-style cook-at-the-table fare. Then we went to 전등사 [jeondeung temple], which I'd visited with my friend Peter [broken link! FIXME] exactly one year ago. Finally, we drove up and saw a site called 연미정 [yeonmijeong], an old fortress location where Joseon Korea surrendered to China in a humiliting historical moment in the 17th century, but where now you can also look across the Han River estuary at North Korea.

Here are some pictures.

First, the temple.

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Next, the fortress.

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That's North Korea in the far background.

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A picture of all of us, taken by a nice man who was looking at the North with some binoculars.

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After all that driving around, we were tired, but then my boss Curt invited us to dinner with his family – his wife Migyeong and his daughter Nayun and son Baegang. So we ate 칼국수 [kalguksu = homemade noodle soup] made with lots of mussels (바지락) for dinner. Jacob ate a very large amount today but he wanted ice cream when we got home. I think he has recovered his appetite. Now we are home resting.

[daily log: walking, 2 km]

 

Caveat: Hiking some in Bukhansan

I will post some more pictures from Jacob's and my hike over the ridge at Bukhansan.

We entered the park with my mother at 진관사 [jingwan temple] on the western edge, near the Gupabal subway station. Ann accompanied us through the temple and a few hundred meters up the trail until it suddenly got very steep on a rock face, then she went back down and waited for us while we went all the way up to 비봉 [bibong = bi summit]. Jacob actually went up to the summit but I was feeling a bit acrophobic after the trail up, so I waited for him.

Then we proceeded down from the ridge to the other side, where 승가사 [seungga temple] was. That temple is much more inaccessible than most temples, since it requires a minimum of 2 km of hiking. It was quite beautiful. Then we walked down the long driveway (closed to traffic) and exited the park in a neighborhood called 구기동 [gugi neighborhood]. From there we took a 20 minute taxi ride back around to where we had started and re-met my mom.

Here is a map, where I tried very roughly to estimate our route by following contour lines.

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Here are some pictures (unlabeled / roughly in order).

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[daily log: walking, 4 km; steep hiking, 5 km]

 

caveat: monday morning return

since the direct bus from sokcho to goyang is only three hours, and since i work afternoons, there is no problem coming back today, monday morning, instead of having to do it sunday night. i guess thats the compensation for working saturday mornings. so here i sit on the bus, a-bloggin.

yesterday, after naksan temple, we took a taxi to another temple that i had essentially identified at random on a map, named 진전사 [jinjeon temple]. the taxi ride through the rural gangwon countyside was quite beautiful and scenic, and the temple up in the mountain was much less crowded than down on the coast. in fact, the temple was utterly deserted, and appeared to be in the very early stages of a major restoration, such that most of the buildings on the site map didnt actually exist.

one other tourist showed up while we were there, and i chatted with him in my rudimentary way – he was a middle-aged korean guy who knew zero english.

later, when ann, jacob and i had made our way down the long steep driveway to the one-lane country road that led up the valley to the temple, i was contemplating calling a taxi for our return to sokcho (i had taken a business card from the taxista on the way up so i had a number). we stopped to examine another stele/pagoda at the roadside, and that same tourist guy from earlier was there. much to our gratitude, he said he lived in sokcho and was happy to drive us back into town.

he worked in a bank, but was currently out on leave for surgery. lo and behold, he had recently had back surgery but had in fact had cancer some years back. we sorted all this out entirely in korean, and i conveyed some part of my story too. he very kindly dropped us right at the bus terminal, near our hotel. anyway, i have his kakao (korean instant messaging app) so i will try to stay in touch.

later, jacob and i walked in a big circle around sokcho harbor and found a store selling a charging cord for my phone – i stupidly had left my charger at home. we also saw a very amateurish "multicultural" parade in downtown sokcho, as part of some fall festival. there was a troupe of amazingly convincing zombies, some ghanian drummers, and a stunningly large delegation of colombians for some unfathomable reason.

after jacob and i got back to the hotel, we went to dinner at what was possibly the most disorganized restaurant in south korea – the food they were willing to serve wasnt what was on the menu, and what we thought we ordered wasnt quite what we got, and it all took a very long time. despite that, i got some pasta in a cream-seafood sauce that ended up being really easy for me to eat given my current handicap. my mothers sandwich was "surprising" but she said it was ok.

that was our sunday. i got my phone charged overnight. i will post some pictures later.

caveat: fingernails and food – discuss

we decided that after i got off work today, we would have a weekend adventure. my mom encouraged me: "lets go somewhere fun for you too," she said. i asked if she was ok with an overnight trip. she was. i knew jacob would be game for an immersive adventure of any kind.

so now, having packed and raced to the goyang bus terminal after i got home from work at three, we are on a bus to sokcho, on south koreas northeast coast. the three hour trip is almost over. ever since andrew and hollye had come over here while i was being radiationed, ive been jealous. its one corner of korea i havent yet visited.

my mother and jacob have been talking continuously for the last hour – which is good since after teaching and talking too much, my mouth is sore. the topic of the conversation is fingernails and food – not the two topics together, but rather alternating.

i wonder if some of the koreans around us on the mostly full bus understand. if so, what do they make of it? – i cant help but imagine playing a recording of such an extended yet largely unintellectual conversation to my students. what kinds of comprehension questions might i write?

Caveat: More and more guests

I met my mom at the airport this morning. Per our previous discussion, she brought with her the son of a next-door neighbor who is named Jacob – a 15 year old Australian. She lives out in the middle of nowhere, so neighbors are close there – like family. So she interacts with him and his family a lot. It's kind of a chance repay some kindnesses from her neighbors, and also to allow him to "see the world" or at least one part of it – it's the first time he's been out of the country. This kind of generous gesture is hardly uncommon from my mom, so in fact when she suggested it earlier when we'd been planning her trip to visit I was in no way surprised, but I guess I wasn't sure it would really happen so I held off announcing it to blog-land.

So in fact I have two guests. Jacob is of course wide-eyed and interested in Korea, though a bit worn down currently from the long flight and I think a bit culture-shocked, as is to be expected. After taking my mom to the HomePlus store this morning, we had lunch at the Soupy restaurant that I discovered with Mary and Wendy a few weeks ago, and then when my mom lay down for a nap, I took Jacob on an extended walking tour of Ilsan – we saw Jeongbal Hill, my cancer hospital, the Madu neighborhood, the WesternDom mall, and part of Lake Park. We covered 8 km. Now he's exhausted. That's good. I didn't take any pictures, because it was all pretty familiar territory I guess. Today was a holiday – the newly minted "Hangeul Day" which was long ago a holiday but was out of fashion for several decades and only last year re-instated. So everywhere was crowded – especially the park. I like being a tour guide, but I ended up talking too much, which is an actual risk with my mouth in its current state – at least a risk for more discomfort.


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[daily log: walking, 9.5 km]

Caveat: KFV

Today my friend Helen (a current coworker) invited Wendy and me to go to a "Korean Folk Village," located in Yongin, which is on the southeast perimeter of the megalopolis (whereas I live in the northwestern part). Another friend, Kelly (a former coworker) with her son who is 8, came along too. So the five of us drove down there and spent about 6 hours being tourists. It was fun.

Here is a whole bunch of pictures. I won't caption all of them, but provide comment on a few.

Wendy and I posing in front of some jangseung near the entrance.

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Some little ceramic statues of peasant people.

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Two Chinese tourist kids held rapt by a Korean potter demonstrating his art.

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Some dancing / samulnori performers, marching out.

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A giant pile o' people, spinning around impressively, to excellent rhythms – the medieval Korean breakdancing tradition.

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Kelly with her son jumping rope.

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A very pleasant looking reading room in a "mansion."

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A kitchen with a lot of garlic.

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We all ate lunch. Pictured are Kelly's son, Kelly, Helen and Wendy.

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A really calm, beautiful courtyard in a structure.

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Some ducks in the lake.

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A run-down looking pavilion highlighted by the afternoon sun.

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The lake, held back by a small damn across the stream along which the KFV is built.

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A group portrait.

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It was a good day.

[daily log: walking, 4 km]

Caveat: Antiques

I had a kind of lazy morning, viewing this as my last day of my “radiation holiday” – although I’m only returninig to work part-time, tomorrow, October 1st, I still feel that the pressure will begin to mount to return to full-working status. I both look forward to it (because I like my work and I miss the kids) and dread it (because if I’m feeling like I am still, currently, work is going to be pretty hellish).

Then I got fed up with sitting around, so despite the burning horrible pain in my mouth and neck, Wendy and I took the subway into the city to a neighborhood I hadn’t visited before, called Janghanpyeong. There we visited some “antique markets” that I’d read about. Much less ambitious than the vast flea market area I visited with Andrew and Hollye some weeks ago, but very focused on pre-20th-century antiquities. True antiques – the kind that would be illegal to buy and take home outside of Korea without a government permit.

Here are some pictures from the antiques market.

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One of the amazing things about living in the outskirts of Seoul is that it is so vast that I could conceivably go into the city and explore a different, completely unfamiliar neighborhood like this one that I went to today, every week for the rest of my life, and not run out of new places. It’s spectacular. I disagree with those who say Korean neighborhoods are “all the same” or that they lack individual character. Certainly there are patterns, and certainly there is some sameness to the architecture, with the vast majority of it being that post-Korean-War, on-a-tight-budget style. Even still, there are all kinds of things that make each neighborhood different, like the presence of these antique markets in this one we explored today.


My evening since getting home has been pretty uncomfortable. I had felt earlier today that maybe I was “over the hump” as far as discomfort, but yesterday and this evening are the worst I’ve felt since that horrible Sunday 2 weeks ago. The reason is obvious: I had quit taking the hardcore pain medication because I felt that it was making me unnecessarily depressed (as a kind of side effect). But… I may have given it up too soon. I may decide to resume it tonight.

I really don’t like this cancer thing. I know I’ve “got it beat” – at least for now – but I really wish I could just get past all the side effects of the treatment, and get back to something resembling “normal.”

Speaking of antiques…

What I’m listening to right now.

John Prine, “Some Humans Ain’t Human.”

[daily log: walking, 3 km]

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Caveat: Just Walk

My brain isn’t very functional these days, balanced as it is on the ridgeline separating pain and medication. Sometimes it’s the pain, sometimes it’s the medication, but either way, my brain is immersed in syrup.

So I sit at my computer a lot. Reading blogs or playing my game. Or just sit, zoning out, listening to NPR.

But I still walk a lot.

Every day, I walk to or from the hospital, or both.

Yesterday, here are Wenday and I at the observation platform at the top of Jeongbal hill, taken on the way home.

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Yesterday, Wendy and I walked around the lake in Lake Park.

Here are some pictures of the lake.

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Today, we walked over to the Madu neighborhood and back.

Here is an idiosyncratic (and probably very expensive) home we saw there.

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What I’m listening to right now.

Django Django, “Storm.”

[daily log: walking, 9 km]

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Caveat: 흥국사

I’m really not up to day-long trips, right now. My energy-level is limited. However, it’s still important to get out of the house and I want to show at least some things to Wendy, too.

So I’ve been thinking of shorter half-day or several-hours-long trips we could do. I’ve long thought I should make more of an effort to visit things that are close by – landmarks, temples, parks, etc., that are right here in Goyang City. So many things are nearby that I never visit because it’s always that phenomenon of “I’ll be able to visit that any time I want” which boils down to never visiting it.

With that in mind, today we went to a temple called 흥국사 [heung guk sa] which is on the eastern edge of Goyang, up against where the city touches Seoul at the western end of Bukhansan National Park.

It turned out to be a rather rustic temple – not polished for the tourists, at all, just a working temple, a bit run down in areas. I actually like seeing places like this.

It took about an hour to get there: subway to Gupabal Station, then bus number 704 up the road that parallels the city limit between Seoul and Goyang for about 20 minutes to a rather rural-looking spot. Then walking up a one-lane road, up a narrow valley between two arms of a small mountain, to the temple.

Here are some pictures.

At the top of the road, here is the temple parking area.

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A tourist map of Goyang on an announcement board.

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The gathering area in front of the complex of buildings.

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Looking up toward some of the buildings.

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Bukhansan in the distance.

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Eaves of two buildings, a hanging bell, and the peaks of Bukhansan in the distance.

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A guy flying along.

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A seashore scene.

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A really nice painting up above the level where most of the panel paintings are, up under the eaves.

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A dragon.

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Some guys talking in what looks like a blue fog.

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A guy riding a tiger.

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Another nice panel painting.

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Wendy is resting on some quarried stone for building curbs or steps. There was some construction going on at parts of the temple site.

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Jared and the dragon.

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Another view showing how unpopulated it was, there, and the western side of Bukhansan in the background.

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Looking up at several buildings – Wendy is standing on the balcony on the building to the right.

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Looking at the temple from the large gathering area in front of it.

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A bored looking dog near the temple.

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A hint of fall colors in the parking area.

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Crossing a small stream on the small road near the main road (I think this stream is the city limit between Seoul and Goyang, but I’m not positive).

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The sign for the temple at the main road where the bus stop is.

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Then we got back on the bus and went back to the subway and I came home.

[daily log: walking, 3 km]

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Caveat: Mopey Day

pictureToday was a bit of a retrogression on the “gradually feeling better” aspect of this five-day break from radiation therapy. I had a lot of pain in my mouth, even despite my meds. Perhaps I pushed too hard yesterday in trying to eat actual food as opposed to sticking to my semi-disgusting nutrition drinks. This makes me feel less optimistic about a quick recovery once the radiation is done, at the end of next week.

Nevertheless, at least in morning, I took Wendy on a short hike over to Jungsan, to the Yeongcheon temple (영천사). There was a service being held there – it was busier than I’d ever seen it. On the way back down the hill, we met an 84 year-old Korean War veteran and his 78 year-old wife hiking up the mountain to the temple. That was impressive. Like many Korean War veterans, his English was pretty good, so we talked briefly.

Wendy ran out of patience with my mopey, somewhat unsociable hosting – or she ran out of patience with my claustrophobic apartment. So we found a hotel for her, over near the bus station at Baekseok.

I slept part of the afternoon.

A view down the hill from the temple.

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[daily log: walking, 4 km]

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Caveat: It was all good, til the world came crumbling down

Here are some pictures, minimal comments, leftover from my superfast trip down south over the weekend.

The view from the bus window – sunset while driving down there.

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My motel room.

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The view from the window – Yeonggwang, 630 AM.

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Walking down the street toward the bus terminal in Yeonggwang. On the right, about 2 blocks ahead, is apartment number 1 of the four distinct apartments I had during my year-in-Hantucky (they moved me around a lot).

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On the high street in Hongnong town, looking back toward the bus terminal.

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The county administration building for the township.

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My school where I worked, Hongnong Elemenatry, still looks exactly the same.

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We begin climbing the mountain behind town to the northwest and pass some overgrown graves, which are everywhere in rural Korea.

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Climbing higher, looking through the trees.

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Looking down the mountain.

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At the first peak, a marker with too many Chinese characters for me to read.

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A viewing shelter that was under construction the last time I was here in 2010.

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A bug disguised as grass. Really – look carefully!

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Trees.

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A good, if hazy, panorama of the town.

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More looking down – this time toward Beopseongpo.

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Small blue flowers.

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Andrew by a rock.

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Finding our way (and ultimately failing – we got pretty lost).

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Going downhill through the forest.

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A happy sign of incomprehensible meaning.

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Coming around a bend, first view of the beach.

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Looking back the way we came.

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Climbing some rocks looking at the tidepools.

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And then I was tired. We took a bus back into town and didn’t do much else before coming back. Basically, we went to Hongnong, took a 10 km hike, and came back. Was it worth it? I’m not sure. Just an exercise in half-hearted nostalgia, for me, and for Andrew and Hollye, it was, perhaps, just a kind of random, not entirely enjoyable adventure.


Today, I went to radiation. Later, in the afternoon, I saw Dr Ryu, who looked me over, and looked in my mouth. He pointed out all the little white sores I’m growing in there, and explained something of what was going on, which I appreciated. He said, “You need to stop eating spicy food.” Note that he said this before I had discussed with him my eating habits – something in my mouth tipped him off that I had been abusing my mouth in this way over the weekend – it was a kind of vaguely homeopathic undertaking, where I was eating spicy food because my goddamn mouth hurt like hell anyway, so what the hell, live it up, because at least I could feel something.

He said to stop pushing myself so hard. He’s said that, before.

I know.

I know. I went to work but stayed less than an hour. How’s that for not pushing so hard?  I still walked a lot today – a round trip to the hospital in the morning and a big quadrangle back to hospital and work in the afternoon. But then I mostly did nothing, since getting home. Half napping, half reading. Listening to music. Trying to sleep but not really succeeding.

What I’m listening to right now.

Cold, “It’s All Good.” It’s from the album 13 Ways To Bleed On Stage. The lyrics to this song never made any sense to me – I’m not referring to their meaning, but rather to the weird mismatch between the published lyrics and the words as I hear them. There is NO WAY they’re singing “It’s all good.” Maybe it’s that strange North Florida accent? My theory is that half the band is singing “good” at the end, while the other half is singing “fine” – and you get that strange “it waz aooo gaaiiiine” that seems to be in the song’s audio.

Regardless… I keep returning to this album. I can’t even explain what the album, altogether, means to me. It is the soundtrack to too much of my life, since I acquired it in 2001. I used to drive for hours, running errands or roadtripping or just driving to drive, with this CD on repeat in the CD playter.

The songs are quite dark – this one is about drugs and depression and contemplated suicide, for example – but my overall response to them is uplift.

Lyrics:

Take another motherfucking hit of LSD
Let all the love inside the world belong to you
Well I can’t understand just why you went away
Too young to feel the pain and bitterness of love
Well I can never understand a motherfucking word you’d ever say
And all the people that you hurt came down on you
Well I can’t understand just why you went away
I sat and waited for the day you’d come back home

Well it was all good
Well it was all good
Well it was all good
Well it was all…

Take a loaded gun and blow my fantasy away
Turn off the lights and shine the spotlight down on you
Well I could never understand a motherfucking word you’d ever say
And all the people that you hurt came down on you
Well I can’t understand just why you went away
Well I sat and waited for the day you’d come back home

Well it was all good
Well it was all good
Well it was all good
Well it was all…

You are my hope, my god, my love, my fear, my gun
It’s over, it’s all good
Til the world came crumbling down
Oh well it’s all over
It was all good, til the world came crumbling down
Oh well it’s all over
It was all good, til the world came crumbling down
World came crumbling…
crumbling, crumbling, crumbling

Well it was all good
Well it was all good
Well it was all good
Well it was all…

[daily log: walking 8.5 km]

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Caveat: Pushed Too Hard

pictureIt was maybe too ambitious an undertaking, this weekend. But I really wanted to take Andrew down to Hantucky. It ended up being a whirlwind – less than 30 hours round trip, including 10 hours on one bus or another and the motel last night and a 10 km hike up and down mountains today.

Here’s an observation: exertion seems to make the pain in my mouth more severe. By a lot. Yet isn’t exertion supposed to be good for you? I have a dilemma. I don’t want to turn into a slug – not if my body and soul are cooperating in staying more active. I feel very lucky to have as much energy as I do, these days, given what I’ve been through and what I’m going through with the radiation treatments. But is working out (i.e. hiking up mountains) a bad idea? I felt pretty terrible today, afterward.

I’m not really expecting an answer, it’s just what’s on my mind. I’m going to sleep. I have to get up tomorrow to face the raygun, again. If I get the chance, I’ll post more pictures I took on our trip, later.

[daily log: hiking 10 km – I was keeping a daily walk/run/hike log a year or so ago but then I stopped; I decided Sept 1 was good time to resume.]

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caveat: return to glory

its always strange to come back to a place where one has lived and had intense experiences, after a long absence. walking around yeonggwang (which translates to “glory”, among other meanings), where each street in this small, workaday city is still familiar, where most of the stores are unchanged, feels heavy with a kind of ambivalent nostalgia.

i had been a little worried about finding a decent place to stay – i always lived here, before – meaning i had an apartment – and never have returned as a tourist until now. but just a few blocks east of the bus station we found a more or less quaint motel called 귀빈장모텔 (gwibinjang motel = roughly “honored guest place motel” or maybe more loosely “VIP motel”) for 30000원 per room per night (25 bucks), which is entirely reasonable for korea.

the tile work in my oddly shaped bathroom looks brand new, and had this kitchy but appealing artwork embedded (below).

actually, the town feels marginally more prosperous than it did in 2010 when i lived here – there are fewer abandoned storefronts, and more cafes – always an indicator of gentrification in korea. but the town is utterly dead on a saturday night, just as i remember. i think everyone goes to gwangju to have fun.

tomorrow i will show andrew and hollye hongnong and my favorite walks there – hopefully over the mountain to the beach and around to the waterfall south of town, then the odd “buddhist theme park” (my own made up designation for it) in beopseong.

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