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Published: August 4th 2009
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Part of the Hong family
Sung Mo is taking the picture. Well, not always strangers. But I definitely was glad of all the help I received when I first arrived in Seoul. I think I would still be stuck at the airport otherwise.
I had a good flight all in all- seriously, if you can't go first class, at least get an aisle seat I say. I watched two movies and tried to sleep during the "night"- not too successful. I was all over that bibimbap lunch they served, but the dinner/second meal was a choice between rubber chicken or pasta. I went with pasta. I also tried hard not to wolf down the first Twilight book- wow is that thing addicting! (Borrowed from my friend Birgit- thank you!!)
I'm in love with Incheon airport- basically because it wasn't the plane. But it's also clean and pretty in that airport-y kind of way. And who can resist moving sidewalks, really? Customs and the flu check went fast. I was thinking cool thoughts as they took my temperature, and it must have worked because they didn't cart me off.
Anyway, so all this time I was growing more and more nervous, because the exit was getting closer and closer and
Outlook hazy
Seoul is very humid in the summer time and the pollution and humidity hang over the city. I was going through all the worst case scenarios about what I was going to do if my friend Karl didn't show up to pick me up- call a cab? take the bus? get back on a plane? But luckily he was right there after baggage claim waiting. Now I know why it's so important to for KEI staff to meet people coming from Korea at the airport. It's overwhelming to step off a plane into a strange place and immediately be faced with weighty logistical decisions when you're sleep deprived. So I was very relieved that I could just hand over the reins of my fate to Karl.
We had to catch a bus into Seoul to make it to the restaurant Woo Lae Oak in time to meet with my host family for a couple days- Chairman Hong Sung Pyo of the Credit Counseling and Recovery Service and his wife and two children who are my age-ish- Yewon and Sung Mo. They are so nice and made Karl and me feel right at home. We had bulgogi and I've finally learned how to eat it properly and how to hold the lettuce in my hand while making
it. We also drank a lot. Chairman Hong has this method of creating soju bombs that takes some serious hand-eye coordination.
Try it at home: Place a soju shot glass in a larger glass (6 oz?). Pour beer down the sides of the glass so the liquid makes the shot glass float. When you have the glass 3/4 full, stop. Take your soju and pour it into the floating shot glass as fast as possible (so you get more soju in before it sinks). Kumbae! (Cheers!)
After dinner we all went back to Chairman Hong's apartment and had 2 bottles of wine between the 6 of us. I was surprisingly not drunk, since I stuck with beer mostly. I was also very full, which probably helped too. I was, however, very tired. When we finally ended at about 11pm, I had been awake for an unseemly number of hours.
Next day, Chairman Hong and Mrs. Hong took me to the top of Bukaksan (I think) to see some of Seoul. Unfortunately, the weather was so hazy you couldn't hardly see a thing. We had coffee in the observatory and then they drove me to Itaewon to meet
Karl so I could get a cell phone from his guy. Itaewon is right next to the US Army base, so there's lots of shopping, Western stores, bars, fast food joints (Dutch hot dogs!), seedy side alleys and so on. In fact, the cell phone store was very close to base of Hooker Hill (My apologies in advance to those who may find such references offensive- I believe honesty is the best policy and I'm trying to provide an idea of the atmosphere of Itaewon. At least I didn't mention Homo Hill.) I was able to get my phone for 50,000 won and I bought 40,000 won worth of airtime. Hopefully that will get me through the month.
Karl and I were expected back at Chairman Hong's apartment for dinner at 6 or 7pm, so we had a few hours to kill. We got on the subway (my first time!) and went to Namdaemun. Just an unbelievable amount of stuff for sale. It's like all the merchandise in the world comes to Namdaemun to spawn, and then spreads outwards around the Earth. I saw similar markets in China and even Italy, but this just blows those away I think.
Alley after alley of products. I was surprised we didn't get lost. Of course, if I had been alone I probably would have been lost in about 2 seconds. I bought a watch and a bath towel- I was too overwhelmed to try for anything else.
It started to rain while we were window-shopping for camera lens for Karl, so we headed into the Shinsegae department store. This place totally has Macy's beat. It's like Nordstrom's meets Whole Foods- there's a grocery store on the first floor, then floor after floor of clothing and shoes and housewares. We started at the top and worked our way down. I totally wanted the walnut wood keyboard for 800,000 won- you could pull the keys off and use them for Scrabble! I bought one shirt and tried to convince Karl to buy some un-needed shoes. They had a whole floor devoted to the colorful shirts and pant suits that older Korean women (ajummas) like to wear.
When we finally got back to Chairman Hong's apartment complex we ran into the chairman himself as he was coming back from the store with beer and soju. Dinner was delicious. Of course, silly me, I forgot that there was going to be a second course and ate too much to begin with. We moved to the living room with a low table set up for the second course, which was meat and fruit to go along with our alcohol. This drinking snack food is called anju. Chairman Hong poured us each a cocktail of soju, makkoli (I think- cloudy white liquid?) and pomegranate drinking vinegar. It was very good and not too strong tasting.
Yewon played for us on her gayageum, a traditional Korean zither-like instrument. It was awesome. She said she hadn't played in years, but I thought she did really well. I couldn't play that well on the piano if I tried now.
To return, finally, to the title of this blog entry, the Hong family have been the greatest hosts ever. Just really warm and welcoming. I am so grateful that they took me in for these first few days and made me part of their family. I will be sad to leave this sanctuary tomorrow.
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