Traveling to Busan

Cyndi and I are back in Busan (southern part of Korea) visiting Cyndi's paternal relatives for the Chuseok holiday. During Chuseok, family members gather together to pay tribute to their ancestors, and more historically, celebrate the fullest moon of the year.

Chuseok is reportedly the worst time to travel, as most Seoulites head down south to visit their families. We experienced the chaos first hand. In fact, we almost didn't even make it to Busan.

There are several ways to travel to Busan: car, bus, plane, or KTX, an express train. Weighing price, convenience, and price, the KTX proved to be the most desirable option. With the help of Hyeyoung, we managed to procure tickets well in advance. As you can imagine, tickets are in high demand at this time of the year.

Our train was scheduled to depart Seoul Station at 6 pm. Seoul Station is quite aways (is that the right expression?) from Bundang, so we took the subway to Kangnam, where we then, caught a ride with Hyeyoung's cool friend, EK. Unfortunately, we encountered a whole lot of traffic. The minutes quickly ticked by as EK valiantly weaved through crazy taxis and buses. We arrived in the vicinity of Seoul Station around 5:45 pm. But as our luck would have it, the normal u-turn lanes were blocked off, so what would normally take a couple of minutes took nearly ten minutes. I think we may have passed Seoul Station a couple of times, but given the traffic and the crazy Korean road system, it was impossible to get to the station without having to run, frogger-style, through what seemed like ten lanes of traffic.

By some miracle, we managed to make it to Seoul Station a few minutes before 6:00 pm. That's when Cyndi, Hyeyoung, and I had to book it! We ran up several flights of stairs, laden with our baggage and various pieces of Hyeyoung & Joon's wedding hanboks. The station was swarming with people, but Hyeyoung managed to quickly read the board and figure out that our train was at Platform 4. We ran like madwomen to platform 4, and almost cried when we saw the crowd of people waiting for the train. After a few seconds of relief, we realized that this was too good to be true. It was several minutes past the scheduled departure time. Hyeyoung inquired with the train attendant, and learned that our train was scheduled for Platform 3. WTF?

We ran up and down two flights of stairs to get to the next platform. Hyeyoung reached the bottom of the stairs just as our train came speeding past the platform! As my sister would say, it sucked monkey. The train was actually running a few mintues behind, but we had wasted those precious minutes at the wrong platform!

If you think we had it bad, you should have seen this Canadian dude. He and his friends were traveling to Busan together to see the sights. Unfortunately, the doors closed just as he was about to step onto the train. (I'm not sure if that's accurate, but that's what he told us). It was really sad to see this non-Korean guy, frozen in disbelief. As he dejectedly followed us on the escalator, he cried, "어떻게?" ("What am I going to do...?) With the help of HY and his big 외국인 eyes, he managed to get the last remaining seat on the next train. We, however, had to take an alternate route on two separate trains, including an older, smelly train that was filled with trash and empty beer cans from the previous passengers. I could handle the funky smell, but it took all that I had to ignore the trash. It just really grossed me out.

We left Seoul at 10 pm, and arrived in Busan around five hours later. Had we made our original train, the trip would have only taken two hours.

Since we had a few hours to kill until our new train schedule, EK kindly came back for us and took us to Itaewon for some tacos at Taco Chili Chili. The burritos only vaguely resemble Mexican food, but I suppose it's close enough if you're dying for a burrito. Afterwards, we walked around the corner to a cozy little cafe called T8, where I had a delicious bowl of "chocolate soup," a bowl of expresso and hot chocolate, so good that it was almost worth missing the train -- almost. I will post a photo once I get back home.

The Metro I

One of the draws to living in a large metropolitan like Seoul (or the greater Seoul area) is the convenient public transportation system. Though not as clean as the Hong Kong Metro, but nowhere near as dirty as the NYC subways, the Korean Metro system is an easy way to get around Bundang and Seoul.

My school is about a twenty five minute subway ride away. If I manage to get a seat, I usually spend that time reading a book or reviewing my lesson plan. If I'm left standing, I usually pass the time listening to my iPod. (Speaking of music, check out my music box to the left). Though I enjoy this time to think, read, and sleep, I've realized that I'm totally missing out on a wonderful Korean gadget -- the handheld TV! The Korean version is way cooler than those heavy little portable boxes from the '90s. A tad larger than my iPod nano, these sleek Korean handhelds pick up satellite feeds of popular sitcoms, variety shows, news, and sports programming, all while the train speeds along the underground railway, however many meters below the surface. If you're willing to drop some extra won (actually, more like, a lot of won), you can also get the device built into your mobile phone. The screen also rotates accordingly if you hold it vertically or horizontally. I've glanced at a number of these screens, and the image quality appears to be HD quality.

If I knew that the U.S. was capable of handling such technology, I might actually pick up one of these babies for myself. However, knowing the U.S. and all of its hangups over resource allocation and proprietary issues, it's unlikely for you all to be enjoying your own handheld TVs in the near future. So for now, you'll just have to enjoy your archaic little video iPod. Muahahahahaha.










































Speaking of subways... despite the personal space issues, most subway riders keep to themselves and cause little ruckus. With that said, in little over a month, I've already observed my fair share of drama on the subway trains. For example, there was the time that this ajusshi (old man in his fifties) confronted a young girl in her early twenties, screaming at her for sitting in the seats designated for the elderly, disabled, and pregnant women. The train was pretty empty, so I don't see why the man took such issue with the girl (perhaps soju was fueling his ire). To my great amusement, the girl was not threatened by the man's rage, and simply yelled right back at him. I couldn't understand what they were saying, but at one point the old dude pushed the girl's shoulder. Oh snap! This girl wasn't having it. She pushed him right back! Unfortunately, the drama came to an abrupt halt when the train pulled into the last stop, and the two fiery parties went their separate ways. I guess Confucian values can only go so far. I'm sure that Destiny's Child would agree that all independent women have the right to stick up for themselves if they've been wronged.

The fight was both exciting and frightening. I suppose this why so many folks enjoy UFC matches. I only wish I caught the fight on camera.

I did, however, catch a photo of a presumably homeless, man on the train. He didn't have any shoes, but he did have a fresh bottle of soju. I wanted to catch his tirade on camera, but I was afraid that he'd go all Russell Crowe on me if he caught me recording him. So, all I got was this blurry photo. Unfortunately, in his drunken stupor, the shoeless man started roaring at the elderly gentleman sitting across from him. I'm not sure what Shoeless was saying, but the elderly gentleman timidly nodded his head every once and awhile. The elderly man seemed like he wanted to move seats, but was afraid of seeming rude, or perhaps, afraid of inflaming the drunk further.

Should I have stuck up for the old man, and have told the drunk to shut it? Perhaps I should have, but I wonder if Shoeless would have understood the phrase, "Stick a cork in it, you a-hole"?




I have a few other subway stories to share, but I'll save them for another post. Instead, I'll end with a photo of some hip hop dancing soju bottles. I'm assuming that they were dancing as part of a promotional activity, and were not sporting the latest trends in Korean fashion. I was greeted by these break dancing bottles on my way from the subway station. It made me smile.