everything that CAN happen will

My trip from Korea back to China got a little long. We had stayed up until about about 1:30-2am the night before and I woke up around 5:30am to make sure I wasn't rushed, could shower and triple check my friend's apartment for my things. She and her boyfriend said I only needed to get to the airport maybe an hour early, even though it was an international flight, because it was early and the airport was small. I ended up there about an hour and a half early, which was definitely good.

I had a lot with me, as I went from straight from Tianjin to Beijing to Busan to move back to Songyuan, so everything I'd brought to live in Tianjin traveled with me the whole time. I discovered that Korean (and Chinese) TSA won't open your bags and search them without you, they will call you into a private room to search them. Both my checked bag and my carry on got marked and searched leaving Korea. Turns out hairspray in a checked bag is cause for concern and a Clarisonic face scrubber thing is in a carry on. Once I got through that, my flight to Shanghai went without a hitch.

In Shanghai I had two hours between arrival and my departure for Changchun to pick up my luggage, recheck my bag, check in to my second flight and get on. My arrival gate was literally the furthest gate in the terminal from the baggage claim. Naturally, both of my bags got searched, again. Same two reasons. Then, once I got to my departure gate, which was also the last gate down the line, Gate #4, there was a change and I had to get from Gate #4 to Gate #203, lol. Not even close.

That flight went fine as well, but was about 30 minutes delayed. I found my driver at the airport with no problems. He's a taxi driver that doesn't speak English, but my school uses him a lot so I recognized him; he's trustworthy and lives in Changchun so he can always pick us up and drive us to Songyuan. I woke up partially into the two hour drive to Songyuan to find us pulling into a service station somewhere. I had no idea what was wrong, but the driver happened to know the phrase "5 minutes" in English, and he made me sit in the car while it was jacked up with a bunch of guys working on it. They got us back on the road in maybe 45 minutes.

I have no idea what this sign says, but the photo did not inspire confidence in the service station.

When I finally got back to Songyuan, it was Home Sweet Crack Den Home for me. Apparently they gave away my new apartment while I was gone, so I will get my pick of the new apartments they buy in the next week or two. Luckily The Crack Den had been cleaned, actually had some new linens and my things were all there. I was exhausted but starving by that point, so I headed to school to grab whatever foreigners were lying around and make them go to dinner with me. It took me less than 24 hours to meet all the new ones in town; it's good to be back!

cloud seeding

My friend in Korea told me that China has a machine they use to make it rain, and that they use it to get some of the pollutants out of the air. I had never heard of it, but it sounded crazy, so I came back here and did some Googling.

Apparently the process is called cloud seeding, artificially making it rain by shooting silver iodine or dry ice into the clouds. China did this to ensure it didn't rain during the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, but also to eliminate some of the air pollution. I don't recall hearing about this at all!

Most of the articles I found mentioned China using cloud seeding to fight droughts, not reduce pollution. I hadn't realize that northern China has a bit of a water problem until I started looking this stuff up. I find it interesting that it doesn't rain much here, as I would compare much of the climate with that of the midwest in the USA, and it rains a lot there.

The whole topic seems pretty controversial, but definitely worth a read if you're into that kind of thing.

Korea vs China

The main difference I've found between Korea and China is that Korea is significantly more western and modern than China. I'm not sure how much of this is due to the fact that I'm usually in smaller cities in China, but still, even what I've seen of Beijing seems to be behind Korea.

There are a lot more foreigners in Korea, probably due in part to that fact. I was constantly surprised by how many we saw. Koreans stare much less (unless you're going somewhere like a bath house) because they are more accustomed to seeing us, and they are more likely to come up and talk to us.

They have less squat toilets and most bathrooms have tissue and soap, unlike China. They drink both alcohol and coffee, and have establishments to do so all over the place. They do not hock up loogies and spit all over like the Chinese do.

Koreans have much more western table manners too. Chinese eat very noisily and messily, they tend to gross out a lot of Americans. And much of the food over here is very spicy and garlicky, which makes for terrible breath. Chinese are known for having terrible dental hygiene in general. Koreans on the other hand brush their teeth after every meal, even lunch, and eat quietly and tidily with their mouths closed. They also drink while they eat, whereas Chinese usually don't, as they think it will make them sick.

Driving is more western as well; Korea has larger cars (sedans, SUVs and such) and much fewer bikes, scooters and self made vehicles that don't look street worthy. Drivers in Korea, while still a bit nuts, are nowhere near as bad as China, and traffic laws are followed a great deal more. Safely walking across the street is more of a given than a gamble.

They also have these crazy car parks that are like something out of a futuristic science fiction movie. Cars are driven into the building onto an elevator platform that lifts them up into what essentially amount to cubbies for the cars. An attendant drives the cars off the platform into the cubbies and then rides the elevator down. Very cool. There was one right across from my friend's apartment and I wanted to go in and get a picture but the security was pretty tight!

One thing I found interesting though, is that Koreans do not have a version of their language that uses the Roman alphabet to give the pronunciations of words, like the Chinese pinyin. When words are written in Roman letters, they are not pronounced phonetically, as we might guess, but there is no "code" or alternate language guide like pinyin to help pronounce them. This can definitely make it tricky over there. But Korean is a simplified version of Chinese, so maybe not too bad!

random pix: O'Kim's, foot park & placenta revital

The most authentic Irish bar is all of Busan... lol.

This is a Korean foot park; a foot park is a essentially a path with different sizes and textures of rocks. You walk on them barefoot or in socks. I'm not really clear on the point, but I didn't get it. It kind of hurt.

placenta cell facial treatments

"wanna be baby skin!"

2 liters of beer

North Face knockoff store, seriously.

They don't really have dark skinned people, so some of the stuff you see is pretty out there.

water temple & bath house

The next day my friend's amazing boyfriend made us a delicious Western breakfast and we checked out the water temple in Busan.

After the temple, we went to a bath house, which I had not done since coming to Asia. If you like running around naked, bath houses are awesome. They usually have a large room with pools of different temperatures, both hot and cold, and some with jets. There are saunas and steam rooms and massages and ajimas you can pay to scrub you. Along the outside of the main room there are rows of what look like individual vanity stations with shower heads. Sometimes they have outdoor parts as well. Males and females are separate of course, and children and babies are allowed. For someone like myself with tattoos and piercings, you have to check out the rules of the bath house before you go, because they don't all allow those.

Asians come to these to relax, but they take full on showers, brush their teeth, etc. They do a lot of stuff that you could do at home, but at a bath house it's social. And they're not super weird about being naked, because they are used to not really having much personal space.

My friend took me to a bath house where foreigners don't usually go, so we were stared at a LOT. We got scrub downs from the ajimas and they were VERY vigorous. We were under the impression that it was just going to be a back and should scrub, but they pretty much covered all bases and scrubbed us down everywhere. I mean everywhere. Not quite what I was expecting. And my scrubbing took place at a vanity station on the end of a row near the pool, so I literally had about 20 women watching the whole thing. It was pretty cool though, I'll definitely go to one again soon.

beach, Brewers & bartending

On Sunday my friend and I went to check out the beach in Haeundae, a district of Busan. It was gorgeous and reminded me of California! Aside from the missionaries trying to convert us every five seconds (more like every 15 minutes, but regardless), but other than that, it was wonderful. Really makes me wish I could get a work visa here :(

This is soap in the bathroom at the beach; it's on the end of a pole that you have to grab and rub up and down to use. It's a trade off, usually there isn't soap in China, but you also don't have to make obscene gestures in public restrooms.

These kids were practicing capoeira and break dancing on the beach; awesome!

Naturally I like the little skater kids. Most of them were of mixed descent, the beach is in a nicer area of town where foreigners live hotels for extended periods of time.

I got really excited and wanted to take a picture of this guy because of his hat. Turns out he had no idea who the Milwaukee Brewers were, and that's really common here. He just liked the hat, so he bought it. He has happy to take a picture regardless!

After the beach, we headed to our guest bartending gig. It turned out to be a blast and I got to meet a lot more foreigners who were mostly really cool. I did meet one guy though that just bugged the crap out of me. He's a middle aged man with a wife a kid back in the States. He's been in Korea for a year and dating a Spanish chick here the entire time behind his wife's back and apparently this is really common. I remember the last time I lived/works in Mexico encountering the same kind of thing that just makes you want to never get married, ugh.

After bartending we hit the town (sans crappy guy) and caused a ruckus!

Trouble in the making.

Nothing like reaching into the eel tank on the street to catch one until they chase you off!

random pix: hite, elevator trapdoor & stilt man

Never would have expected "Clean & Pure" to be a beer slogan.

on the elevator in my friend's apartment building

This guy was dancing around to techno on stilts, painted like a cat trying to get people to come into a store... what?

a night out & traditional Korean meal

After the ajima lunch on Friday, my friend took me out for a good old fashioned college reunion night. We went to a foreigner bar, met up with some her friends and naturally shots, hilarity and noreabang (aka ktv or karaoke) ensued. We ended the night dancing at a bar called Billie Jean's, which I kind of loved.

Korea doesn't have a bar time, most places just close when the last person leaves. It is much more of a drinking culture than China, so I was definitely a little down on my game coming here. We did end up committing ourselves to bartending at one of the foreigner bars on Sunday night though, which I thought was pretty sweet.

The day after college reunion party night we were feeling a little rough, and one of my friend's friends invited us out to her mom's house in the country for a traditional Korean meal. We took a 30 minute subway ride to meet the friend and her American husband and her mom picked us up. The 30 minute car ride from the subway to her mom's house was painful. While the Koreans are a zillion times safer drivers than the Chinese, it was still too much for those of us that were under the weather.

Once we got out to her mom's property I was absolutely amazed. She owns land on the side of a hill facing a (man made?) river. Her house is essentially a shack that she built entirely by herself and inside was so interesting, the contrast in things she has. She had an upright piano, a crazy security system with four cameras mounted outside, a pretty baller noraebang system, complete with PA and disco and strobe lights, and one of the remote control toilets. Outside she had a basketball hoop, shrine to Buddha and a backho. Naturally.

 

 

 

This woman was incredible. She supposedly didn't speak a lick of English, but she could communicate just fine with myself, her American son in law and my friend. I found out later that she used to speak very good English but just stopped. She made us the best meal I have eaten yet in my travels and was just so happy to have people over. And then she forced us to sing noraebang with her, lol.

It was definitely an experience that I consider myself very fortunate to have had. My friend that I came to visit said she had never in four years done anything like it.

nuclear power plant & ajima lunch

So my friend works at a nuclear power plant. She and another foreigner teach English to people that work there in one week courses. They only work 17 weeks out of the year, but they are required to be at the power plant 9am-5pm Monday through Friday for face time regardless, which can definitely get crazy. With absolutely nothing to do so much of the time, the whole setup was rather baffling to me, but it's really good money which is awesome.

 

The campus is huge of course, and very beautiful. There is a nuclear grad school there too. My friend only has clearance to be in the educational campus, not the whole area, so we didn't get to see any crazy Homer Simpson stuff. The bathrooms are kind of nuts though. The motion sensors turn on soothing music when you come in the the toilets are crazy high tech; they have heated seats and remote controls!

 

We mostly hung out in the employee lounge all morning. The "ajimas" (old ladies) that clean seem to hang out in there watching soap operas all day as well. Then her boss took us to an energy museum her company built for the town, along with a large community center. Most things were in Korean of course so I could not read, but it was actually a very cool museum.

After that, her boss took us to an ajima's for lunch. This woman basically has a restaurant set up in her home. You drive up to her house and the back has a room that she uses as the dining room. You must call her beforehand to let her know you are coming and she needs at least an hour's notice, if she doesn't feel like cooking she says no. The food she made us was absolutely amazing. My friend said it was one of the best meals she has had in Korea.

This was the first place I'd been where you sit on the ground. I haven't heard of the Chinese doing this, but apparently it is typical in Korea. They have heated floors though, just like the Chinese, so it's not bad at all. Plus you sit on little cushions.

Yep Mom, that's an anchovy. And I ate it.

first impression of Korea

Visiting my friend in Korea has definitely been interesting. I was very excited, not just for my first holiday (and first days off since arriving in China, argh), but also because Korea is where I originally wanted to teach, so I wanted to compare. I arrived at about 8pm on Thursday and my first impression of Busan was that is it is so much cleaner than anywhere I have been in China, both the city and the air. Busan is absolutely gorgeous, it is right on the ocean, with rivers, lakes, green pants and mountains. I am immediately jealous. My friend has been here for four years, so she' pretty legit and well established.

We dropped off my things and went to meet her boyfriend (another foreigner from the States) at a bar. I was absolutely blown away by the number of foreigners there. Granted it was a foreigner bar, but I knew there were others in the area, so the amount of them in the one spot was crazy to me. We had a few drinks there and then headed to another place for someone's birthday. There our group was a mix of foreigners and Koreans (or so I thought). My friend and I both aren't really attracted to Asians, and when we left there I commented that Koreans are more attractive than Chinese. Turns out the two guys I though were Korean were American, lol, but one might have Korean heritage, we aren't sure.

We've been discussing the difference between Korea and China quite a bit, and one big point of difference is that Koreans are much more concerned with image and appearance. Here they wear a lot more makeup, they get plastic surgery and they want designer stuff. More about this and other differences later though.

We called it a night early on Thursday because my friend had to go to work on Friday. At the nuclear power plant. And I was going too!