Oh My Seoul

Chile, chile, come on in here and let Grandpappy Steve tell you all about the mystical land of Seoul, South Korea. Go ahead, warm yourself by the fire. It's awful cold out. Preface: I'm pretty tired, so don't look for witticism. Preface, part deux: Before I embarked to Seoul on the Speedy Gonzales train Friday evening, I had my first Korean lesson right after work. It was at the DMOE (Daegu Metropolitan Office of Education) building, which is within walking distance of my school and apartment. I thought the lesson would be kind of a drag because it's just learning the alphabet, which I already know. I was mistaken, however, because our teacher taught us some better pronunciation techniques. One thing was explained adequately, finally. We all know that the Koreans mix up the Ls and Rs. This is because they have one letter for both L and R. They pronounce it half way between the L and R sound. How is that possible? I wondered that for two months. We pronounce our L by placing the tongue at the roof of the mouth, just behind the teeth. Well, the Koreans pronounce their letter by placing the tongue at the back of the roof of the mouth, thus it sounds like it's halfway between L and R, strangely. Try it. Say "L" by putting your tongue as far back in your mouth as possible.

The rest of Friday is of no consequence, really. I rode on a train and spent the night with naked Korean men in a jimjilbang. Woo! Saturday and Sunday were the highlights which I will share with you. Saturday day, after having some actually decent Mexican food, a few of us embarked on a bus out to the countryside to visit a brewery. Ka-brew is a small operation that only makes money through events like the one I came to. About 100 people came out for beer, barbeque, and good times. It was a beautiful day to spend on a deck overlooking a stream. So beautiful that a few of those guys felt the need to take their shirts off and hang their raffle tickets from their nipple rings. One of our group won the raffle, which was, strangely enough, a bottle of wine. It was the real classy "2009 White Wine" from both Italy and California. Mmmm, it sure was tasty. I guess that's why it's a beer brewery and not a winery. The best part about winning the bottle was that we got VIP access to the roof area. A beautiful day, indeed.

Naturally, a few people took the "all you can drink" part of the deal to the extreme level and ended up later falling down an escalator into me like they were bowling. I escaped relatively unharmed.

That night we met up with a few other people I hadn't seen in a while, and went to a club type thing. They were having live rock music. We saw two bands, who were both really good and polished, but the first band was really spectacular. They go by Coxx and played Korean math punk or something. They played loud and hard and ripped into the crowd for a solid half hour before letting the main act come on. I thought the drummer was kind of cute until she took her shirt off and revealed that she was actually a dude. Haha. It's not the first time that's happened to me in Korea. It probably won't be the last, either.

Sunday I flew solo and decided to do some sightseeing. I chose Gyeongbukgong, which was the king's palace in the 1500s or so. It's a pretty impressive place. Quite picturesque. It's no Versailles or anything, but then again Versailles is about 10 times more expensive. This palace had the works. Throne rooms, private quarters for both the king and queen, concubines rooms, gardens, a pond, a pleasing mountainous backdrop, and a ton of tourists. It was big enough that towards the end of it I was feeling kind of palaced out. It's funny how in the West palaces were based on size and how many rooms, etc. whereas in Korea, it must be the number of buildings. Palaces here were all outdoorsy type places where each building has a purpose and you gotta walk in the elements between them. It's more atuned to nature.

I skipped the Korean Folk Museum (pictured at the top) due to time constraints. I did have a Speedy Gonzales train to catch back to Daegu, after all. Ok, I'm going to bed. I had a long weekend and I gotta teach the chilluns tomorrow!