South Korea…’The Land of Morning Calm’. Well, I don’t know about all that as we are used to waking up pretty late these days, but I’ll take their word for it. Korean people are very honest, you see. I do know plenty of other things about Korea though, as most of you are aware, I did a bit of a stint there a couple of years back. After the ‘rost in transration’ of China I was looking forward to getting back to somewhere where I knew a bit of the lingo and could even read a menu.
That brings me to the greatest thing about Korea, other than the really nice, honest people, and that’s the food. I can’t tell you how much I’d missed sitting out on a crowded street on a barmy evening, with a cut-off 44 gallon drum converted into a bbq sizzling away. Throw in loads of side dishes, beer and a bottle or two of the finest local rice wine, known as ‘makkalee’ and you’ve got the makings of a great dinner. Ahh yes, Korea rips but it is under-rated as a holiday destination as it tends to be passed over in favour of its better known neighbours like China and Japan. Well, not by us, as you know, we’ll go anywhere as long as they’ll have us , so it was with great pleasure that we embarked on a three week jaunt around this fascinating peninsula in search of kicks, bbq, a few beers and maybe even a skate or two. As this is once again a retrospective entry I’ll divide this chapter into the respective places we stayed. So here goes…
Seoul…The capital city and, with about 10 million inhabitants, quite a lively place. There are lots of people with black hair and black eyes that’s for sure. So we didn’t exactly fit in in that sense but the thing about Seoul is that even though it’s huge it doesn’t really feel like it. There are so many different eating out areas and shopping districts that each one kind of feels like it’s own city. The shopping in Seoul is amazing, as Kate will attest, and we did go a bit hard here. Well it’s hard not to, the clothes and fashion are unreal and quite cheap by our standards. Also, in order to get a discount all you need to do is ask, throw in a few words of Korean and they’re only too happy to oblige!
I wouldn’t say we did too many touristy things here, my half baked idea to get up to the DMZ, where the border with the crazy North Koreans is, never happened. One thing we did do, other than shop, was eat. As I mentioned earlier, the food here is unreal and almost every night was spent sitting out, eating bbq and cracking up at all the business men hoeing back the soju, eating hard and smoking just the same. Soju is the national drink in Korea and it is mandatory for every man to drink it every time he goes out for dinner with his mates until he can’t stand up. In Korea most blokes go out for dinner nearly every night so this makes for some pretty regular soju smashing. It’s hilarious to watch as mild mannered blokes in business suits are transformed into shouting, laughing drunks after a few plates of bbq. In case you haven’t tried it, soju tastes like a cross between paint-thinner and janola, I steer well clear of it, as the hangover will make you wish you were dead. However Korean males seem to be immune to this kind of suffering, either that or they’re just really good at hiding it.
I went for a few skates in Seoul and even bumped in to a few blokes from ‘the old days’. They still remembered me which was surprising and I couldn’t believe it had been 6 years since we’d seen each other. Damn, some of them were now men whereas they had been little kids before. Scary. Anyway there’s plenty more skateboarding talk to come later (yawn from the non-skater section!) so I’ll leave it at that for now. Seoul does have some good spots though if you ever make it there with a board.
Yeosu and Busan… After a few days mucking about in Seoul we boarded a bus down to Yeosu, which is about five hours south of Seoul, on the south coast of the Korean peninsula and the city where I lived during my time in-country. I had to go back didn’t I? Have a bit of a look around and show Kate such exciting attractions as where I used to work and my old house. I’ll spare you the details but I do think it will be the last time I go back there for a while. It’s a nice enough place, by Korean standards it’s actually quite pretty. It has a nice harbour with islands and some okay beaches nearby. On one sunny afternoon we took a city bus over to Dolsan Island to a beach called ‘Bangjukkpo’ which was pretty cool. But after a few days it was time to move onto a much more happening place and that was Korea’s second largest city, Busan.
Busan is nice, very nice. It is on the coast and has good beaches such as the most famous one in all of Korea, ‘Haeundae’, which is where we stayed for about ten days. Haeundae is like Korea’s version of Bondi and is very much a city beach where Busan people go to see and be seen, eat food, sing karaoke and, of course, drink soju. We saw some pretty classic sights, such as super-tanned old guys with their budgie-smugglers pulled up their butt-cracks. Oiled muscle men in their sparkly speedos, and even an online-gamer competition complete with commentators and a big screen TV for the hundreds of fans gathered in attendance to watch the action on.
We spent a lot of time just cruising around, people watching and taking advantage of a local 24 hour $3 bbq restaurant. The thing about Korea is that a lot of places are open 24 hours, so it turns you into a bit of a night owl. Kate and I found ourselves leaving the ‘PC-bang’ (internet café) at three in the morning, heading to the bbq restaurant for ‘dinner’ and drinking makkalee until 5 am by which stage it was time to head off to the Sauna for a bit of a soak and a snooze. Very Korean.
I should mention a friend of mine at this stage who lives in Busan. His name is Margera and he’s a bit of a nutter, but in a good way. Margera and I used to skate together back when I was living in Korea and he was only too pleased to see me again and make Kate’s acquaintance. The first night we saw him we ended up at the beach until about 2am, where I might add we certainly weren’t alone, drinking pitchers of ‘Hite’ (Korea’s favourite beer) and eating tins of ‘Bondeggy’. Bondeggy are bugs. Koreans love ‘em, me less so, Kate didn’t seem to mind them, but they’re basically tinned bugs bodies and they taste like…well, have a guess! Margera was a champ though and lent us his scooter to use while we were in Busan. He might have been regretting it though when the scooter got pinched from outside our guesthouse. In the middle of the day no less! I was pretty gutted to be honest but Margera didn’t seem to mind. He just said it was a crappy bike anyway, but still, I didn’t feel too good about the whole thing.
One thing Margera does have in abundance though is gas-powered, laser-sighted BB guns. He goes to a place where blokes like himself get dressed up in army gears and shoot each other with high powered BB guns. Take it from me, these things hurt. I made the mistake of having a ‘game’ with him in the car park of a skate park we went to and, even though I had a machine gun and he a hand-gun, he still managed to shoot me in the face, the side of the head and even the back! Good times…
As all the guys here do two and a half years in the army this might explain the next thing I’m going to mention. For some reason Margera has a hand-grenade in his car! He showed it to me and we were messing around with it until I went to pull the pin (just pretending to, of course) and he grabbed it and said ‘don’t do that man, I don’t know what will happen!’. This in a suburban park on a Saturday afternoon and we’re messing around with a live hand-grenade! It tells you something about the difference between our society and Korea, as if you were messing around with machine guns and hand grenades at home the cops would be there in a flash and all hell would break loose. Not so in Korea, people just assume the machine gun or hand gun you’re holding and waving around at the park is a BB gun. Of course! What else would it be right??
After one afternoon at a pretty sweet skate park in west Busan, Margera told me about a party that was happening in a park next to a river nearby. We went and checked it out and there were a lot of what looked like foreign English teachers drinking, listening to some bands and DJ’s and having a water-fight. Not bad. After a few hours of enjoying a few bevvies and some music Margera pulls out a trumpet. Now here’s another prime difference between Korea and home. If you were at any kind of gig at home and there were lots of people dancing away to the DJ and having a good time and you just pulled out a trumpet and started tootling away what do you think the reaction would be? Pretty simple right? Not so in Korea.
Margera is playing this trumpet as loud as he can and rather than getting the boot or being told to shut up or piss off the stage manager bloke gets him a microphone and next minute he’s up on stage in front of the crowd blasting away as loud and hard as he can. But here’s the kicker, Margera doesn’t know how to play the trumpet! But of course that’s not going to stop him. I, from a very long time ago, actually do know how to play the trumpet, so as I’m just pissed enough before long I’m up there with him! As it’s been a while and this was some kind of techno music set, my rusty version of ‘The Last Post’ probably wasn’t appreciated by all quarters of the crowd, but who cares right? This is Korea, anything goes, no-one will ever tell you to stop and it’s perfectly normal to drive around with live hand grenades in your car.
The post-script to this story is that, amazingly, after a bit more trumpetry and a couple more cocktails Margera looks at his watch and declares ‘oh shit, I’ve got a skate comp to judge at Gwanganli beach right now’. My reaction was ‘you whaaa??’ Margera’s job you see, is organizing, running and MC-ing skate comps in the Busan area and this night was no different. So in no time we’re catching a ride back to the beach to take part in a skate comp. I could barely stand on my board, but after Kate force-fed me about 6 litres of water I was able to get it together enough to win the ‘best-trick’ section of the contest in front of a reasonable sized crowd of Saturday night beachgoers. A new pair of Skull candy headphones was mine, and perhaps a small moniker of respect from the crowd for abusing and wrecking my drunken body admirably in public. Oh well, the head phones sound good… So ends my section on Margera and Busan also. Busan is an awesome city and we had a great time chilling in Haeundae, eating ourselves sick, getting motorbikes stolen and catching up with a few friends from way back when.
The Margera section has not quite finished yet as we travelled together up to the ‘2010 Leisure Games’ in Chuncheon where a massive sporting and other leisure activities event was being held. 15 000 competitors from around the world taking part in everything from skateboarding to model aircraft flying, from sky diving to trick pool shot playing. Strange stuff, but that’s Korea. As we had the hook ups with the local boys it was third class-first class all the way. This included a coach from Busan to Chuncheon and a motel room with 18 others for the weekend. Thanks Margera. The skate comp was pretty good with a few notables such as Renton Millar from Aus and Chris Senn from the states making an appearance (if you don’t know just nod your head and go ‘mmmm’).
A lot of good times were had, for instance, we had given Margera a rubber snake, some Elvis impersonator sunglasses complete with fake side-burns and a rubber pooh as recompense for us losing him his motorbike. Hey don’t laugh, we’re back-packers and he likes that kind of stuff. Highlights included watching Margera, after a few soju’s, dancing in his Elvis glasses on top of his chair at a large outdoor restaurant surrounded by innocent families and bystanders, singing ‘Sex, Sex on the Beach’! As usual this is Korea, so most people just laughed and thought ‘what a nut’ rather than getting pissed off. He also let fireworks go in the hotel room, which was hilarious, but rather loud and smoky.
At one point in the evening there must have been more than twenty people in there, and some of the other Korean guys were doing an impromptu amateur fire-breathing routine. It was great, but might I add, that during the entire evening, through all the drinking, the noise and the mayhem, not one person from another room or from the hotel staff came to say ‘hey guys, do you mind keeping it down a bit?’ That’s what I love about Korea, people are a lot less uptight about most things. One bloke, who nick named himself ‘Korea’s Johnny Depp, made the error of passing out whilst all those around him were still charging and within moments Margera had the rubber snake dangling from his butt-crack above the bloke’s face where a large rubber pooh was now proudly sitting. I know, I know. Childish, but it does make for great photos.
So, Chuncheon came and went. I have to say I did get a skate of the contest park they have there and it was amazing. The skate comp went off without a hitch and a great time was had by all, even Johnny Depp. The winners went home four grand richer and we headed back to Seoul in our courtesy coach through the most unholy of traffic jams. Once back in Seoul we spent our time pottering about, it was around this time the earthquake hit my families’ houses so things were a bit tense there for a while. Thankfully things look like they’re getting back to normal there now though, love to all.
The last thing we did before we left Korea was take in a baseball game between the SK Incheon Wyverns and the Doosan Seoul Bears. What a ‘wyvern’ is I have no idea but a Korean major league baseball game is a helluva fun thing to go to. Once again, Korea rules because you can take in all your own food and drinks to the stadium! Imagine doing that at AMI stadium or the MCG. Yeah right. As usual we scored extra ‘hey we’re white people’ privileges when a lady let us sit in the seats next to her which are reserved for season ticket holders and members. As we wandered about sheepishly looking for a seat as close to home plate as possible, she informed us that two of her friends were not attending and we could have their seats-stoked! We were right in the heart of the die-hard Wyverns fans just a bit to the right of home plate and the atmosphere was amazing.
A game here is not like a game at home, not at all. For instance, every time the home-team, the Wyverns, would bat, the whole crowd had to stand and join in on these very passionately performed cheer routines and chants. They had dancing girls and a bloke with a whistle standing on a raised stage at the front of the stands, complete with mascots cheering and chanting and banging the hell out of those inflatable bangy stick-type things. The noise was deafening and even though the home team went down 4-0 the crowd never stopped cheering, chanting and singing for the entire match. I think it would be hard to get that sort of commitment out of your average cricket or rugby crowd. Another thing that blew me away was that when you went to get a beer they didn’t try to stooge you by selling only mid-strength beer and then try to pull your pants down by charging you 8 bucks for it. It was the same beer you can get from the 7-11, for the same price! Whoa, you’ll wait a while before you see that happen at any venue at home.
So, in short, Korea rips. It rips because the people are cool as hell, they don’t get wound up over little things, like people having a bit of harmless fun and the food is pretty much the best. I miss it already and I know I’m going to have to stop back in there again, probably on the way back to NZ, for some more good-times Korean style. Both Kate and I loved our time in this great nation but I have to say we weren’t too upset as we left on our flight from Incheon airport for the sole reason that we were off to Japan! It’s hard to be upset when you’re on your way to Japan as you know that it’s another amazing country full of things to see and do. We had two gloriously relaxing weeks lined up staying with our friends in the resort town of Niseko-Hirafu, on the northern island of Hokkaido before heading down to stay for five nights in the madness that is Tokyo. This was to be our last stop on our nine month sojourn so I knew it would be a bitter-sweet trip. Sweet because of the good times to be had, bitter because it would be the final stop before our inevitable return to reality. How did it go? What happened? And just how much did Kate shop in Tokyo?? Find out next time. ‘Til then.
I love this city for it's shopping, food and atmosphere - can't think of anything I didn't like about it! Seoul was probably my favourite city we visited on our travels. Maybe it had to do with the amazing shopping???
This skatepark that was in the middle of one of the shopping districts so Tim would go skating and I would stroll around the malls. Seoul is an amazing city where you could go shopping until 4am in the morning and everyone (mainly businessmen) are still drinking and eating until 11pm every week night.
Tim loved these scooters as you could store your skateboard under the seat.
Now you can see the boards stashed under the seat.
Another skate park in the city with the concrete apartments in the back ground.
View of Gangnam from the skatepark.
Another skatepark picture.
Me drinking a Pocari Sweat soft drink. Yes I am drinking sweat! haha.
Waiting for our BBQ - we ate sooooo many yummmmmmy bbqs while we were in Korea. Tim (brother) I need you to make me one of these for us. It is just an old oil drum converted into a bbq. Below the black cooking dish is usually either a gas cooker or hot coals.Simple!
Side view of the homemade bbq. Love it!
Our last Korean bbq in Korea. After this we headed to the airport to fly to Japan.
Baseball - SK Incheon Wyners vs Doosan Seoul Bears
The local supporters and Tim.
Tim and me having a good time.
He was the lead cheerleader who at the beginning and the end of the game would towered over top of the crowd in this ship (it looked like a cherry picker machine). Random!
Some of the crowd. I think he had won some prize.
The male cheerleader doing his thing.
This guy was sitting next to us. At one point he shouted out in English 'I love you' to the team or a player and at the same time made a symbol of the heart with his fingers. It was funny - you would never see that happening back home.
One of the home runs.
The Koreans are trying to be make baseball more green friendly. One of their initiatives was to use electric cars to drive the pitchers from the dugout to the pitch when they are changing pitchers instead of making the pitcher walk to the pitch. The whole point is to make the game shorter and therefore using less electricity. I thought the car was kinda cute and funny.
The crowd getting into the dancing and singing.
Some of the supporters with their spare Wyvers shirts and banners. Hardcore fans.
More of the crowd. The person with the spotted headband is a guy. At half time they showed on the big screen videos of funny things that have happened in crowd. This guy was trying to kiss his girlfriend but every time he went in for the smooch, she would turn away and wouldn't let him kiss her. It was hilarious aye.
The crowd again.
Tim caught in the act of dancing and singing.
Me enjoying the game. I was dancing and singing along as well. I don't think I have ever enjoyed watching a sports game so much.
Me looking pretty happy!
Look whose enjoying himself!
Yeosu
This is a little town where Tim used to live. There wasn't much to see in the city but it was nice to be in a quiet town for a few days.
This is a little town where Tim used to live. There wasn't much to see in the city but it was nice to be in a quiet town for a few days.
Tim's old house where he used to lived on the top floor.
A 'nice' beach near Yeosu. I didn't go near the water as it wasn't up to the Hamilton 5 star Standard.
No one sat on the sand instead they would all sit under the pine trees as they don't like getting tanned. You would see everyone covered up from head to toe in clothes as well as a visor and an umbrella. Everyone was chilling out drinking Soju (alcohol) and eating BBQ.
Busan
The second largest city in South Korea. This city had a really beautiful beach - it was similar to Surfers Paradise.
The second largest city in South Korea. This city had a really beautiful beach - it was similar to Surfers Paradise.
These are the BEST coffee machines - you pay about 30 cents for a shot of coffee. Super cheap and super tasty, and they were everywhere.
Haeundae beach - fulled with umbrellas, beach chairs and beautiful people.
Old man showing off his butt cheeks. Hilarious!!
Another great shot!
Some young guys burying their friend.
The beach again.
On the beach they had this machine where you could take a photo of your self, write a message and email it to yourself. so of course we did it! Awesome!
We call these sea cocks! We heard that the eat these like sashimi. They
were disgusting - I would never try these at all! YUCK...
were disgusting - I would never try these at all! YUCK...
Margaera and Tim drinking beer out of small, disposable shot glasses from Starbucks.
Me and my rice wine. Nice!
The boys drinking their beer.
Margaera's turn. Haha!
Tim's turn. haha!
This just makes me laugh!
A Korean street. Filled with people and lots of signs.
One morning Tim thought he would try something new. He could read the Korean but he wasn't too sure what it was - basically he knew that it had rice and something else. What he ended up with was rice blood sausage with guts. He didn't even try it to see if it was tasty.
Some young guys at the beach. The young guy in the Nike t-shirt has a fox tail hanging out of his back pocket.
A beautiful butterfly.
A spider attack!
One evening we were taking a stroll along the beach and came across a porfessional gamer competition on the beach. There were a huge crowd of young guys watching these two gamers playing a computer game.
The pro-gamer competiton again.
A sign outside a toilet
.
Magaera at the Busan skatepark.
Margaera playing the trumpet.
Now Tim's turn.
Tim with the BB gun. It looks pretty real to me.
Posing with the gun.
The small park festival/party.
Party! Party! Party!
Magaera on the stage with his trumpet. I have to point out here that Magaera can't actually play but the stage manager still put him on the stage with a microphone. I hope the DJ didn't mind!
Now Tim's turn.
The boys 15mins of fame!
After the party we headed to a skate competition. These are the boys who competed - Tim won some Skull Candy headphones. Nice.
One day I spent the afternoon at the beach while Tim was off skating. I ended up watching this ballet performance on the beach where afterwards they got volunteers on the stage to dance around - this is one of the volunteers, an old old man. Haha!
Everywhere in Korea there are love motels. This is not a very good picture of one. You pay per hour for the rooms and are used quite often by young lovers who live at home or cheating couples. They have curtains at the entrance so you cannot see who is getting into their cars.
Tim (brother) look at this t-shirt - it has your name it on! I even saw a hoody!
The view of Busan from the cable car - concrete buildings everywhere!
We took a cable car trip up the hill (yes we were lazy!) to see this old city gate. It has been rebuilt a few times because it got destroyed by the Japanese a few times.
On our walk to the gate we met some middle aged men having a picnic. They couldn't speak English but they gave us some dried squid, Soju and chocolate.
There were some nice views on our walk.
Some of the city lights. This is a typical street.
View from our motel room.
The tall building on the right with a big P on it is a parking building. Tim said you drive into the building and into a elevator which drops you off to a floor where you park your car! Crazy!
Chuncheon Leisure Games
Posing like Elvis.
We spent our Saturday night chillling out in this room eating and drinking Korean style.
Scott taking some footage and looking professional.
A Korean family wanted to take a photo of Tim, Scott and the Korean Johnny Depp.
Posing hard!
Posing again.
On Sunday we went and saw the finals for the vert skating. This is Renton Millar.
Someone else.
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