Just an example of the impeccably clean tracks in Seoul’s underground. Eat your heart out MTA! There’s no refuse, no river of digustingness running in the middle of the tracks and more importantly not one single sign of vermin anywhere!!! It’s a far cry from the rat infested underground in the big apple.
I could rave and go on for ages about the miracle that is the Seoul Subway system. If there were a promised land of transit systems, surely it will be modeled after Seoul’s. Not only could you eat off of the tracks of the train itself, the entire stations are spotless. They’re meticulously maintained by these ladies in orange vests who make it their personal mission to see not a stray piece of garbage or misplaced gum mars their charge. In addition to the general cleanliness, the trains themselves are efficient and easy to understand. Everything is announced in Korean first, then followed in English. Signs are accompanied by an English translation and diagram. I dare the deaf, blind and stupid to get lost in the Seoul underground. And even if they might temporarily look confused, there was ALWAYS a helpful Korean nearby to provide assistance. In addition to the headache handles, my only other complaint would be that the system shuts down at like 11 p.m. How can you call yourself an international city and capital of your country when your transit system (buses included) shut down at 11!!! My only rational is that surely the tireless workers that maintain such an impeccable system must rest at some point.
To the average Korean, these swinging subway handles represent the opportunity to sway comfortably while enjoying their daily commute. To the 6′3” American, these headache handles represent a constant source of bruises on the forehead, sharp exclamations of pain and muttered curses under my breath.
Just when I thought I’d mastered the minefield of handles, I’d turn around to leave only to be smacked in the face by one of the damn things. If I had one complaint about the amazing and wonderful subway system of Seoul, it would be the existence of these death traps.
Not bad for not having shot an arrow since high school.
Score! After like 20 arrows I finally managed to hit the damn pig on the target.
While I was shooting, a small group of kids visiting the fortress for a field trip, started cheering me on and going wild each time I managed to get the arrow in the air. I’d like to think they were wanting me to do good, but I’m pretty certain they were just excited to see a foreigner and practice their english.
Nancy and I decided to get out of Seoul before heading to our cancelled baseball game and go to Suwon Fortress. I’m sure the fortress is pretty and all what with it having a famous palace or something, but the main attraction was the archery range that for a buck fifty, you got to shoot about 10 arrows.
Forget the manpurse (aka murse) the korean guys don’t play around and go straight for the full on purse.
My cousin Nancy teaches kindergarten in Seoul, Korea. She’s got a great group of kids and was willing to sacrifice me, I mean allow me, to take up one of their lesson times and show them some of the fun pictures I took on my trip. I went through all the boring ones of buildings and churches and things, but when I showed them the picture of me floating in the dead sea, they went wild! I thought I would get asked a bunch of fun questions about where I’d been and what I’d done, but this is an international school so half the kids were from places where I’d already been and were hardly impressed; that didn’t stop them however from noticing my tongue ring and asking plenty of questions about that. Fortunately, kids are easily distracted by Skittles which I didn’t hesitate to share because it’s hard to ask questions with your mouth full.
This is the only pedestrian bridge connecting North Korea to South Korea. After the Korean war, it was built so that families on both sides could be reunited and go to their respective sides of the country. Unfortunately, it was only used once and those that crossed were not allowed back despite promises to the contrary. Hence the name “Bridge of No Return”.
In the background, you can see the massive tower supporting the 600 pound flag I mentioned in an earlier post. The damn thing can’t even wave because it’s so freaking heavy, but hey, at least it’s bigger than the one the South Koreans have.
This is quite possibly my most favorite picture of the trip so far. These guards have to stand at attention, facing the North Korean side of things in what’s called a “modified taekwondo stance”. This way it’s semi-relaxing and yet pretty much combat ready. We were walking back into the main building when I saw the shot, but our escort was trying to move us along and keep us together so that we wouldn’t be easy targets in case the North Korean kids tried to do anything (besides give us the finger and draw their fingers across their throats in a killing motion) which is why it’s a little blurrier than what I’d like. But the colors, and the content totally feel good.
Since the erection of the DMZ the Republic of Korea has found about 3 tunnels going underneath the zone apparently dug by North Koreans (the North Koreans deny this claim, insisting that the tunnels were dug by the South Koreans to get into North Korea). They’ve since turned one of the tunnels into a tourist attraction but for whatever reason don’t let you take pictures while you’re inside the tunnel which is why this isn’t the best angle, but if you look closely the little square in the upper corner, you can see into North Korea.
When the opportunity came around to visit the DMZ (demilitarized zone) between North Korea and South Korea, naturally I took it (maybe, you know, I’d get to see a real live communist or something). The visit itself turned out to be pretty eye opening, both in regards to the way the North Koreans conduct themselves and the amazing vistas we didn’t get to see because they were perpetually shrouded by fog. Although, apparently because there’s virtually no human contact in the zone itself, it’s become quite the wildlife sanctuary where rare species of birds have been able to thrive with the lack of human interference.
During the visit itself, we got to go into the rooms where the North Korean and South Koreans go when they wanna talk peace (which isn’t very often). These are small, uncomfortable rooms with very little natural light and some pretty god awful decor. In fact, during one meeting, both sides were so intent on staring at the other and getting nothing accomplished that it lasted for 11 hours and was appropriately named The Battle of Bladders as neither side got up to use the bathroom. It’s hard to see in this picture, but on the the U.N. side of the room there are plastic flags representing each of the nations involved in the armistice. These flags were once cloth, but when President Bush met with the South Korean president in 2001to discuss whatever it is world leaders like to discuss the North Koreans went to the South Korean side of the room and made a big show of blowing their nose and then polishing their boots with the flags from the countries on the wall. These flags are now plastic.
I couldn’t help but notice throughout the tour, that there were plenty examples of what I could only call childish behavior. For instance, the main building on the South Korean side of the complex stood three stories tall. So when the North Koreans saw them finish building it, they hastily added a third floor to their two story structure making it taller than the South Koreans. That new floor now stands empty except for some curtains on the window. And in the South Korean village at the border they have a flag post that stands pretty tall. But when the North Koreans saw how tall the South Koreans flag pole was, they went out and got the worlds largest flag (with a dry weight of about 600 pounds) and put it on an even BIGGER flag pole in their village (called Propaganda Village because for about 8 hour intervals they broadcast a message extolling all the virtues of the paradise that the North Koreans live in. Except, it’s a decrepit, dilapidated village that’s partially constructed with metal donated by the U.N.) Unfortunately when it rains (which is quite often in this region), the North Koreans have to take the flag down or else it will snap the tower that supports it. And it takes 50 men to lower it.
This comes across as a little one sided because I didn’t get to see any real live communists and talk to them so I only had the word of our guide to work off of. But, given what I saw, I couldn’t help but feel just a little bleak that in 2008 these are how grown nations conduct themselves. At the expense of the people they’re supposed to champion.
I made it out of Russia safe and sound (the 300 rubles I spent on “visa registration” is a scam) with only minutes to spare before catching my flight to Qatar (I have yet to learn my lesson about posted Russian timetables, when they say 12:15, what they really mean is 1:00). And now, with about 6 hours to kill before my flight to Korea, I thought I’d share this little picture I took while in the amazingly beautiful, super high-tech cabin of Qatar Airways which everyone should have the experience of flying at least once. Not even the seldom showered “friend” I made who wanted nothing else, but to practice her non-existent English on me for the entire duration of the flight (in addition to going through all of the inflight magazines offering to point out all of the beautiful women that since I was unamrried I should look into pursuing) could distract me from the plethora of movies, tv shows, documentaries and music albums available at my fingertips. Even though the flight was only 4 hours long, they served us a delicious lunch (two in my case) with free alcohol to boot!
I love the Russian way of doing things! For most museums, churches, etc. there are two prices. The Russian price, and the non-Russian price. Obviously, the non-Russian price is more, sometimes 20 times more. However, students can get into the Hermitage (the Russian version of the Louvre, but about 4 times bigger and waaaaay more impressive) for free. After befriending a former student from Hawaii we decided to hit up the Hermitage to see if she could get two tickets and hook me up with one. Unfortunately, the woman at the window indicated it was one per person, so I quickly flashed my youth travel card, and she hooked us up with two tickets! Maybe it’s not so exciting in the retelling but saving myself 15 bucks on a 20 dollar a day budget is pretty thrilling.
This is an excerpt from one of the pocket St. Petersburg guides:
A “troitsa” is a threesome and not to be confused with “troikas”, those horsedrawn sled carriages that used to romp around parks in the snow and in Tolstoy novels. Troitsa comes from the same root, the Russian word “tri”, meaning three. The original troitsa is of cousre, the trinity of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Hence the following phrase “Bog lubit troitsu” – God loves a three. For instance, if your grandma is giving out lollies, she’ll dole out three, not two, for each kid because… God loves threes. Or if you’re doing some vodka shots, why stop at only two?
That’s what you thought they meant by threesome, right?
This is Kaliningrad airport. All of it. It’s too bad you can’t see all of the women dressed in their 4 inch heels with their miniskirts, despite the freezing weather.
Now I know you probably looked at this and laughed, but that pales in comparison to the elation I felt when the fully clothed women in burqas bathing in the dead sea gave me what I can only presume was a smile because I couldn’t see their lips.
