I'm Not Convinced - Do You Think the Rest of Asia Is?

When I went on the tour of the DMZ, not only did I see scary South Korean soldiers, puny-looking North Korean soldiers and jovial American soldiers, I also saw the cartoon renditions of the SK soldiers. I had to laugh because I had seen the actual soldiers up close and they were really intimidating. And here is a rendition of the soldier, made cute to Hello Kitty proportions. Yeah, right like I am going to warm up to that when I have seen them in their tae-kwon do stances less than two feet from me.

The same thing happened in Japan - that is, making the military look cute. Quick lesson for those that aren't in the know (or you probably are given all the news coverage on the comfort women and Yasukuni Shrine): up until the end of WWII, the Japanese Army had a pretty bad reputation from China all the way down to the northern tip of Australia. So, when the Americans rolled in, they instituted the infamous Article 9 in the new constitution which pretty much forbidded Japan to have a "military." However, a loophole was created; in place of a military toting guns and shooting about, they have the "Special Defense Forces" since Japan needs to have some form of self-defense right? Riiight. According to a history professor of mine, if you really take into account the size and the amount of money spent for the Japanese SDF, it's in the top 5 in the world for military size and expenditure. Nonetheless, they don't shoot.

They are only in a support mode, as indicated in the following advertisement. Note that this is an advertisement, NOT a cartoon mocking the army or making jokes:According to the Japan Times, this was created as a part of an ad campaign to make the Japanese military look less evil and more approachable, since there are still MANY cans of worms open regarding the opinion of the Japan and its military. When one of my friends who is from Asia (but not Japanese) told me that she told her family that she had some reservations about the scholarship (got the same one as me, but going for the Master's degree) because sometimes she feels like she isn't really doing anything productive (seriously, neither do I, I literally have no obligations to anyone in terms of producing anything final as far as I know which is sort of ridiculous and my advisor doesn't even know what is required of me as well); one of the members of her family then said to her, "Don't worry about that, remember what they [the Japanese] did to us." Translation: "The Japanese owe us big time for what they did to us."

Point being, it's going to take a lot more than a cute cartoon to change the opinion of the Japanese military in Asia, stripped-down as it is.

My Dad's Potatoes

It was a while since I had really good Greek food. When Deena told me that there was a Greek restaurant aptly named Santorini in Itaewon, I was totally game and ready to pig out ever since I landed. But we waited till after the DMZ.

Itaewon is the forienger's district in Seoul, kind of like Roppongi in Tokyo. But Itaewon as mega dirty and I told Deena that compared to Roppongi (I have seen pictures and heard stories, but of course this is a empty opinion since I won't be there till June) this place was worse in terms of the "creepy gaijin/ickiness" factor, and she said that some of her coworkers that just went to Tokyo said the same thing. Guess my opinion wasn't that off. Again, will confirm in June.

Deena has been to Santorini before, and I was eagerly awaiting the yumminess that was Greek food. Oh, taramasalata. After many hills and stairs (Itaewon is actually above Seoul, yikes) we finally reached our destination. When I walked in, I felt like I was in Taverna Kyklades, one of the best Greek restaurants in Astoria. Of all the Greek restaurants in New York City, 80-90% of them are in Astoria. Oh, HEAVEN!

The decor was perfect. Deena said that unlike some other foriegn restuarants that take the foriegn food and "Korean-ize" it and then make it worse, this place was practically untouched. I totally agreed. The menu was not only in Korean and English, but also in Greek. I think the owner must be Greek - how else would it be as good as a place in Astoria? Never asked though.

Have to say it was a wee bit expensive - then again, even when I go to the restaurants back home, I never order the feta cheese or spreads appetizers because it's such a rip off even there. Since we arrived during lunch time, we got the lunch specials - SOUVLAKI! And even better, the potatoes that they had were like the ones that my dad makes. You heat up a pot of olive oil, put the potatoes cut into french-fry size and make them like french fries; when done sprinkle parmesan and basil on top. Yum, yum. I love my dad's potatoes, though these weren't cut french-fry style but rather in small round slices. Still delicious and you can tell that they used olive oil - french fries cooked in olive oil tend to be a wee bit soggier than those in regular cooking oil, but the flavor is great. You just have to be a bit more careful and not keep the french fries in the pot too long.

Since the lunch was pretty cheap, Deena and I split a platter of spreads with warm pieces of bread, from left to right: Tzatziki (cucumber/yogurt), Taramasalata (caviar), Eggplant Spread and Skordalia (garlic):

And to top it off, I had a FRAPPE as a dessert. It was about 6 bucks, but it was big, light and sweet just how I like it and best of all, the straw was sticking straight up in the center of the foamy part of the frappe. That's how you know whether or not a frappe is well made. Totally worth it, as I forgot to bring Nescafe and a frappe shaker back to Japan with me.

"In Front of Them All"

Our civilian tour guide told us that he was not so sure whether or not we would make it back to Seoul alive.

Welcome to the DMZ: one of the most trigger-itchy places on the earth. Trigger-itchy because there aren't any gunshots flying around, but I'll bet that Lil' Kim is hankering for a reason to attack Seoul. Why else were there 4 tunnels discovered by the South Koreans, dug by the North Koreans and covered in black paint to look like a coal mine?

I'll get to the tunnel in a minute.

Everyone in the bus chuckled, as we went through our two military checkpoints, but I couldn't help but be a wee bit wary; if one thinks about it, this will probably be the closest ever (God-willing as the saying goes) that I will be in a "war zone." There was only an armistice signed at the end of the Korean War so technically, SK and NK are still at war and the DMZ was created as a buffer. Doesn't mean that "incidents" don't occur. The last one was in 1984, when a Capt. Boniface (the man that Camp Boniface, the American base just outside the DMZ and the point where we had United States MPs join us with the stern "Do NOT point, gesture, talk, ANYTHING to the North Koreans.") wanted to cut down a large yew tree that was blocking Guard Station 4 on the American/SK side of the Military Demarcation Line (MDL) and the "Bridge of No Return." They were accompanied both by SK and NK military peeps, but in the middle of the tree cutting, the NK army lashed out with an axe attack, killing Boniface and another American high-ranking officer. There is a memorial where the tree once stood, with a circular stone base of about 3 feet in diameter, indicating how large the tree was.

Now to the Bridge of No Return. In the 1970s, SK and NK exhanged POWs at this bridge. The POWs had the option of defecting and staying in the country that they were a POW in, or going back home. However, once you step onto that bridge, you can't go back. Hence the name.

Allow me to backtrack a bit. During the many "briefings" that we tourists (of all the places to make a tourist attraction, really!) one of the things I liked was the slogan that the Americans use in the DMZ/Camp Boniface/Joint Security Area (JSA)-Pan Mun Jom (too many names, IMO) was that they are "In Front of Them All" - "them" being the North Koreans and the very high possibilty of enemy attack right under their nose.

I emphasize - right under their bloody noses. The MDL which divides the 4km wide DMZ runs right through the JSA, cutting buildings literally in half. At one point NK soldiers would literally just come up to the border and look right into the face of an SK soldier. These guys (SK soldiers) are INTIMIDATING from here to kingdom come. They stand in the UN building that is used for "talks" between NK and SK and outside on the SK side of the MDL - in order to be considered for a post in the DMZ, they have to have at least 1st-degree black belt tae kwon do. When I stood back in the single file line to go back into the main building on the SK side, I turned around to get one more look at the room. This guy turned his head in my direction, slowly, and so smoothly it was robot-like I think I muttered an "eep!" and turned back around quickly.

An interesting thing about the UN building that we were in was that it straddled the MDL. So when I crossed to the other side of the building, I was technically in North Korea. Hello, Kim Jung-Il. One interesting factoid that I learned: some of the roadsigns in NK that indicate how many kilometers to your destination don't inidcate how many kilometers to the DMZ (and effectively, the end of NK) - they indicate how many kilometers to Seoul. Creepy stuff.

After the 1 hour tour in the JSA, lunch and another briefing, we headed to the "3rd Tunnel." In the 1970s, SK discovered that NK was building tunnels to prepare for an invasion of Seoul and SK, like I said. Now, we can walk 73m below ground and go into the tunnel for ourselves. As with most places on the DMZ tour, we couldn't take pictures; the MPs and our civilian guide told us when and when not to. We had to wear hardhats in the tunnel - it sort of reminded me of the Caves of Diro near Sparta, where I with my mom and sister rode a boat propelled only by a stick a la Venetian gondolier, with the boatman pushing off the walls or the ceilings. Good thing I did wear a helmet - the ceiling was low, and I am tall so my head actually got knocked about and very far back a few times. It didn't hurt, it was rather the shock of it.

So at the end of the day, and with my trip to the War Museum the day before, I was quite Korean War-ed out, and filled with enough military shorthand and acronyms to maybe give Cat a run for her money - a quick summary of the trip:

"When I went to the DMZ, I visited the JSA and crossed the MDL in a UN building under the eye of a ROK soldier and an MP."

How Can I Sing, "It's A Small World, After All" in Korean?

Deena and I came to the conclusion that Everland is the Korean version of Disneyland. Note that we say DisneyLAND, not DisneyWORLD. Disney World is much bigger (and better in my opinion, though I have not been to Disneyland yet since I am an East Coaster) than Disneyland. Everland is miniscule compared to Disney World, even though it is comprised of more sections than the one we went to.

Every time I think of anything related to Disney, the tune "It's A Small World, After All" and the corresponding ride from the Magic Kingdom pops into my head. I mentioned that I have an uncle that works for Disney and thus get in for free, so you can imagine that I have been on the ride at least 5 times and no more than 10. It sort of sticks - those little animatronic kids are cute, and they don't run "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea" because it cost too much to maintain. Said uncle is working on getting me a ticket to Tokyo Disney; to my surprise, TD isn't actually owned by Disney in the States outright - they just licensed the name so the rule might be a bit different. No matter - if I don't get the ticket, I am still going.

Everland has its own share of cute, fuzzy characters, the most memorable being this really fat, round sheep that I got in a cell-phone charm version. I was going to keep it for myself, but figured my sister would appreciate it more - and she did, by the squeals of delight heard over Skype as I showed her via my webcam. Not like they walk around and give autographs to the little kids. According to Deena, Everland is very popular with the kids around the area - her kindergarten charges always talk about it and have season passes. With the different parks that are open different times of the year (including a waterpark) and the fact that its about $100 for a yearly pass it's not that expensive and a good way to keep the kids occupied, especially when school is out.

Which does not mean that Everland is for people under the age of 13. When Deena and I were waiting on line for this ride that not only rocks back and forth, but spins 360 degrees at the same time, there were plently of high school and college age kids around. There are rollercoasters a la Six Flags (none of which are like Kinga Ka, which I refuse to ride on, and Mel has been on twice in a row) but Deena and I were a bit wary of Korean rollercoasters. So after the first ride, we then proceeded to the one next door, an American rodeo theme ride (as we were in the "American" part of Everland, while the European part looks like a cartoon-y Switzerland) and proceeded to get extreme headaches, and my stomach lurched to somewhere in my esophagus and stayed there for the rest of the day.

So we decided to pursue tamer attractions, and went on a "safari" (which was kinda cool since the lions were like right up in front of the safari bus we were on in the enclosure) and looked at all the zoo animals. There was a parade (what theme park DOESN'T have one?) but the interesting thing was that all of the people in the parade were foriegners, and they all had blond wigs.

After the (sort of lame) parade, Deena and I went on the carousel. I like carousels - regardless of which carousel I am on and where I am, I am reminded of the $1.50 carousel in Central Park, near the 65th street entrance. Which reminds me - next time I am in NYC, I am due in for a ride on the carousel, since I did not get to ice skate at Wollman Rink (even though the last time I skated I was 5, at the Queens rink in Flushing-Meadows Park) this past Christmas.

The Men With the Spinning Horsetail Hats

Today, I went with Deena and a few of her friends from work to the Korean Folk Village. As with most of the attractions outside Seoul, Deena lives close by as she is in Yongin City, but in order to get to the places by public transportation, we have to go into Seoul to get to the place. It's the ultimate double-back and a bit annoying.

The Korean Folk Village was designed to look well, just like a village in Korea back in the day. It was complete with dirt roads, thatch-roof huts, pigs, pheasants and people making traditional Korean crafts.

However, this is the 21st century and while striing for some historical accuracy, places such as the Korean folk Village have their novelties as well so that everyone can be entertained. Even the bratty, snot-nosed kids that were painted on the banners on the bridge leading up to the kiddie part of Korean Folk Village, which was designed with Playland-like attractions, such as a mini Ferris Wheel, bumper cars and a carousel. We had to pay extra to go on the rides, and since I only budgeted for the basic pass, I didn't go on the rides.

We had lunch at an open-air food court where you first bought meal tickets, then went to the particular booth that made the specific food that you ordered. I ordered a leek pancake, which was leeks in this sort of batter and made into a pancake. One thing I noticed is that Koreans like to cook with ALOT of oil it seems. The woman jsut kept on pounding the cooking oil into the pancake mound and spreading it out, whereas I know that I could have made the same pancake with a helluva lot less cooking oil. It tasted rather greasy, but it was very good.

After lunch, we all headed over to the performance area and saw traditional Korean farmer's dance, seesaw jumping (where girls stood on a seesaw and using each other's weight, propelled themselves into the air) a tightrope walker and horse performances. It felt like a circus at times, but the tricks were very well done. My favorite part was when, in the farmers dance, men wearing horsetail hats spun the rod that connected the tail and the hat and sent the tail swirling, while at the same time propelling themselves about the performance ring like gymnasts.

A Museum Without Walls, But Alot of Repeat Exhibitions

On Sunday, Deena, Geraldine and I went to Gyeongju, a city designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, since it was the capital of the Korean Silla Dynasty. It is 4 hours outside Seoul, near Busan and the Korean version of Kyoto.

On the bus ride, I got a decent look at the Korean countryside - it's more flat than Japan, but still rather mountainous. When the three of us got there, we hightailed it to the Tourist Information Center, got some information and walked around. We first got on the local bus to Bulgaska, a Buddhist temple with various levels, and VERY STEEP STAIRS. I am terrified of stairs. Extremely terrified. So terrified, that I made Deena hold my hand while I went down the first few steps, then I held on to each step behind me while I went down. I even considered going down on my butt. Of course, while Deena and I went down and passed some Koreans going up, we got the obligatory, "Hello, where are you from?" questions.

Unfortunately, we just missed the shuttle bus to some grotto that was an hour's walk, or another hour's wait for the next shuttle. So we decided to skip the grotto and head onto the National Museum and Anapji Pond, a palace site. The museum was very well done and nicely curated, with detailed English explanations - I compared it to my experience at the Kyoto National Museum a week before.

After the museum we walked. Alot. Again. My poor knees and shoulders. It was all good - but the one thing with Gyeong-ju was that yes, its very vast and very open, very different from Seoul, but we covered most of the basics and the major stuff within three hours. Which included tomb mounds of dead kings, one of which we could go inside and was quite creepy if you think of it as "Hmm...we are in a dead person's coffin." Also the oldest observatory "in the Orient" as per the little guidebook that I got at the TIC which was like a mound of stones in the shape of a flat-topped sake bottle no more than three meters high. So since we were done, we went back to the bus station and got our bus tickets changed. Good thing too - with the traffic because of Lunar New Year, it took us over 6 hours to get back to Seoul.

Before we went onto the subway, I had to go to the bathroom. While walking in the bus terminal, this little Korean man took one looked at me, yelled at me in Korean, then walked off. It was rather disconcerting.

This is NOT Seoul. This is Flushing.

Queens is one of the most diverse counties in the United States. Once, in the NYTimes, there was an article about it, with the dozens of flags representing the myraids of nationalities in the shape of the borough.

Astoria - Greece
Woodside - Ireland
Jackson Heights/East Elmhurst - Colombia, Ecuador, India

etc. etc. You get my point.

Of course, the above said places are obvious in their ethnicities, but no place is Queens is more obvious in its nationality than Flushing. That place is Korean, right down to the local McDonald's that serves rice in addition to French Fries.

This past Thursday, I didn't fly to Seoul. I went back to Flushing, and it only took me two hours.

Of course, I went to Seoul. What I am saying is that Seoul is eerily like Flushing, from the office buildings covered in signs from top to bottom to the trash in the street because there are simply just too many people.

The kimchi is a wee bit too spicy for me - I prefer the Japanese version. I left my apartment at 12:35pm and went to the airport via the MK Sky Gate Shuttle anf didn;t get to Deena's apartment unti about 10:30pm because of traffic. That is a bit pathetic, considerting that the flight was only 1 and a half hours out of that 10 hour haul. This is what you get when you live really far from the airports. The bus was quite comfy though and really cheap - 11,000 won which is about $11.

We met up with her friend Geraldine and then went to get dinner at this Korean place and had chicken ghalbi. So I have eaten actual Korean food by now, but I am totally unfamiliar with it so I am a bit wary. To top it off, Deena actually lives near a restaurant that specializes in DOG meat. Oh, gross and poor dogs.

On my first full day, we went to Insadong, the old neighborhood in Seoul and walked around. Before we went to a palace (I forgot the name but it was really long and ends in "-dong") we had lunch at a McDonald's. In Korea, they actually charge you more if you take the food out, use plastic bags at the supermarket and take out coffee and other drinks at places like Starbucks, because they actually use real cups in the places. At McDonald's we had plastic cups that have their own special garbage can. There are so many Western chains here it's ridiculous; according to Deena, there are probably more Starbucks in Seoul than in NYC. I just checked on the Starbucks site: 200 about give or take in NYC proper and 135 in Seoul. Pretty close if you ask me. There are only about no more than 10 Starbucks in Kyoto. Crazy.

Before the tour of the palace, Deena and I walked about. I borrowed her Converses becasue I wanted to wear sneakers and I didn't bring my Asics because of fear that my suitcase would go over the 20kilo weight limit. I ended up with a huge blister on my right pinky toe and very achy legs and feet becasue the tour of the palace was a 2.5km hike. And it was not flat.

By the end of the day we got so exhausted we decided to head on back to Suji where Deena lives, an hour outside Seoul. Not even halfway through, the bus stopped and the driver ordered us all to get off. Turns out there was some sort of emergency and the driver called another bus on the route to pick us up. The bus was so crowded, we ended up standing for another hour and a half in the traffic. I was so exhausted, I was ready to drop. There is a;ways traffic going into Suji. Luckily, there was a Korean man who spoke English and explained the situation to us since we were totally clueless.

To be honest, I was ready to go into a panic; going to Korea was my first time travelling or living in a country where I knew not one shred of the language, not even how to say hello. I can say hello in Chinese, for crying out loud. Add to the fact that the streets in Seoul are even crazier than Japan's and it makes for one rather nervous traveller. People have come up to me to just say hello - they don't do that in Japan and it sort of caught me off guard. Plus, I think I stick out even more in Seoul than in Kyoto; one can chalk it up to that there are alot of tourists in Kyoto, but there are also ALOT of foriegn students, since Kyoto is like Philly - it has the highest concentration of students per square kilometer. And to top it all off, I was homesick.

For Japan.

That totally took me off guard. I got this nagging feeling during my first day in Seoul, and was totally shocked. Whou would have thought? My previous experience living abroad sort of ended in a bit of a disaster, so I wasn't really expecting much in terms of "missing the place" for Japan. But wow - I am homesick for my teeny little apartment, my bike, riding on Kyoto streets along the river and everything else in Japan. And that is just after living here for five months. I can only imagine what the feeling will be like in 13 months from now.

Oh. Holy. Crap. I ONLY have thirteen months left.

The Air Routes More Traveled

I cannot contain myself!

I AM GOING TO KOREA!

I AM TRAVELLING!

I AM GETTING OUT OF THE COUNTRY!

I WILL SET FOOT ON MAINLAND ASIA!

On a sarcastic note as Deena pointed out, it's not like I can get to the rest of Asia through Korea - good ol' Kim Jong-Il is standing in the way with his oversized Ray-Bans and frizzy combover.

I got my plane ticket today from Kyoto Uni's Co-op today; Alisa told me that they have good discounts for students. Another thing I like about the co-op is that I can pay my ticket in cash right then and there and thus would not have to use my credit card. Pay it and get it over with. I like that Japan is more cash-based: don't have the money, then you don't buy it because they don't take debit or credit cards 90% of the time anyways.

I was going to do it this morning actually - I had gone to the co-op, asked for the information, got the information and was just about to fork over the money when I realized that I should err on the side of caution, and ask my homeroom teacher just in case about when the classes officially end and when break begins. So I took my printout and told the lady I would come back probably on Thursday, since I would see my homeroom teacher tomorrow for listening class.

Turns out, I ran into her today; so right after grammar class, I went back to the co-op. I have to say it was quite interesting to actually fork over the money to a travel-agent-person and just get it all done and over with.

Deena already has a bunch of stuff planned. Ice skating, skiing, the DMZ, her kindergarten class graduation, shopping, museums, palaces, and maybe a temple stay overnight.

So excited!