Tuesday, February 23, 2016

I missed the boat

Trip Date: May 2, 2008

Incheon International Ferry Terminal 2
I had worked in Korea for a whole year and planned a big trip when my contract was completed. My last day of work was the last day of April 2008. The first stop of my trip was in China.
Traveling to China by plane is a bit expensive. I would be traveling for 2 months while jobless and at the end I would start looking for another job, so I had to think of a more economic route to China. From Incheon harbor there are boats that go to several ports in other countries. So I bought a ticket on the one that went to Tianjin.
It actually goes to Tanggu which is near Tianjin, but it is advertised as going to Tianjin. Well, I’m still not sure if Tanggu is near Tianjin the town, or in a county called Tianjin. I just know that there is a town called Tanggu and another town called Tianjin, both of which may or may not be in a county called Tianjin.
I was so geared up for my first day on my big trip, but not geared up enough to have planned my usual extra two hours for getting lost. I was so sure I knew exactly where to go since I had lived in Seoul for a whole year and that I would be okay getting there on time. I missed the boat because I took the wrong bus from the Dong-Incheon subway station to the ferry; a distance so close I could have walked.
If you ever plan on taking the boat to Tianjin, go to the Incheon International Ferry Terminal 2 at least one and a half hours before the schedule departure. Take bus number 3, 23, 24, or 17-1 from the Dong-Incheon subway station and show the bus driver the picture above or just get off near the McDonald’s. You could also take a taxi; it’s a $3 ride.

Directions and cost of a taxi
Korean Words of Sympathy
Once I figured out that I was on the wrong bus I got off and started to walk around aimlessly. I passed a port.  I really wanted it to be my port but it was a shipping yard for cargo.
I looked so distraught that a man gossiping with a security guard in the area decided to help me. I showed him my boat ticket and he instantly knew what to do. He told me to follow him. Although he had the odor of alcohol on his breath I didn’t have a better plan so I followed.
He hailed a cab and told me to get in. I sat in the back seat on the verge of crying. He sensed that I was troubled and spoke reassuring words to me. Or, at least I think he did. He did not speak any English. I only guessed this from the tone of his voice. He told the cabbie my plight and the driver also began to speak to me sympathetically.
Once we were at the dock the man paid the taxi. I offered to pay the whole or even part of the fare, but the man would not let me. He led me up to the boat company’s office and explained my situation to the people there. The boat, the Tian Ren, was schedule to leave in five minutes and I tried to convince the staff to hold the boat.
They could not do that. I started to feel a bit panicky. The lady just took my ticket, tore it up, and handed me a new ticket. The next boat to Tianjin would not leave Incheon for another four days.
Lady: “Just come back on Tuesday.”
Me: “What do I have to pay?”
Lady: “Pay? You already paid for your ticket. Just come back on Tuesday. Next time don’t be late.”
At first, I was just a little frustrated at how calm everyone else was, like me missing my boat was no big deal. Then I remembered that I didn’t actually have any appointments and that it really was no big deal. Then I moved on to being surprised that, even though it was completely my own foolish fault that I missed the boat, I could just take the next one without paying anything extra. And I was really lucky to meet a kind stranger who knew exactly where to go and what to do.
As a traveler I may not always be lucky in finding the best accommodations or transportation but I always manage to find the nicest people at just the right time.

Waiting for my friend to come home from work so I can have a place to stay.
So I calmed down and tried to think of something fun I could do with another weekend in Korea. I called up a friend for a place to stay and started to plan another mini-Korea-trip.
All Pictures
South Korea
(대한민국)
How to get there:
  • You can enter by plane, boat, or train, though entry by train is rare if not damn impossible for most non-presidents of North or South Korea.
  • Most citizens from many countries do not need to get a visa before going to South Korea.
  • People of most nationalities will get a 90-day visa at the airport or ferry port.
  • To be completely sure, check with the Korean embassy in your country.
Phone:
Website:
Videos:
Books:

Notes:
  • Korea is a generally safe country. You don’t really have to watch out for pickpockets, muggers, or scam artists.
    • You should watch out when crossing the streets, beware of scooters on the sidewalk, and the little old ladies that will push you to get that last seat on the bus or subway.
  • Use common sense and you will be okay.
  • Things are generally inexpensive and there are many wonderful things to buy.
Enjoy Korea! I live there for 2 years and had a fantastic time.
Boat From Incheon, Korea to Tianjin (Tanggu), China
How to make reservations:
Call:
  • +82-32-777-8260
  • For better English call the Korean Tourist Information line: +82-2-1330. This is for assistance only. The Korean Tourist information line is not associated with the boat company.
When you call they might tell you that you need to come down to the dock in person so they can photocopy your passport, visa to China, and other documents. You can ask them to let you fax or e-mail the information instead, and pay by credit card or bank transfer.
  • 37°27’53.3″N 126°37’30.4″E
  1. Go to the Dong-Incheon Subway station.
  2. Take bus 23, 24, 17-1, or 3. There is a McDonald’s near the bus stop to get on the bus.
  3. You should get off the bus near another McDonald’s across the street from the port.
Notes:
  • Schedule
  • Departing Procedure
  • The cost of the ticket depends on which boat you take and the class of your accommodations. I took the cheapest ticket on the boat to Tianjin and it cost a little over 100USD. My Chinese visa cost more than my fair to China.
  • You must have a valid visa before entering China. To get a visa to China while in Korea you must go through a travel agent, not the Chinese embassy.
Map:
Click for Google maps

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Location: Incheon, South Korea

Sunday, February 21, 2016

San-nak-ji

Trip Date: May 1-3, 2009

I’m addicted to the internet.
Exam Week
Last weekend I headed down south to Busan on the 3:30pm KTX train. I got to leave work early because Friday was the last day of exam week. I arrived at Seoul Station in time to meet Mark, a fellow traveler, and have lunch before boarding the train.
Exam week is loved by Native English teachers but hated by both students and Korean teachers. Students obviously have to study really hard to pass exams to get into a good university and therefore get a good job to avoid living at Seoul Station. Korean teachers have to write these exams and then grade them. Native English teachers teach no classes during exam week and can spend their time at work (the week before, the week during, and the week afterwards) blogging their little hearts out. Yes, we still have to come to work even though we don’t do anything, but I usually get to leave early.
I don’t mind. My internet at home is very slow.

Good news, there’s wireless internet. Bad news, it isn’t free.
Across the country in no time!
The KTX is Korea’s bullet train. It takes about three hours to get to Busan from Seoul on the KTX, but about five hours on other cheaper trains. It costs 48,600KRW for a regular class KTX ticket to Busan, but there are slightly cheaper no-seat tickets.
Although I didn’t thoroughly explore the KTX, I know that it has little internet booths between some of the cars and non-free wireless internet throughout the train.
Every now and then a lady with a snack cart came by selling beer, un-tasty cookies, dried squid, and other horrible snacks. The KTX website claims that there are 13 vending machines on each train. So I guess the lady is there in case you don’t want to walk all the way over to the machines, because the vending machines sold the same horrible treats.
The website also says that the seats on the KTX are “designed to fit the Korean body”. Too bad for you foreigner!
The KTX also goes down to Mokpo.

I hear the phone ringing…
I would love to stay!
If you are in Busan and looking for a place to stay, there is one hostel that I know of called Arpina. I think you have to reserve a room ahead of time. I’ve never stayed there so I can’t say much about it. The other two options are to find a love motel or a jjimjilbang. The jjimjilbang is a good only if you don’t have anything more than a rucksack; backpacking-backpacks are too big for the lockers at a jjimjilbang. (If worse comes to worst you can always leave your big backpack in a locker at the train station overnight.)
How do I describe a love motel? Well… its name kind of sums it up. It’s the type of place you can rent by the night or by the hour. They usually have really seedy sounding names. In most countries it would be a shady place to stay.
Okay… it’s a shady place to stay in Korea too, but I’ve seen families staying at love motels. Just cover the kids’ eyes when you walk in. Just like motels in any country, some are dingy looking and some look a bit classier. But they all come with free soft porn, so don’t leave the kids alone with the remote.

Trying to blend in
Busan’s city slogan is Dynamic Busan. Korea is doing everything it can to be the soul of Asia and, Busan is chipping in by posting tourist maps all over the city with advice on things to do during your time in Busan. After consulting with one of these maps we decided to make our first stop… the cemetery.

The most handsome Canadian flag I’ve ever seen.
The UN cemetery in Busan pays homage to all the fallen soldiers of non-Korean countries that helped South Korea fight off the red menace. Most of the soldiers buried there died in Korea during the Korean War in their early twenties. There was one from Australia, a Private J. P. Daunt, who was only seventeen when he was killed.
There are only 36 US soldiers buried at the UN Memorial Park and I didn’t find any that actually died during the Korean War. Some of them went on to serve in other wars then died in the 1980’s or 1990’s.
Why weren’t they buried at Arlington? Who knows?

The Great State of Canada
Number 51?
There was something odd in the UN Memorial Park about some of the fallen Canadian soldiers. Canadians, for years now, have found American jokes about their country being the “51st state” completely unfunny.
In the cemetery, although Canada is etched on the wall as a country separate from the US, one Canadian soldier was placed in the US section as being from a state called Canada that is alphabetically right before Colorado. There are also two pictures of Canadian soldiers in front of a US flag in one of the memorial halls. Sorry Canada…

Cos Play in Busan
Cosplay anyone?
Next we went to the BEXCO convention center for a little cos-play. I’m not into anime at all, but we were lost and just looking for a subway station when we found some sort of anime geek-fest. I had no idea what was going on and just wanted something cold to drink and a place to sit. Mark on the other hand was like a kid at Disneyland.
Then we went to what I would call “Busan Tower,” Busan’s equivalent to Seoul’s Seoul Tower. Its real name is Youngdusan Tower. Unlike Seoul Tower where your options are to climb a steep hill or to take the expensive cable car, Youngdusan Tower gives you the choice of walking up several flights of stairs or taking a free escalator.

Eating Sannakji in Busan
Sannakji Juseyo
One of the reasons for going to Busan was so that my friend, Mark, could eat a live octopus. He saw some clip on youtube of a couple of guys who went to Busan to eat this weird dish and he wanted to try it. Busan is the city where dreams of eating live octopi come true.
The dish is called San-nak-ji (산낙지) and there are many restaurants in Busan that serve it. The most obvious ones will have a fish market on the first floor, where you meet and buy 3 or more octopi then take them upstairs to have them prepared.

live octopus for sale
We went to one restaurant along Gwangalli Beach. If you would like to try it just take the subway to Gwangan station on line 2. Take Exit 3 or 5 and head toward the beach. Once along the beach turn left so that you are walking with the beach on your right. You will eventually come to the restaurant in the picture above.
Mark picked out his octopi and somehow I got dragged into his nightmare. They were three for 10,000KRW, but the octopus saleslady could see that we were a bit squeamish. She sold us two of the tiniest ones for 5,000KRW. She put them in a plastic bag with water and told us to follow her upstairs.

Buying an Octopus
She handed the octopi off to a waitress and sat us in a room with a Japanese family. We asked that only one octopus be chopped up and the other to still be completely alive when put on the plate on our table. I ate some of my octopus. It was delicious but I didn’t like the wiggling around in my mouth it did as I chewed and the tentacles stuck to my teeth a bit.
Mark couldn’t eat his octopus. He said that it kept “looking” at him. When we left the restaurant the octopus was still alive, but barely. We assume that he was put back in a tank and sold to someone else. The restaurant charged us another 10,000KRW for not cooking the octopuses and a bottle of soju that Mark  tried to use for liquid courage.
No More Seats
We took the Mugungwha back to Seoul. This is the cheapest type of long distance train in Korea. Because of our lack of planning ahead the only tickets left were standing tickets on the cheapest train. A ride on the Mugungwha to Seoul from Busan takes a little under 6 hours and cost 20,600KRW (adult with no seat) or 26,500KRW (adult with seat). There is only a 6 dollar difference in price between the unseated and seated ticket, so I wouldn’t recommend buying the unseated ticket as a means to save money, unless you have an incredibly large family.

There are 5 small norae-bangs on the train!
Luckily we found the dining car, which was filled with other last minute travelers. In the dining car there was a guy selling snacks, a slot machine video games, computers for the internet, a massage chair, and of course… several norae bangs! The key is to get there early and grab the best seat or space on the floor. During our ride there were times when the car was jam packed, other times it was not so full.
South Korea
(대한민국)
How to get there:
  • You can enter by plane, boat, or train, though entry by train is rare if not damn impossible for most non-presidents of North or South Korea.
  • Most citizens from many countries do not need to get a visa before going to South Korea.
  • People of most nationalities will get a 90-day visa at the airport or ferry port.
  • To be completely sure, check with the Korean embassy in your country.
Phone:
Website:
Videos:
Books:
Notes:
  • Korea is a generally safe country. You don’t really have to watch out for pickpockets, muggers, or scam artists.
    • You should watch out when crossing the streets, beware of scooters on the sidewalk, and the little old ladies that will push you to get that last seat on the bus or subway.
  • Use common sense and you will be okay.
  • Things are generally inexpensive and there are many wonderful things to buy.
Enjoy Korea! I live there for 2 years and had a fantastic time.
Busan
(부산)
  • 35°10’51.6″N 129°04’38.2″E

From Seoul
  1. Go to Seoul Station (the subway station) on lines 1 and 4.
  2. Go to the long distance station which is above the metro station. It is also called Seoul Station. (Don’t mistake it for the Old Seoul Station which is now a museum.)
  3. You can buy tickets for a train heading to Busan. Prices and times vary.
Websites:
Cost:
  • Train tickets will cost 20,000–80,000KRW depending on the type of train you ride and what class ticket you get.
  • Busan itself is not an expensive city. The prices for things are the same as in Seoul.
Notes:
  • The beaches in Busan are crowded in the summer, but no one swims in other seasons. It’s not illegal to do so. I have done it. But, people think it’s strange to swim on a non-summer day no matter how warm it might be.
  • T-money cards work in Busan, but you need to go to special shops to add money to your card, so top it up before you leave Seoul.
The United Nations Memorial Cemetery and Peace Park
((재한)유엔기념공원관리처)
  • 35°07’40.5″N 129°05’46.5″E
  • FromBusan Station
    • take city bus No. 134
    • (30 min ride).
  • FromBusan Express Bus Terminal
    • go to nearby Nopo-dong station.
    • Take Busan Subway Line 1 and get off at Daeyeon station (Line 2).
    • Then, take a taxi.
    • (It takes a total of 1 hour.)
  •  From Gimhae Airport,
    • take a limousine bus bound for Seomyeon
    • get off at Seomyeon Lotte Hotel.
    • Take city bus No. 25, 68, or 93
    • get off at the United Nations Memorial Cemetery and Peace Park.
    • (It takes a total of 1 hour and 30 min.)
Address:
Busan-si Nam-gu Daeyeon4-dong 779
Phone:
  • 82-51-625-0625
  • 82-51-625-0614
Cost: Free
Hours:
  • 9:00-16:30 (winter)
  • 9:00-18:00 (summer)
Videos
Youngdusan Tower
(용두산공원)
  • 35°06’01.8″N 129°01’57.9″E
  • by subway
    • Go to Nampo-dong Station and leave through eixt 1.
    • Walk straight for about 10 minutes.
  • from the airport
    • Take bus #310
    • get off at Gumi Cultural Center in Daecheong-dong (1-hour ride).
    • Walk straight for about 10 minutes.
Address:
Busan-si Jung-gu Gwangbok-dong
Phone:
  • +82-51-1330
Cost:
  • Park – Free
  • Tower:
    • ages 19 < 4,oooKRW
    •        13-18 3,500KRW
    •          3-12 3,000KRW
Hours:
  • 9:00  – 22:00 (Oct-Mar)
  • 8:30 – 22:00 pm (Apr-Sep)
Notes:
There is a free escalator to the up of Youngdusan, but you have to use your feet and your own energy to get back down.
Map:
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Location: Busan, South Korea

Friday, February 19, 2016

Not Made in China

Trip Date: February 17, 2008

All Pictures

Shanghai: People’s Park
My Heart and Seoul
I left Wuhan on the 9:41pm train to Shanghai. I was ready to go back to Seoul. In China I was illiterate. When most people looked at me, I could see littleyuan signs in their eyes.
Back in Seoul I’m less illiterate and there aren’t many people trying to hustle tourists there. I just feel more at home in Seoul. In fact, for right now Seoul is my home.
Jam Packed
I almost missed my train to Shanghai. My hotel, in Wuhan, was right across the street from the train station, so I thought there would be no way I could possibly be late. But just to make sure I planned to leave the hotel 45 minutes before my train was scheduled to arrive in Wuhan.
It’s now time to explain some things about Chinese train stations. First off, whoever it was that designed and built these stations probably doesn’t actually live in China. My guess is that he or she has never even visited, seen, or heard of China. This person must live in Montana or Kansas and doesn’t quite understand the concept or dynamics of a large group of people.
At any given Chinese train station there are millions of people trying to get in through one or two front entrances. At the few entrances are “luggage scanners”. I use quotation marks because I doubt that any of them actually work.
Commuters place their suitcases on the conveyor belt and the machine shoots the luggage out the other end so quickly that nothing could possibly be scanned. If the scanner were to actually find anything, who would notice? The “guard” in charge hardly ever pays attention. Most of the time the scanner’s screen is turned off.
Once inside the station people go to the waiting area for their particular train. There are never enough seats. People start to sit on the floor, but then they quickly run out of floor space. Then people sit outside the waiting area in the hall. That fills up pretty quickly too.
It took me about 45 minutes to get to the entrance, get my stuff “scanned”, wade through the masses of people sitting on the floor, find my gate, and get on my train. I was still looking for my berth when the train was pulling out of the station.

People’s Park
Once in Shanghai, I went to the People’s Park. It was lovely. I sat in the park and relaxed until it was time to go to the airport to catch my flight back to Seoul. I took the 925 bus to the airport.
I would return to China in the summer of this same year. And, though every time I vow never to do it again, I would return to China many, many more times after that.
All Pictures
China 
(中国)
How to get there:
  • You can enter by plane, train, boat, or bus
  • Make sure to get a visa before going to China.
  • Visas to China are expensive for people of some nationalities.
  • Getting a Chinese visa is not a quick process. Apply as soon as you can.
Phone:
Website:
There is a long list of websites that cannot be accessed while in China. Facebook, youtube, and parts of Wikipedia are just some of them. As with everything, there are ways around it. There are sites that will let you get to Facebook and other sites for free for about 15 minutes, then you will have to pay.
My advice is to find a few of them and use them for free. Then use them again on a different computer. If you are in China for a long time, then you might want to invest in paying for the service. Ask friends living in China for the best deals.
Videos:
Books:
*These books are banned in China. But I highly recommend reading Mao: The Unknown Story before going to Beijing.


   Notes:
  • If you want an internet cafe look for this (网吧) on a sign.
The People’s Square
Rénmín Guǎngchǎng
(人民广场)
Take the metro to the People’s Square station.
Notes:
  • The 925 bus goes between the park and the airport. (If it’s still running.)
There are many well-known landmarks near the park. Here is the list from Wikipedia:
Map:
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Location: People's Square, Huangpu, Shanghai, China, 200000
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