Korean Universities often have school-wide festivals in May, perhaps to quell the spring fever of the students still locked in the drudgery of the semester. A video of one such festival at Yonsei University can be seen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDg93n9fNXs

We attended the festival at Hongik University on invitation from another one of AP’s high school friends. Hongik’s festival involved less live music than the one in the video, and more student organized activities. The girl who invited us would be working in a 주막 (jumak) , a Korean Drinking tent.

Now, I should point out that I wasn’t exactly a drinker in the States. I found out very quickly, though, that the drinking culture in Korea is significantly different from that of the US. For one thing, Korean liquor, being cheap and low in alcoholic content, is frequently paired casually with dinner, or sometimes even breakfast.  Drinking is more typically done in “Rounds”, wherein a group of friends sits, drinks, and talks for a while before moving on to the next activity. Because of this concentration on the social aspect of the drinking, rather than a focus on getting messed up, it’s a far lighter, arguably more enjoyable tradition here. By the same token though, it’s not usually all that appropriate to refuse to drink. For more information about Korean drinking etiquette, check the Wikipedia

The smoke filled tent was filled with college students, nursing drinks, munching on snack foods, and emphatically chattering. We sat at a plastic table for four, already equipped with a medley of crunchy snack foods, and took a look at the menu. The menu boasted a selection of staple drinks, as well as some fried foods. After placing our order, we began to converse about the evening thus far.

Our order was modest, but covered a nice range of common Korean drinks. Foremost were a couple of bottles of소주 (soju). As I mentioned in an earlier post, soju is a Korean liquor made out of starches. Traditionally rice is used in the distillation process, but other starches, most commonly potatoes, are often used by modern brands. Soju was first brewed as early as 700 years ago, but didn’t gain wide appeal until the mid 20th century.

Alongside the soju was a liter of beer and another Korean drink known as 막걸리 (makgeolli). Makgeolli is another rice-based alcoholic beverage more suitably compared to wine than liquor. Some places serve makgeolli traditionally, out of a large bowl with the help of a ladle, but it’s served more commonly by the bottle.

As the night continued, the ambient chattering got louder. We could here sections of the tent spontaneously break out in song. Having an understandably low tolerance, it wasn’t long before I took up talking to (read: at) strangers in Korean. This led to the confusion of at least a few random people, but left my comrades highly bemused. Apparently, it’s not uncommon for Koreans to insist on struggling along in English when they get drunk, so my demonstration of a Westerner’s parallel carried with it a strangely unifying significance.

Being hungry, we decided to enjoy a meal at a Korean Barbeque place. Then, finding that the restaurant did little to sate the burning appetite generated by all the intensity of our game of Starcraft, we took our hunger to the streets. Not unlike New York, Seoul has a plentiful supply of street vendors that sell everything from walnut cakes to boiled silkworm cocoons. We chose a cart run by two pleasant old women that sold quite nearly every pig part imaginable (lung, ear, even rectum), all soaked in a fiery red sauce.

Above: Not the cart we ate at

Our group, now outfitted with four well-fed, strapping young men, left the domesticity of the food cart behind and took to the mean streets of Seoul.

The “mean streets” were swiftly abandoned for the first Karaoke place we found

Fueled by nothing but a variety of pig parts and a couple drinks of 소주 (soju, Korean Starch Liquor), our voices tore down the halls of the noraebang with a kind of passionate but delicate elegance that would make angels cry. We sang and we sang our hearts out. After all, a pig had given its life so we could make such beautiful music. With every breath we took in the glory of the night, and with every lyric we captured the fury of our times.

Now that I’ve had a chance to fan my ego with a little historical revisionism, let me come clean with a better representation of what I looked like:

Is it still even OKAY to make William Hung jokes?

The wonderful part about Karaoke etiquette in Asia is that it’s actually considered LESS impolite to force your companions to suffer through five minutes of your worst rendition of Celine Dion’s My Heart Will Go On than to not participate at all. This fact made my life much, much easier.

The city of Seoul is filled with establishments called “방들” (Bangdeul – Singular: Bang). Literally translated, 방 means “room”. 방들are often used as meeting places for youth, and are typically centered around a specific type of entertainment activity. 노래방 (Noraebang), for instance, means “song room” and are the Korean equivalent of what’s known more widely in America as a Karaoke place. Note that when I describe Seoul as being “filled” with these establishments, I really don’t do the phenomenon justice. A better term would be “complete saturation”. It’s kind of like when you’re making chocolate milk, and even though your mom tells you to only squeeze the bottle of chocolate syrup for like, three seconds, you just let loose and go for half a minute straight. Kind of like that, except instead of ending up with diabetes you just run into a 방 every thirty seconds while you’re travelling through Seoul.

This post sponsored in part by the Foundation For Completely Over-Extended But Oddly Nostalgic Analogies

To start the night off, we made our way to a PC방, where we met two of AP’s friends from his school in America. As an astute reader might have guessed, a PC방 is a room dedicated to LAN PC gaming. After a brief and slightly awkward introduction, the kind I’m more than familiar with, we got down to business and started enjoying the hell out of commercialized piracy. No prizes for guessing what game we played.

Don’t hate, I’m constructing additional Pylons

FAIR WARNING: Shit is about to get reeeeeeaaalll nerdy up in here. If you’ve never played Starcraft, are female, or currently have ANY amount of respect for me that you don’t want to lose – just keep scrolling until you see the next picture.

About three minutes into the game, I had my first group of units ready to attack. About three minutes and ten seconds into the game, I discovered that my base had already been completely surrounded by Photon cannons. Everything they say about Koreans and Starcraft is true. I’m about 90% sure they come out of the womb knowing how to play. Not five minutes after we started playing I had already been completely annihilated. Mercifully, I was left with a Probe and a Nexus so I could continue to pretend while the big boys played for real. Ultimately, my team suffered a crushing defeat. But let’s be honest, we never stood much of a chance to begin with.

Okay, it's safe to look again.

Really this post should be titled “Why can’t soccer be like this in the States?”

After a long and jetlagged first day, AP and I decided to take things easy by plunging headfirst into a stadium full of shouting Koreans. Weeks before, we had acquired behind the goal seats to the Korea vs. Ecuador Friendly Match. I’d learned a lot about Korea in my first day – drinking at breakfast is sometimes encouraged, old people wear surgical masks for no apparent reason, “화장실” means “bathroom” not “exit”. More important than any of these lessons (with the possible exception of the latter) was the tutorial I was about to receive – how to cheer like a Korean.

It looks something like this.

The experience of watching a soccer game was taken from “good time” to “balls to the walls insanity” by three very important facts:

1. Koreans are crazy about soccer.
2. The 2010 FIFA World Cup was in less than a month, effectively doubling the crazy.
3. The behind the goal seats are where all the crazy gets let loose.

Of course, I don’t expect anyone to take these assertions without proper evidence, so in order to support fact number one, consider this picture I took OUTSIDE the stadium a full hour and a half before the match was set to begin:

By the way, the colors of the Korean national team are red and more red.

Supporting point two:

A small gathering of people celebrating the world cup in 2002 (from http://blog.naver.com/gihansang)

And finally another one of my pictures for point three:

Unfortunately, I couldn’t photograph their shouts.

The amount of energy in the stadium was simply incredible. As was the bond I witnessed between tens of thousands of strangers, all united in the hopes that they had placed in a single team. Constant shouts of “대~한민국!” resonated within the walls of the venue, while a drum and flag corps comprised of the truly dedicated fans lead the masses in ten million cheers they all seemed to know. It didn’t take long for the excitement to get to me, and within the first five minutes I was already doing my best to fit in.

90 minutes of intense cheering later and Korea wins 2-0. How do we celebrate? More cheering. Continue for another hour then call it a day.

I hope you were taking notes US. Someday, I want to do this for MY team.

Since tourists are lazy and easily swindled into overpaying for uncommon methods of transportation, a cable car service is available to carry passengers from a parking lot to the base of the tower at the top of the mountain. Since I am lazy and easily swindled into overpaying for uncommon methods of transportation, I made use of said cable car.

At the summit, a large group of traditional dancers was performing 강강술래 (Ganggangsullae), a massive circle dance meant to bring about a good harvest. The dance is a 5000 year old tradition that is said to have done far more than bring good yield to Korean farmers:

“In the 16th century, during the Japanese invasion of Korea, Admiral Yi Sun-sin ordered women to do this dance in military uniform to intimidate the Japanese. The women were said to have dressed in military uniform and do the ganggangsullae dance on Mount Okmae (옥매산). The Japanese scouts thus overestimated the strength of the Korean troops. “

-From Wikipedia (don’t hate, I checked the citations)

Fear the might.

In a far less culturally significant coincidence, I found that Seoul tower is also home to a Teddy Bear museum. Never missing an opportunity to take an embarrassing photo, I did this:

The kid in blue is definitely judging me...

Thinking my presence within the museum would do little more than frighten whatever patrons were present, I elected not to do any exploring within. Instead, we headed for the tower’s observation deck so that I could see all of Seoul before I actually went out to see all of Seoul. You and I will get to that soon. First, we’re going to play a small game called “Test Korea’s Knowledge of US Culture”.

Round 1 – Cultural Landmarks

Round 2 – Slang Terminology

Round 3 – Sports Rivalries

To be fair, the only thing that all these mean is that Koreans have a definite but incomplete grasp of my country, while I need to go on a two and a half month journey to even gain a small understanding of theirs.

Now, in the beginning of this post I mentioned that the view from the observation deck is impossible to photograph. I could have maybe gotten a low quality shot out one window if I tried, and that wouldn’t be at all a fair depiction of what I saw. That being said, it would take a lot of time and talented writing to properly describe the view of Seoul from within the tower, neither of which I have in great stores so let me offer this simple compromise: If any of my readers would like to see the much acclaimed vista, wait two months, send me an email and we will go together. Make sure the email contains a plane ticket.

Also from Wikipedia.

What you’re looking at is basically AN ALLEYWAY.

When I first encountered a scene like this on the car ride in from Incheon, I thought for sure the multitude of lights meant that we were approaching the downtown area. Wrong. In Seoul, this kind of light and activity only means one thing: you are in Seoul.

Eventually, the acid trip car ride came to an end and my host family took me into a restaurant for my first Korean meal. Eating in a Korean restaurant is actually a very unique experience. Even this establishment, a modern eatery targeting a young customer basis, maintained a number of cultural idiosyncrasies. I’ll elaborate on this in a later post. For now, rest assured that my first meal, like so many that would follow, was perfectly delicious. We had a steaming platter of 떡볶이 (dduk bok kee), a dish comprised of wonderfully chewy Korean rice dumplings in a hot and spicy sauce. In a surprise that I attributed to my host family trying to make me feel at home, the normally traditional dish had a number of western style chicken wings mixed in. This made for a very tasty, albeit unconventional take on the dish. I would later find out that the chicken mix-in was not intended as a cure for homesickness at all. Turns out, Koreans have quite the taste for Western style fried chicken. In fact, a highly unscientific Naver (Korean Google) search contends that Seoul has as many as 36,000 Western style chicken establishments.

Chicken digressions aside, Seoul was already turning out to be everything it promised to be. Light and sound flooded into my jet-lagged head as I gazed wide-eyed at unfamiliar scripts, customs, and foodstuffs. As I ate with my new family, I wondered if so much of what was now paralyzingly new would ever become commonplace for me.

Now, after basking in my ephemeral moment of cool collectedness, I will confess that the only reason that didn’t happen is because I was fast asleep. Not since Physics lecture had I enjoyed a rest as peaceful as the one I had during the flight into Incheon. Since I ultimately decided it would be ill-advised to hand my camera over to the strange Korean lady seated next to me on the flight and request that she take pictures of me while I slept, you’ll have to deal with an artist conception as a representation of how I looked:

Artist Conception

Fast forward through the confused awakening, excited trembling, and the ecstasy of fumbling that was customs, and AP and I are walking towards the two people who managed to alter the course of my entire summer. In what I would come to consider the culmination of a 26 hour journey, AP introduced me to his parents, two of the most phenomenal people I’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting. I offered a clumsy bow and managed to sputter out a Korean greeting, to which they smiled and reciprocated with an English welcome. In this moment of cultural exchange, one that would precede many, many others, I knew that this trip would be something extraordinary.

To be perfectly accurate, I never actually entered Japan; I sat in the International Terminal of Japan’s largest airport. Notwithstanding, I still managed to do a little exploring, enough that my curiosity was sated until the day I can give the land of the rising sun a proper visit.

The first thing I remember about Japan is a mixture of confusion and awe. During the mercilessly extensive flight, I decided to take my contacts out, so I couldn’t really see anything but a blur of light and color when I got off the plane. This didn’t help the process of navigating through the terminal.

I would totally be able to read this if it wasn’t so blurry.

Even after I put my contacts in, I couldn’t read anything, didn’t understand anyone, and had almost no clue what was going on. Little did I know it at the time, but this would occur frequently over the next couple months. Either way, I figured the chances of me getting seriously lost in an international terminal were pretty low, so I decided to do a little bit of exploring. I picked a direction, started walking, and DAMMIT JAPAN….

This was the first thing I found.

Although something about an oxygen vendor irked me at my very core, this was actually a good find. Not only did it mean I was probably heading in the right direction for food, but in the event that all the breathable air was suddenly removed from the terminal, I knew just where to go. Between the air and water they sold, I’d say that this place’s menu had a nice lock on all the widely available staples necessary for human existence.

Deciding to take a pass on all the wonderful oxygen, I pressed forward and found a far more important commodity: food! Sitting down at an overpriced airport snack bar, I ordered a delicious bowl of udon and fried tofu. Seeing as how this was the only meal I would probably be eating in Japan anytime in the near future, I figured it was momentous enough to mention here.

I know, there’s really no reason for this post.

After the meal, I decided to look through some Duty-Free shops to burn the rest of the time I had. I was fortunate enough to find that one of them was giving away samples of sake. Figuring I’d take the opportunity to try sip sake in Tokyo while I had the chance (that sounds a lot more romanticized than it was), I got in line for some. When it was my turn, the nice man with the alcohol looked at me critically and said something in what I think was Somali. I shrugged, showed him my ID, and he surrendered the sample. The drink was good, but not nearly as satisfying as the realization that I was in no way limited by my age in this part of the world.

And that was about it. The experience was a wonderful mixture of banal happenings and novel realizations. The most significant realization of all, though, came when our final flight started boarding and it occurred to me that I was a mere three hours away from Seoul.

By now any reader I have is probably very disappointed in me. A few hours in and I’m already complaining? Well, to be honest, much of my cynicism is rooted in humor. Despite my cool, arrogant retrospective of the travel experience that is Delta International, this is what I looked like for most of the flight:

Above: Seething contempt for air travel

Managing, as is characteristic of suave and urbane gentlemen such as myself, to spill a coke on my lap during the very first beverage round, I was able to enjoy the flight to its maximum sogginess. The one good thing about such an intensely long journey was that by the end of our first flight into Tokyo-Narita, my pants were Pampers-quality dry. Despite all this, my excitement was completely justified by the incredible view of Tokyo as we descended into the city.

Tokyo looks a lot like the wing of a 787

Whatever. I was never in this for the plane ride. Landing in Japan was, for me, perhaps one of the most exciting moments in recent memory. Admittedly, I was a little disappointed to find that no giant robots were battling on the runway at the moment of our arrival, but with exploration comes many new discoveries.