Where there's a will...

  Seoul, Korea Rep.
Friday, September 28, 2007

· Seoul, South Korea
· GMT +8:00 hours

... there's a way. The visa update.
So an update on the visa issue we're having. I'll keep it quick as I don't want to bore you all. How considerate, eh? Anyway, remember how in the last entry I posed the question about whether our employers (who Btw, are Korea Express, a logistics company) will hire us sans visa or not? Well, it looks like they, the law benders they clearly are, will. We're almost certain that the timing of our "Hey, we don't have a visa and won't have time to get one" revelation put them in a bind, one in which they had no choice but to hire us. Not exactly what we wanted but hey... we'll take it, report to work as required on Sunday, full of smiles and wink-winks. So yeah, as you can probably guess our self-imposed deadline for getting our grubby hands on our documents and dashing to Japan came and went, shortly after which our recruiter mailed us telling us to report for work as planned. She also told us not to tell our visa situation to anyone (shhhh....) and, if we wouldn't mind, we're to hop on a ferry to Japan or China to get the visa during a 3 week break from camp duties in early November. Fine by us. As you know we had planned on going to Japan this week to get the visa but with the extra time we will now have at our disposal in November we're sort of toying with the idea of going to China instead and spending a bit of time there. Decisions decisions.

Day 44 & 45 Observations (September 26th & 27th 2007)

· Lost in Translation
It was congratulations all around today when we went to the Camp Korea (CK) office to meet a few old CK acquaintances and, of course, pick up our documents. Congratulations because of our marriage, of course (remember, we met in CK). Once the congrats had subsided a few of them asked us,

"So, will you have time to get to Japan now?"

"Umm... no!"

I guess, our best efforts aside, they didn't really understand the significance of us needing our documents by yesterday evening. Anyway, we spoke to Jay (aka The Boss) who'll be our new best friend once our upcoming contract is fulfilled and we're unemployed again.

· Insomnia
We're still having difficulties sleeping and it's really annoying us at this stage. Last night I lay in bed for 2+ hours with my mind running overtime, like it would do when trying to absorb the sights, sounds and smells in any frantic Asian bazaar. I eventually dropped off but when I woke this morning I felt like I had only slept for an hour. I probably only had. Meg is still suffering the same way but she's not as bad. Is this really jetlag? If so it's the first time I've ever had it and I don't like it. I must be getting old. As I type Meg is taking an early evening nap. I was equally as tired as she was and I tried to do the same. It didn't take long to get bored laying there, knowing I wasn't going to drop off, so I got out of bed and started typing this instead. No doubt I'll be crawling the walls later tonight as well. It's the lack of sleep and poor diet (something that always takes me time to sort out when I first get to Korea) that is, no doubt, responsible for me not exactly feeling on top of the world the past few days.

· A mistake

01 Balancing Act

I made the mistake of taking Meg to the Myeong-Dong area of the city last night (see picture to the right), a neon-saturated district full of tight streets lined with clothes shops, restaurants and bars. Within 30 minutes of arrival she had dragged me in and out of half a dozen shops and she had a list of twice as many dresses and pairs of shoes she wanted to buy. Women. I guess the knowledge of all those little beautiful dresses sitting there on the racks unloved was too much to bare, so this afternoon we retraced our steps to Myeong dong and rescued one of them from the traumas of endless "do you think my bum will look big in this?" questions from Korean girls. Good job Princess. All this comes hot on the heals of our visits to the bazaars in Istanbul, Turkey, during which she was planning on buying everything in sight, picturing each purchases' place within the rooms of the house we're still, realistically, years away from buying. It's a cargo ship we'll need by the time we leave Korea, not a backpack.

· Seoul Metro
We spent a bit of time on the Seoul metro today. I love the Seoul metro system. Always have. I remember my first sighting of the convoluted mess that is the system map and wondering,

1) why people don't just run to the nearest exit and hail a cab, and

2) how people actually managed to get where they want to go.

Its primary use, of course, is to get people, lots of people, from A to B (or in our case from A to B via X, W, & T) but like any subway system you could spend hours in there just people watching, an attraction you won't find endorsed in any guidebook.

02 See, just like I said

The first thing you'll notice, or at least I always notice, is that Koreans like to sleep on the metro. How they manage to fall asleep in the first place is only marginally less impressive than their ability to wake when they reach their stop. And if they are not asleep it's because they're doing something very intense with their mobile (cell) phones, performing some personal grooming with the aid of tiny mirrors or just sitting there staring at foreigners like us.

Another thing you'll notice about the Seoul metro is that you'll rarely get a seat upon boarding the carriage. You might be able to acquire a seat during your journey but forget about getting one upon boarding. The carriages are also huge; wide enough to accommodate hundreds of standing passengers per carriage. It makes traveling in the London tube (underground) carriages feel like you're traveling in a straw.

03 Safer?

Finally, they seem to be slowly getting around to sealing off possible access to the tracks by installing those screens with automatic doors; you know the ones that open in unison with the train doors behind it, once the train has arrived at the designated spot of course (if you've no idea what I'm on about then see the picture to the left). Meg said she heard somewhere that the authorities are installing the doors to curb the number of suicides committed on the tracks by kids who believe they are failing to meet their parents high standards/expectations(it's like that over here). She might be right, and I've no better suggestions. A lot of the stations have them installed already, and plenty more are in the process of installing them. It has got to be costing the metro authority a fortune, considering the number of platforms that make up the massive Seoul metro system.

Btw, Meg loves the Seoul metro system as well, but for different, oh-so girly, reasons; she likes the chirping bird sound the public address system makes to signify the train is approaching a transfer station. Some of the trains however omit the birdie sound and replace it with a sort of catchy orchestral rhyme. Meg doesn't like those trains as much.

· All in good time
Some of the quintessential Korean experiences that make any visit to Korea a memorable one, and experiences we've yet to emm, experience on this trip to Korea include -
1 Downing Soju, potent Korean rice wine that accompanies almost every meal,
2 Having a real Korean meal. Embarrassing, we know, but we've plenty of time for that and more,
3 Getting real clean (and sweaty) in a Korean bath house. One sort of needs a same-sex buddy to accompany you to the bath house. Which brings me to......

· Home sweet home
Now that we've got the green light for the upcoming camp (just don't mention the visa's, okay?) we can show you all the place we'll be calling home for the duration of our contract (10 weeks from Sunday, through December 7th). Check it out here. We'll let you know after Sunday next if it's actually as nice as it looks here.

· It has been a while
Henk (AKA 'The Henkster'... dashing, isn't he ladies?) arrives back in Korea tomorrow. We'll be hooking up over the weekend and the three of us will be bouncing teaching ideas off each other for the next 10 weeks. It's always good to know some of the fellow teachers you'll be in camp with, but having good friends (and even a wife!) really does make it a more enjoyable experience. Bravo to those of you who know who The Henkster is. For those who don't, he's the Australian who accompanied me on my last big trip through Mongolia, Russia and Eastern Europe. We ended that trip and parted company in March of last year after a quick tour of my homeland. Meg has been suffering a Henkster drought for even longer than that - she hasn't seen him since the summer camp we all did together here in Korea back in summer 2005 (the camp Meg and I met at). Needless to say we're both looking forward to catching up with Henk and looking forward to spending the next few months together, months we'll spend as colleagues tackling the Korean winter and, as yet, an unknown number of Korean English students.