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My visit to A&E
Entry 15 of 16 | show all | print this entry |
Due to the last bout of Delly Belhi, the journey to Korea was long and arduous. One key thing I've heard is that if you're flying when ill try not to actually look ill, otherwise they may not let you on the plane. This is tricky when your stomach cramps are making standing upright difficult and you're wearing all your clothes but still shivering.
This was going to be uncomfortable. There was a taxi to Delhi airport, the flight from Delhi to Singapore, a couple of hours sitting around there hurting, then another flight to Incheon in Korea. From there I would get a bus to Seoul station and then a train to Busan (at the opposite end of the country). From there, I would be collected by my cousin Andy and his girlfriend Emma (A&E) and taken to Gimhae, my destination.
From leaving the hotel to arriving at A&E's place took around 26 hours. It felt like double and at the same time like no time at all. When I got there, they took one look at me and wanted to take me to a doctor (A&E rather than A&E's - geddit?!!) but I assured them that I was feeling considerably better than before and was thus unlikely to be dying.
A&E were amazed that I'd actually shown up as they had been convinced when they moved to Busan that nobody would even think about visiting them and here I was, large as life and, er, twice as stomach-crampy.
Next day was one of rest. Some people may think it's great being able to eat what you like and not turn into Jonny Vegas but there is a downside: anything that stops you eating makes you really weak as you have no body fat to live off while you recover. I reckon I'd lost nearly a stone in India (according to the scales in the posh hotel) before this illness and that was a stone I could ill afford to lose. I have no idea how much extra weight I lost in these few days but I felt as weak as a new-born kitten that's suffering from some sort of muscle-wasting disease and spent most of the day lounging on the sofa making A&E's computer work properly (a recurring theme during my travels). We also nipped out to Tesco for some groceries, which I mention only due to a small amount of satisfaction that for once, there's a British (rather than American) company spreading itself around the world in a highly successful manner.
Obviously the solution to the illness (if not perhaps one a doctor would prescribe) was to go boozing and dancing in a 'foreigners' bar'* with A&E and a bunch of their ex-pat friends until around four o'clock on Christmas morning.
Next morning it seems that the doctor I didn't go to see may well have been correct in the advice he didn't give about rest and sleep. I wasn't in a particularly good way. Still, a slap-up Christmas feed with a group of fun people (complete with Chrimbo decorations, crackers, silly hats and the like) and some more booze fixed that. A&E (with some help from a parcel of Chrimbo treats sent by Emma's mum) had managed to recreate the traditional Chrimbo festive atmosphere brilliantly and a great time was had by all^. I even got presents, which I wasn't expecting at all (and as I take the same view on Christmas presents as Andy's parents, I had none to give back).
And on boxing day I slept off the previous days' exertions.
In the evening we went for dinner at a traditional Korean restaurant. A few words on Korean cuisine. In direct contrast to India, they like to 'eat something's flesh'. On the minus side, Korean cuisine also involves a lot of kimchi. Now, I've eaten this stuff before and enjoyed it and wondered why cousin Andy was making such a big deal about it. What I hadn't appreciated is that the Koreans seem to have confused the words 'pickle' and 'rot'. So while you may quite enjoy pickled gerkins, cabbage or other vegetables, I reckon you would probably turn your nose up at something that looks and smells like that soup you find at the bottom of a student's fridge. Fresh fruit and veg isn't particularly common (and is expensive) in Korea, while meat and kimchi are relatively cheap. Read the next paragraph and the reasons why should be fairly obvious.
The day after we decided to find ourselves a mountain. Not that that's difficult in Gimhae as the nearest one to A&E's flat is about 500m away and the next nearest on the other side is probably about 800m. This isn't unusual. South Korea's landscape is about two-thirds mountains with most of the population and arable farming competing for space on the flat bits between. Sounds potentially overcrowded then? Well, the country is around the size of Portugal but has the population of England so when you consider that you can only build on a third of the land, this puts the population density across the entire country nearly on a level with some London boroughs. Good job the Koreans are having an ongoing love affair with their march into modernity then as this means they all want to live in shiny new high-rise apartments with fast Internet access and fingerprint reader door locks. If they ever get over this and decide they'd prefer nice three-bed suburban semis with water features in their low-maintenance gardens there will be anarchy when they realise they won't all fit.
So anyway, we went for a stroll up the local mountain. Now before you get images of snow-capped peaks, I should say that we're talking about only a few hundred metres elevation here as I was still feeling kitten-like and wasn't about to embark on any post-illness heroics. There were some interesting sights as we walked, notably several outside gyms (the Koreans seem to love exercise and I rarely saw anybody there who was overweight) and an open-air classroom (they love education even more than exercise). There was a temple perched on one of the peaks and an observatory on another. I have some pictures of all this somewhere, if I can find them.
After the sushi-drought that was India (I mean you can get sushi in Delhi but would you risk it?), I was amazed that it had taken me three whole days to get some in Korea. I went to A&E's local place, which for the equivalent a fiver supplied me with sixteen pieces (count 'em) of just about the finest nigiri I've ever eaten. Needless to say, given the amazing healing powers of sushi, I felt fairly normal for the first time in nearly a week.
That evening we went to the big city of Busan (with a population of around 450000 - similar to Scotland's capital city - Gimhae is a meer village by Korean standards and so Busan is the place to go for a night out). A highlight of Busan was the fish market, where most of the fish are bought live. Then they will happily kill, prepare, cook and serve the fish too so you can be sure of freshness, er, excepting that time that Andy and some others were chundering for days after the one time they ate there. But apart from the potential risk of having to pay homage to the porcelein god for a week afterwards, it's a great place to eat!
It was raining in Busan and I commented on the fact that anybody who didn't have an umbrella was covering his (always his) head with his hands. It turns out that Korea has a problem with acid rain and those not wanting the recent Kylie Minogue slaphead look try not to let their hair come into contact with it. Actually while on the subject, Andy said that he'd previously had a problem with his hair falling out and this was only cured by washing his hair with bottled water. So while they have pretty much the best communications infrastructure in the world, high-speed trains that would shame Britain~ and mobile phones that you can watch live TV on (complete with a foot-long telescopic Aeriel that slides neatly back into the phone), you can't drink the water. South Korea would like to consider itself a first world nation but I reckon you can't truly consider your country to be civilised if you can't drink (or even wash with) tap water. Alternative opinions on that subject are most welcome.
Most countries you go to around the world can brew pretty good lager. However, Korean lager is (and I'm not sure how this is possible) is even worse than that cold yellow piss that the Americans call beer. It has the same nasty, gassy taste and the same 'somebody seems to have stolen my tongue' lack of flavour. And given the almighty hangovers it gives you (this from Andy as I was still recovering and taking things easy) seems to be made with the same water that falls from Korean skies and shower heads. On the plus side, it does glow in the dark so you can find your pint in a power cut and also does a great job of disinfecting the toilet. Actually, those last two facts are lies. So, er, there are in fact no positives at all.
However, knowing that I like beer that doesn't taste like they just leave the glass under a urinal and serve it when it's been filled up, A&E (and their new friend Julia, who had just arrived in Busan by herself and was still getting over the enormity of having to teach classes of kids but wasn't letting that get in the way of a good drinking sesh) took us to a micro brewery which somehow manages to make and sell delicious Germanic beer. Didn't fix my ale cravings though (the Germans don't do ale).
Unfortunately, after only a few days (and a lot of that time spent recuperating) it was time to leave, which was the same journey in reverse. However, I wasn't able to appreciate it much more than before due to last night's beeriness and lack of sleep. Oh well.
My recurring memory of this place is A&E's flat which felt like such a cosy haven after the chaos of India and subsequent illness. Also of the community of English teacher ex-pats that they're a member of.
Note - I'll update this entry with some relevant photos when I work where the little buggers have got to.
* A bar run by foreigners for foreigners and with a brilliant idea that I've not seen before, a Youtube jukebox. Just connect a computer to the Internet, also to a projector above the dance floor and finally to the sound system and let the punters choose their own music videos from the world's largest pirate video collection. Magic! All we need now is for some bright spark to come up with some dedicated VJ software to mix the Youtube feeds seamlessly.
^ Despite the lack of sprouts. Which I love dearly and only usually get to eat once a year. In fact, for a great non-Christmas sprout recipe, go to http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Bottom and search the page for 'Sprouts Mexicane'. Just don't blame me if they're not to your taste, OK?
~ Come to think of it, a Thomas the Tank Engine play set has trains that would shame Britain. But still, any train where you look up impatiently because it's still stuck in the station going nowhere and find that it actually left several minutes ago and is clipping along at a goodly speed is pretty impressive.
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