Weeks 30–42 · Seoul, South Korea · August – October 2014
Korea —
Everland (full disclosure: owned by Samsung) with a Liger that was a great surprise, the saxophone/sex phone incident at team building, Koreans sweeping the Oktoberfest beer-guzzling contest, Jack Daniels slammers with a driver’s licence, the Asian Games, herpes vs shingles with a German MC, and a solo 25-mile bike ride to the east coast with a 22-year-old elastic cord.
Good week with Alexandra and Annelise visiting — I am proud that they were able to learn quickly the metro and get around town with little problem and visited the various tourist sites and they helped around the apartment dealing with Korean maintenance workers fixing stuff. Additionally, we were able to do a couple of traditional Korean activities — theme park, bowling, and baseball.
Theme park — we went to Everland (full disclosure — owned by Samsung) — the best all-around park I have been to — like Epcot with various country sections (but nicer) with good roller coasters and a great zoo/safari park. And another thing typical in Korea — the entrance fee to get in similar to a U.S. theme park, but once inside, food prices were the same as in restaurants outside the park. The “European” section of the park was very nice while the “American” section of the park portrayed the town of “Rocksville, USA” and was stuck in the 1950s and focused on eating burgers.
Everland in Yongin, about 40km south of Seoul, is South Korea’s largest theme park and is indeed owned by Samsung C&T Corporation, a subsidiary of the Samsung Group. It consistently ranks among the top 20 most-visited theme parks in the world by annual attendance, with roughly 7–8 million visitors per year. The safari section — one of Asia’s largest drive-through safari parks — is home to a Liger: a hybrid offspring of a male lion and a female tiger, which only occurs in captivity as their natural ranges do not overlap. Ligers are typically larger than either parent species and are among the largest known cat hybrids in existence.
Bowling — have a bowling alley in the basement of my apartment — better than I thought it would be. I do not want to meet the person that needs this warning in the bowling alley — no jumping and overhand throwing of a 12 lb bowling ball allowed.
Baseball — went with a large group — another tight game of 16-12 with 40 hits and about 5 errors. Makes for a lot of cheering — this time the cheerleaders were there (both the lady-type and the one crazy guy) and it was non-stop for three hours. Noticed that the cheering melodies were mostly old US songs (themes from Green Acres, Addams Family, plus Surfing USA, and Smooth by Santana).
It was good spending quality time with the girls but now off different directions — Annelise was a trooper and left Seoul 9:30pm Friday night east coast time and flew all night and still made her work shift Saturday night.
A weather note — I was told that the weather in Seoul was terrible in July — it was — rainy and 95 degrees and 100% humidity for pretty much the entire time they visited. But the last day the weather broke and it was perfect and apparently Fall has begun.
This is my first update from the new page — I changed on the recommendation of a couple people that I should figure out a way to organise the update better and I can be a little more politically incorrect now (but my mom is on here so it won’t be too bad) with a much smaller group.
Over the past three weeks, transitioned from Mexico back to Korea as a base with a longer than planned stopover back in DC. When you leave your passport in the seatback pocket it hampers your travel. I was lucky to track it down through the United lost and found but I started the process to get a replacement which would have been another week using an expediting company. I do not know if it is post-9/11 or that I do not work for an American company, but last time I had to get a new passport it took a couple of hours, not a couple of weeks.
We had a team building session this week and as part of the session, you have to interview someone you do not know and give a 5-minute introduction speech (and they do likewise). Below is a short recap:
Me — what is your hobby?
Mr X — work
Me — anything else?
Mr X — I like sex phone
Me — Not sure you want to share that with everyone.
Mr X — It is OK, Mr. Y (another attendee) plays too and sometime we play with each other.
Me — (thinking way too much information is being shared) — For how long?
Mr. X — I just started, but Mr. Y teaches lessons.
Me — (figured it out) — You mean saxophone?
Mr. X — Yes — Sex phone.
I then explained how I misunderstood and he was horrified. But over Soju & Karaoke later in the evening everyone thought it was very funny and giving Mr. X and Mr. Y a hard time.
Went to an Oktoberfest — it was sponsored by “Germany” so it was a much bigger event than we thought it was going to be. Koreans and Germans drinking beer together — it was not for the faint hearted. Standard singing and contests — my favourite was “nail driving.” For the contests no constraints on nationality, except beer guzzling was limited to 50% German and 50% Korean citizens. Koreans swept them.
The Seoul Oktoberfest, officially the Korea-Germany Friendship Festival (코리아-독일 우호의 밤), has been held annually in Seoul since the 1990s and is one of the largest Oktoberfest events outside Germany. It is organised with the involvement of the German Chamber of Commerce in Korea (KGCCI) and the German Embassy. South Korea is one of Germany’s most significant Asian trading partners, with over 600 German companies operating in Korea. The event typically takes place in September at the COEX convention centre in Gangnam — the same general area visible from the baseball stadium in the previous chapter — and draws thousands of Korean and expat attendees alongside the German business community.
We had a celebration dinner this week — a couple people leaving to go on assignments in Saudi and a young lady in our department announced her engagement. It was Korean BBQ, but pig neck was the specialty of this restaurant. A little fatty but crisp it up enough on the BBQ, drown in salt and sauce and wrap in lettuce and it is great. During the dinner I was asked if I liked the Cass beer…I said the Americas call it “Ass” for a reason. So something was said in Korean and a new hire was dispatched somewhere. Apparently the instruction was get Mr Jarrett some suitable American beverage. He returned with bottles of Jack Daniels.
In the Korean tradition, everyone slid their drink glass to the end of the table (we had about 10 people) and each of the 6 oz glasses was filled full. I intervened and said that is not the way you drink Jack Daniels…we ordered coke and made some pretty strong Jack and Cokes…but I wasn’t clear and someone yelled “gombae” which means empty glass and down they all went. Afterwards I explained you don’t slam it, you just drink it with the meal. That didn’t hold a lot of appeal so I had to revert to the old school “slammer”. A shot glass 50/50 mix and a driver’s licence to cover the shot glass on the slam. This was much more appealing to the group. But in accordance with policy, 9pm we wrapped it up.
Stress is a big part of Korean life. I was having a discussion with a co-worker who had twin 3-year-olds. She was stressing because she couldn’t decide on which pre-pre-K English prep school to send her child — phonics or reading/grammar. Because to get into the right elementary school with both English and Korean classes, when they are 5 years old they have to pass an English test. It is the goal of every Korean to have their kids speaking fluent English so that they are prepared for a global economy. Of course, she was double-stressed that both kids made it to the same elementary school. She isn’t a tiger mom, but just dealing with the reality of how competitive Asia is coming.
Over the weekend, went to the Asian Games…Olympic sports for Asian countries and billed as the second-largest gathering of athletes after the summer Olympics. Track and field Saturday night with about 10 people in our group and off to beach volleyball Sunday. Basketball and soccer were sold out by the time we were organised. Except for going to the wrong stadium for track and field initially, it worked out pretty good.
The 2014 Asian Games (officially the 17th Asian Games) were held in Incheon, South Korea from September 19 to October 4, 2014 — the third time South Korea had hosted the Games. Incheon is located about 40km west of Seoul and is home to Incheon International Airport. The Games featured 36 sports and 439 events, with 45 national Olympic committees participating. China topped the medal table, followed by South Korea and Japan. The 2014 edition was notable for including esports (video gaming) as a demonstration sport for the first time at any major multi-sport event, presaging its later inclusion as an official medal sport.
Pretty mundane week — so have an older translation story that happened a while back. We were at a corporate event which had an opening safety/health topic with a German MC. Imagine a heavy German accent — “Today — we want to talk about your health and getting vaccinated against the herpes. Herpes is something we all want to avoid — it will interfere with work and travelling and who wants that itching on a long flight or in a business meeting. It is OK to talk about the herpes, I caught the herpes from my brother or sister when I was about 8 and I assume most of you caught the herpes in the same way. I encourage you to get vaccinated today.”
Now — herpes is what people outside the US call shingles and he was referring to catching chickenpox as a kid…I knew at the time that is what he was referring to, but some of my U.S. colleagues were dumbfounded.
I was back in Korea for three weeks, longest I had been in one spot since April so started to get into a routine and decided to prepare dinner one night — I had my frosted flakes and milk and I was looking for a bowl and couldn’t find any. I kept looking until I remembered Alexandra, Annelise, and I were cleaning up before getting on a flight and had loaded the dishwasher with all of their cereal bowls — apparently we didn’t start the dishwasher so it was a bit ripe. So went to a sushi place downstairs after I threw away all the contents of the dishwasher. Maybe when I get back to Korea I will try food preparation again.
Songdo, where the beach volleyball final was held, is a purpose-built international business district in Incheon constructed almost entirely on reclaimed land from the Yellow Sea. Started in 2003, it was designed as a smart city from scratch — one of the first major examples globally. It hosts branch campuses of multiple international universities including George Mason, the State University of New York (SUNY), the University of Utah, Ghent University, and others, as part of a strategy to attract international students and businesses. The Incheon Global Campus concept was intended to make the district a hub for international higher education in Northeast Asia.
Can’t have an update without an Annelise action shot. Great seeing her play some games while home. Except for a great week of vacation in the Kentlands, it has been awhile since I was actually doing anything other than working in either Mexico or Korea.
My Korean co-workers/friends in Mexico are very nice and very blunt — after the “Mexican-Korean food vortex” ended I put some of the weight back on in Korea which led to this conversation:
Mr. X — “Mr. Jarrett — aren’t you cold?”
Me — “A little.”
Mr. Y — “It is OK, his fat keeps him warm.”
Mr. Z — “And white people don’t get cold.”
I assured them that white people get cold, it was a chilly morning of about 60 degrees with dew. But they had Carhartt jackets, gloves, and ear muffs…so they were prepared.
Back in Korea we were coming to the end of a long Saturday at work when we got a meetup group text about the “Great Korean Beer Festival” — we had not heard much about it so we decided to try. It was a craft beer festival — about 80% western (and mostly U.S. Expats) and pretty much opposite of what we were expecting. Low key, people drinking beer for the taste (no gombae), and talking to Americans & British about normal stuff. Expats are very friendly as everyone is in the same boat so it is always easy to meet people and some Samsung Expats were there as well to introduce us to others. It was on the museum grounds of the national war museum in an area called Itaewon where most all the Expats and military live (we were considered to have gone “native” living in an all-Korean area). Many of the booths were microbrews in Seoul — so we got the addresses of multiple places to eat handmade pizza and other western food that I just do not get in my neighbourhood. One shocking fact — I met a senior manager from Outback — there are 105 Outbacks in Seoul metro area.
On my one day off, I drove across the entire country to Gangneung on the east coast — about 2.5 hours total. It was cloudy in Seoul but sunny and spectacular on the east coast and the leaves were at peak driving through the mountains. The ocean had no waves and was crystal clear. It somewhat reminded me of Lake Tahoe with the trails in the pine trees just off the sandy shore and I rode about 25 miles up and down the coast and around a lake inland. One thing different here from Seoul (besides 26 million less people) is that I was not invisible — people noticed me. At first I thought everyone was very friendly waving at me saying “anneyo” — which I thought was short for “annyeonghaseyo” or hello. Then an old guy jumped in front of me waving both hands and I scraped a pine tree avoiding him. I confirmed “anneyo” is actually “no” — I guess no bike riding on those trails. The indoor sports at the 2018 Winter Olympics will be held in this town — it is in the Pyeongchang region. Unlike Sochi, Korea isn’t spending $50 billion…they are focused on temporary facilities (that can be moved) and few new resorts — the big investment is on a high-speed train through the mountains to Seoul and most everyone will commute up and back an hour each way at 250 MPH. Some excitement on the drive back as my bike partially fell off the rack while going about 60 MPH — the elastic cord that secured the bike to the rack broke and the rear tire was dragged for awhile, no major damage but it did get my attention. Cord was only 22 years old…
“Cord was only 22 years old…”
Gangneung hosted the ice sports venues for the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics, including speed skating, figure skating, ice hockey, and curling. The prediction in this post about the high-speed train proved accurate: a dedicated KTX Gyeonggang line was built connecting Seoul to Gangneung specifically for the Olympics, reducing travel time from about 2.5 hours (the drive referenced here) to approximately 2 hours by train at speeds up to 250 km/h. The line opened in December 2017, two months before the Games. Gangneung’s coastline — described here as running about 50 miles of sand toward the North Korean border — is part of the Yeongdong coastal region known for its clear water and pine forests, much of which remained restricted military zone until relatively recently.