Korea part 2, the part that's in Korea
Walking out of the plane into the international dream-state terminal, I'm caught off guard by how bright things are. It is a long walk to customs, but my eyes never really adjust to the light washed corridors. It is still sunny outside, yet they still employ these seemingly stadium caliber lights. I step into a customs line about 10 people long. I see an older gentlemen walk a little farther out and see him turn and disappear. I check behind me and weigh the risk of having to re-enter the line against the possibility there are more customs lanes where I saw him disappear. I follow him. There are 5 foreign passport customs lines with a single person in each. I quickly pass through with a bare minimum of eyecontact with a Korean version of Cate Blanchet, though not as mouthy. I work my way to the exit and follow the Taxi signs, but they all seem to lead to things that are not Taxis. Busses, security guards. Meanwhile, there are sketchy looking guys approaching me every minute or so. Each of them has a card with a cartoon taxi held up to my face while speaking in rapid rapid Korean. I take exception to this kind of treatment, and blow each of them off as if that will somehow discourage this kind of behavior. Seeking a soft reset, I head back into the terminal where I spot the information desk. I ask the nice lady where I can get a Taxi. She asks me where I am going. I show her my hotel itinerary and she calls for their pick-up service. Nice. Dude shows up, all hello's and how-are-you's. I am escorted to a nice looking vehicle and ferried to my hotel for the night.
Checking in, I decide to take the risk of going day-to-day and tell the desk clerk that I only want to pay for one day. She swipes my card for all six days that were originally reserved. No, I just want one day right now since I might be leaving tomorrow, maybe the day after. I don't know yet. Oh, you don't know how to cancel a transaction with a foreign credit card. She returns to the credit terminal to navigate the menus. She figures out how to reverse the charge, then charges me for one night. All good.
My room has a computer in it! It's some decrepit contraption that barely runs a monkey wrench version of explorer. Checking email is torturous so I yank the network cable and plug into OneTop. Everything works. Some of the team in asia respond. I have reservations at the hotel near the facility from Monday night to Friday night, as well as transpo to the facility Monday morning. Good just have to take care of Sunday night. But for some reason I don't. I guess I felt that it was easy to deal with and would continue to be so. I take a shower and bounce out of the hotel to check out my surroundings and possibly locate a store where I can buy a phone. No one speaks english. Like no one. I walk the expanse of the commercial area. Everything is neon and advertising every floor of every building. There are alot of restaurants with alot of good smells burbling out of them. None of them have any english though. Well, some of them do, but not anything I want to eat. Especially after the plane ride. I consign myself to eating at in the restaurant in the basement of the hotel. It's okay. I head over to the convenience store nearby and buy some water and some peach yogurt drink. I search around for seasoned seaweed for Slim, but I can't find any. I hit a few more convenience stores with no luck, but each time I buy a little something to avoid loitering.
Sortof exhausted I retire to my room and take a short nap. I flip through the TV channels. Lots of home shopping. Lots of US and Chinese programming, dubbed and subbed. Lots of music videos and variety shows. I finally settle on the Starcraft channel, simply to satisfy my curiosity for whether you can actually watch. It's not bad. Stay up late enough to chat with Slim for a while. I start nodding off so I say good night and head off to bed. I have some trouble sleeping, probably due to jetlag. My body thinks it's late morning and has entered the region where staying awake is possible, so long as my mind is occupied. It unfortunately is occupied, mostly with work. Played a little Wild Arms XF to distract myself, then watched some more Starcraft. My eyes seemed to slam shut and I keep barely enough presence of mind to hit power on the remote and hear the TV turn off.
In the morning I wake up, take a shower, and head down to the lobby to take care of my room for the extra night. This girl's english isn't nearly as good and she takes a bit longer to understand what I want. She tells me to come back at 10:30. Okay. I head back to my room and noddle around and talk with Slim before she heads out for the afternoon. Then I get a call that my reservation is okay. I just need to go down and pay, so I do. Then I noodle around some more, probably too much, before I decide that I should make good use of the day. Probably head into Seoul. I begin checking subway lines and such. and read up on where to go. I mostly want to goto an elextronics district. Actually, I really want to goto an arcade, but I need to buy a phone. There's this great big mall built atop one of the major train stations in the middle of the electronics district, so I figure that will be the starting point. Getting ready to leave takes a good deal longer than I originally anticipated. I wanted to leave by 2, but a trip to the bank, over to the convenience store to get onigiri lunch, and up to the room to put a belt on and grab my shoulder bag, camera, and I'm off at just before 4o'clock. According to the desk girl, it takes about one to two hours to get where I'm going and costs about four dollars.
The subway station is a five minute walk away and somewhere in that five minutes, something saddles up on my neck and enthusiastically giddies me up. Adventure.
To be continued...
--tJ
Checking in, I decide to take the risk of going day-to-day and tell the desk clerk that I only want to pay for one day. She swipes my card for all six days that were originally reserved. No, I just want one day right now since I might be leaving tomorrow, maybe the day after. I don't know yet. Oh, you don't know how to cancel a transaction with a foreign credit card. She returns to the credit terminal to navigate the menus. She figures out how to reverse the charge, then charges me for one night. All good.
My room has a computer in it! It's some decrepit contraption that barely runs a monkey wrench version of explorer. Checking email is torturous so I yank the network cable and plug into OneTop. Everything works. Some of the team in asia respond. I have reservations at the hotel near the facility from Monday night to Friday night, as well as transpo to the facility Monday morning. Good just have to take care of Sunday night. But for some reason I don't. I guess I felt that it was easy to deal with and would continue to be so. I take a shower and bounce out of the hotel to check out my surroundings and possibly locate a store where I can buy a phone. No one speaks english. Like no one. I walk the expanse of the commercial area. Everything is neon and advertising every floor of every building. There are alot of restaurants with alot of good smells burbling out of them. None of them have any english though. Well, some of them do, but not anything I want to eat. Especially after the plane ride. I consign myself to eating at in the restaurant in the basement of the hotel. It's okay. I head over to the convenience store nearby and buy some water and some peach yogurt drink. I search around for seasoned seaweed for Slim, but I can't find any. I hit a few more convenience stores with no luck, but each time I buy a little something to avoid loitering.
Sortof exhausted I retire to my room and take a short nap. I flip through the TV channels. Lots of home shopping. Lots of US and Chinese programming, dubbed and subbed. Lots of music videos and variety shows. I finally settle on the Starcraft channel, simply to satisfy my curiosity for whether you can actually watch. It's not bad. Stay up late enough to chat with Slim for a while. I start nodding off so I say good night and head off to bed. I have some trouble sleeping, probably due to jetlag. My body thinks it's late morning and has entered the region where staying awake is possible, so long as my mind is occupied. It unfortunately is occupied, mostly with work. Played a little Wild Arms XF to distract myself, then watched some more Starcraft. My eyes seemed to slam shut and I keep barely enough presence of mind to hit power on the remote and hear the TV turn off.
In the morning I wake up, take a shower, and head down to the lobby to take care of my room for the extra night. This girl's english isn't nearly as good and she takes a bit longer to understand what I want. She tells me to come back at 10:30. Okay. I head back to my room and noddle around and talk with Slim before she heads out for the afternoon. Then I get a call that my reservation is okay. I just need to go down and pay, so I do. Then I noodle around some more, probably too much, before I decide that I should make good use of the day. Probably head into Seoul. I begin checking subway lines and such. and read up on where to go. I mostly want to goto an elextronics district. Actually, I really want to goto an arcade, but I need to buy a phone. There's this great big mall built atop one of the major train stations in the middle of the electronics district, so I figure that will be the starting point. Getting ready to leave takes a good deal longer than I originally anticipated. I wanted to leave by 2, but a trip to the bank, over to the convenience store to get onigiri lunch, and up to the room to put a belt on and grab my shoulder bag, camera, and I'm off at just before 4o'clock. According to the desk girl, it takes about one to two hours to get where I'm going and costs about four dollars.
The subway station is a five minute walk away and somewhere in that five minutes, something saddles up on my neck and enthusiastically giddies me up. Adventure.
To be continued...
--tJ