Crowds

Some of you may be aware of where Michael and I lived before we came to Korea.  Here is a picture of my old yard and newly-turned vegetable garden.  Note the absence of people.  I'm sure it was cold that day, but relatively quiet and, of course, beautiful.

Below I will contrast for you the population density.  It did not take any special trips or special occasions for me to encounter humanity in such dense proportions.  This is daily life, although the majority of these pictures were taken on weekends.

The street outside our apartment building.  The intersection is often clogged because drivers inch their way into the intersection hoping to force the light to turn green by being closer to it.  Buses and taxis also believe they are King of the Road and therefore above mere things like red lights.  On Friday nights there is sometimes a traffic director at this intersection.

The subway station

A guided tour

Seoul

And have I mentioned that the sense of personal space is quite different?  When you walk through these crowds, you are subject to being bumped, checked, brushed, or pushed.  The only people who will say "excuse me" for such offenses are Westerners. :-)  So the fun part is that you stick your elbows out, put your head down, and pretend that no one is around.  Bump, check, brush, and push to your heart's content.  No one minds except the Westerners.

War of the Worlds, 2008

Some of you might have heard on the "World News" portion of your evening news that there have been many candlelight protests going on in Seoul regarding the importation of U.S. beef to Korea.  This has been an interesting craze that has been developing over the months, and many of us Americans sort of twitch our lips in a half smile when Koreans get upset over this issue.

Here's the story: About 5 years ago,  a case of Mad Cow disease was detected in a cow that was imported to the US from Alberta (I think--I do remember when it happened).  Because of this, the US froze its exports of beef for 5 years until the problem was sufficiently dealt with.  The 5 year halt on export has now been lifted, and the US has been trying to broker a deal with Korea: beef for electronics.

Well, the Koreans are furious because they are convinced (and I am not kidding) that they are more susceptible to Mad Cow disease that white people and that they will all die from this miserable and obviously rampant disease.  Their protests in the streets of Seoul are numbering around 80,000 people.  80,000+ people who truly believe that Mad Cow taints most US beef at the present time.  All of this seems to be in complete disregard for the fact that there is Avian Flu and apparently Foot and Mouth Disease in their own country.  They will not die of either of the latter before they die of Mad Cow.

I liken this frenzy to a time that I know nothing about--when people panicked because they thought aliens truly had invaded Earth because they heard a fictional story on the radio.  This does not seem all that different.  May we all learn a lesson in all of this--please base your mass protests on fact, or at least some semblance of a fact, before you look stupid to the entire world.

A Trip to the Countryside

Many of you are familiar with our Korean friends, Jimmy and Sarah, who have been great friends and helped make our experience in Korea enjoyable and memorable.  We appreciate them so much because they allow us to see parts of Korea that would otherwise be inaccessible to us. 

 Case in point: Yesan.  Jimmy works as an executive for a major steel company called Posco.  He is currently in charge of a steel-cutting plant in a small town called Yesan, about 2 hours south of Seoul.  He has an apartment there, as he spends several days down there during the work week.  The wonderful thing about this place is that he often invites friends to join him and his wife there on the weekends, and we get to enjoy hiking, small town/countryside diversion from the city, and their famous hotspring.  I've included some pictures of the time we spent there last weekend.

My favorite part of this trip with train ride we got to take.  For about $8.00, we took a 1.5 hour train ride.  The seats almost fully reclined, and Michael discovered a massage chair that really made the trip for him.  :-)

Ahh, one of the quintessential icons of Asia--the terraced rice paddy.  They are very lovely and peaceful to see.

We climbed this mountain.  When we got to the top, Jimmy asked some folks with way was best to go back down to the bottom and they sent us the wrong direction.  So we went down the mountain the wrong way and had to go all the way back up and then down the correct side.  We climbed that dumb thing twice.

At the top--the first time.