Driving me crazy!

Following my story on my almost maiden trip to Seoul (I passed through on my way in to Ulsan), the next few posts will probably be dedicated to some of the finer aspects of life in Korea as I see them.

First up - driving!

I believe that when you observe the behaviours of drivers in any country, you can almost distil the common underlying attitudes and behaviours of any culture and this is no different in Korea. In Australia, you have the laid back attitude, mixed with a little bit of unforgiving self righteous-ness (in the sense that cars belong on the road, pedestrians don't therefore they shouldn't be there and drivers act like that is always the case and no forgiveness if that assumption is violated at an inconvenient moment), some courtesy in patches and a sense that the rules of the road will always protect you. In India, the rules are that there are no rules. Anything goes, everyone owns the road, pedestrians, cars, taxis, auto rickshaws, cows, you name it. Somehow, you manage to get from point A to point B, but not without doubting at various points whether the trip was even worth it in the first place.... "Thanks bhaisab, I'll walk from here..."

As for Korea.... well, let me elaborate.

My first driving experience in Korea was actually long before I got my car - work provides a defensive driving for all staff, as safety is a huge focus here (in my company anyway) and it's especially useful for us expatriates that are not familiar with the Korean road rules and driving behaviours. As part of the course, we did a semi-driving test - where we took a car for a spin around the block and parked the car and such. It was no-where near as harrowing as my actual drivers test, but driving on the right hand side of the road for the first time was definitely freaking me out - you have no idea how much you rely on where you sit in the car to give you a point of reference when driving till when you change! I drove ok, cautiously, but I did drift towards the right side of my lane, subconsciously clinging to the Australian system.

This experience paled in comparison to when I first got my own car here... a bright red, brand spanking new Hyundai Tucson I might add - still had all the plastic on everything inside and had only done 50 km when I first got in it (refer to my previous post as to why it was a Hyundai! haha). I decided that my first drive in my new beast would be a simple trip down the road after work to Home Plus (Tesco's local presence) for some groceries... easy right? Wrong!

Now, to understand the lay of the land here, in regards to driving, let's analyse the average Korean - average to short in stature, mild mannered, fairly quiet, timid, friendly people who will always say hello to strangers, hard working, diligent and generally speaking, fairly peaceful. Take your average Korean and put them behind a wheel of a motor vehicle however.... and a monstrous transformation takes place! Well, it's not that it is completely unpredictable - it's just that Koreans seem to equate driving to work. Koreans are hard and diligent workers and therefore are aggressive by nature in their work life - get the job done quickly, no matter what it takes. They take on a similar attitude to driving. This presents several challenges in both the work world and on the road. 

What this means is that, unlike India, they generally stick to their lanes and obey the road rules most of the time - however this is only when the rules serve their objectives - they assume that if their objectives are compromised, they can bend or break the rules in order to meet their objective. It's the deadline that counts, not how you get there. What this ends up looking like is pure mayhem... Cars and bikes go every which way at times, drivers are impatient and aggressive and red lights will be run if they see no need to stop. To a fresh foreigner, it seems like madness...

So my first drive consisted of my first real drive on the "wrong" side of the road, in a new car I wasn't used to, at night, to a location I'd never been to (thank God for GPS!), and with an order of magnitude crazier traffic than I had ever driven in... needless to say I was a bit confused and anxious throughout the  entire trip and history will tell that I navigated it safely... even if it didn't feel that way!

Since then, I've become a lot more comfortable driving here, and driving on the other side of the road has become normal now, but I still get a bit bamboozled when drivers do things out of left field - like buses cruising around traffic waiting at a red light and ploughing through, being consistently overtaken by motorbikes on the inside (combined with motorcyclists and scooters being very unpredictable in general) and the odd use of the hazard lights as a universal pass to do whatever the hell you want on the road... "oh hey, I cut you off, turned left across four lanes and ran a red light and a pedestrian crossing but if I put on my hazard lights, its all ok, no worries". 

It can drive you nuts at times, but I am starting to see their method in the madness - not that I have any plans to adopt their methods, I will stick to my guns and drive defensively - i.e. I ain't running no red light just because you're honking your horn buddy! - but by at least understanding their driving philosophy can help predict their actions and avoid putting myself or others in danger. 

Definitely one of the keys to navigating this country safely, and I hope that none of it rubs off on me! Otherwise.... look out Australian road users upon my return!
Until next time - drive safely readers!
PS: Although I have become used to driving here now, India is one place I will NEVER drive - here is a video to illustrate why...

Searching for my Seoul... (part 2)

In a galaxy far, far away, our story continues with our hero well rested after an unsuccessful quest after the cheapest hotel room in existence. This has not been the first time he has exerted his energies in search of a bargain and sure as hell won't be the last....

Ahhh well, moving on. After resting my weary legs, I started to feel the stomach rumble and ducked out of the hotel to get some grub. The Lonely Planet guide indicated I was near one of the popular markets, Namdaemun - which is near central Seoul - and I decided I'd go check it out. 

Namdaemun market is fairly similar to every other shopping market I've ever been to in Asia - full of stalls selling a wide variety of stuff - most of it being fake handbags, Louis Vutton ties, Gucci sunglasses, etc that all falls apart within a week or two if you're careful, otherwise it might not make it out of the market alive. Needless to say, when that happens and you go back to return your brand spanking new Ray Band sunnies that just happened to have the lense fall out the first time you try them out, the stall you bought it from magically turns into a deep fried indescribable local food stall. Such is the nature of the fabric of the Asian market universes  - Petaling St in KL and Palika Bazaar in New Delhi can claim similar honours. The one benefit from the Korean version is that the shopkeepers aren't as in-your-face as their Indian counterparts nor are you likely to have poo thrown on your shoe (that is another story entirely!). But I could be proven wrong... however the deep fried whatever it was wasn't too bad and my glasses are still broken.

I can almost go down in history as the worst shopper ever. Unless I know exactly what I want and why I want it, I inadvertently spend my time being indecisive, umming and erring over even the simplest of purchases and usually end up walking away with nada. I managed to get out of my predicament a little this time when, as I was attempting to ask for a price on something, a Korean lady helped me out. She started talking to me, as she knew some English, and then asked if she could walk around the market with me and chat. Apparently, she was from out of town, visiting her daughter who studies at a uni there and she'd been studying English and wanted to practice - so she followed me around and taught me a few things about Korea while we had a relatively broken conversation as she struggled with my accent and I tried my best to follow what she was saying. What surprised me was that her daughter seemed to know little to no English - which is a bit of a role reversal to what you usually come across. The sweet lady even showed me some of the nearby food stalls and explained to me what was in all the dishes - lets just say I might reconsider trying some of those now - ignorance is bliss when experimenting with food!

Since this experience in Seoul, I've since found it is not a unique occurrence - everywhere I go, someone will spot the foreigner and use it as an opportunity to try out their English - mostly its kids saying "Hi" and "Where are you from?". I sometimes wonder how they would even know that I know English - I could be German for all they know - I've never had a Korean child come up to me and say "Guten tag!" That'll be the day... Meanwhile, if you are a foreigner and you don't know Korean or English and don't have a translator or tour guide, you would be almost up the proverbial creek in this country. You'd survive, but English can be a saviour at times, even if it is a poor one.

I parted ways with my inadvertent English student, satisfied that I may have introduced some Aussie slang to her vocabulary just to confuse her (I'm such a great teacher like that) and retreated to the hotel for some shut-eye.

The next day was a little more routine in the tourist sense - I checked out of the hotel, left my luggage in a locker at the train station (I casually mention this, but was a lot more work than expected!) and caught the subway to meet a friend at Gyeongbok Palace. 

Gyeongbok Palace

Gyeongbok Palace is one of the five palaces in Seoul and is the first palace of the Joseon dynasty. It's design follows Confucian philosophy and is simple in design, and from my point of view, looks very similar to a lot of the traditional East Asian architecture that is found throughout China and Japan. 

We arrived there just in time to see the changing of the guards ceremony, where numerous Korean men were decked out in traditional garb with weaponry and all and went through their ritual to the amusement of the gathered crowd. 

Bang that drum sunshine. I never would have thought colourful long flowing robes would be useful in combat, but there you go.

Our timing was not so perfect in terms of the free English tour of the palace, so we ducked out to check out another local market - Insadong. 

Insadong market

Insadong is a quaint market that tends to focus on selling more of the traditional arts and crafts of Korea/Asia and is a bit more cultural than Namdaemun, and has a lot less fake goods on offer. A very nice place to go for a wander on a Sunday afternoon and we were treated to a couple of small "cultural" performances... see the attached video.

I never said it was a Korean cultural performance! Seeing a turkish ice cream vendor in Seoul was a welcome reminder of Istanbul, and definitely unexpected!

Heading back to the palace, I observed more interesting aspects of Korea that I will elaborate on in further posts - due mainly to the length of this one! I imagine many of you have either flicked back to facebook or a youtube video by now, but for those who are still tuned in, I'll finish my story!

The tour of the palace was nice, and learning about and appreciating the history of a place is always fulfilling - I won't go into in this post, but Korea's history is an interesting one and hard to perhaps get an objective view of it - given the ongoing war with the North and long term resentment of Japan - these aspects have a sometimes subtle, sometimes not so subtle, influence on how the country's history is portrayed. 

Kicking it on a cultural tour - the building behind me was the party pad for the royal family - yeah boi

View behind the palace - great day.

After a pleasant afternoon getting my culture on, we made our way to where the Seoul Baha'i Community's Naw Ruz celebration was to be held. For those less familiar, Naw Ruz is the Baha'i New Year (it is also the term for Persian new year as well - literally means new year in Farsi) and marks the beginning of the Baha'i Calendar and the end of the Fasting period. Hence why a buffet Korean meal hit the spot perfectly! Over the years I have noticed however, that no matter how great the idea is, fasting tends to shrink the stomach and you can never eat as much as would have liked. Alas, it happened again, but the food was delish and the company was even better! It was great meeting the Baha'is in Seoul and partaking in a joyous celebration with them - the stand out was the performance put together by the youth and the quiz/game show afterwards. Having seen Baha'i youth do creative performances all over the world, they definitely took a unique approach to it and, as usual, it was an extremely joyful occasion and the crowd really appreciated it. I then had time to catch a coffee with some of my new friends before hitching a ride on the KTX train back to Ulsan. 

Youth performance at Naw Ruz celebration

Overall, I was very satisfied with my visit to Seoul and I look forward to going there more as my time in Korea  continues!

Until next time readers - gamsahapnida!

Searching for my Seoul...

Annyong ha seyo readers! After only just getting back on the gravy train that is the blogosphere, I thought I would be timely to regale you all with a tale of my adventure up to Seoul - that capital of the country I now call home.
Three weeks ago was Naw Ruz - Baha'i New Year - and as there are no other Baha'i's in Ulsan, I decided to head up to Seoul to celebrate the occasion with the community there. Although it seemed a bit early to be travelling away from Ulsan as I had only just moved into my new apartment and hadn't had any time to explore the local area, I thought that I shouldn't pass up the opportunity to meet some of the Baha'is in Seoul and surrounds.
I left the apartment at a reasonable time in the morning and caught a cab out to the train station - it took about half an hour, which isn't too bad considering I had no idea the station was well out of town.
You may have heard that in countries such as Korea and Japan, they have installed these "bullet" trains that are super fast to go between major cities - in Korea it's called the KTX - and I took this up to Seoul. It took about 2 hours and 15 min and cost roughly $50 one way - pretty cheap and quick considering the alternative is an hour or so flight that costs 3 - 4 times as much. For another comparison if one were to drive to Seoul, it takes 4-5 hours I've been told - almost the same distance between Perth and Albany!  The train even felt kind of like flight - a flight that stopped to swap out passengers every half an hour, had no safety briefing and had wireless internet (that I couldn't figure out how to connect to).

"Anyonghaseyo, this is your kaptain speaking... prepare for horizontal take off"

Unfortunately, my goal of looking out the window mindlessly and appreciating the Korean Kountryside  for 2 hours was hindered by being assigned an aisle seat - so instead I enjoyed the company of my iPad - Apple saves the day! Considering the other option was the in-ride magazine which had oh-so-helpful English titles but had absolutely no English in the body of the text - way to appeal to the foreigners. All in all, a fairly pleasant experience and very convenient method of getting around the country.
Now - my first day was a bit of a different one in a tourist sense. In short, I ended up taking an extensive tour of Seoul's subway network - which is top notch - and not really achieving my objective.

Seoul central station - home of the KTX

The longer, and more interesting story, goes like this... leading up to my trip to Seoul, I spent some time trying to look for accommodation. I was hoping to stay with a friend, but due to circumstances, I was unable to and I had to look for a place to crash for the night. In vintage style, I left it to the last minute (as us engineers always say, if it wasn't for the last minute, nothing would ever get done) and so I was poking around on the internet the night before to find a hotel to stay at. As I begin to scroll through the numerous options on a recently discovered and very useful website, asiarooms.com, I stumble across a deal that I could not refuse! Some hotel had slashed the price of its rooms from W120,000 to W700!! In AUD that equates from discounting from $120 to 70 CENTS (I'm highlighting this because I mentioned it to friend and it did not compute). Naturally, I was curious as to whether it was a typo, thinking it cannot be physically possible to rent out a room for 70c a night - surely even turning on the lights cost more than that! Maybe half the room was missing? or it was a closet? or something - I felt like I had to make it my personal mission to find out - I mean what was the worst that could happen? Either it was fake and no harm done, I pay a bit more for a room, or I could find out it was an absolute shocker and I move somewhere else and I lose 70c (oh no!) OR I could gain the eternal fame of having gotten THE bargain of the century - somewhere in my mind the benefits of this scheme far outweighed the negatives.
(Note: I'm not a complete idiot - this website is legit, the crime rate in Korea is extremely low and I know how to avoid dangerous situations - but as they say, curiosity killed the cat - I think it was all for a good cause :) )
With my mission clear in my mind, I set out to find this mysterious hotel.
As I mentioned before, Seoul's subway system is great - at first glance it seems like a confusing network of multi-coloured lines and it involves a complicated version of joining the dots and a bit of keen linear programming to figure out the best way to get from point A to point B - especially when your super cheap hotel is located in dingo woop woop, relatively speaking - relative because as the crow flies, its still a shorter distance than making your way from one end of Perth CBD to the other.
I determined my path of least resistance, with the aid of a giant iPad-esque information screen at the train station which was conveniently in English, bought a ticket at a measly 90c (winner) and made my way to where the website advised of the hotels location.

The ridiculously cheap and extremely convenient Seoul subway...

After several changes of trains, I arrived at where the "pin" marked the sport (side note - imagine google making a treasure map - haha) and low and behold - I was in a fish market! I looked through every back street for this damn hotel and all I found was rows of stalls with seaweed and dried fish. Not only did it stink to high heaven, I repeatedly walked past the same blank faced locals who must have been wondering why this random foreigner, dragging along noisy luggage, was wandering in circles and I still couldn't find the bloody hotel!
In desperation, I turned to my iPad for a solution - thankfully some ignorant or generous locals hadn't locked their wireless (I sometimes wonder why people don't do that, but I wasn't complaining in this situation) and used the ever useful Google to revise my destination coordinates. With a bit more searching it turned out I was way off - the updated location was another 20 min subway ride away! *sigh* I set off again, not willing to give up on my quest for the cheapest hotel in history! I was getting tired at this stage and having delusions about what the hotel would be like... needless to stay at this time I began questioning whether the hotel even existed, and whether I was a sucker to some sort of scam... I imagine if you get enough people giving you 70c, eventually you'll defraud millions, but you have to be a dedicated fraudster to turn a profit.
I eventually made my way to the new location, which as you'd expect from the Google Maps application, seemed highly vague, mainly due to the fact Google Maps for Korea is in, you guessed it, Korean and not English-afied Korean - I had determined I was on the right street but for all intents and purposes had no idea how far along the street the hotel was. I walked for what felt like an eternity and passed countless motels (many of which are the infamous "love" motels - more on this in another post) and hotels, none of which were my mysterious hotel - I felt like I was searching for platform 9 3/4! (insert nerdy reference).

One "love" motel aptly located next to the sexy club. No funny business here

At this point, I decided to loosen the purse strings, excusing myself from the principle of my adventure temporarily, and hopped in a taxi, hoping that the driver would at least have some idea. He plugged it into his GPS and we drove back down the way I had just walked (sigh again with the waste of energy) and drove around the corner with the GPS indicating it was just there... but alas the street ended just before the supposed street number of the hotel! Where on earth was this freakin hotel?! Finally, with no internet nearby to recalibrate and feeling tired after a few hours of investigation, I curtailed my search, and came to a sudden realisation that I wasn't really THAT tight. I was satisfied that I put in a solid effort, with the side benefits of seeing a part of Seoul I probably wouldn't have seen otherwise and figuring out the subway system.

Tired, disappointed, but mildly content, I made my way back to central Seoul, found the nearest hotel and rested.... in preparation for more adventures! To be continued in part 2.... Stay tuned!