The Japan Adventures, Part 3: Fukuoka to Beppu

We arrived at Fukuoka on the morning of Saturday, June 4th, and had cleared customs by 11:15. Due to my work schedule (I work from 2PM to 10PM), I usually roll out of bed at 11:30 in the morning. Having completed international travel before the time one normally gets up certainly can leave one feeling a tad exhausted! From the Fukuoka airport, it's a short subway ride to Hakata station - the place you need to go in order to catch a train to pretty much anywhere else on the island of Kyushu.

At Hakata Station we met up with one of my cousin's friends, SF, who lives in Fukuoka. She suggested we go for ramen. I'd heard over and over that Fukuoka was famous for ramen, and that I absolutely needed to eat some ramen while I was there... my thought had been: Ramen? Seriously? I mean, I eat ramen almost every day for lunch (it's cheap, it's not disgusting, and it's easy to make at work), but I couldn't imagine going out for ramen, no matter how delicious it was purported to be. However, as my cousin and his friend SF were the Japanese speakers of our trio, I followed meekly along. The dish of ramen I had was not only the most delicious ramen I've ever eaten, but it was one of the most delicious meals I've ever eaten. It had such a rich variety of spices - and not hot spices like Korean ramen - that it was a complete mouthgasm. Absolutely wonderful.

Deliciousness!

My cousin and his friend SF in front of Hakata Station

After lunch, my cousin and I said goodbye to SF and hopped on a train to Beppu, approximately 2 hours away. I was quite surprised by how much the Japanese countryside looked like the Korean countryside.

Leaving the train station in Beppu, the first thing one sees is one of the creepiest statues I have ever seen:

The caption engraved in English just below it reads "The man called "Shiny Uncle" who loved children" - which does not make it any less creepy.

Beppu is known for its hot springs - this is actually the reason most people travel there. Granted we had gone there for monkeys and abandoned amusement parks, but hey, I figured I should point this out. Next to the creepy Shiny Uncle statue is the first hot spring visitors to Beppu are likely to see - and it's described as a "hand bath" (which mainly means a good place for children to splash).

Plan A was to head straight from the train station to the Takasakiyama Monkey Park... unfortunately, by the time we got there, it had closed for the day. I could have cried. [In case you want to visit, take bus AS60 or AS61 from in front of the Beppu train station. It leaves for monkey mountain at twenty minutes past the hour, every hour until 4:20pm, and the trip to the monkey park costs 230 yen.]

This way to the monkeys! Unfortunately, they close at 4:30pm.

Following our thwarted attempt to visit the monkey park, we checked into our hostel, the Happy Neko ("happy cat"), which is located right in the center of the main hot spring area of Beppu. This would have been a bit more useful had we gone there for the hot springs, but hey, live and learn. The area where the hostel is located is not only filled with hot springs, venting steam into the air, but it's a great pedestrian area, with paved walkways and tons of restaurants. (And did I mention hot springs?) After a yummy dinner of yakisoba, I decided that even though it was barely after seven, it was time to go to bed. There's only so much I can do on four hours of sleep.

In a bar in Beppu...

Yakisoba!

High School reunion, Korean style

The school where I work is owned and operated by an American woman (G) and her Korean husband (YM). I've known G since I was eight or nine years old, and she is one of my best friends. G and I went to elementary, middle, and high school together in a small, southern town in the USA. It's a little odd to think about two people from our hometown living and working in the same place in Korea... but we're hardly the only graduates from our alma mater on the peninsula. One of our friends - a high school buddy of ours (S) - is in the US military, and is currently stationed on the Korean peninsula. S has been here for nearly a year now, although as he isn't stationed in Daegu, before yesterday I'd only seen him three times and G hadn't seen him at all.

Yesterday, however, S came down to Daegu and the three of us - plus YM and their adorable baby - spent the day together. It was a wonderful and totally chill day. We went up into the Palgong mountain area, to a small duck restaurant (that raises their own ducks and grows their own veggies) for an absolutely delicious lunch.

G, YM and their baby... and really delicious 오리 고기 (duck meat)


A good lunch = a happy baby!

This was followed by a trip to the brand new Daegu Art Museum (abbreviated repeatedly as dam - which, while not spelled damn still inspired much mockery). An art museum was a rather absurd destination for the five of us, as the baby is too young to appreciate art, and the rest of us, well, we don't exactly dig modern art. Luckily for you, the museum didn't allow cameras, or else you might have to suffer through photos of blue canvas, black canvas, and white canvas (and other such "works" of modern "art"), accompanied by my snarky commentary. The baby began to cry (his voice echoing quite stunningly throughout the galleries) and we may have used that as an excuse to make a quick exit.

[For those of you who are modern art fans - this place is located near Daegu Stadium. It's a huge complex that just opened on May 26th. There are several galleries currently exhibiting paintings and sculptures, and several more galleries that as yet are still empty.]

dam: Daegu Art Museum

On the museum grounds is a fairly large decorative water feature, complete with quite a few signs warning people to stay out of the water. These signs were, of course, being completely ignored - and there were more people in and around the water feature than there were inside the museum proper. We took the baby for a swim, which was tons of fun to photograph.

My favorite photo of the day: Babyzilla!
(That's S sitting in the background, btw.)


My favorite bit of art at the museum. Granted, this was made by me, so I'm a bit biased.

Afterwards, YM took the baby home while G, S, and I went for coffee. Later we went grocery shopping, then hung out at G and YM's home, watching TV, having excellent conversation, and eating yummy dinner (E-mart curry and nan is excellent). After I returned home, I thought about how domestic our day had been. Additionally, much of our conversation had revolved around things such as acquaintances behaving badly - and immaturely - both here in Korea and back home in the States. Honestly, this was the first day that I have had the thought that yes, finally, I am a grown up. Granted, I'm in my 30s, so in theory I've been a grown up for a while, but somehow it's only just now kicking in.

The Japan Adventures Part 2: Juvenile interlude

Unfortunately, there is quite a lot pertaining to travelling from Busan, South Korea to Fukuoka, Japan that lends itself to juvenile humor. I figured it best to go ahead and just get it all out there so we can indulge the 13 year old boy lurking inside all of us and move on.

For starters, Fukuoka is NOT pronounced fuck you okay, no matter how much your brain wants to read it as such. It's foo-koo-oh-kah. And that subway station on the Fukuoka metro that's transliterated as Gofukumachi? Also not pronounced the way your brain is reading it.

It would be a lot easier to bypass the juvenile thoughts, were it not for the fact that the airport code of Busan is PUS (this comes from the fact that Busan - 부산 - was formerly Romanized as Pusan), and the airport code for Fukuoka is FUK. Sigh. There's just no getting around it.

Now that we've indulged in some juvenile humor, we can move on to the actual trip. Stay tuned for Part 3: Fukuoka to Beppu

The Japan Adventures, Part 1: The part during which we are still in Korea

My cousin and I left work at 10pm last Friday, took a taxi from there to the train station, and purchased tickets to Busan (부산). As we waited for the train to arrive, there were several announcements concerning train #167 – our train – but as my Korean skills are embarrassingly shite, I couldn’t make out much more than the number. The train arrived at the appropriate time, and we boarded…

…my ticket was for car 13, seat 10D, and someone was sitting in my seat. I pulled out my ticket and showed it to him. Instead of looking apologetic and moving (as usually happens in such situations), he whipped out his ticket: car 13, seat 10D. I asked if he was going to Busan. The guy was wearing headphones, and I thought perhaps his destination was Daegu (대구) and perhaps he hadn’t realized that he’d arrived. But no. He was going to Busan, too. Weird. The ticketing system is electronic, so who knows how that happened.

Luckily the train wasn’t crowded, and there was plenty of room for me and my cousin to sit elsewhere.

Now, normally the KTX train from Daegu to Busan stops at the transfer to Ulsan (울산). KTX trains are also almost always on time. Our train was scheduled to arrive in Busan at 11:40. At exactly 11:40, our train rolled to a stop in… Gupo (구포). My exact words were “Where the fuck is Gupo?” Wherever we were, a good 90% of the passengers disembarked. Between the indecipherable announcements back in Daegu about train #167, the dude with the ticket for my seat, and the mass exodus of our fellow passengers, I began to panic that we’d gotten on the wrong train.

Luckily, my worries were for naught. The Gupo train station turns out to be connected to the Gupo subway station, and it’s a mere five minute train ride or so from the train’s final stop – Busan Station, our destination. [In retrospect, Gupo is closer to the airport than Busan Station, but… live and learn, I suppose.]

The Busan train station is located directly across the street from the seedy Chinatown/Russiatown district, located along Texas Street. How’s that for an international hodgepodge? My cousin and I got rooms in the "Kolon Motel" just outside of the ‘international’ district, and decided to do a bit of exploring. Unfortunately, as we had to be up at 6am, we didn’t do much other than wander through the district for about 45 minutes, counting prostitutes (sadly nearly all Russian), and confusing passersby by speaking in sentences which mixed Russian, English, and Korean. Or at least I did, anyway: “Кошка, кссс, кссс, кссс, привет! Hello, 고양이. 괜찮아요, Do you want to be my friend?” Okay, so I may have stalked some stray cats there, too… I am an international cat lady, after all!

Kolon Motel: A great name for your motel if it's on the ass-end of a seedy district.


WTF?? The Russian reads 'cheap cellular service' - cell phones, sim cards, and juicers?

The next morning we took a taxi to the airport.

Ages ago when I got my visa for Korea, the visa arrived stamped into my passport with a mistake: it says my gender is male. Er… it’s international cat lady, folks. I had no trouble entering Korea back in July or getting my Alien Resident Card shortly thereafter. In fact, I’d completely forgotten about this.

When my cousin (he’s a dude, btw) and I were checking in for our flight, there was some kind of problem with my passport. Apparently the stamp used to stamp-in my arrival time/date in Seoul was an a-typical stamp. The woman at the check-in desk kept handing the passport to my cousin saying, “Excuse me, sir, when did you come to Korea?” “Excuse me, sir, where is your arrival stamp?” “Excuse me, sir, did you come to Korea with a different passport?” After each question, I took the passport, showed the woman the arrival stamp, and answered her questions. Nonetheless, she continued to address them to my cousin.

It was only after comparing my Alien Registration Card with my passport and then conferring with her supervisor that she decided it was OK to let me check in. Sheesh. Only after that did I recall the misprint about my gender on the visa, which at least partially explained the confusion. Maybe.

The incorrect visa. (My passport and ARC both state that I am female, so god knows how this ended up on there!)

And lastly, the entry stamp which so confused the check-in lady at the Air Busan counter

But… finally! We were checked in and on our way to Japan!

gift giving

I'm not much for giving gifts. I hate the fact that on birthdays and Christmases we're expected to give presents to people. There are some people for whom I can ALWAYS find a great gift. There are others (including people I know really, really well) for whom I can rarely find decent, much less great, gifts. If I come across something that I *know* is a good present for someone I know, I will often buy it (even if it's January, and their birthday is close to Christmas). I do like giving people good, thoughtful gifts - mainly because it happens so rarely.

I live in the same neighborhood in Korea where I lived several years ago. I was thrilled when I returned to discover that several of my favorite business owners from "my street" were still around - and that they remembered me. Two of my favorite people on my street are the owners of a small accessories shop where I've purchased way too many cute Korean socks and shiny hairpins. The woman (who is usually the one working in the store) always wants to talk to me, even though I only understand a fraction of what she's saying, while her husband is more reticent - just smiling and saying hello when he sees me.

When I first stopped in at the accessories store after returning to Korea back in August, the woman told me that her son is now studying at a university in San Diego. At that point, I decided that I wanted to give them a photo I took of the San Diego skyline back when I used to live there. I took the photo in question out of my collection of photos that I use as props in class, but being shy and not really knowing them very well, it sat on the table in my living room for months.

A couple of weeks ago, as I was walking to work in the pouring rain on the opposite side of the street from their store, I saw that the owners of the accessory store had taken all of their goods off the shelves, and were boxing up their inventory. The weather was terrible - if it had been decent, I would have gone over to talk to them. As it was, I didn't, and I regretted not doing so all day. Then, that evening, as I was walking home I was thrilled to discover that they had moved into a recently vacated (and larger!) storefront on the same block. I went in and congratulated them on the new store, and decided to give them the photo as soon as possible. I found a cheap picture frame which matched the photo quite well. I made up my mind to buy it and deliver my present.

I delivered my present on Saturday, before I set out on my walk. The woman was very excited to receive the picture - especially when I was able (with my weak Korean) to explain that it was a present, I wasn't just showing it to her. The woman (I feel like such an ass that I don't know her name) then asked me if green was my favorite color. (I was wearing a lot of green, so that was a good guess - and a correct one.) She then gave me a pair of green Hello Kitty socks (of the sort I often buy from her).

This evening as I was walking home, the husband came out of the store to thank me for the photograph and to tell me that it was beautiful. :-) I like giving gifts when I can think of a good one.

a "sleuth" of rules

CNN GO has published the absolute lamest article possible, written by Kyle Burton and entitled 12 rules for expat life in Korea. And some editor allowed it to go online with the phrase "a sleuth of international restaurants." One assumes the author meant 'a slew of international restaurants' and not Holmes or Poirot wandering about Itaeweon sampling the cuisine.

Some of the rules are actually okay, but most of them are just abysmal. Here they are, with my commentary.

1. Learn to drink like a fish - I've been here for the past ten months, and I can count the number of times I've gotten drunk on one hand. Granted this is my fourth trip to Korea, and I drank a lot more here in the past, but I'm a lot older now and don't really feel like wasting my money on booze. Additionally, I've had very few occasions over my four trips to get drunk with Korean coworkers, and I've never felt like I was obligated to drink with them.

2. Try not to get 'celebrified' - What? Yes, people will stare at you more than they would back home because you'll stand out, but as there are 30,000+ other foreigners here teaching English alone, plus a comparable number of US troops, and goodness knows how many other non-Koreans here on business... You're not going to become famous simply for being foriegn. One wonders why Burton felt to include this in his list; surely this says something about his personality...

3. Bring your own clothing - This is actually one of the useful rules on the list. It doesn't actually apply to me - in US sizes I wear a size 3 in clothing, and a size 6 in shoes, so I have no trouble finding clothing in my size. However, Koreans are, in general, smaller than the average Westerner. If you wear large-sized clothing or have big feet, bring your own clothes. I'd also recommend bringing a lot of deodorant. Koreans don't use it (they don't need to), and as such it isn't sold outside of US military bases and a smattering of places in Seoul.

4. Learn to dance K-pop - WTF? No. Just no.

5. Put the gay away - Korea has become a lot more tolerant of homosexuality over the course of the ten years since my first trip here. Back then, I had Koreans tell me that gay people weren't real, just something you see on tv. By 2007 there were gay nightclubs in Daegu, although they were more of a novelty than actual clubs for gays. Nowadays, people are still prejudiced against homosexuals, but I think in general things have gotten a lot better. I wouldn't recommend showing up for your first day of work and announcing your sexual preference, but is that really something you bring up at work anyway?

6. Buy good face cream - Why is this on the list of important things?

7. Embrace your inner diva - This one is about the popularity of singing rooms or 노래방 (norae-bang... sadly misspelled nore-bang in the article). I've only gone to a 노래방 once in all four trips (I'm not a karaoke kind of girl), but they are hugely popular here.

8. Don't tip - It's true - Koreans don't tip, and they will think you're weird or that you've accidentally overpaid if you try.

9. Don't have a coffee addiction - Utter nonsense! Not only is Starbucks super popular here (and while I think Starbucks is overpriced, the prices are the same as in the US), as is Dunkin Donuts, and a variety of reasonably priced Korean coffee chains. I drink a lot of coffee here, and wouldn't make it through the day without it. What was this guy thinking??

10. Take pictures of your food - Okay, I do this all the time, no matter what country I'm in, but no way would I put it in my top list of rules for expats!

11. Adjust your diet - Well, duh. If you move to another country of course you're going to have to adjust your diet. If you need someone to point this out to you, you probably shouldn't travel overseas. [However, you can buy western food here. I cook myself spaghetti just about every night, as I'm lazy and a terrible cook.]

12. Strike an Asian pose - The article suggests doing this nonsense in photos. I can't imagine why.

My tip for expats? Use common sense. Don't do anything in Korea (or any other country for that matter) that you wouldn't do in your home country. Being overseas doesn't license you to behave like a jackass.

a little bummed

I had been invited to spend the weekend in Busan with some friends... but after checking the forecast (overcast and dreary on Saturday, heavy thunderstorms on Sunday), I opted to stay in Daegu. And then it turned out that weather.com had been rather wrong. Saturday started out overcast and dreary, but became fairly decent as the day progressed. And Sunday was simply beautiful. Facebook messages from my friends in Busan tell me that the weather there is gorgeous and that they're having a great time. Sigh.

Meanwhile, I spent my Sunday sweeping, mopping, washing dishes, and doing several loads of laundry. Saturday was at least slightly more eventful. Slightly. I woke up early - still considering popping down to Busan - and took a peep outside. It was cloudy and overcast just as predicted; I crawled back into bed and slept 'til early afternoon. By that point it was not so much cloudy as hazy, and the sun was making somewhat of an attempt to bust through the haze. I decided to take a walk to one of my favorite restaurants. Haze might affect my photos, but it doesn't affect my ability to eat.

This is zhiazhiangmyun, a Korean Chinese dish. (It's 'Korean Chinese' in the same way that General Tso's Chicken is 'American Chinese.') Zhiazhiangmyun never photographs well. The sauce is black bean based, containing onions and meat - and if you have it at a proper Korean Chinese restaurant, the noodles are hand-made. (At my restaurant of choice, one can watch the cooks making the noodles.) I go to this place fairly often, and the staff know as soon as I walk in what it is that I'm there to eat.

After leaving the restaurant, I thought the haze looked as though it had lifted somewhat, and I decided to take a walk along the Gemho River. The Chinese restaurant is located next to the Banyawol Subway Station. I live a short walk from the next station on the line, Singi. I decided to walk the distance between Banyawol and Singi along the Geumhogang (Geumho River), which - out in East Daegu, at any rate - is located just to the south of the road the subway line follows.

It wasn't a bad walk, although my pictures would've been better had they had blue sky in the background instead of grey haze. At least there were plenty of wildflowers for me to photograph.

Gah! Haze!