Lord bless Charlie Mops, the man who invented beer.

Song lyric #3 in the title post, courtesy of Bard's Tale.

Today I and a few coworkers and some non-coworker friends hopped in a van and drove out to Pocheon, a city even further north than Uijeongbu, to check out a little Korean brewery that was supposed to be amazing. And it was.


Note the "mood" setting on the light. If this van's a-rockin'...

The drive was upwards of forty minutes, during which we mostly thought about how damn good some freshly not-Cass or not-Hite would be. We also stopped at McDonald's on the way. I had a Flurry and a large fry, a decision I would later regret on the ride back home. Six months away from the US and I had forgotten why I stopped eating fast food.



The ride was also absolutely scenic, as I-dong brewery is set more or less in the mountains outside of Pocheon. The view was spectacular.







You have to call ahead and make a reservation; I assume that if no one calls they just don't open it up. We were the only ones there today.


What a motley crew.




And here it is: a 5,000 won beer, fresh and dark. Totally worth it.

We spent a while afterwards milling about, talking, and taking pictures. You could hear the yelping of dogs in the distance—no doubt being raised for food nearby. Just in case we forgot that we were in Korea.

Things Koreans Are Really Good At

1. Sleeping on the Subway
   

   Apparently Koreans didn't get the memo from Petula Clark. Catch the subway at the right time (9, 10 at night, or the 5 am "zombie line" leaving Hongdae) and you'll see at least a few passengers out like a light. Some internal clock never fails to wake them before their stop, though; typically they'll suddenly shake themselves out of it a stop or two before they have to get off. While I, on the other hand, oversleep by at least two or three stops whenever I try this—granted, I haven't had to do this all that often.



2. Controlling Dogs With the Power of Their Minds
   

   There's no such thing as leash laws here. And while you will see a fair amount of dog owners with their dogs tethered, you see just as many who let their four-legged companion roam free during their daily walk. Even alongside busy streets at rush hour!



3. Doing Really Dangerous Shit Without Dying
   

   For example, riding side saddle or even standing on the back of a bicycle while their buddy bike-chaffeurs them to wherever they need to go. Without helmets. Unattended four-year olds are another favorite of mine—parenting is really hands-off in this country, at least in some ways. Drinking themselves into oblivion on a weeknight is also really popular, and I have to wonder what the rate of liver cirrhosis is in this country. A friend of mine I saw on Saturday told me, almost as if he didn't believe it himself, "I drank every night this week. I don't know how that happened."



4. Staying Really Skinny Despite Huge Serving Sizes of Calorie-Rich Food And A Drinking Culture That Rivals Ireland
   

   Even more mind-boggling when you consider that Koreans often work late hours and weekends. When do they find the time to burn all the calories they consume?

Slice of Life

One of my coworkers was playing with his new camera the other day. Here's a peek into my daily life:



The snack stand outside school.



The secretaries. Sweet ladies but they speak almost no English.





Getting ready. That's Mina, my partner teacher, next to me.





Lunch time!

Obligatory Korean Tourist Spot #1: N Seoul Tower

I mentioned a while back that a college friend of mine, Aaron, came to visit in July. Now, nearly two months later, I have pictures from his visit here. Probably the most notable thing we did (besides eat) was visit the N Seoul Tower.

The road up towards Namsan park and the cable car up the mountain winds past an animation museum of some kind. Naturally, we had to stop and take silly pictures:






The N Seoul Tower is a huge tourist attraction for couples. As people have mentioned before, all along the cyclone fencing (to keep you from falling off the edge of the deck into the relative wilderness below) are locks that people stick there as testaments to their love for one another. You can even buy locks right at the tower.


Stole this from Alex, since I was too lazy to take a picture of the locks myself.

The "ground level" deck was home to a few eateries (some fast food, one a more sit-down, candlelit affair), the gift shop, and basically places to mill and lounge around. The benches are designed to be weirdo snuggly intimate affairs with bends in the middle, making them vaguely V-shaped.

We shelled out about W20,000 to take the elevator up to the observation room, a huge 360* with big windows looking out in every direction. The compass points were conveniently labeled, and by each point was the name of a few major international cities and how far away they were in that direction. I should note that looking west you could see how many kilometers it was to Washington, D.C. and New York City, but not Philadelphia. Alas, city of brotherly love, you'll always be that forgotten middle child.

You could also pay some ridiculous price and get a pseudo-Tarot reading (didn't look like a proper Tarot deck, from what I could see) about love and relationships. N Seoul Tower is really marketed as a couples-y romantic getaway, remember. I'm not sure if it was originally designed to be a romantic date thing to do, or if Koreans started that on their own accord and then the owners of the tower just decided to run with it.


I guess giant futuristic phallic landmarks are pretty romantic....

It also has some kind of modern art laser light show that goes on periodically. I didn't really get it, but then I don't really get modern art in general.


Pretty sure this has to do with the light show.

At some point, I will probably go back to get a better look at Namsan park (Seoul really hurts for greenery, Namsan park is a blessing) and also to leave a lock on the wall for me and Aspie_Dev. I'm a big softie at the end of the day. =P

Another One Bites the Dust

That's two posts in a row with songs for titles. They're just so apropos...

I mentioned earlier that South Korea's former president, Roh Mu-hyun, jumped to his death/was possibly murdered. The one prior to him, Kim Dae-jung, recently passed away (of natural causes). He was born when Korea was still just Korea and constantly advocated for a reunification. It was his "Sunshine Policy" that Roh tried to continue all throughout his presidency.

He was also tough as nails:

Kim was born into a farming family in South Jeolla province in Korea's southwest when the country was still under Japanese colonial rule.

He started a business after the end of Japanese occupation and it survived the 1950-53 war on the Korean peninsula.

But as South Korea's government veered toward authoritarianism, he chose to go into politics and quickly marked himself as a dissident.

After three losing bids, he was elected to the National Assembly in 1961. Days later, Maj. Gen. Park Chung-hee staged a military coup and dissolved parliament.

Kim ran for the presidency a decade later, nearly defeating Park, who altered the constitution to guarantee his rule in the future.

Just weeks after the election, Kim was in a traffic accident he believed was an attempt on his life. For the rest of his days, he walked with a limp and often leaned on a cane.

In 1973, South Korean agents broke into his Tokyo hotel room and dragged him to a ship where he claimed they planned to dump him at sea. The would-be assassins aborted the plan following intervention by U.S. officials, who sent an American military helicopter flying low over the ship.

...

Upon his return to Seoul in 1973, Kim was put under house arrest and then imprisoned. His release came only after Park's assassination by his spy chief in late 1979.

Kim was pardoned a few months later. But the drama did not end there.

Weeks after Park's death, military leader Chun Doo-hwan seized power. Five months later, tens of thousands in the southern city of Gwangju — one of Kim's political strongholds — took to the streets to protest the junta.

Troops suppressed the uprising, killing some 200 people by official accounts. Accusing Kim of fomenting the uprising, a military tribunal sentenced him to death. Washington again intervened, and the sentence was commuted to life and then reduced to 20 years.

Kim refused to consider it a setback.

The sentence was later suspended and he left for the U.S., where he lived until 1985. He was 72 when he was elected president.

Expressing his trademark forgiveness and lack of vengeance, Kim immediately sought a pardon for Chun Doo-hwan, the military general who ordered Kim's death in 1979 and was sentenced for mutiny and treason.

Chun was among well-wishers who went to Kim's hospital room in recent days.

But the defining moment of the Kim presidency was his historic meeting with Kim Jong Il in 2000.

That summit — the first between the two Koreas — eased decades of tensions and ushered in an era of unprecedented reconciliation.

Families divided for decades held tearful reunions, and South Koreans began touring North Korea's famed scenic spots. Kim won the Nobel Peace Prize that year.

"In my life, I've lived with the conviction that justice wins," he said in accepting the honor. "Justice may fail in one's lifetime, but it will eventually win in the course of history."

Full article here.

Fight For Your Right to (Snack) Party

Snack parties are a tradition at Sherlock Academy: every time a class finishes a textbook, they have an "achievement test" (aka a final), and then we have the option of having snack parties—a completely useless class where you just eat food and play (English) games.

One of my favorite classes had one today, though they are also one of my more high maintenance classes and always leave me exhausted. Hyperactive 10-year-olds will do that to you.



The kid in the back looks depressed because he failed the achievement test and has to repeat the textbook again. Also because the other kids kind of don't like him.



Boys on one side, girls on another.



They mob me constantly in class. But I like them, so it's okay.

Unfortunately, I'll have to send some of the smarter ones to a new class they're starting soon. So this is the last time this class will ever be together like this.

Who has two thumbs and loves glasses?

This girl!

I went to Namdaemun Market today. While it's a fair subway ride from Minlak-dong, and I could probably wander into Uijeongbu (or just walk about five minutes away from my apartment) and find one, I like the one in Namdaemun.



Since today was Sunday, and I didn't get there until about 5:00 or so, it wasn't quite as big and as crazy as normal. That isn't to say it wasn't big and crazy, though. You could get everything you ever needed from one of these markets: food, clothing, entertainment, cookware, and so on. I thought I would miss farmer's markets in Korea, but honestly, the Q-mart ain't got nothing on Namdaemun. Well, except maybe for mullets. And cinnamon buns.





My first order of business was to pick up a fan. I don't know why we don't carry them more often in the states, it really is a handy thing to have when the weather pushes the 90s. I'm fairly confident that haggling is expected in these places but I'm not 100% on that, in any case I bargained down from ten thousand to seven thousand won on a flimsy little folding fan no doubt made in China.

Inexplicably, there entire main drag of Namdaemun houses an incredible amount of ophthalmologists. And by ophthalmologists, I mean, "glasses and contact lens retailers with an eye chart in the corner." Clearly, glasses are a sort of luxury/fashion statement thing, less a "I need these to get through the world" thing.

I was always under the impression that visits to the optometrist were something that were A) expensive and B) you had covered under your health insurance. Pretty sure they are neither here in Korea: after a quick exchange in Konglish, an attendant sat me down at a machine that looked like a giant microscope, where the technician flashed a landscape before my eyes, sometimes blurry and sometimes in focus. I floundered for a second—how would I communicate to him the usual "better/worse" exchange? But after a minute, he pulled me away from the machine, wrote some numbers down and explained them in Korean—I guess he didn't need my verbal assent to figure out how I fared, because he pulled out some sample lenses and had me read a nearby eye chart. After some tweaking and fiddling, I had a new prescription. "Plus one," he explained. People default to the system they use on contact lenses back home, which of course I can only vaguely remember. -2.75? I haven't worn my contacts in years. But that confirmed my suspicions re: prescription update.

I had two options for frames: expensive ones in a glass case, or cheap ones just sitting in bins in the middle of the store. I opted for the cheap ones, which were obscenely so: 30,000 won, which is about $21 US. Ridiculous! I sprung for two. The lenses ran an extra 20,000 won for each pair, so all told I paid about $70 for two new pairs of glasses. Not too shabby.

After I paid, the clerk gave me a slip and told me to wait about an hour. I nodded, grabbed a business card, and wandered around the market some more. By now it was nearly six o'clock—dinner time. I had some tteukbokki from a street vendor and meandered a bit.

A word here about street vendors: they step it up a bit from American ones.



All of those umbrellas? They are attached to plastic lawn tables, which in turn are under the purview of one street vendor or another. Beyond junky snack food, you can get legitimate sit-down meals, complete with soju. (Pretty sure there's no Korean word for "liquor license.") Quite literally, a movable feast.

After I ate and wandered the side streets, I returned back to the optometrist's to pick up my hot new eyewear.




These might actually be hipster glasses. Jury's still out.

The world is fresh and crisp again. Huzzah, Korea.