Busan - arrival

Conference time. This translates to the extraordinary - at least on the inside - paradise hotel at the water front of Haeundae beach and excellent dinner with by our Korean hosts pre-selected dishes. In contrast to the other Germans at the conference, Claudine, Johannes and I arrived by train (KTX - the Korean TGW) and were extremely well rested after a comfortable three hour trip. Upon arriving at the hotel we took a stroll along the beach then joined a few of the other conference attendees for dinner in the in-house Korean restaurant, which turned out to be an excellent choice since Busan is one of the greatest places for fish and that is what we got. To give you an impression of just how nice the beach and hotel were, I decided to also show you the nicest shots of the immediate area. The only disadvantage of the hotel was that they did not offer free internet access. There was a free wireless network in the area, but it was so slow it took an entire talk - uh: I mean almost thirty minutes - jsut to check the e-mail. I didn't even think about uploading pictures there.

3rd hike (Dobongsan)

Another day, another hike. As always, this meant meeting up with Klaus-Jürgen, Axel and Tobias, but this time they were accompanied by a group of Korean colleagues, which Claudine and I had been invited to join. It all started out with less incline and rumors that - to my great disappointment - there would be no near-death experience climbing on this route. However, the fast pace on level ground held as the incline steadily increased. With two liters of water, bananas and cherry tomatoes in the backpack, I started struggling. Claudine evidently felt similarly. Luckily for our legs and stamina, but also a bit sadly, since the weather was as always amazing, one of the Koreans didn't feel so well and we headed down after reaching the first peak. Initially a walk from peak to peak had been planned, but was then discarded. The really tough part hit us back in the village below, however. Eating and drinking, business style. The boss orders it, you eat it. The boss pours it, you drink it. I had the questionable pleasure of finally eating a chicken foot (including toe bones, I think - pictures proving this will follow). The tough part was drinking, however. Beer, then more beer, then half a beer at once, then again, then beer with soju, then some more. From three in the afternoon til six in the evening. Wow. Actually, it wasn't that much, but after all the exhaustion of the hike and the loss of water, the world moved a bit slower for us. When we finally arrived home, I just wanted to lie down for a second before starting my computer and taking a shower, only to awake two and a half hours later, still fully dressed, lying on top of my blanket, a little unsure of where I was and why. However, no headaches or bad feelings remained.

Seoul Tower

Saturday, sight-seeing seemed to be in order again and this time it meant Seoul tower, the tallest point in downtown Seoul, on a little hill in a little park right in the center of a huge city. Sadly, as so often, the view was obscured by haze in the distance despite perfectly blue, cloudless skies. Also gives us a good reason to return, however. Nonetheless looking down on a mega city of over twenty million in habitants in the area is an impressive sight. The variety of buildings from little shacks, to multi-storey residential buildings, massive malls, classy hotels and high-tech skyescrapers is fascinating. We stayed until sunset and hiking down from the tower back to the metro got to see a beautiful red sun shedding its fading light onto the countless buildings of a greyish metropolis.

Baseball

Yes, baseball. However unlikely it might seem to you, Americans didn't stop at importing Dunkin' Donuts and Starbucks, no baseball is also one of the major sports here. Not too far from the Coex Mall there is the Olympia baseball stadium and we were told that there are permier league games every day except Monday. A seat with decent view for 10,000 Won didn't sound like such a bad deal so off we went. Luckily, on the way there I learned that Korean guys don't go necessarily because of the baseball. No, it's the cheerleaders. Both teams have a fan curve and in the break there are performances of cheerleaders well worth watching. Obviously these two parts of the stadium were already booked out when we arrived, but the rest of the place was pretty empty. The game itself proved to be reasonably boring, as I recalled from my time in the US, and the exciting moments often pass so quickly that you hardly have time to wake up and notice them. We were truly amazed, however, that they wasted two baseball bats during the game. One broke in half at it thinnest point, the others head splintered into countless pieces. Wow. You'd think those things could handle, but then again the pitchers balls hit at above 140 km/h, which does make for quite an impact.

Boss visiting

It was a busy week. After the group seminar dinner on Monday, an American group leader came for a visit on tuesday and it was Claudine's birthday on wednesday - bringing with it all the cake, drinking and finally karaoke that go along with a birthday here. Finally on thursday my professor from Germany came for a visit. Besides picking him up at the airport, listening to his presentation and talking with him and my Korean boss about the work here, it also lead to a very amazing dinner for me and Claudine with three professors. We went to a traditional barbaque place and had the chance to compare Korean beef with that imported from Australia. For obvious reasons, Korean beef turned out to be more tasty, but it is evidently also more expensive, a sad fact that didn't bother us that evening. Afterwards the Korean professors decided to leave, but my boss was in the mood for a few more drinks in Nok-Du. So we showed him the traditional bar, which we found a bit over a week ago, for something soju-like and eventually ended up in a beer bar, with some nice tables out back under the open sky in the midst of countless residential houses. After entertaining conversation about all together non-business topics, we managed to find a taxi, that brought my boss safely home. P.S.: Don't even consider commenting on the fact that I'm wearing an almost identical outfit.

Semester dinner

On Monday, we had dinner with the entire group and the Professor, which is a once in a semester experience well worth joining. It was definitely by far the best dinner I have had here since my arrival. Not that food had not been good up to now, but the enormous variety of side dishes, duck, bulgogi (Korean style beef), noodles, vegetables, soups and everything to drink from rice wine to different spirits certainly made this dinner stick out above the rest. It was also very nice, that everyone from the group was present and we had been given a separate room in the restaurant, also giving us the chance to take a nice group picture.

2nd hike (Gupabal)

Another sunday, another mountain. This time all of us heeded Klaus-Jürgens call and showed up at 9:30h at the subway station in Gupabal, north-west of Seoul. Thanks to our prior experience, everyone showed up well-equipped. Notice especially my gorgeous new hiking boot(s), which are accompanied by some extremely cheap pants and a very comfortable t-shirt containing some Modal. After a few steps, we were greeted by stone statues, intent to ward off evil spirits. Luckily, they let us pass. As before, our luck was wonderful: with every step we took, the sky became a brighter blue. Again, we had a beautiful day hiking along tiny creeks, through lush green forests and across barren rock to be rewarded by stunning views of the surrounding hills and the metropolis below. We passed a stone fortification built by Korean emperors ages ago and a massive Buddha statue greeting visitors to finally return after another six wonderful and exhausting hours of hiking to an intriguing local restaurant (the last picture displays the entrance) for some Korean-style pan cakes, grilled ginseng and maekju - or as westerners tend to call it: beer.

Dongdaemun nights

Since Dongdaemun had left a very good impression with everyone who had been there the weekend before, none of us argued when the others also wanted to spend an evening there this weekend. So yet again we plunged into the gigantic market area. We stayed until the sun went down and allowed us to get an impression of all the colorfully lighted skye scrapers in the dark. I felt like getting a little experimental and decided to share two seconds of Korean night life with you via the two pictures displayed. We again ate in the food court on the 9th floor offering a marvelous view over a shining city. I finally decided to try a Sushi roll - my first Sushi in years. It was pretty good, though not marvelous. It did look impressive, though. I will have to try some Sushi in a Japanese restaurant in the near future...

Traditional bar

Wednesday started out pretty bad with me already having spent tuesday on trying to debug some code without success. So I decided to do whatever it takes to make it work - and it actually did. There are still some things to be looked at, but all in all everything was fine just in time for a slightly later dinner than usual. To make a good ending even better the dinner was sponsored by a former graduate of the group now working at Samsung and took place in the nicest dining hall on the top level. Afterwards one of the theoreticians showed us a beautiful balcony near our office, we had never been to before and decided to take us out to drinking. Of course, we could not say no to that. And this was a really good thing, because he took us to a truly traditional bar, whose entrance would have kept any normal traveller incaable of reading Korean out. See for yourself - it did not look like a bar entrance to me. Inside the rather large building, little wooden huts were built on two stories, low wooden tables, seating on the floor on comfortable cushions, extremely good Korean food, rice wine, bamboo grog and more. All in all a very wonderful evening after a very work-intensive day.

Jongmyo & Changgyeonggung

On Sunday I was totally in the mood for some cultural exploration. Sadly, this did not hold for most of the others. Luckily, I managed to convince Sibylle, Philipp and Mark to join me on a trip to Changgyeonggung, which was recommended on one of our Seoul maps. We exited a the recommended subway station and followed the temple signs to a world heritage site. Despite the fame and beauty of the place, they certainly did not design the entrances for people of my size. Keeping my head low was rewarded by some traditional silver ware inside and a little bit of information on ancestral warship. The main temple site itself was so wide, it did not fit on my camera even when taking the picture at maximum distance with my back to the wall. When we were just about to leave again, we found out that we had actually visited Jongmyo, which not hold for everyone, but I managed to convince had not been our intended destination. That was across a little bridge further to the north. So off we went to find another even more beautiful temple site with beautiful trees and a little lake in the back. Pretty exhausted from the trip, I managed to convince Sibylle and Philipp to join me for dinner in Dongdaemun, where I wanted to see what the stages had to offer at night. It was well worth it. After having dinner on the 9th level of one of the major malls, we headed down just in time to witness the beginning of a Korean musical talent show. The show was even presented on TV and the current picture was displayed on a huge screen next to the stage. Probably due to Philipp's ability to get the three of us to be clapping and laughing a lot and maybe the fact, that we were the only European group around, we appeared on the big screen five (!!!) times. We even decided to buy some lighters to wave during the slower ballads, but the wind became stronger a second later and renderd them more or less useless. Nevertheless, it was super fun and a really good and sometimes funny show. Upon returning to Nok-Du at around 22:30h, it didn't take much convincing by Claudine & Mark to get us to tag along to another hour of Karaoke, after which we sank to bed completely spent but smiling.

Dongdaemun

Saturday began with the usualy workout for me and Johannes, unaccompanied by any DAAD students, who were evidently still trying to recover from their night out before. Afterwards, we split up, me being intent on finally buying new hiking shoes for upcoming trips. The people I've asked recommended Dongdaemun for this purpose. On the rather long subway trip there, I decided to finally share the impression of a moderately crowded subway with you. Had it been really crowded, I couldn't have moved my arm to take the picture. Trust me, we have tried. Dongdaemun is an amazing place. It features an underground shopping center, a couple skyscrapers with enormous market-style malls in them and multiple endless streets with little market stalls selling everything from socks to food to electronics to books. I found my new Goretex hiking boots in the underground area and bought them from a very kind, older Korean man, who said that all Germans are nice and friendly and who was really helpful in arranging shoes that were actually my size - quite a problem here, I can tell you. Afterwards I headed back up to the surface, past the doosan mall, to one of the three remaining entrance gates of the ancient city walls. Sadly, there was a construction site on the front, obstructing the view on the circular wall surrounding the entrance on the outside. On my way back to the metro station I explored some of the side alleys, coming across a stone church, an little alley filled with shoes on all sides and countless other little stores. We then all met up to have dinner in Insa dong and concluded the day in a Korean Karaoke bar. For some reason, we were persuaded to take the VIP room, which turned out to be a great decision, since the sofa was really comfortable and the screen was amazing. All of us seem to be beginning to enjoy singing here, despite the many doubts all of us but Philipp have had about that.