Bliss, South Korean Style

I’ll admit it, I underestimated South Korea. Not to say that I had low expectations by any means, but it blew me away. The reason I went there was to witness the IAAF Track and Field World Championships live, a possibly once in a lifetime experience. I figured that Daegu, South Korea is a lot closer to Malaysia than the US, so why not make the most of it while I’m in Southeast Asia? So along with my friend Dakari Watson, who I used to jump against in college, we planned it out and made it happen. He works in Terengganu, a small province on the East Coast of Malaysia. I already had a friend from college living right outside of Seoul working as a teacher. I had spoken to her about staying there a few days while I was there to site see Seoul as well as attending the events in Daegu. I decided to go online and seek out some more contacts in the area too via Facebook and Couch Surfer; this ended up being one of my best moves. Unexpectedly, right before I was due to head there, my contact there disappeared mysteriously. No responses, not even any traffic on Facebook. So I had to be concerned about her, but more pertinently, I no longer had anywhere to stay in the Seoul area. Therefore, after a stroll around Seoul seeing historical sites, I was hecticly trying to formulate a plan whenever I gcould sneak some wifi in. However, the hospitality of my contacts (mostly Americans teaching English in Korea) and the overall generosity of the Korean people in general helped me to solve this and many other problems. A friend of a friend of a friend extended his hospitality for the night, shout out to Pernell for that. On the way there – and many other places – I had to ask the help of locals on the street. Their eagerness to help foreigners was amazing; it was above and beyond the Southern hospitality I’ve grown accustomed to. There were occasions were you would ask a Korean which direction something was and instead of simply telling you they would walk you there, handle the cab for you, or even give you a ride there themselves. We met ladies at one point who took us out to eat at a pretty good restaurant.

After a night in Cheongju, I made it to Daegu and got settled in time to meet more teachers and be in the stadium for the premier event of the world’s track attention- the 100 final. Although I was disappointed that I never didn’t get to see the 3 fastest men in the world compete in the final the way I wanted; each for different circumstances (Tyson Gay and Asafa Powell got injured the last month or so before the Championships, and Usain Bolt false started in the final resulting in disqualification). Nonetheless, being in the stadium to see the best in the world compete at all the different events was magical. To make it even more special, I know or have met some of the athletes and get to see them do what they do best at the highest level of competition. After the first two nights in Daegu, we had a few days before we had tickets to attend the meet again. The original plan was to spend these days in Seoul and came back once we had tickets again; however, as mentioned, I no longer had accommodations, so I needed a plan. One of my contacts through Facebook was hospitable enough to offer me her living room for this time; shout out to Jessica “JWo” Womack.

Other than the overall lack of food in the fridge (she did have pancakes however), she was the best host imaginable. We met at the train station trying to head to the town where she lived, Gimcheon, about a 45 minute train ride from Daegu. Well, we just barely missed the 12:42am train, the next train wasn’t until 4:05am. Consequently, I got another one-of-a-kind Korea experience instead, the jim jil bang. Basically if you need a place to crash for a night, or even a few hours, you pay about $7-8 US which gets you a towel, a night outfit, a hard pillow, a blanket, and a mat. You enter the facility and it has a common area with couches and TVs, showers, lockers, and sleeping areas where you can put your mat on the floor and go to sleep for however long you desire. It would have been cool if not for all the male nudity, Koreans are comfortable enough that in such a place they usually spend the whole time there naked rather than just before and after showering like I would be used to. Call me homophobic, but I’m just not comfortable with someone coming and sitting beside me on a small couch trying to hold a conversation if he has no clothes on. Therefore, I’m not in a rush to have the experience again. Well, we finally made it to Gimcheon, where I would be spending the next few days until my reservations at the hotel start back. So in the meantime, I would be travelling back and forth to Daegu if I needed to go back. It’s very easy to get anywhere in the city and even from town to town with their transportation system. I went back for a day of competition, to meet with a very pleasant contact named Anika that I spent some time with, and even ended up on a double date one night; apparently double dating is big in South Korea. One night, Anika and I went to a traditional Korean steakhouse, which was amazing. My mouth is watering right now just thinking about it. She also helped familiarize me with downtown Daegu. However, one night I got back to Gimcheon very late and found out the hard way that JWo is quite a heavy sleeper. LOL.

I was returning from a late night out in downtown Daegu and luckily I had written her address (in Korean) down because I definitely had trouble finding it in the darkness of night. After getting help locating the exact building, I realized the entrance code for the building door was more than meets the eye. I had also written down the 4-digit code, but found that you had to press a button before and a button after; I wasn’t savvy to which buttons in which order. The same gentlemen that helped me locate the building showed me that it went *key button,* then the code, then *doorbell button.* So I make it to the door and knock, I receive no answer. At this point, it’s past 5am and my friend will be leaving her apartment around 7am. I’ve conceded that if I don’t get an answer I will dose off on the steps beside her door in a seated position and she will see me and let me in when she comes out. However, to my surprise, the same gentleman who helped me before reappears to see if I’m still in the hall. I have her phone number, but my Malaysian cell phone doesn’t work in South Korea, so he lets me use his. After 3 attempts, no answer; like I said, she sleeps hard. The man disappears again and once again I prepare to dose off on the stairs. But then the man reappears with a security guard. Now all of a sudden, I’m on the brink of getting thrown out of the building if I can’t wake her up and get inside. So she finally answers the phone and lets me in. Fun times. Lol.

As the rest of the heavy hitting part of the Championships approached, I got back in track mode. One day I was lucky enough to get a friend of mine who was competing to help sneak me into the Athlete’s Village; it was mind blowing. The facilities were brand new and they had their own dining halls, practice tracks, shops, even live tradition Korean performing arts pretty much all day long. The people I knew there said it was even nicer than the Athlete’s Village from the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. I got to spend time with plenty of people I knew there: my college track coach Nat Page, Nigerian hurdler AJ Adamosu, and Jamaican hurdlers Richard Phillips and Vonette Dixon. I also saw many of the faces from TV whom I had previously never seen in person. I snuck a free meal there and had a comedy session over popsicles with my old coach and other practice mates; I had them every day at practice in college, but I sorely miss them in Malaysia.

Once we made it back to the track, the excitement kept on rolling. I saw a world record in person, even though it was disappointing to see the USA runner front flip out of the race in that same event. I saw Usain Bolt run the 3^rd fastest time in 200 meter history. I got to see two Atlanta natives and track legends that I know personally – Angelo Taylor and Dwight Phillips – win gold medals. I saw a 21-year old Atlanta native, Christian Taylor, that we used to compete against in college become the 5^th longest triple jumper in track and field history and take the World Championship over incumbent champion eccentric Briton Phillips Idowu. To make matters more impressive, his 20 year old college teammate Will Claye, won the bronze medal in the same event beating some really stiff competition from places such as Cuba, the Bahamas, Portugal, and Sweden. That was an amazing event as a whole. An American hurdler, Jason Richardson – who was close to quitting track recently – competed against the three fastest men ever in his event and left with a gold medal. In the women’s hurdles, the most sweet and innocent looking woman in the race, Aussie Sally Pearson, went wild and blew away the competition for one of the fastest times ever. There were stories of redemption for athletes coming back from suspensions (Justin Gatlin and Lashwan Merrit) and celebration for athletes making it over the hump for their first gold medals (Carmelita jeter and Lashinda Demus). There were several more events I’m not usually that into that captivate your attention when you are there in person seeing the best in the world perform; there were several Championship and National Records broken too. We found some other Americans to bask in the glory with as other nations (especially Jamaica) were visibly displeased anytime America won a gold medal. It was a magical event and I hope I can get back to one again one day.

After the bulk of the athletes were finished competing, it was party time for them. A friend of mine Angelo Taylor, gold medallist who went to Tech before I arrived there, hooked me up at a club in downtown Daegu where most of the track people were having a good time. It was also fairly relieving to see these World Class athletes who had been so focused and stressed the past 2 weeks get to relax and have fun. Some of them are pretty wild too. After the very last night of competition, we had to hop on a bus back to Incheon Airport to fly back to Malaysia. By that time both me and Dakari didn’t want to go back. The trip has shown us how much of polar opposites two countries in the same region of the world can be. Between the pleasantness of the people (both Korean and foreigners there), the food, the convenience of transportation, the propensity to enjoying having fun, or the culture, Korea was amazing. No offense to Malaysia, but it doesn’t even compare quite frankly. So then we had to take the flight back to reality. Hopefully I will see you again South Korea. My friend is already making plans to teach there when he’s done in Malaysia; it helps that on top of the aforementioned benefits, it pays a lot more too. See pictures below:

A Weekend in Bangkok

I've been doing a lot of traveling in the past few weeks and it's kept me from keeping my blog up. But all stories will be told, one by one. So we'll start with this, the story of a weekend in Bangkok:

In Asia, a lot of companies circumvent a lot of visa renewal paperwork by having employees leave the country for at least one night so the social pass can start while the professional visa is processing. As my initial work visa expired on August 19^th, I had to leave the country that day. The easy option was to take a cheap bus ride to Singapore; however, I’ve been there before. Therefore, I wanted to see something different, hence a trip to Thailand. So once we convinced the big boss man to pay for part of the plane ticket, we decided to take a weekend trip to Bangkok. We arrive and head to a known ‘back packer’ area called Khaosan Road. I like such areas because there is good but cheap accommodations, locals anxious to present local food to foreigners (such as pad thai and cow pai), and street vendors selling various kinds of hand made goods. There are street vendors everywhere, but they displayed a new product that I’ve never seen hustled on the street before – tailor made suits. Instead of displaying all products on their cart, they were trying to usher you into their shop full of fabrics so they could start taking your measurements. It’s a unique experience, much different from the fake clothes and illegal DVDs you can get anywhere.

The tuk tuk – a motorized cart named for the sound the older engines used to make when it ran - is a unique trait of Bangkok. You can name several different locations you would like to see and it will provide you transportation for the entire period to all the locations you outlined. Pricing depends on whether you’ve gotten intel from locals about what is reasonable and what is not. We quickly found that Bangkok is full of con men and they will take you for as much money as you agree to pay them. Also, some of them are working for suit makers or jewellery stores and plot all along to take you there and convince you to spend money there. Most likely, the stores are paying them some kind of commission. It’s so elaborate in some places that locals in public places are participating to send people to these stores. We ended up in a suit shop this way, but we didn’t buy anything. Despite that, I saw several Buddhist temples, and landmarks this way. After coming out of one temple, the tuk tuk had ditched us, probably for the prospect of a higher pay day. But he had not received any money yet, so it was not such a big deal. The next day, using cabs instead, I saw more monuments to Kings and Generals, a precious art exhibit, the National Elephant Museum (Thailand markets itself as the Kingdom of Elephants), a historically significant mansion and more.

As for nightlife, it was a very refreshing weekend of interesting experiences. We met Americans and Germans there who convinced me to try locusts while out on the town; actually tastes like popcorn really. We experienced the Thai live cover band experience also. Even further, I met up with a friend from middle school who I hadn’t seen in about 10 years for drinks. Random sidenote: It’s magical that through the gift of Facebook, people whose paths have gone so different places can reconnect seamlessly. I won’t go into detail, but after catching up, we experienced some of the legendary Bangkok night entertainment. Although it was entertaining, it was disappointing in some ways. It’s still an experience I’d recommend though. I’d like to go again at some point when I have more time. The only downside was, due to being congested when I got on the plane, the pressure as the elevation changes in the plane caused the phloem to clog up my ear. I mean, my ears always pop on a plane but usually chewing gum or swallowing hard would relieve the pressure; this time was different for some reason, the ears were agonizingly painful. The ears were blocked like this much of the time there and started up again during the trip back unfortunately. But I got it largely taken care of before my next trip. See various pictures below:

Satay and Steamboat

I was once asked "What foods from here in Malaysia will I miss the most when i leave?" I hadn't thought through a good answer at the time. But know I think I know at least a few of them. Satay is grilled marinated meat (chicken, beef or lamb usually) on a skewer stick which is served with peanut sauce. I'm not sure what the marinade is, but it's great and I like it. They're a great side to a meal. Plus you can get 10 skewers for 6 ringgits (about $2 US). As far as steamboat, it's similar to the fondue restaurants in the US, like "The Melting Pot." You pick your soup of choice to start; and there were some interesting options. Everything from Chinese Herbal Soup to Pumpkin Porridge Broth is available for cooking your foods in. The foods are mainly seafood: fish balls, shrimp, etc. The Chinese herbal soup helped amplify the flavor of the foods. The downfall of course is that you have to cook your own food to an extent. It doesn't take long with seafood, but either way, you still have to spend your own valuable time waiting for your food to finish cooking in your soup of choice. But either way, they are two foods that I will true miss when I leave the country.