Those precious wasted moments…

Wake up at 5:00am, taxi to the airport, plane to Seoul, bus from Gimpo Airport to Incheon Airport, plane to Amsterdam. Don’t sleep. Movies, books, games. Don’t sleep.

Arrive Amsterdam, eat some nice, greasy fries, car to home, drink, eat. Don’t sleep. Just a little farther. Just a few more hours. Don’t sleep.

Finally, evening arrives. 24 hours awake. Finally, time to sleep. Morning, and the office, will come too early, but the trip is over and real life needs to start again. I’m looking forward to work, tomorrow. I’m looking forward to normalcy and focus and my colleagues and my boss. I’m looking forward to the real world. I think I’ve had a bit too much of the quirks of Asia and the excitement of rapid change.

It’s only been 26 days, but it feels like much longer. Indonesia is just a distant memory. China is just a story someone once told me. I’m happy to be home. I’m happy to eat potatoes and cheese and milk… and I’m happy to use as much toilet paper as I want. I’m happy to brush my teeth with tap water. I’m happy to sleep in a nice, soft bed. It’s good to be home.

TIP: We washed the sheets and made the bed before leaving, so we could just plop down into a nice, clean bed. This makes all the difference in the world, my friend.

Our last day in Jeju… our last day in Asia. Today we wanted to take it easy. Just find a beach and sleep the day away. No such luck. Unlike the tourist beaches of Europe, there are no places here to rent a reclining chair and a parasol. So we drove and drove.

As we drove along the coast, searching for a nice place to hang out, we spotted something out at sea. Several orange buoys bobbing about and several black shapes in between. The lady divers! We saw a documentary about these women. They dive just off the coast, catching shell fish from the bottom of nooks and crannies of the lava rock. They hold their breath for two minutes as they search and then resurface… and then dive… and resurface… and on and on. All day. All year. And it’s only aging women. No men. Just aging women, dressed in black wetsuits. These are some tough mamas. Unfortunately, the next generation isn’t up to the task, so this tradition is dying off.

We drove some more and when it looked interesting, we stopped and walked along the rocks listening to the waves crash. And in each case, five or ten minutes after finding a hidden cove or beautiful vista… a bus of Japanese or Chinese tourists showed up. Children running. Parents yelling. Spell broken. Sigh….

We had to return the rental car by 8:00pm so around 6:30pm we typed in the rental companies telephone number into our GPS and followed the arrow and the encouraging voice. We’ve been running low on local currency, but finding an ATM is a nightmare, so we thought we could make due with the credit card, if the need arose. Well, arose it did. Along the way, I remembered that we had to fill up the tank, so I pulled into a filling station and waited for the attendant to skitter over to the window.

“You take this,” I asked, holding up the Master Card. “Credit Card? Master Card? Okay?” He looked puzzled, which should have been my cue to drive on, but after a while he nodded and took my card. Then, after filling the tank, he came back with the card, waving his hand. Oh… no good, I see. Shit. And thus began the drama. Not enough cash. No credit card reader. One of the attendants took the wheel and drove us to a nearby “bank” with an ATM, but of course, the thing was only in Korean and even after trying every single button, still no dice. Double shit. No other bank. No other ATM. No other hope! And time is running out to return the car! And to make the whole thing worse, we can’t communicate with anyone! Or can we…? My lovely wife picks up the cell phone and dials our friends in Seoul, then explains the situation and asks if she can explain it to the attendant. We hand him the phone and after several minutes, we speed back to the filling station, he runs inside and after a couple more minutes runs back out with our phone. He waves us off and indicates it’s okay. He smiles once more and leaves our lives. What happened? Our angel in Seoul came to our rescue and made the problem go away. With just 15 more minutes to spare, we raced, and I mean raced, to the car rental office. We flew through red lights, tires squealing through corners, zigzagging through traffic. Finally, this was the video game you’ve always wanted to play. And we made it! All’s well that ends well.

What did we learn from this story? Always help people when you can, even if you have to go out of your way. Help people, because you never know when you’ll reaaaaaaaly need that helpful person. Oh yeah, and always have enough cash!

Jeju is a relatively small place. You could drive completely around it, following the coast, in about 5 hours, maybe less. The center of island is clearly indicated by the large volcano and the area in between is given mostly over to the farming of nectarines and… I’m gonna say… garlic. The coast is a mix of rocky, lava stone outcrops dotted with the occasional deserted white sand beach. I say deserted, like a ghost town. Creepy. Like the Chinese, the Koreans are scared of the sun. They fear the evil “tanning” effects it might have on their skin. So deep is this fear that they often cover themselves, head to toe, before going outdoors. We passed plenty of hikers wearing long pants, long sleeves, gloves, wide brim hats and… of course… umbrellas. Really. We were wearing shorts and sandals, enjoying the sweet kiss of the Sun and these people were doing everything they could to hide from it. As with China (and maybe more parts of Asia?) they find whiter skin more beautiful. Perhaps this is a hold over from the time that rich women were indoors and poor women were in the fields, leading to class differences being clearly reflected in the color of the skin. Whatever the reason, these people steer clear of the beautiful, white beaches… so more for us!

We’ve eaten a lot of new things on this trip. Dishes we’ve never heard of. Spices we’d never known existed. But today we really topped it off with several courses of raw… and even living… seafood. Lots of raw fish, sure, like sushi. What’s new? And then a platter of shell fish… things… a snail… thing… some octopus… clam-ish stuff… Okay, yummy. A bite of this, a bite of that… and then something moved… Wait a minute! … Half of the platter is moving… uh oh! How did I not notice this? Is this normal? Is it supposed to move? To be alive? I look around at other tables, they grab a squirming shell creature, pop his shell off, dunk him in hot sauce and… down the hatch (don’t forget to chew well!). Okay, here we go. Lavinia, this was your idea, so you go first. I put the first victim on her plate. A drop of sauce fell from her chopsticks on to the poor creature. He cringes as if shot. You poor thing. She pours some water from her glass to wash off the sauce.

“I think the sauce is hurting him!” she whimpers.

It’s food. Eating him is going to hurt him. But anyway, she waves the waitress over and tries to indicate this poor creature is in pain. She can’t eat it. Please cook it. “Prepare,” she says. The waitress doesn’t speak English, but somehow interprets that Lavinia needs help preparing the dish. So she enthusiastically rips the little guy from his shell and drowns him in hot sauce. Boy, he’s really squirming now. She offers it up to Lavinia with a smile. Here you go, madame. Caught between disgust and a possible insult… she grabs it with her sticks… breathes… and bites. Don’t forget to chew!

Never one to be one-upped by a woman… I grabbed the next one, shucked it, dunked it and attacked. Don’t forget to chew, indeed.

Amazingly enough, my stomach survived. After my last experience in China, I was sure I’d be praying to the porcelain thrown again, but strangely enough… I feel fine. I suppose enough hot sauce and alcohol can sterilize just about anything.

We decided to rent a car in Jeju, to explore the island at our own tempo. Many travelers rely on the islands ample bus and taxi supply, but we decided it would be simpler to just rent a car… yeah, well… no maps and only a GPS navigator… in KOREAN! Oh boy! This was an adventure. Fortunately, some clever person decided to link the telephone directory to the GPS, so you can just type in a telephone number and you’ll be guided to the matching address (only works with land lines, of course). We could follow the big arrow on the screen easily enough, but the maze of streets and intersections is terrifying, nonetheless. Six roads converge with no clear idea of who has the right-of-way. No stop lights or lines or any of that. Nope, just quickly moving objects from every angle. And all the while we have this Korean voice babbling on. She spoke way too much to just be telling us when to turn, so we knew we were missing some additional information. Judging from the excitement in her voice, we assumed it had something to do with “leveling up” and “following the quest.” After a while, it made perfect sense.

If we drove correctly for at least a kilometer, we got plus two Experience points. If we discovered an alternative route, we gained plus one Wisdom. If we took a wrong turn, minus three, and so on. I’m pretty sure we also found an enchanted sword or two and escaped the clutches of more than one goblin. This made swerving through the Korean drivers much more entertaining, as you can imagine. The sound it made when we reached the hotel was more appropriate for saving the princess, so we celebrated with a bottle of soju and planned the next day’s journey through the Tunnel of Trees to the Crater of Doom.

Happy Anniversary! Six years married and nine together, in total. Six… long… years… oh, boy.

We had lunch with a a girl we met during our first trip. We had expected a short lunch in town, but were pleasantly surprised by a nice long lunch at her home, together with her husband and son. We dined on traditional Korean bulgogi while her son showed me all his newest Power Rangers toys. A very warm home. A pleasure to be guests and we hope to meet again.

The rest of the day is ours to enjoy. We wander through the shopping district, browsing and checking each corner for a nice place to eat. A romantic dinner and a long ride home. This will be our last day in Seoul. Tomorrow we’re off for a semi-honeymoon to the southern island of Jeju! Finally, there’s a vacation at the end of this trip!