Korea Diary - 5

It’s 2:30 AM and I am sitting wide-eyed at Changi Airport. Still another 11 hours to go for my flight to
Bangalore. Eleven hours of flight from Sacheon to Bangalore, with 22 hours of transit. You might ask, why couldn’t you plan it yourself?” True, but I am not paid to do that. Anyways, it was my choice, to avoid “unnecessary expenditure” of staying in Seoul.

The first leg of flight was horrible. I take back everything I said about leg space in Singapore Airlines. My leg aches from 6 hours of flight. The guy at the aisle was grumpy. No sooner we started off than he went to sleep; refusing everything that came his way (“just stop bothering me!” – his exact words.) And then, in the middle of the night, he woke up demanding everything – from headsets to a toothbrush. Everything could be forgiven, if only the damn PA system would stop announcing turbulence every few minutes!

And the best part of the flight? Flying over Taipei 101 at night! And an hour later, as I gazed down, there were those five ghostly lights - Globules of diffused light shining through the clouds, moving slowly along with us.

OK. That was definitely not a dream! They were really there – probably a flotilla of sorts!

Korea Diary - 4

Two things I wanted to buy from Korea – a mobile phones and about 20 DVDs. It never happened. One was available but expensive. On our return trip through Seoul, we dropped in at Yongsan electronics market. I bought only an umbrella from there – since we didn’t want to get wet in the rain pounding Seoul.

One-third of the shops were closed – it was Sunday. Another third refused to sell us anything. The rest always had the same answer: “Mobile phones only inside Korea. Other country mobile phones, very expensive!”

DVDs were the bigger joke. Apparently, no one seem to want original DVDs here. Everyone I asked, had the same answer: “Copy?” I checked at our hotel reception about DVD shops in the vicinity. Their reply was even funnier.

Receptionist: “Do you have USB?”

Me: “Yes”

Him: “I tell you site. You can download.”

Sacheon is a nice little place – a small town, with the biggest industry being aircraft manufacturing. In fact, even the streetlights are shaped like small aircrafts taking off. Like everywhere else in Korea, everyone has a touch screen mobile on which they depend for their life. The roads are full of Hyundais and Kias, with the odd Chevrolet or Daewoo thrown in. In fact, everything here is run either by Samsung or Hyundai - From making roads to running bakeries.

Being a coastal town, the biggest attraction here, are the raw fish joints.

Food has not been all about the marine life in the Pacific Ocean. We have had something like a steady menu, between Korean sea shell soup, fried chicken, kanji and pizza, for lunch. As for dinner, the raw fish experience was there only thrice. And it has been quite an experience. As soon as you enter the restaurant, you remove your shoes, and sit down on the wooden floor. The table is just about higher than the floor. A lady brings in some 20-odd dishes – kimchi (the vegetarian part of Korean cuisine – and they say they have about 400-odd varieties), potato, vegetables, noodles, fried fishes and all that. This is a round of starters. The smaller (Raw) fishes come next – shrimps, oysters, sea shells, octopi, sea urchins, pupa and all that. Some of them you can make out, since they look exactly like how they are in the water. The big fish comes as the third course. In fact the fishes are chosen right from the fish tank. You just point out what you want and they pick it up, kill it and serve them. The rice and soup follow, finally ending in a round of desserts. With all this, the Koreans are still quite slim.

I have an aquarium in my stomach.

Korea Diary - 3

Our flight to Sacheon was scheduled for 7:30. We reached Gimpo (the taxi ride cost 1/10 of what we paid for yesterday) at 5:10. There were hardly 10 people at the airport (Gimpo ‘International’ airport is Seoul’s domestic airport and is as big as – if not bigger- than Bengaluru International airport). All the check-in counters were close. We wondered whether we were at the wrong place.

They opened only at 5:30. No queuing up anywhere –at check-in counters or at the security. To our surprise, they found a nail cutter in Vijay’s bag – something that he never knew was there. And so didn’t two other international airport security personnel. There were hardly 2 or 3 people waiting at the gate. And surprisingly, we had a huge 300-odd seat airplane. For the first time in my life, I was the first person on board a flight. There were hardly 20 passengers on the flight.

It was -10C at Sacheon. The airfield was huge, but the aircraft came to a halt next to a tiny building that resembled one of those village railway stations in India. You could see the parking lot from inside the aircraft.

Sunguk was waiting for us. It was a 30 minute drive on the highway. Hills rose up on either side of the road. Afar, you could spot the sea. Throughout the ride, he kept apologizing for not finding a 5-star hotel for us. The hotel turned out to be fantastic, nestled on a small hill, overlooking the beautiful Namildae beach. A tall wind vane towered over it. The lobby was decorated with various models of wooden ships. The room faced the beach. Jagged cliffs jutted out into the sea – the most prominent being the elephant rock, a rock that resembles an elephant’s trunk dipped into the sea. A small soccer field stood on one of the cliffs, with a big house – reminiscent of the Bates Manor from Psycho – overlooking it. In the distance, one can stop a massive power plant; its huge towers spewing forth thick white smoke. Opposite to it a small lighthouse guards the entrance to a fishing harbor.

The room is large, with two beds – one single and one double. There is a huge LCD TV on the wall facing the bed. The room also has a small refrigerator, a computer and even a water dispenser, but no microwave or cooking range (thankfully Vijay had gotten a tiny electric cooker). The lack of drawers is a drawback. But the place has something which you wouldn’t find even in big 5-star hotels – free internet.

So much for apologies…

After a bath, settled down and switched on the TV. To my surprise, they were showing a feature on Kalamandalam and Kathakali (in Korean of course).

Korea Diary - 2

The terminal at Incheon resembles a spaceship. On either side, the corridors look like the fuselage of an aircraft. There are more than 50 gates, but no Gate 13. Superstitious people, these guys are.

After landing, the captain announced that the outside temperature was -4C. The sun shone brightly. He must be joking…so I thought, until I stepped out and shivered.

The taxi was luxurious - spacious, with polished ebony interiors, leather cushion seats and what else. The bill was more than what we would probably spend during the whole trip. The ride to Hilton was long, winding through the traffic of Seoul. Driving was not any different from the haphazard style followed by the cab drivers in India.

It was late evening when we got our rooms. Wanted to go shopping, but didn’t know where to go. The concierge took out a map and pointed out the location of Yongsan market. But by then, the sun had set, and we had to eat something. The Hilton had nice restaurants, but pragmatism dictated that we should better try something that we could afford. It was ages (one hour actually – but a walk in the freezing cold can make it seem longer) before we found a McDonalds. Thankfully, unlike in Hong Kong, it didn’t smell of fish.

Korea Diary - 1

The worst thing about night flights is the dinner – they serve it at a time when you should be sleeping. Of course, you can choose not to have it and go to sleep. They wouldn’t disturb you for a paltry dinner. I never refuse, but still crib about how late they serve it. Singapore Airlines was awesome – ample leg space and personal TV monitors with a host of movies running. Yet, after dinner I decided to sleep.

In an hour and a half, the lights of Singapore were visible. The lights of a hundred ships shone in the water, lined up like cars on a traffic congested highway. We had about two hours of transit at Changi and thankfully, there was no change of terminal. Vijay was asked to take out all the eatables that he had stuffed into his bag. But it was not as bad as the two Korean ladies who decided to carry a bottle of jam or pickle or whatever. The Indian security lady refused to let them through.

“You can’t carry that,” she said in an accent that was far from Indian.

“They didn’t have a problem in Melbourne”, the Koreans.

“This is not Melbourne, this is Singapore. Here there is problem”, the security guard. “You have two options – check it in or ‘poosh’ it”

“’Push’ it?” a bewildered look from the Koreans

“Yes, poosh it” – a symbol of nonchalance, that lady was.

“Er…telegram”, interjected her hunky colleague helpfully.

Post it.

Nobody moved when the Inchon flight was announced (Of course, a Jackie Chan look-alike, with flowing hair, and wearing a vest – only a vest, had come running an hour before. It was politely pointed out to him that the flight had not yet departed). The English announcement was followed by one in Korean and suddenly, all the hell broke loose. Nobody understands English.

Breakfast was served immediately after we took off and soared over the sea. A few hours later came a heavy lunch. I refused neither. It was too much of food. I fell asleep out of exhaustion.

The flight was smooth – six hours to Inchon. We even had a stopover at Ho Chi Minh City, where the aircraft was towed through the busy streets by a truck.

OK…that didn’t really happen. I dreamt it.