Ongoing Photo TR: Rastus goes to Korea and Japan

Rastuso · December 27, 2008

Korea wrap-up

I never did go over some of the crazy stuff from Korea. Honestly, once I got to Japan, Seoul was so inferior in comparison, I forgot all about it. Seoul struck me as a dirtier, less Americanized version of Japan. And a city that simply didn’t care about air conditioning. It’s not that Japan had tons of American restaurants. I saw TGIF at Yokohama, but besides that it was pretty much just McDonald’s , Wendy’s, and KFC, and then ice cream stores. But Korea was full of restaurants serving nasty Korean food that consists of bowls with a whole bunch of random things floating in broth, and Kim Chi. You know, there was a time when Kim Chi had to be eaten. You know, back before electricity. Beef Jerky is a curiosity snack in the US, since it’s no longer a necessity. Korea is still latching on to the days when eating rotten food was the only option.

The area I was in consisted of tons of random Korean restaurants, tons of street vendors at night, tons of tiny convenience stores, and tons of sandwich/coffee shops. I did find a real grocery store the last week I was there that was pretty close to a US one, well except for the squid/octopus/crab stuff. They had bags of snacks that were fish and almond mix. WHOLE fish and almonds. Who the hell thinks up these things? I got some candy that my wife tried last night, and it was apparently rose flavored candy. Since when is “rose” a flavor? There was a total knock-off Krispy Kreme place there that I was very happy to see, and they tasted pretty much the same. They had an entire aisle of various sizes of Korea red pepper powder, and a huge canned meat selection. According to my wife, Korea is the only place were SPAM is actually spelled in a language besides English.

I hit a few malls in Korea. They are similar to US ones, and even had a few rarer US restaurants, like Pizza Hut. I tried some pasta at a few places, but it all sucked. There was just something a bit off with the sauce, probably kim chi. I found that Tony Roma’s near the Yeouido station was awesome. Exact same food as the US. The Hard Rock was of course great too. I went there the next to last night, and got an XXL shirt. I was stupid and didn’t try it on. I get back to the hotel and find that XXL in Korea means M in the US, so I have a $35 useless shirt. I decided to head back to the Hard Rock my final night and exchanged it, and saw my favorite smokin’ hot waitress there again.

Speaking of the ladies, Korean women seem to have cultivated the Manhatten prostitute look. They wore mostly high heels and short skirts, and looked emaciated. Even the secretaries where I worked wore very short skirts, skin tight clothes, and were barefoot a lot. For our celebration party after our meeting was over, we had cake and BEER! Of course, the REAL celebration party was the night before when we hit a Korean BBQ place. This consists of lots of nasty kim chi, and fairly fatty pork that you place on a gas grill in your table to cook as you like it. We later got some Bulgolgi beef that was much better, basically little hamburgers, but it was very important to change grills for the different meats. It was also very important to not pour your own drinks. Everyone screamed at me when I did. Someone else was to pour it for you, using their glass (eeewwww!) Luckily it was Soju, the alcohol killed everything. Soju is Korean whisky made with some rice too. Pretty potent stuff, and some of my Korean co-workers had waaay too much of it. Things got out of hand, and very rambunctious. The waitress wanted pictures with all the American guys, and of course gave the peace sign in every one of them.

But, then things got REAL weird. We’re talking totally surreal. We left the BBQ place, and headed to Karaoke. They have private karaoke parlors, where you rent it out for a few hours. I was a little nervous at first when we got there and there were 3 women in the aforementioned Manhatten whore attire. But, their job was to practically force liquor into us. One guy got passed out drunk and couldn’t walk out of the place. I couldn’t imagine my supervisor in the US having to be carried out of a bar on a business dinner. I have some simply insane video of the night, and am attaching the best one. Words can’t really describe that evening, but I know I will never forget it.

I’ve also attached some random signs from around Korea, and strange things I saw for sale. I also went to see a movie while I was there called the Good, the Bad, and the Weird. A Korean take on a spaghetti Western, a kim chi Western I suppose. It was shown with English subtitles, but surprisingly, most the crowd was still Korean. I decided to get a snack for the show, to see how it was. A combo of a decent size Coke, a small thing of popcorn, and your choice of a hot dog, nachos, or candy, was only $8. I got that, and headed to the theater. The theater was quite nice, and you got an assigned seat. There was a map outside to show you where your seat was. I sat down, and suddenly found out that my “candy” was actually a bag of squid. WTF with the squid, Korea? The popcorn was OK. The preshow was a bit different. The previews were interspersed with commercials. And even though it was a packed house, I heard no cell phones during the whole show, although there was tons of texting. The movie was decent, and had some cool action scenes, but was a bit too long.

My last weekend was doing more sightseeing things. On Saturday, I headed to Gyeongbok Palace. I rode the subway to get close, and you sure couldn’t miss it once you got out. This place is frickin huge, and amazing. Most of it is apparently recreations, with maybe a corner being original. There was one building that looked like a guard tower maybe that was in the middle of the street, so I assume it must have been totally original. The main courtyard was huge, and had dressed up guards. I kept running into a Chinese guy taking pictures, so we decided to get pictures with each other too. The buildings got a little repetitious, but there were some cool ones near the back, especially one surrounded by water and lotus petals. There was also a Korean museum here that provided some air conditioning. I got a few souvenirs and headed to Namdaemun Market.

This is your basic crazy asian street market, packed with really small streets that were wall to wall people. Most of the stuff being sold was knockoffs, but they weren’t ultra cheap. Louis Vitton bags were everywhere, but I got my wife a Gucci wallet for $15. They had some nasty food, or course, and all of these huge roots in big jars. I think these are Ginseng, but I’m not sure. I didn’t buy much, really, but it was quite an experience.

On my last Sunday, I hit Korean Folk Village that was waaaay down at Suwon. I got on the wrong damn train that cost me almost an hour, but finally got there. I rode the bus to the park, and it started raining as I got in. There is a small amusment area, and a coaster, but it sure looked to me like it was SBNO (Robb’s credit ride proves me wrong). The trees seemed to have taken over. If it is still open, the setting is awesome. But the whole amusement are was pretty ghetto. They had a total knockoff of a Sally dark ride there, and some scary looking flats. They had a big volcano thing, and a huge above ground pool. The folk area was nice. It had recreations of houses from all areas of Korea, and they looked pretty authentic. There were also some pretty crazy bridges going over water with no handrails at all. I was given a potato by a little girl, which was quite odd. They had a big pot by the river, boiling them. I thought I missed out on them, until the girl gave me one. It was pretty good!

I was thinking of trying some of the food, but most of them were closed, and the ones open had some scary looking stuff. They did have one place that actually served Gruel! That’s awesome! I got some rice taffy and rice candy. They also had a calligraphist there, so I got some cool banners in fancy Korean.

They had a scary walkthrough too. All of the scenes triggered as you walked up, and most were pretty strange. Big caterpillars must be evil in Korea. It was actually a pretty good walkthrough. They weren’t doing many shows that day because of the rain, so all I saw was some horse riding. I did get some honey candy on the way out. They took a ring of honey and twisted it over and over until it was angel hair threads of honey, then filled that with crushed nuts. Pretty good stuff. I also tried some of the omnipresent Pocari Sweat, which was just nasty. It tasted sorta like alka seltzer.

I went around the mall at Suwon station a bit, finally found an arcade, which wasn’t that great, but did have a strange game where you threw balls at the screen to hit things. The theater there had this huge area full of small seats that you could sit in until your show started. Still very little Western food outlets, so I hit Tony Roma’s again and got back exhausted.

I really liked my time in Korea, but honestly, it totally paled in comparison to Japan. I have since found out there is an area in Seoul full of arcades and such, and am quite upset I didn’t know about it while I was there. Oh well. I was hoping for a second business trip later this year, but that looks unlikely now. I was really hoping to get to TDL for Halloween. I will for sure be back to Japan, and Everland and Lotte World are both absolute world class parks. So, maybe I’ll get back to Seoul someday too, even if it’s on my dime.

Rastus O'Ginga

Korean BBQ.

Now THAT's a work celebration, except we all had hangovers from Karaoke.

Greatest. Elevator. Manufacturer. Ever.

This was in a subway station. No English version. Apparently in case of a gas attack, only Koreans will survive. It wasn't clear where these masks were.