The Great Wall of China

I grew up in Iowa, which is known for having a very good education system. When I was a teen, I moved to Florida, which isn't known for great education, but I still got a pretty good one. Yet, in all my pre-university studies, I learned precious little about Asia. I could go so far as to say next to nothing. Note: In university, I majored in mathematics and chemistry, so there wasn't any Asian history covered there either. There are some mathematical concepts named for somewhere in the east like the Chinese Remainder Theorem. But that doesn't really count. Or if it did, it counts in modular arithmetic. Note within my note: I also recognize that almost no one who reads this will appreciate that joke, but I appreciate it. 

No doubt, at some juncture is middle school, I had to memorize capital cities. In high school, I learned about Japan, but only in the context of World War II. The Himalayas came up (geology joke), but only because they were so tall. In discussing the current affairs of the time, naturally, the Middle East was mentioned but only painted with the broadest strokes of the pen or the paintbrush. 

From my experience, our education system is guilty of orientalism, the idea that everything east of (you pick the point) is "the east" and it is glommed together as one monolith. Given the number of cultures, languages, and people in "the east", this is a terrible oversimplification and leads to stereotypes and a lack of understanding. 

But what's my point? Even given the bare minimum I learned concerning Asia, I learned about the Great Wall of China. I don't know what grade I was in, what course it was mentioned in, or even if it was part of any regular curriculum. But I had certainly heard of the Great Wall of China. And I suspect most people have. 

Yet, knowing what it is, reading about it, and seeing pictures of it, none of that is comparable to walking on it. Calling this the Great Wall is an understatement. This wall is monumental. 

We visited the Mutianyu section of the Great Wall. It is one of the younger sections, having been built by the Ming Dynasty in the 14th century. "Younger" here is relative, given that this means it is already nearing 700 years old. During the Ming Dynasty, both the inner wall and outer wall were built with crenelations and arrow slots. That differs from some other and older sections of the Great Wall in which these appear only on the outer wall, and the inner wall is more rounded and slightly lower. 

Standing on the wall, hiking along it, looking at how it meanders through the mountain, it makes you feel tiny. The wall is a marvel. At almost no point is the walk just straight. You curve left and right. You go up and down, sometimes on slopes, sometimes on stairs. Some of the stairs are so slight, you barely need to lift your foot. Others are so steep you bring your knee up to your chest just to get to the next one. The wall follows the crest of the mountain, like a gargantuan serpent of stone. 

There are twenty watch towers in the Mutianyu section of the Great Wall. The furthest east, and generally lower in elevation is Tower 1. The furthest west, and much higher in elevation, is Tower 20. We rode up in a chair lift (a ski lift) and arrived next to Tower 5. There are paths to walk up the mountain to reach the wall of one prefers. But that's a long and steep walk up before you even get to walk on the wall. 

From Tower 5, we headed west, toward Tower 20. The views of the mountains all around us were amazing. And there are multiple ranges. Looking out to the north, there was a near mountain range, one behind that, and one behind that. Imagine an army from Mongolia cresting mountain after mountain, finally reaching this one and saying, "Really? We're this far into it and now we have to scale a wall?!" I, for one, would not want to put in that amount of effort to invade. 

The watch towers each have two floors. The top floor is for the guards to watch for enemies, fire arrows, and throw stones. The bottom floor is sleeping chambers for the guards not on duty.

After we passed Tower 9, Alrica decided she had had enough. She turned back toward Tower 5. I kept going. This was probably the only time in my life I was going to hike along the Great Wall of China. I took advantage of it. 

We were lucky in the parts of the wall we were hiking. We weren't alone by any stretch of the imagination. But compared to some other parts, it was sparsely populated with other walkers. Mutianyu is a bit further out of the city than some other sections of the Great Wall in the Beijing District. From the town of Mutianyu, there are three ways up. You can walk up the mountain, you can ride up the chair lift to Tower 5 like we did, or there is a cable car that takes you to Tower 14. I walked past Tower 14 to near Tower 16.Wow, there were so many more people on the west side than in the middle section. 

What can be frustrating is that sometimes people stop at bottleneck points to get pictures. For example, going into and out of some of the towers involves much narrower stairs. At the top of those stairs, you have a great view (assuming you are looking away from the watch tower and not into it.) So many people stop there to get pictures. They need 700 pictures of their loved ones in various poses on the stairs. This causes two lines to form. First, there are all the people inside the watch tower waiting to get out. And then there are all the people on the steep and narrow and at times precarious staircase waiting to get in. The doorways are arches just wide enough for one person to pass through. This is already a natural pinch point, and those who stop for a couple minutes to get just the right shot of their companion leaning on the wall cause big traffic jams. 

The sections to the west are higher up, so theoretically have better views. I found that they weren't that different. All of it is impressive. The mountains are stark and tall and looming. The engineering of the wall is admirable and inspiring. And all of it conspires to remind you that you are just one tiny little person in one short span of time. You are, like my childhood lessons concerning Asia, next to nothing. 

But you get to use a piece of that time to enjoy a hike in an incredible place. So, that's something. 

The Summer Palace of Epic Naming Conventions

Quick note: It seems that blogger.com is blocked in Kazakhstan where I am now and where I am posting from. So I am posting from the Blogger app on my phone. The downside is that I lose certain functionality. I can't caption the pictures. And some of them turn sideways. So, good news. You get some extra neck exercise while you read this.

I've heard of people who have "a summer house." I've even known some with that ephemeral place by the lake or full-service cabin in the mountains. But I know of no one with a summer home as fantastical as that owned by the dynastic emperors of China. We visited the Summer Palace, and let me say, "Wow!"

Yes, it is a place by a lake but, unlike others, the lake (not a tiny one) is entirely in the grounds of the palace. It is in the mountains (or one mountain) but, unlike others, the mountain is entirely in the grounds of the palace. And it is grandeur on a scale that stretches the imagination. 

The Chinese aristocracy had many talents, building great walls and great palaces among them. But let's not underrate their ability to name things. Every building and most of the natural formations inside the Summer Palace complex have the most poetic, evocative names. First let me show you the Summer Palace of the Four Seas, perfectly lined up with the Archway of Cloud and Jade Brilliance. 

A summering emperor could enjoy a long walk around his enormous lake, called Lake Kunming (not sure if that has poetic meaning or not.)

On the way, he could pass through the Purple Cloud Gate Tower. 

He could take a slight detour on to an island in the lake to see the Heralding Spring Pavilion. 

He would pass near the Hall of Jade Ripples.

And continue through the Pavilion of Literary Brilliance. 

On his way back, he could stroll at a leisurely pace along the Long Corridor. (That's more on the nose than most of the other names.)

Understand, the Summer Palace was but one of the majestic buildings in which an emperor could chill. Another choice was the Hall of Benevolence and Longevity. 

This Hall is protect by a Qilin.

Meanwhile, the emperor's mother, the Dowager Empress, had her very own Chamber of Distant Gazing on the north side of the mountain. 

Nearby was the Hall of Serene Peace. (Doesn't serene mean peaceful?)

And, perhaps best of all, everyone could enjoy the Garden of Harmonious Interests with its beautiful reflecting pool. 

Naturally, you can count on two philosophers to ruin the whole appellation aesthetic by naming one of the bridges over this pool the Fish Observation Bridge, just because they were philosophizing about the movements of the fish they were observing from the bridge. 

In all seriousness, not every building in the Summer Palace complex is original. Many of them were destroyed during the Second Opium War by the British and the French in 1860. They weren't rebuilt until the 1990s.

War does have a way of destroying beauty, doesn't it? Gives you something to think about as you gaze over Kunming Lake from the Pavilion of Clear Radiance.

Challenging China

Perhaps you’ve noticed a bit of a gap in my blogging. Perhaps you fear I have abandoned you. Perhaps you are wailing, “Erich, we need our fix of your nonsense and pictures of interesting things. How could you neglect your eager readers?”

I assure you, eager readers, I have been writing blog posts. There is no lack there. The delay is in posting said content. And why is that? China.

Look, the motorcycles here wear coats.

We are enjoying our stay in China in many ways. This is our fourth day here, and we’ve done some very cool things (as you will see in some of my blog posts when I am able to catch up.) But there are a few things about China that make it more difficult and more frustrating.

Some of them just wear mittens.

The Great Firewall of China

The biggest of these is the other great wall, the Great Firewall of China. Holy blockage, Batman! China is very restrictive about the internet. In theory, we have internet in our hotel, though I can’t get it to work on my computer at all. Alrica can from time to time.

Our cell phones do better when using our eSIMs (though they don’t do any better using wifi.) And still there are restrictions. Some websites you just can’t access. Some you can, but they are slowed to such a degree that they are unusable. Most Google apps, for example, are either blocked or they may as well be. You can use Google Maps, but it isn’t very good here. It won’t give great directions. You have to use AMap, a Chinese product. Google Translate barely works. (It works to some degree if you have downloaded the language.)

We purposely picked a week between semesters for me. And thank goodness we did! I couldn’t possibly do any work with the amount of internet that is trickling forth. Alrica does have some work to do this week, and she is eating up the data on her eSIM.

I never bought these, but I should have. I am just so curious!

Transit Visa

The visa situation is also a bit different here. US citizens cannot visit China without a visa, but sort of you can. You can do what we’re doing. We are on what is called a Transit Visa. We didn’t have to pay any visa fees. But there are a few rules:

1. You must be using China as a transit. That means you must fly (or train or boat) in from some country (call it country A) which is not China. (Interestingly, you can fly in from either Taiwan or Hong Kong, and those count as a country which is not China.) And when you leave, you must fly (or boat or train) out to a country which is not China and also not country A. You can’t go back to the same country you came from. (Again, it could be Taiwan or Hong Kong, so long as that isn’t where you came from.) For us, this is fine. We arrived on a flight from South Korea. We are departing on a flight to Uzbekistan.
2. You can only stay in one division. Think of a division like a state. We landed in Beijing, which is in the Beijing division. We cannot go to any other division. We must fly out from an airport in the Beijing division.
3. You can only be here for 240 hours. You must already have a flight out before you arrive. Before arrival, we also filled out China’s electronic entry. And we gave them the flight numbers of our arriving flight and of our departing flight. Be prepared to show proof of that departing flight at passport control when you arrive.

Honestly, as troubles go, the transit visa was pretty minor. We were worried that there would be some trouble, but it went smoothly. (I say this now while still in Beijing. I will have to update the post if we have any trouble leaving.)

There are warm tips all over the subway stations. Not warm enough to be hot tips, however.

Money (and Associated Apps)

Some countries are all about cash. Others would prefer you don’t use cash, but foreign credit cards are good. But in China, neither of those are the case.

A few businesses will take cash, like the grocery store. But that’s rare. And nobody takes a foreign credit card. You have to have a payment app. And not just any app you choose. You have to have either Alipay or WeChat. (Alipay is the big one that everyone uses in China.)

You set up Alipay to use your foreign credit card. So ultimately, you are using the card. But in reality, you are using the app as a middleman. Or middlebot. It works one of two ways:

Method 1 – Scan: You open Alipay, press scan, and then you scan a QR code presented to you by the business. Alipay then asks you for the amount, which you enter. You use a six-digit payment password that you chose when you set up the app. And then you get a confirmation message that the payment occurred.

Method 2 – Pay: You open Alipay, press Pay/Receive, and then enter your six-digit payment password. Then your phone displays a QR code. The business scans your QR code and they enter the amount. You again get a confirmation message that the payment occurred.

WeChat is very similar in how it works. So using Alipay or WeChat isn’t so bad. But the setup, wow, that was terrible. If you want to use a foreign credit card rather than a Chinese bank account, then you must set the app up before you arrive in China. But the app really wants you to have a Chinese phone number to validate your identity. It says you can use a foreign phone number, but it doesn’t work well. Alrica did finally get it to work. I ended up using an email address instead.

You might think, that’s great Erich. That’s not so hard. Ah, wait.

I wanted to also be able to use Alipay for public transportation in Beijing. That is in a separate section of the app. And when you go to set that up, well, if you didn’t use a phone number to set it up initially, you can’t make it work with public transportation.

I saw this in one of the residential neighborhoods. I have no idea why they lean wood boards up against the tires of the cars.

Passports

You always have to carry your passport with you in China. That’s not entirely unheard of in other countries. But the difference is that here you need it over and over. Every time you enter a site, any place you have to buy tickets to enter, you must show one passport for each ticket you want to buy.

I assume the Chinese have to show their national ID cards. But I don’t know that for sure. I also assume it is part of some heavy duty record keeping about how many people visit sites and from which places.

Pedestrian vs Motorbike

On a scale of East Asia, the walkability of Beijing is between Hanoi (you may or may not have a sidewalk and you are continually dodging motorbikes) and Seoul (you almost always have a nice wide sidewalk without any motorbikes parked on it and you need not dodge motorbikes because they stick to the street.) In Beijing, you almost always have a sidewalk. However, in some sections, the amount of it left for pedestrians after motorbikes (and pedal bikes) are parked can be very narrow. Plus, there is still motorbike dodging. The motorbikes don’t want to wait at red lights, so if they are making a turn anyway, they just ride up on the sidewalk to get around traffic.

I don’t know which is worse. Some of them ride up and you don’t even know they are there until they are immediately behind you. Others honk honk honk, they keep honking the entire time. This lets you know they are coming, which is good. But it’s also chutzpah! “Hey get out of my way even though you are the one using the sidewalk for its intended purpose and I am not.”

Aggression

The Chinese are aggressive. I don’t mean belligerent. That’s not the right word at all. I really mean aggressive in the defiance of patience, and I will give you an example to demonstrate.

We were at the grocery store buying some bottled drinks. The line at the cashier was long. Then another employee came over to open the check out aisle beside ours. The employee spoke to the women who was next in line to say she would take her on the other lane.

That woman headed to the next aisle, but another woman with a full shopping cart ran forward and jammed into the aisle before her. Then the two women struggled with one another. The one who had been in line only had a couple items, so no cart. The one with the cart was using it to block the aisle. The woman who had been in line reached over the cart and handed her items to the cashier. And in that way she won the battle.

It was wild to me that I was seeing a wrestling match at the cashier aisle. Alrica and I just stayed in the line we had been in and waited our turn.

That’s the kind of aggression I mean. They will take any opportunity to make things more convenient for them whether or not it is considerate of anyone else. If you are in the crosswalk and a turning vehicle thinks he can make it, he goes. Having just come from South Korea which has a strong courtesy culture, this is a stark difference. No vehicle crosses a crosswalk in Seoul if there is a person anywhere in it.

Don’t misunderstand me. When we go to a restaurant, the servers there are exceptionally nice to us. They help us when it is clear we don’t know what we’re doing. They break out their own translator apps to help us. I’m not saying the people are unfriendly, just ready to take advantage of opportunities to the exclusion of others.

In some ways it reminds me of India, where if I didn’t stand in line close enough to the person in front of me, someone would cut in line. It’s that sort of thing. But I guess both of those countries have a billion people. If there are so many of you, you have to do what you can to get ahead.

Pollution

We have had wonderful weather the entire time we’ve been here. Sunny days, no clouds. And yet, I’ve never seen a blue sky. The sky, during the days, is always a hazy white. Some days are better than others, but there is never not a blanket of particles in the air.

As for litter, there is some. Compared to Seoul, which is so clean it can shock you, the litter is noticeable. But, on the whole, Beijing doesn’t have too much litter. It’s better in that regard than Reno. (I use Reno as an example because it is where I last lived in the USA.)

Random Oddities

Things happen, right? I mean, weird things that are just part of the unique experience of one person and will probably not happen again for someone else in similar situations. Like, in Vlore, Albania, there was a huge rainstorm that overwhelmed the streets with water. The power and water were out for a day. But that’s a rare occurrence.

We had a similar just happened to be here at the right time kind of thing. We got a call from the front desk of our hotel. They explained that the next day, we may not be in our hotel room from 9 AM to noon. The government won’t allow it. You see, the American President is coming to Beijing, and as part of the security, no one is allowed on high floors in hotels. So for those three hours, we must be somewhere else. We can leave our belongings. We just can’t be in the room.

No problem, because we already had a plan for the morning. We were going to visit the Temple of Heaven. Guess what. That’s where President Xi took President Trump. So we couldn’t go there either.

It’s bizarre, right? Just a matter of timing, and I guess it’s the way the government manages security here. Honestly, it’s not a big inconvenience either. We had already planned to leave before nine and we went to Qianmen Square instead. In some ways, it is amusing that we just happened to be here with exactly the right timing to experience it.

A Few Good Things in the Balance

I don’t want to give the impression that we dislike China. We find it hard, and the internet thing is frustrating. But there are some very cool aspects to Beijing too.

They have amazing bottled drinks. When we go to the convenience store or the grocery store, we find all kinds of wonderful drinks. They have some classics we are used to like Coca-Cola. But they have all kinds of beverages we don’t. Some have pomegranate juice in them, others are flavors of cherries or peaches or limes. I bought one drink that came in a bottle with a purple label and it is delicious. The flavor is familiar, but I can’t place what it is. (Even though it’s purple, it’s not grape. But it is great.)

I bet you can, like I did, guess what those bottles are.

Beijing loves roses. You see them planted on the sides of the roads or along the sides of buildings. And these are big, tall roses with wide full petals. They come in all kinds of colors, including the peach color that Alrica likes best.

No shortage of roses, at least not in May

There is widespread use of the Latin Alphabet on road signs and in the subway. Everything is written in two scripts. And on the subway, a voice announces the next stop in Chinese and then in English.

There are bikes everywhere. You know rental bikes like Lime Bike or Bird Bike, they have similar things here. I think, if I could get Alipay to work with transportation, I could use that to rent them. But since I haven’t gotten Alipay to work that way, I haven’t tried. These bikes are everywhere, near many subway stations, bus stations, and popular areas. What’s more, the bike companies redistribute bikes throughout the day. Imagine a pickup truck and a tricycle had a baby. We’ve seen those kinds of vehicles painted in the same colors as the bikes. The vehicles drive around and pick up bikes when there are too many in a location or drop off bikes when there aren’t enough. In the early morning, we saw one of them placing lots of bikes right outside the subway in our neighborhood.

The yellow vehicle only moves the yellow bikes

There is a lot to enjoy about China, and I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend it. But I would tell people to go into it with their eyes open.

Night in Seoul

May the fourth (on the fifth) be with you. (That will be relevant in a minute.)

Sorry about the trees

Seoul is a very exciting city in the day and the night. This past week, we've done some fun afternoon, evening, and night activities. One of the great aspects of Seoul is how safe it is. The streets are well lit, there are people about, and no one gives you any trouble, or gives you a second glance.

One of the city walls lit up at night

Seoul is a walled city. Perhaps I should say, part of Seoul is a walled city. Seoul was, for many centuries, a walled city. Modern Seoul extends way outside of those walls. But the walls still stand with four major gates and four minor gates.

Heunginjimun Gate, looking at it straight on

The other evening, Alrica and I headed over to Naksan Park. This park is just on the inside of the eastern city wall. Here the wall rises up the side of Naksan Peak. It's a great place to watch the sunset.

The camera doesn't quite capture the full majesty

Then we walked back down the mountainside along the wall. We reached Heunginjimun Gate, the major east gate of the wall.

Another view of Heunginjimun Gate

Last night, May 5, Seoul did another drone show as part of the Seoul Spring Festival. Hopefully, my picture above and my comment at the start of the post is making more sense to you. Yes, it was Star Wars themed. It wasn't on May the fourth, but May the fifth be with you too.

As before, it was spectacular. There were two types of images. One was the portrait. The drones took shape and lit up, and there were completely recognizable storm troopers, or Luke Skywalker (and it looked like Mark Hamill), or Darth Vader. (Or the Millennium Falcon, which maybe isn't a portrait, but it was the same sort of image.) The other was animation. The drones took a planar shape. And then by changing the colors that each one was emitting, they showed you a seen like watching the pixels of a screen show a movie. We saw the battle between Luke and Darth Vader from The Empire Strikes Back. Also, at one point, the drones took that planar shape to match the view from the cockpit of the Millennium Falcon. And then you saw the view through the window like you were in the cockpit.

Bad guys can't aim. But they look menacing.

My pictures have some trees in the way, as you probably noticed. But here is a link to a video on YouTube someone took of the show if you want to see what I mean.

The force is strong with Seoul.

Noun Noun

One day, early in our stay in Seoul, we were riding on the bus. Alrica noticed a business named Elfbar. She pointed it out to me and I said, "How nice that the elves have a place to kick back with some soju or beer." But Alrica disagreed with my interpretation. She said, no, it is a bar that served drinks made out of liquefied elves. Her example was a coffee bar that serves coffee drinks. It doesn't serve drinks to coffee.

The selfie culture is huge here, though that's not unique to South Korea

Disagreeing on such a crucial topic, we decided to ask our kids. Our son also interpreted it as a place where elves can go to drink. But our daughter said we were both wrong. It is a bar made from elves. The very beams that hold up the building are, in fact, processed elf. I suppose this is in the the vein of a candy bar, which is a bar made out of candy. Alrica pointed out that we didn't see any little elf limbs sticking out. Our daughter countered that explaining that of course you wouldn't see that. The construction company sanded it down after they erected it.

The Elfbar that started the conversation

The trouble is the noun which is being used to modify another noun. In this case, "elf" is being used almost as if it were an adjective. Though there is already an adjectival form of "elf", namely "elven" or "elvish" if you prefer. So what does it mean when "elf" is used as an adjective? Here is my list of possible interpretations. Let me know if you have others that I've missed.

• An establishment that serves beverages made with alcohol to a primarily elven clientele.
• An establishment that serves beverages made with elves to a primarily human clientele. Alrica's example: Coffee bar or juice bar.
• An establishment that gives you a plate and lets you select vaious preparations of elves in a buffer style. Think of a salad bar.
• A plank made from elves, something that has been pressed into a rectangular shape, as suggested by my daughter. This would be comparable to a candy bar or a bar of soap.
• Similar to the one above, a rod or dowel made from elves which has been formed into a cylindrical shape. Like the bars of a jail cell, a steel bar.
• A lofty benchmark to which humanoid races aspire. We have to clear the "elf bar". Think of the crossbar in track and field events like the high jump.
• A legal society for attorneys with pointed ears. Consider being a member of the bar.
• A prohibition on the improvement of elves.
• A unit of air pressure as experienced by non-human humanoids.
• A measure of music played by elves, most likely on the lute or mandolin or pan pipes.

We have now seen other Elfbars throughout Seoul. Seems to be a chain. You will be surprised to learn that all of my suggested interpretations above are wrong. Turns out, Elfbar is a vape shop.

Maybe Elf and Bar mean something different in Korean

Now, having overanalyzed the term Elfbar, let's take another noun noun combination. What do you think this is?

Much like Elfbar, do they serve to cats? Or do they serve cats?

We don't need to make another list. Alrica already knew what a Cat Cafe is. Apparently, you get a coffee and sit down in a room full of cats that then come walk over you and rub against you while you drink your coffee. I suppose that is attractive to someone, but I know one person who is not that someone. Cats are fine, but I don't want them brushing their fur against me while I am drinking coffee. (Though, I don't want to be drinking coffee either, so there is no part of this scenario that draws me in.)

Lotte is one of the major corporations here, the chaebol. The chaebol are the super huge corporations, usually owned and run by a family and the members of that family are just shy of being royalty. They have a lot of influence and power in South Korea. Lotte is a big grocery chain. There are Lotte department stores. And one of its subsidiary businesses is Lotteria, which is a fast food restaurant. We've seen Lotteria in a few countries, but decided to try one here in Seoul.

One of the great things in many restaurants is the kiosk. What a wonderful invention! I can change the language and then read the menu, order what I want, and pay at the kiosk. Yes, my number is still called in Korean, so that can be a stumbling block. But at least I have an idea what I am ordering.

I found it funny that on the kiosk, when you clicked the Desserts category, you saw a lot of food choices that were very much not desserts.

Hot Mini Pork! My favorite dessert! Or wait, Long Cheese? How to choose?

Also, while eating in the Lotteria, we saw this sign.

If we're not allowed to eat and drink here, why do you have tables and chairs?

I had a guess what the sign meant and once I translated it, I was correct. It is saying you can't eat food or drink from outside, that wasn't purchased here. But if I just went by the image...

Seoul is full of walk signals. And unlike New York City, they mean something here. People do NOT cross against the signal. (I've actually seen one man doing so, but from the way he was staggering, I am reasonably sure he was drunk.) You can actually get fined for crossing against the signal, and this is enforced.

However, after the introduction of the smartphone, Seoul encountered a new problem. Many people were looking down at their phones as they walked, not noticing they were at an intersection, walking into the street against the signal, and getting hit by vehicles. Here is how Seoul dealt with that.

That red is a series of lights in the pavement. They will turn green when you can go.

These lights are at the ground level. So even if you are walking with your head down, you see either red lights or green lights at the corner. Hopefully this makes you aware you are about to walk into traffic.

It's genius. Though I'm not sure what to call it. A walk signal itself is a noun noun, if you think of "walk" like, "I'm going for a walk" or it is a verb noun if you think of "walk" like, "She told me to 'Walk this way! Talk this wa-a-ay'." Maybe the light in the pavement could be called curb walk signals, so noun verb noun. It's a whole part of speech sandwich. And if you wanted that sandwich at Lotteria, I suggest you look in the desserts menu.

Staying Healthy

Let's talk vaccines! We aren't doctors so they would be your best bet for advice regarding your individual circumstances but keeping yourselves healthy while traveling is better than trying to treat an illness once it occurs. Today, Erich and I went for our yellow fever vaccines.

Yellow Fever is a disease that mostly occurs in South America and Africa but since it is so uncommon in the US, the vaccine is very expensive. Our doctors quoted us $400 each for the vaccine that we weren't even sure we would need. The vaccine is a one time shot that lasts a lifetime and some countries require it to enter and others require it if you are coming from someplace that has the disease. You must get the vaccine at least 10 days before travel. We have been keeping our eye out for opportunities to get the vaccine in other countries and failed three times - 4th time was the charm!

 

We are in Seoul, South Korea and there are several places to get the vaccine here but we chose the National Medical Center which was just ten minutes up the road by bus or subway. This hospital was modern and clean and had a variety of people who spoke some level of English. Since this was a straightforward ask, Google translate smoothed over any issues we might have had. 

The process started several days ago when we went in to make an appointment. The preferred method is to call and make the appointment but we don't have a local phone number and it would have been hard to answer questions over the phone. We went to the desk that handles the yellow vaccine with our passports. Several minutes later and we were out the door with a plan and forms to fill out. 

Our appointment this morning was at 10:45 but we arrived around 9:30. First stop was the bank which is on the first floor of the hospital. There we turned over about $50 in Korean Won and they gave us what amounts to a cashier's check (they called it a revenue stamp). Then we took that, our passports, and our paperwork back to the yellow fever desk and got a number. Very soon, we were called up. After determining that our paperwork was in order, he kept our passports and we were sent to the second floor where we checked in again with the nurse. There we filled out standard wellness questionnaires and then got in to see the doctor. The doctor spoke strong English and went through a variety of questions to ensure that this would be safe for us to take. Once she signed our paperwork, we went back out to the cashier and payed an additional $13 each for the services of the doctor and technician. 

The shot was easy and pretty painless and we waited around for 20-30 minutes as requested to make sure that we had no surprising side effects. We went back to the original check-in desk to pick up our passports and our yellow vaccine card. $76 total (for the two of us) and a couple hours of our time was well worth it to ensure that we don't get Yellow Fever and that this disease doesn't have to factor into our plans.

Choosing vaccines is a personal decision but for us, the science is clear and we have seen people who are living their lives post-preventable-diseases like polio. We do recommend that people get all of the standard vaccines but also Hepatitis A, B, and C well before heading out into the less-developed countries especially. Some of them require multiple shots 6 months or a year apart so plan ahead.

 

I Don't Always Get It

In case you fear it has been a week without exploration, let me assuage those concerns. We have done more in the city of Seoul.

The Banpo Bridge Fountain

We visited the National Museum of Korea. The museum building itself is quite a lovely one. And there are three floors with exhibits. My favorite exhibit was the one about prehistory (the time before writing,) which explored the earliest Stone Age people who lived in Korea (and the parts of China attached to the Korean Peninsula.) On display were many artifacts found in Korea and lots of good explanation in both Korean and English.

The 12 story pagoda in the National Museum of Korea

Have you ever heard of the Movius Line? (No, sadly it is not related to the Möbius strip from topology.) An archaelogist named Hallam Movius noticed that in some prehistoric archeological sites (in northeast India and East Asia) they never found the heads of stone hand axes. But in western India, Europe, and Africa, they did. He proposed that there was a line which separated various Stone Age groups and those on one side of it did develop the hand axe and those on the other side didn't. They just used choppers, meaning they sort of bashed things to cut them. But a fossil was found in Korea by a U.S. service man when he was out on a picnic with his Korean girlfriend. He found the head of a hand axe. So it turns out that Movius's idea (which was named for him) isn't entirely true. Some cultures on the other side of the line did develop hand axes.

The history (as opposed to prehistory) exhibit was less engaging for me. There was a lot of information about the different kingdoms and dynasties that ruled the peninsula along with artifacts from those times. But knowing nothing about Korean history, I didn't have the context to take it all in. I didn't quite get it.

We passed back by Seoul Station. I already talked about Seoul Station, groceries, and the lack of ATMs in a previous post. But this time, like last time, there were Christian groups chanting, singing, and declaiming in front of the station. Christianity is not the majority religion here, but it is the plurality religion. Most South Koreans identify as non-religious. Of those who do identify as religious, Christianity is the largest group, making up 31% of the population. I noticed the Christian groups the first time we went. They are identifiable because their banners, which include mostly the Korean Alphabet, do include some Latin Alphabet, in particular the word "JESUS." So, while I don't entirely get it, meaning I don't know what they're saying or singing, I have an idea what the umbrella theme is.

This time I noticed that along with the spirituality of Christianity that came to Korea, so did some of the biases. A sign read "Homosex Out". I am going to take that to mean "Homosexuals Out." South Korea doesn't have all the same protections for same-sex couples as are found in other developed nations. Same-sex intercourse is legal, but same-sex marriage is forbidden. If you are in the military (and all men must serve for 18 months when they turn 18) then same-sex intercourse is also illegal. And the laws don't protect against discrimination of homosexuals in South Korea.

There is just enough English on this banner that I know I don't want to translate the rest

I can't say I know much about the political leanings of the people here. But in a completely separate outing, I walked along the Cheonggyecheon Stream again. But unlike last time where I went downstream, this time I went upstream to where it begins. There, I came up to street level and I heard drums. I thought there was a parade, but then I realized, no, this is a protest. No, this is two protests. There were two separate protests going on. One was marching along the road to the south of the stream toward me. The other was marching along the road to the north of the stream away from me.

The U.S. State Department is clear that U.S. citizens are not supposed to participate in protests in other countries. Not that the State Department could arrest you for it. How would they know? But, if you do get arrested in a protest in another country, the State Department can refuse to help you. "We told you not to protest in other countries, you did it anyway. We wash our hands of you."

I had no intention of joining either protest. I didn't even know what they were protesting.

I was pretty easily able to see the front of the parade coming toward me. They had signs in both Korean and English, so I now know they were in favor of "Free Palestine", "Break all ties with Israel," and "Stop the War in Iran."

The lead car of the protest coming toward me

I was never able to get to the front of the other protest marchers. They were carrying a lot of flags, many with Korean words on them. One person did have a Palestinian Flag, so maybe their protest was also about Palestine. But that was only one flag among many other flags.

This was the protest that was moving away from me

I wondered if the two protests were a protest and a counter-protest. But they didn't seem to be paying much attention to one another. So I suspect they were just two separate protests.

Also at the source of the stream, though not at street level, rather down at stream level, Seoul has set up an outdoor library. They have all kinds of comfy chairs, little tables, and bookshelves along the path at the side of the stream. You can take a book, sit out in the sun, and read. There were even some books with titles in English, so maybe the books themselves were in English. I don't know, I didn't stop to read.

I appreciate the bilingual explanation

One night we went to the Banpo Bridge Fountain. On the side of the Banpo Bridge, which crosses the Han River, there are water jets and colored lights. From April through October, they do a fountain show at noon, 7:30 PM, 8:00 PM, 8:30 PM, and (more on this last one) 9:00 PM. There was an announcement over the PA system that explained that they are not doing the 9:00 PM show this year during the month of April. It is because of the energy crisis going on. (Asia is highly affected by the closing of the Strait of Hormuz.) That's okay, because Alrica and I were there for the 7:30 PM show.

It isn't nearly as interesting when the sky isn't dark yet

The show itself was fine. It wasn't particularly spectacular. It wasn't nearly so impressive as the fountain show in Kuala Lumpur. But what fascinated me was the music.

First, it must not be the same show at each time slot. The show is 20 minutes long. So Alrica and I were walking away from the site of the show when the 8:00 PM show started. I don't know if the water was different or if the lights where different, but the music was completely different.

The colors pop more as it gets dark out

That 7:30 PM show must be for English speakers who are around my age or maybe a bit older. Because these are the songs they played during the show (in order):

1. California Dreamin' by the Mamas and the Papas
2. Let It Be by the Beatles
3. Imagine by John Lennon
4. Take me Home, Country Roads by John Denver
5. Stand By Me by Ben E. King
6. Piano Man by Billy Joel

The first song of the 8:00 PM show was hip-hop and I didn't recognize it. But definitely from a different era.

Last night, Alrica and I went out for the evening to the Hongdae Walking Street. This is pedestrian only and has lots of shopping, coffee stands, restaurants, and performance spaces along it. We stopped at Whatever Tacos to try a taco and see if it was really like the ones we know and love from home. We got a carnitas taco and it was good. But it didn't taste like the ones in Reno. This is not to say that Reno is the world's foremost center of authenticity when it comes to carnitas. But I suspect it is closer to center than Seoul.

We also tried something called Egg Bread. This is literally a sweet bread with a hard boiled egg inside it. We got a very delicious dumpling. And we bought some waffle fish. We like waffle fish! I don't always get everything, but I fully understand waffle fish. And I get them!

The entertainers were talented. When the singers were singing "Ahh" I totally followed along. As soon as they hit lyrics that went beyond "Ahh" my lack of Korean comprehension was a detriment. But I could appreciate their voices and ability to play their instruments. There were also groups of girls dancing, and in one place a kind of clown show. The clown had batons which were on fire on both ends, but fire twirling only seemed to be a small part of the show. I was surprised. I figured clowning is pretty universal. This was even a silent clown show. He wasn't speaking. So it should be just as fun for everyone, right? And yet, some of the things the clown did make the crowd laugh and I didn't know what was funny about it. It's not like I missed the joke, as he wasn't speaking. And yet, I missed the joke somehow.

But I did see a bar called Mimic. And its logo involved a Mimic, which is a monster in D&D that looks like a treasure chest, but when you open it, it tries to eat you. So I appreciated that logo. Because I got it!

You're not getting that treasure!

Honestly, I appreciate all of it. At times I may disagree with Christian preachers about gay rights or I may see protests I can't explain. Still, I feel I am learning a lot about the people and culture here. Even when I don't always get it.