Daegoween

Halloween in Korea is much like the Fourth of July in Korea. Outside of the transplanted expats, very few people find any reason to celebrate October 31st. Our plans were therefore somewhat subdued, deciding to go out to the foreigner bar, the Blue Agave, for a Halloween party being thrown by the bar staff. Our plans made, we set out to scoure the tiny bins of Halloween merchandise at EMart (Walmart's Korean equivalent) to try and find some manner of a costume. It was quite late in the game when Alicia and I were informed about a massive EPIK first-years party being thrown in Daegu. So late in fact that every flight out of the city was booked, not only to Daegu, but also to Ulsan and Busan, the two nearest major cities. Aside from flying to Seoul and taking a 4-hour bus trip (the express trains were also booked), there was no way we could make it. We therefore once again resigned ourselves to staying in town, and commenced planning our weekend out.

That is, until Thursday, the day before we would have to leave, when we once again decided against all advise to go to the airport and try to get a standby seat. Hastily packing our bags, and, at least in my case, half-expecting to be coming home the next night, we agreed to leave work early and arrive at the airport at 3:30pm, an hour and a half early.

Alicia met me at my school at 3, just as the kids were getting out of school. Chaos ensued. While she was waiting on me outside, a girl asked her if she knew me. She said, "yes, I'm his girlfriend", and soon had a group of sixth grade girls swarming around her. By the time I arrived, a throng of students were shouting Girlfriend! Girlfriend! Pretty! Pretty! and mobbing us as we walked down the street. A little girl gave Alicia a stuffed animal as a gift. It was very cute pandemonium.

Arriving at the airport, we learned that we had dramaticaly overestimated our chances of getting on the 5:05 to Daegu. Korean Air was so overbooked that even standby was closed. The thought occurred that we hadn't tried Asiana Airlines, so with little hope in our hearts we approached the counter, and succeeded in securing a set of standby tickets. We were numbers 12 and 13, and were informed that there would probably be 5 people let on, though we could wait if we wanted. Wanting to say that we had at least tried our best to take this trip, we waited the hour and a half until we were to return to the counter.

When we came back up, a small crowd had formed, and a man was reading information off a sheet, in Korean of course. Just as we were panicking, we saw that the Jeju Education Director (our bosses' boss' boss) was standing in front of us, a man who could speak English much more successfully than we could speak Korean. We tapped him on the shoulder, and he, though taken off guard, agreed to act as an interpreter for us. Soon thereafter, we were told that they would begin announcing standyby ticket numbers for the Daegu flight.

Two people were allowed to board. Only two. Dejected, we walked over to the counter to get a refund for our unfulfilled dream. We had just turned in our ticket when the Education Director ran up and said something to the cashier. She nodded, typed on her keyboard for a rather long period of time... and printed us boarding passes. Apparently the flight had been delayed for 15 minutes, therefore, for a reason I don't believe I'll ever understand, that magically freed up at least another eleven seats. Grabbing our passes, we sprinted for the gate. We had made it- We were going to Daegu.

A Wretched Hive of Scum and Villainy
After an hour-long flight, we arrived in the city. It was only then that we realized we had no idea where we were going. Calling our friends from Jeju, who were only just then leaving the island, we were told to take a taxi to Camp Walker, a US Army base in Daegu, being told we would find a cheap hotel near the entrance. after a 20 minute cab ride, we were dropped off near the guarded gate, in what was by far the seediest area I've been to in Korea. No sooner were we dropped off on the side of the street than a carfull of GIs cursed at us for standing in the road. In the dimly lit street we could see shady-looking Koreans stalking the shadows and groups of prostitutes escorting wayward servicemen off the streets into dark houses. We later learned from a local EPIK teacher (who had finally called us back) that we had come to the back gate of the base, a markedly different kind of area from the front entrance, but by then, we were already back in downtown waiting to meet up with the other Jeju teachers.

While waiting, we saw a rather interesting idea to get around paying high downtown rent: a big pink bus was parked along the main shopping district, which had been converted into a clothing store. It seems to park on the main roads after dark on weekend nights, selling various Korean-couture items, departing late that night (it was gone the next day). Alicia (finally) finished shopping, and we set out, cell phones edging tenuously on the brink of death, to find our Jeju friends, who had just arrived. After numerous instance of 'just missing each other', we were finally able to set off in search of a hotel, at 10pm.

The Love Motel
We wandered into a bustling and crowded network of streets, similar only in the most basic layout to the City Hall district of Jeju Si, full of restaurants, shops, and bars, labelled with the requisite copyright-infringing names found all over Korea: the Sex and the City boutique, The Beatles bar, the Sleepless in Seattle coffee shop (I think that last one's actually pretty clever). Lost if left to our own devices, we asked the first foreigners we saw (one of many on the street, actually) if the could help us. They agreed, leading us through street after street of the large downtown district until we came to a small sign pointing to a hotel called Mellow Yellow. Walking down the small back street, we saw the there were actually two hotels, the Yellow and the Mellow. Joking that the Yellow must be for locals and the Mellow for foreigners, we checked to see if the had space, but there was nothing in either. We were told to walk around the corner to another hotel, and soon we found the signs for ZOO004 (I guess it's zoo-thousand-and-four, approximating the word 2004, but that doesn't really work in Korean, when it's something like zoo gong gong sa...). Rooms were available, with names like the Diamond Room, Ruby Room, and ours, the Sapphire Room. We grabbed the key, eager to unload our baggage, and entering the room learned something interesting about ZOO004, which I suppose should have been obvious from the downstairs movie rental shelves- it was a Love Motel.

Now, even if the love motel isn't a uniquely Korean invention, they have certainly done much to proliferate the concept. Rented out for two different periods, the day block and the night block, or both, love motels serve as the equivalent of the pay-by-the-hour motels back home, but are far less seedy. Honestly, it was a fairly nice hotel room, complete with an internet-equipped PC, two TVs, and in the case of the nicer rooms, everything from Japanese wood Hanoki tubs, to saunas, to projection screen TV's and LED constellations on the ceiling above the bed. Our room was unique in having a loft bed (called a 'second story for the business man' in the room descriptions)... complete with mirrors on the ceiling. The TVs had basic cable, but when they were turned on were tuned to the more 'adult' choices the hotel provided... weird, Asian 'adult' choices. Now, as far as I've heard, this was a relatively tame version of the love motel, with others having many more unusual adult conveniences, ranging from unusual adult vending machines to massage services. Quite regardless of its purpose, the hotel was a bargain for 45,000 Won a night, and honestly had the softest bed I've slept on in Korea so far. Here's hoping it was a clean, soft bed.

Mellow Yellow


The mirrored ceiling


The Love Motel Room


ZOO004!


Having settled in, we made our way out to the bar scene. Both of the bars we stopped at were choked with foreigners, and even had a few tending bar. Having been in Korea for a long while now, I suppose, I think we all experienced a bit of culture shock coming back into such an environment. It was like being dropped back home, and I don't think I liked it.

This was merely the first night in our adventures, the next day being far more exciting, with ancient Korean medicines and one weird Halloween night. To be continued...