BUSAN AUGUST TO OCTOBER 2017
Wow, Maryland and Australia? We thought you guys were done with housesitting, but I guess not!! GOOD FOR YOU! Traveling is a way of life; awesome!
We returned to Busan in August, and my dad stayed with us for a month. He loved it, meeting our friends and visiting our haunts, but was not fond of hot soup for meals, stairs and the heat (this August was much hotter than last year when you were here).
Carol went back to work in August at the international school and I went back to the university in September. Typical life then, until now...
It's Chuseok (Thanksgiving) week, so we flew over to Jeju Island, where we met up with my old friend, Jung-Hee. She is an artist, who I met in Busan, at Jazz Styles (C'est La Vie) Bar in Kwangali, near the Samik Beach Apartments. We stayed in Jeju City for a few days, exploring Jung-Hee's favorite markets, boardwalks, forested arboretum, as well as a beautiful beach. However, she has a grand fondness for soju, and the Hallasan soju here is to die for. Luckily, her art gallery is also a bar where she has an apt. in the back, so we spent a lot of time there, as well as eating beef ribs, ramyeon, raw fish and Jeju black skinned pork. Jung-Hee is an excellent artist, who often has expositions and some of her paintings go for some decent prices!! Jung-Hee is moving in a few months, so she showed us her new place, in a quieter neighborhood, up on the second floor of a small mall. We have been meeting wonderful people, such as Moon Hyuk, an aging, but delightful playboy. He is a man of the Earth, not a Korean. Most importantly, we were able to catch up with her after so many years.
We then went to U-Do (Bull Island [sounds better than Cow Island, right?]). This was my 6th visit and Carol's 2nd. Our old friend, Cheol-Jin, is buried here. He died in 2006, but it is our first time to visit his grave. Carol and I are arrived first, before Jung-hee, so we had some octopus and kimchi jigae soup, as well as peanut rice wine. We asked the waitress if she new Cheol-Jin's brother, Cheol-Min. What are the chances, right? We'll, he works across the street with his wife, Seung-Hee!! We ran/walked over and gave them a big hug. We watched a video of them from 1997 that I had on YouTube. They saw their children, their mom, brother, & neighborhood from 1997, so they became quite emotional. Cheol-Min drove us to Jung-Hee's Min-bak (homestay) and we then took a nap on the floor and waited for Cheol-Min to pick us up later for U-Ryeok fish soup. They drove us around the island at night and then next day, Carol and I walked around the island in three hours. We were disturbed by all the electric cars, driven by horrible drivers from Seoul and China, but our perseverance forced us on, eventually finding a short cut through the village (and no traffic). We had a snack at the Green Mart, of peanut wine and shrimp crackers. We finally made it to what I thought was Nostril Cave, way up a hill, only to eventually find out that Nostril Cave was on the other side. The hill was nice, full of cows, horses and tourists. We took a local bus back to the min-bak, so we could meet Jung-Hee and Choi, just in time for me to take down the clothes, including my underwear, which was hanging outside directly in front of her door 😛.
Choi* and Jung-Hee we're hungry (or thirsty, I never know which it is), so we went to a place right next to the Green Mart, where we had a Thanksgiving feast of jun (breaded and fried meat & veggies), a traditional Chuseok dish, as well as kimchi jigae and Hallasan Soju. We drove over to Nostril Cave, picked up his friend Hye-Seong, a welder from Chang-Won, just outside of Busan, who he met in New Zealand, and we proceeded to go to the cemetery to see Cheol-Jin and Jung-Hee's ex-husband. We bought done soju and sausage for them, but we ended up drinking and eating most of it an her friend's peanut ice cream shop. Her friend cut the sausage for us and I yelled out: "Ouch, no!!" She gave me a sideways glare/snarl that I wish I could have drawn to memorialize for eternity. We had a message from Ha-Neul, as well as a phone call, Cheol-Jin's daughter in Seoul, about how to get to the grave, but the Instructions were shoddy, so the five of us split up and walked around the cemetery for about thirty minutes trying to find Cheol-Jin. We nearly gave up, but finally Choi found him, hidden behind some bushes. While in the cemetery, I realized that the island has many Yoons, which is Cheol-Jin's family name. Jung-Hee and I bowed twice on the ground and one half bow in the air, gave Cheol-Jin the remaining soju and sausage, said a few words and then visited her ex-husband, who is in the mosoleum. We also gave him some soju and sausage. We then bought some supplies at the Green Mart and went back to Jung-Hee's. We said hi to her mother inlaw, an 82 year old diving lady and a real trooper. She is full of energy, to say the least. She still dives and gardens. She gave us many veggies and seafoods, such as sea-snail, raw urchin and squid that can only be found on U-Do. We barbequed pork, and ate all of the U-Do mummy's delights. We had soju to create friendships and bonds with Choi and Hye-Song, so they will come to Busan to meet us. We laughed, cried and hugged. Ling, a neighbor from Vietnam, came over for a short time. Carol drank soju for only the second time in her life, because Hallsan Soju is made from Halla Mountain spring water, so it's a lot more fresh than Busan's C1 Green Soju (maybe the C means chemical). We had rum, as well as Jin when the soju ran out. Choi and Jung-Hee had vodka after we slept, and Hye-Song fell asleep in the bathroom, LOL.
The next day, Choi made THE BEST sam gae tang (chicken ginseng soup). Of course, we had soju with it, too. We were joined by Ling. She is going through a difficult divorce, so she needed some comfort. They drove us around the island and then we settled on Coral Beach, were I had swum 20 years before. We had a few shots of soju for the fond memories. There are too many tourists now, which is good for the local economy, as there are no more diving ladies. The diving ladies were the bread winners, who collected seafood from the ocean floors without scuba tanks, while the men just hung out and drank. The Island is polluted with these tourists now, but it's a necessity. We said goodbye to the Yoon family in their store with their children, Han-Byeol and A-Rhun. I saw them in diapers and the last time was in 2003. We exchanged contact details and took a photo. Cheol-Min is a man of few words, but he hugged me and we promised to see each other again soon. Seung-Hee gave us a bag of U-Do peanuts, which we've been munching on. We then took a really long time to get to where we are now, Seogweepo, but alas, we made it to Jung-Hee's friend's guesthouse.
Today, we'll hang out with Zimbabwean Andy and Gill, our friends from.the International school and Busan. The rest of today until Saturday will be written shortly.
Thank you for your email. It reminds me of the 1990s and 2000s, before Facebook, when I use to write!! It inspired me to write this one!
Until then, Happy Chuseok!! (And see below the flag).
*Choi, originally from Busan, but spent more time in Seoul, met Jung-Hee on U-Do ten years ago, while he was selling chocolate. That lasted about six months, so he returned to Jeju City, where is a construction worker. He moved in and has since been roommates with our very old mutual friend, Jong-Won. We knew Jong-Won, a chef, from our old Pusan days in the 1990s. (it was "P"usan in the late 1990s, so I write it as such when remembering old times). Pusan was a special time in our lives in the 1990s, especially amongst a particular crowd of artists, musicians, poets, DJs and they welcomed in us foreigners with open arms. In the 1990s, the Koreans of Pusan were a different breed than they are today. They were kind and warm hearted, but they were generally not welcoming of foreigners, in the sense that we got stared at 24/7, like we were animals in the zoo, we were asked the same questions over and over again, but never: "Hey, nice to meet you, what's your name? I'd like to get to know YOU, Michael". We were just looked at like English practicing tools. Sometimes, if we dated a Korean woman, we were sometime hit, told by their fathers to break up, were spit at, told that she was a whore and at minimum, were given the death stare by many people. Our bosses did not pay us; we were not picked up by taxis; people refused to sit next to us on the subway; we were poked at, even while eating; laughed at publically for being fat, skinny, tall, short, but if you were black, Indian or South East Asian, you were scum; we were asked how come you were not fluent in Korean after a few months and sometimes told to "go home". These same people though, gave us their own umbrellas when it was raining, gave us free drinks meals, and would slap us on the back for our ability to say 'Anyeonghasaeyo' (hello). So point being made, our only true friends generally belonged to this artist crowd, who owned bars, such as Crossroads or Jazz Styles, worked in them, or drank at them. These artists had the same struggles as we did, because they did not fit in. They were willing to go against the mold. They knew what we were going through, as did we with them. Hyun-Min, Jung-Min, Jung-Hee, Jong-Won, Dong-Ha, Mr. Jung and Mr. Kim (Jazz Styles owners), and even Dong-Jin and Mr. Kang were our best friends. I did not have many foreign friends at that time, except for Hany and later, Russ, but they were like minded, in that they loved Korea, because of these unique Korean friends.
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