This will be a long day. We're up at six and on the 8:00 a.m. airport shuttle.
Our flight leaves at 11:40, but by the time we check in and pass security, there's not a lot of time to spare. I get hung up in security, where they unpack my carry-on and make me give up my toothpaste and a personal item that I wish to heck they'd just toss in the trash rather than leave out here for everyone to see.
However, getting nervously embarrassed is not a good move at airport security, so I suck it up and spend the time re-tying my shoes.
We settle in at the gate and I go foraging for food and drink. I'm able to buy tea at a nearby kiosk for $4.00. I don't see how anyone can ask you for four bucks for hot water and a tea bag, but they did, and I paid.
Finding something remotely breakfasty takes a little more effort. If we could eat fashion or jewelry or drink pricey booze I'd have no problem. After walking for almost ten minutes I find some eclairs.
Meanwhile, Bernie has struck up a conversation with a woman sitting next to him. He introduces me. Her name is Mary Ann and she was born and raised in Middletown. She now lives in West Chester. Her daughter is teaching English at a school in Seoul.
Again, what are the chances that we'd meet someone in Seoul, Korea, who even knew where Middletown, Ohio was?
We board the plane to fly over Japan, up to the Bering Sea, along the western edge of Alaska and across Canada, into the night. Somewhere north of Bismarck, North Dakota light begins to show in the east, our second sunrise of February 26, 2010.
After our second meal we become acquainted with our seatmate. She's from Seoul and has been there visiting her family for two months. She's on her way back to the University of Michigan where she's a research assistant. She's applied to twelve schools to do her Ph.D. work and is waiting for a response. We exchange contact information with her. She studied non-stop to get her undergraduate degree and has made few friends.
We land in Chicago a few minutes past nine. We have to claim our bags and get them to the next gate. This operation is surprisingly fast because people are waiting to direct us.
Getting a new boarding pass is not so smooth. Although everyone is directed to a self check-in terminal, four out of five passengers need help. And help is Ms. Dinardo. Period. She weaves in and out, listening to stories and coaxing intransigent machines to cough up boarding passes.
Ours, of course, won't spit out. Ms. Dinardo takes our information and disappears down the ranks of travelers, along the long counter where nobody lives. She's gone for awhile and traffic comes to a halt because it's Ms. Dinardo who directs each person to the next open check-in terminal.
Eventually she returns. I like Ms. Dinardo. She's chatty, unflappable, and gets the job done. She has two flimsy looking boarding passes for us. There's no gate number on them, though, so we don't really know where to go once we pass the barrier that separates those on the outside from those in past-security no man's land.
Since our flight doesn't leave until just after 5 p.m., we have plenty of time to determine our gate number.
It's past noon now and we need food. There's a Chili's and Bernie wants a hamburger. I was leaning toward a croissant and hot chocolate, but once seated I see the molten lava chocolate cake on the menu. It has my name written on it.
Meanwhile we have turned the data feature back on on our phones and hundreds of e-mails are coming down. For nearly two hours after we eat, I'm receiving and deleting six weeks worth of e-mails.
Our gate number is posted mid-afternoon, then changed about an hour before our flight, but the new gate is just across the aisle.
As we board we see the local weather in Dayton: a winter storm has started. We hear other passengers relate stories they've gleaned talking with relatives at home-slippery roads and wrecks on I-70.
I've talked to Mary a couple of times and know that Kenny and Evan are already in Dayton picking something up on the way to the airport to get us. It's an hour flight.
We land in Dayton to a nearly-deserted airport. Apparently only one other person had checked luggage on this flight. We wait with him for a while at the luggage carousel, but the same ten not-our-bags cycle through several times.
I've called Kenny; he and Evan are just outside the last door to our right waiting for us.
Suddenly someone is beside me - Evan! I'm so thrilled to see him I want to hug him tight and kiss him. He's fourteen, though, so I apply a modified bear hug. But we're both grinning ear-to-ear. I love that kid.
It takes a trip to the United counter to obtain our luggage. Another man there is not so lucky and he makes quite a scene-so much so that the poor woman behind the counter who was evidently at the end of her shift (she has her purse on her arm) eventually tells him that if he can't be civil she'll have to call the police.
With Evan's help we get our suitcases to Kenny's car.
In the car it begins to feel like we're home. We're with family, hearing about Evan's band concert, Brookie's new glasses.
And soon we're in Middletown, and on our street. The driveway's been shoveled - Jeff, our neighbor, has shoveled it twice while we've been gone.
Wonderful family, great neighbors - it's good to be home.
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Our Last Day
Thursday, February 25, 2010
We awake to rain and a traditional Korean breakfast, which, with the addition of a porridge made with wheat, is almost identical to last night's dinner.
The porridge is good, and I would have loved it for lunch, but I'm more of a cereal and yogurt breakfaster, and I'm not usually ready to eat right away when I get up.
Bernie, who usually wants to eat right away, is just not up to having fish as the first meal of the day.
We feel terrible about wasting food.
Bernie whispers to me, "I know that's what Koreans eat for breakfast, but I didn't think that's what they'd give us."
I point out that he paid for us to have an authentic experience.
When they discover we haven't eaten our breakfast, our hosts take it off our bill.
We'd planned to explore the neighborhood some more, but with the rain we decide to visit the folk life museum.
It's located in a former palace and turns out to be a real gem, showing life as it was for common people in an agrarian society.
Bernie says that what's depicted here is the Korea he saw in the early 60s in a rural village.
One of the exhibits that fascinates me is the process by which fiber is made into the gauzy cloth used for summer garments.
I enjoy all the homey things about the folk museum. I learn about farming, fishing, cooking and laundry, making kimchi and storing rice. Bernie actually saw these things in 1964, so it's not new to him. But he gets a kick out of showing me the things he's talked about all these years.
I love the houses with boardwalks outside where shoes are removed before stepping onto the warmed floors in the cozy, compact living quarters.
What makes our experience here today so much richer is having spent the night in a house just like the ones that have been rebuilt here. The roof is the same, except that ours was tiled rather than thatched.
Bernie is delighted when he sees the three-man shovel he's told me about so often. It was used by villagers to irrigate rice paddies. And he's excited to see the buckets that were used to collect manure to spread on the fields (that's human manure, folks).
He remembers the special clothes that children wore on their first birthday (celebrated on the Lunar New Year), and the ceremony in which the child chooses from a selection of objects indicating what path his or her life will take: wealth, learning, etc.
Bernie's told me about the annual testing of students and how important it is. Here in the museum quite a bit of space is given to that civil service test, which allowed any boy who studied hard to secure a place in government administration that would allow him to rise to the top of society.
Again, as in the National Museum of Korea, we see the great emphasis that Koreans place on learning.
Bernie really steeped himself in this culture while he was here in 1964 as an American soldier. He came away loving the beauty and morning calm of Korea as well as the people of Korea. So much in this museum confirms everything that he told me.
I'm so grateful to have slept in a traditional Korean house and to have visited this place today.
Our last official tourist activity is shopping at the Namdaemun market to find something suitable as a souvenir for our hardest-to-buy-for family member: Evan.
We meander through the stalls weaving in and out so much that at one point Bernie loses track of where we are in relationship to our hotel.
I know I saw some leather goods here and I want to get a belt for Evan.
We never find the place I was looking for, but we do find a nice Gucci knock-off with a G (for Galdeen, in our case) belt buckle. Really, the Chinese make such good fakes that are of high-quality.
We do find an item we haven't seen anywhere else - a T-shirt with Korean writing. I pick up a key chain with a Korean mask for a fob, and even a baseball cap with the Korean flag.
We climb the hill to our hotel, where we eat our final free buffet dinner, and take a last tour of the hotel.
Back in our room we pack and repack our bags for an hour, then take one last look at Seoul at night.
We awake to rain and a traditional Korean breakfast, which, with the addition of a porridge made with wheat, is almost identical to last night's dinner.
The porridge is good, and I would have loved it for lunch, but I'm more of a cereal and yogurt breakfaster, and I'm not usually ready to eat right away when I get up.
Bernie, who usually wants to eat right away, is just not up to having fish as the first meal of the day.
We feel terrible about wasting food.
Bernie whispers to me, "I know that's what Koreans eat for breakfast, but I didn't think that's what they'd give us."
I point out that he paid for us to have an authentic experience.
When they discover we haven't eaten our breakfast, our hosts take it off our bill.
We'd planned to explore the neighborhood some more, but with the rain we decide to visit the folk life museum.
It's located in a former palace and turns out to be a real gem, showing life as it was for common people in an agrarian society.
Bernie says that what's depicted here is the Korea he saw in the early 60s in a rural village.
One of the exhibits that fascinates me is the process by which fiber is made into the gauzy cloth used for summer garments.
I enjoy all the homey things about the folk museum. I learn about farming, fishing, cooking and laundry, making kimchi and storing rice. Bernie actually saw these things in 1964, so it's not new to him. But he gets a kick out of showing me the things he's talked about all these years.
I love the houses with boardwalks outside where shoes are removed before stepping onto the warmed floors in the cozy, compact living quarters.
What makes our experience here today so much richer is having spent the night in a house just like the ones that have been rebuilt here. The roof is the same, except that ours was tiled rather than thatched.
Bernie is delighted when he sees the three-man shovel he's told me about so often. It was used by villagers to irrigate rice paddies. And he's excited to see the buckets that were used to collect manure to spread on the fields (that's human manure, folks).
He remembers the special clothes that children wore on their first birthday (celebrated on the Lunar New Year), and the ceremony in which the child chooses from a selection of objects indicating what path his or her life will take: wealth, learning, etc.
Bernie's told me about the annual testing of students and how important it is. Here in the museum quite a bit of space is given to that civil service test, which allowed any boy who studied hard to secure a place in government administration that would allow him to rise to the top of society.
Again, as in the National Museum of Korea, we see the great emphasis that Koreans place on learning.
Bernie really steeped himself in this culture while he was here in 1964 as an American soldier. He came away loving the beauty and morning calm of Korea as well as the people of Korea. So much in this museum confirms everything that he told me.
I'm so grateful to have slept in a traditional Korean house and to have visited this place today.
Our last official tourist activity is shopping at the Namdaemun market to find something suitable as a souvenir for our hardest-to-buy-for family member: Evan.
We meander through the stalls weaving in and out so much that at one point Bernie loses track of where we are in relationship to our hotel.
I know I saw some leather goods here and I want to get a belt for Evan.
We never find the place I was looking for, but we do find a nice Gucci knock-off with a G (for Galdeen, in our case) belt buckle. Really, the Chinese make such good fakes that are of high-quality.
We do find an item we haven't seen anywhere else - a T-shirt with Korean writing. I pick up a key chain with a Korean mask for a fob, and even a baseball cap with the Korean flag.
We climb the hill to our hotel, where we eat our final free buffet dinner, and take a last tour of the hotel.
Back in our room we pack and repack our bags for an hour, then take one last look at Seoul at night.
Monday, March 1, 2010
The Unthinkable Happens
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
We're moving for one night to a traditional Korean guesthouse just on the other side of this hill in the Buchon neighborhood. The Hilton is storing our bags-we've packed a small bag for the two of us.
We take the subway, then a taxi to the guesthouse. However, we don't get all the way to the guesthouse, since it's on a narrow street behind the main street.
We don't find the guesthouse, so Bernie asks a man and woman who are refurbishing a building. We're fortunate-they have a plat of the neighborhood and actually walk us to the guesthouse because directions are too confusing to relate.
As soon as we arrive, we're served tea. I put my things down, go to the bathroom, decide I need to put on hand lotion and that is when I discover I don't have my purse.
The sinking feeling that sweeps over me combined with nightmare images of what happens to people who lose their passport makes me dizzy and weak in the knees.
Bernie summons the housekeeper who calls the owner. Do I remember the cab's number? No. Do I remember my passport number. No. I scramble through my file folder and find it on copy of my visa application, though. She suggests I call the American Embassy. Already thought of that, but hoping I can conjure up a miracle in the next few minutes and get my purse.
I insist we get out to the street and see if we can find the cab. This, of course, is harebrained. Seoul is a city of ten million people and thousands of cabs. We're not even sure of the cab company's name.
Even if the cab driver found my purse, he let us off not in front of the guesthouse, but on the main street in front of this not-easily-found oasis. I don't believe he'd know how to get back to us.
We walk the short distance to the subway stop where he picked us up and I hope that the subway station is one of his regular spots to pick up fares. No sign of him. We are now at a busy intersection and I am giving every "S" cab (that's the one we think we rode in) some pretty strange looks.
A young man in a business suit offers me help (because I look like a lunatic). After hearing my tale of woe, he points across the street about half a block down where the police station is located. We proceed there.
Bernie keeps telling me the most likely scenario is that the cab picked up another fare and never even saw my purse in the back seat. I agree, but as I tell him, I firmly believe that most people are honest and that someone may turn it in.
Again we need a translator, and I repeat my story. Eventually we get a police report filed, and the female police officer at the desk has called the cab company (I took the number down off one of the passing cabs). No one has reported finding a purse in their cab.
The translator and the police officer advise me to wait a while. OK, but I'm leaving (I hope) in less than 48 hours and I'm going to have to contact the embassy before the end of business hours today if I expect to get any help.
Leaving the police station we decide it would be good to get something to eat since my I've had only a serving of fruit to eat today and food should make me a little less shaky.
Over our snack, we decide we'll go back to the guesthouse, get on the computer, find the number of the U.S. Embassy and call them.
At the guesthouse we are greeted by the housekeeper who draws a rectangle in the air, smiles and says, "here." It's here? My purse is here?
I can't accept this idea until I actually see it. She hands it to me and motions that it has never even been opened.
Did I say I was weak in the knees earlier? I practically collapse now from sheer relief. I thank her profusely for five minutes in English.
The cab driver brought it back. It's that simple.
You're probably wondering how I could be so dopey as to leave my purse in a cab. I had been beating myself up for two hours wondering the same thing.
It was a small series of events that threw me off. When we got into the cab, I had my purse over my arm under my coat. When the cab driver didn't seem to understand where we wanted to go, I offered to get out of the cab and point to it on a map posted nearby where it was clearly shown, complete with the name of the house, Rekkojae, and a little drawing. As I did this, I took my arm out of the sleeve of my coat and slipped my purse strap off my arm.
Just as I did this, a light dawned and the driver understood where we wanted to go, so I settled back in my seat.
When we arrived at the point where he dropped us off, we could not see our guesthouse, of course, and we were unsure if we were in the right place.
All of this was just unsettling enough to focus my mind not on whether I had everything getting out of the cab, but what we might do next. Just a small quandary, only a couple of tiny glitches, really.
But enough to diffuse the hyper-alert state that is required of travelers in unfamiliar places.
I put the purse next to the refrigerator and vow not to take it out again until we return to the Hilton tomorrow afternoon. That's a factor, too. I don't carry my purse with me all the time because it's just too tempting for pickpockets and thieves, so I've lost that my-purse-is-part-of-my-body feeling that women almost always have.
I'm mellow now. All the adrenaline in my body was used up, and I'm now the most agreeable person in the world.
Now we take a very pleasant walk around this old neighborhood with traditional houses and many small shops and galleries. Still not yet too-artsified, the surrounding area is undergoing extensive gentrification.
Our guesthouse is perfectly Oriental. A typical boardwalk runs along the outside. We remove our shoes in the entry and walk on the warm floors, heated underneath by an andul. It's furnished with traditional pieces, with a variety of objects that were used in Korean homes in the past.
We're served dinner a traditional dinner on the low coffee table. They've added backrests to the mats we sit on. The menu includes Korean white bait (looks like minnows and is crisply delicious) Korean eel (it tastes like very good whitefish to us), seaweed (I love this stuff), mushrooms and kimchi. As usual, there is far too much food to eat.
After dinner we are directed to the sauna, where we lay on straw mats in the special short-sleeve tops and shorts we've been given. Soon we're sweating, with rivulets running down our arms. Half an hour later we head for the shower and don the robes provided for us.
We're sleeping on quilted floor mats. A very large window, almost covering the entire wall, faces the courtyard in our bedroom. After we've turned the lights out we raise the shades a little to see the lighted courtyard and other guesthouses around us. It looks just like a movie set.
We're moving for one night to a traditional Korean guesthouse just on the other side of this hill in the Buchon neighborhood. The Hilton is storing our bags-we've packed a small bag for the two of us.
We take the subway, then a taxi to the guesthouse. However, we don't get all the way to the guesthouse, since it's on a narrow street behind the main street.
We don't find the guesthouse, so Bernie asks a man and woman who are refurbishing a building. We're fortunate-they have a plat of the neighborhood and actually walk us to the guesthouse because directions are too confusing to relate.
As soon as we arrive, we're served tea. I put my things down, go to the bathroom, decide I need to put on hand lotion and that is when I discover I don't have my purse.
The sinking feeling that sweeps over me combined with nightmare images of what happens to people who lose their passport makes me dizzy and weak in the knees.
Bernie summons the housekeeper who calls the owner. Do I remember the cab's number? No. Do I remember my passport number. No. I scramble through my file folder and find it on copy of my visa application, though. She suggests I call the American Embassy. Already thought of that, but hoping I can conjure up a miracle in the next few minutes and get my purse.
I insist we get out to the street and see if we can find the cab. This, of course, is harebrained. Seoul is a city of ten million people and thousands of cabs. We're not even sure of the cab company's name.
Even if the cab driver found my purse, he let us off not in front of the guesthouse, but on the main street in front of this not-easily-found oasis. I don't believe he'd know how to get back to us.
We walk the short distance to the subway stop where he picked us up and I hope that the subway station is one of his regular spots to pick up fares. No sign of him. We are now at a busy intersection and I am giving every "S" cab (that's the one we think we rode in) some pretty strange looks.
A young man in a business suit offers me help (because I look like a lunatic). After hearing my tale of woe, he points across the street about half a block down where the police station is located. We proceed there.
Bernie keeps telling me the most likely scenario is that the cab picked up another fare and never even saw my purse in the back seat. I agree, but as I tell him, I firmly believe that most people are honest and that someone may turn it in.
Again we need a translator, and I repeat my story. Eventually we get a police report filed, and the female police officer at the desk has called the cab company (I took the number down off one of the passing cabs). No one has reported finding a purse in their cab.
The translator and the police officer advise me to wait a while. OK, but I'm leaving (I hope) in less than 48 hours and I'm going to have to contact the embassy before the end of business hours today if I expect to get any help.
Leaving the police station we decide it would be good to get something to eat since my I've had only a serving of fruit to eat today and food should make me a little less shaky.
Over our snack, we decide we'll go back to the guesthouse, get on the computer, find the number of the U.S. Embassy and call them.
At the guesthouse we are greeted by the housekeeper who draws a rectangle in the air, smiles and says, "here." It's here? My purse is here?
I can't accept this idea until I actually see it. She hands it to me and motions that it has never even been opened.
Did I say I was weak in the knees earlier? I practically collapse now from sheer relief. I thank her profusely for five minutes in English.
The cab driver brought it back. It's that simple.
You're probably wondering how I could be so dopey as to leave my purse in a cab. I had been beating myself up for two hours wondering the same thing.
It was a small series of events that threw me off. When we got into the cab, I had my purse over my arm under my coat. When the cab driver didn't seem to understand where we wanted to go, I offered to get out of the cab and point to it on a map posted nearby where it was clearly shown, complete with the name of the house, Rekkojae, and a little drawing. As I did this, I took my arm out of the sleeve of my coat and slipped my purse strap off my arm.
Just as I did this, a light dawned and the driver understood where we wanted to go, so I settled back in my seat.
When we arrived at the point where he dropped us off, we could not see our guesthouse, of course, and we were unsure if we were in the right place.
All of this was just unsettling enough to focus my mind not on whether I had everything getting out of the cab, but what we might do next. Just a small quandary, only a couple of tiny glitches, really.
But enough to diffuse the hyper-alert state that is required of travelers in unfamiliar places.
I put the purse next to the refrigerator and vow not to take it out again until we return to the Hilton tomorrow afternoon. That's a factor, too. I don't carry my purse with me all the time because it's just too tempting for pickpockets and thieves, so I've lost that my-purse-is-part-of-my-body feeling that women almost always have.
I'm mellow now. All the adrenaline in my body was used up, and I'm now the most agreeable person in the world.
Now we take a very pleasant walk around this old neighborhood with traditional houses and many small shops and galleries. Still not yet too-artsified, the surrounding area is undergoing extensive gentrification.
Our guesthouse is perfectly Oriental. A typical boardwalk runs along the outside. We remove our shoes in the entry and walk on the warm floors, heated underneath by an andul. It's furnished with traditional pieces, with a variety of objects that were used in Korean homes in the past.
We're served dinner a traditional dinner on the low coffee table. They've added backrests to the mats we sit on. The menu includes Korean white bait (looks like minnows and is crisply delicious) Korean eel (it tastes like very good whitefish to us), seaweed (I love this stuff), mushrooms and kimchi. As usual, there is far too much food to eat.
After dinner we are directed to the sauna, where we lay on straw mats in the special short-sleeve tops and shorts we've been given. Soon we're sweating, with rivulets running down our arms. Half an hour later we head for the shower and don the robes provided for us.
We're sleeping on quilted floor mats. A very large window, almost covering the entire wall, faces the courtyard in our bedroom. After we've turned the lights out we raise the shades a little to see the lighted courtyard and other guesthouses around us. It looks just like a movie set.
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