North Korea

Pyongyang, North Korea

After getting into an argument with some chick last night about travelling in North Korea (with me saying that I'd like to go there someday, and her saying that no foreigners are allowed to go there), I figured that I'd make a post about going to the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea (DPRK)(South Korea is the Republic of Korea(ROK)). I don't have too much to say, since I've never been there, but I do have an awesome site with a lot of links to sites by people who have made the venture into the land of the Kims.

Here's the link: http://www.stat.ualberta.ca/people/schmu/nk.html.

As a Canadian passport holder, it is possible for me to enter into North Korea as part of a group or individual tour. In all cases, a foreign traveller will be "provided" with "guides" to show off the wonders of cities such as the current capital of Pyongyang, and the historical cities of Kaesong and Pammunjom. It is impossible to get into North Korea if you are an average American citizen (an exception might be made for someone with dual citizenship with another country) or a South Korean citizen. I've also been told that Israelis are not allowed in the DPRK, but I couldn't find a site to back this up. In addition to these restrictions, freeworld jounalists are absolutely not allowed into the country. There are also the usual restrictions of alcohol, drugs and pornography. I've read that leaving your "tour group" is also a very stupid idea, for obvious reasons.

To get on a tour, I've found a couple of tour companies which will set people up with a tour in the DPRK. One is Koryo tours, and the other is VNC Asia Travel (a Nederlands company). Here are the links:

http://www.koryogroup.com/
http://www.vnc.nl/ (Dutch)

From what I've gathered, you must begin your tour from Bejing/Peking. You cannot enter North Korea from South Korea. Therefore, unless you're a Chinese citizen, you also need at least a double entry Chinese visa in addition to a North Korean travel visa. Even though the Pyongyang airport does have some flights from places such as Moscow, Berlin, Chaborovsk and Bangkok (in addition to a Beijing connection), it does not seem that the average person can reach Pyongyang from those places. I could be wrong though (probably not, as I'm not often wrong!!!).

Hopefully one day I'll have the opportunity to enter into North Korea. Currently, only about 2,000 foreigners a year are granted access.

Dangerous Ulsan

Over the past couple of weeks, there's been some dodgy events in our area of the city.

1. I had my jacket stolen.

2. CJ, Anne, Kristina and Elizabeth have had their apartment raided. Some of the doors were damaged and a Korean man living there had his window pane stolen(!?!). The frame is there, but there is no glass. One of the girls had her door handle damaged and was locked in her room. The general thought is that there is a dirty local man stalking the white girls. As a result, the landlord installed bars on the windows and an extra set of locks on the doors.

3. A few days after that incident, a man attempted to assult one of the girls in the middle of the day. She claimed that the man was trying to grab her in inappropriate areas and that he was fondling himself in inappropriate areas.

Scary stuff. I'm glad that I'm a guy in these cases!

Overall, most Koreans that I've met have been very kind. There's a few assholes in every part of the world.

Fight, fight!

Last night turned out to be rather interesting.

After hanging around at Tombstone, Matt, Anne, Kristina and myself decided to head over to Xion (a Korean soju and hof bar with a wicked atmosphere). Actually, it was Kristina's idea. The rest of us just went along with it. My biggest ambition was just to get some sleep.

After sitting down at our table, I announced that I wanted nothing to eat or drink. Anne ordered water and Matt ordered a Bud. Kristina decided that every place in Korea, not owned by foreigners, required that we order food to go along with our drinks. While this is often true in the RoK, it's not true of every single place. It didn't seem to be the case here anyway. Well, Kristina decided to order food anyway (I found out later that this place did require you to order food. The waiters just didn't know how to explain that to us). When we told her that none of us wanted food, she got quite pissed off. She tried to explain away the "insult of not ordering food" to the waiter by calling me a liar in Korean (I appreciated that...). Anyway, that set the tone for the rest of the night. Matt and myself were busy teasing Kristina's hot temper, while Anne just stayed cool and chilled out. Somehow my defending of Matt's "rude British behavior" makes me a copycat of him. At least he can keep his cool... or so I thought.

About this time, the girls decided that they were going to leave. Probably a good idea. They didn't go anywhere though. As they were getting up, a very intoxicated Korean girl decided that it would be a wise move to sit between Matt and I. In a way it was nice, because she was very attractive. She started rambling on in broken English about this and that. I decided that I'd had enough of everything and left the bar.

On my way home, I ended up at Tombstone(no surprise). I spend all of five minutes there. As I was leaving down the stairwell, Lisa (one of the owners and gf of one of the Canadian owners) called my name. I spend a few minutes talking to her; telling her that the music was repetative and that there should be more variety. Maybe I should've been DJing that night... She asked if the bad music was why I was leaving. I said no, I just wanted to go home before daylight today. She said that she understood that. After some more chit-chatting, my happy friend gave me a nice friendly hug and told me to she'd see me tomorrow. I learned a cool new handshake.

As I was leaving, I saw Matt and the girls leaving Xion... with a group of Koreans yelling a lot. One of the Koreans was really pissed off and yelling at Matt. I guess he was the intoxicated Korean girl's boyfriend. I heard later that Matt kept telling the guy to let the girl sit with him(was that a good idea???), and the boyfriend got up and started yelling and slobbering in Matt's face. Matt pushed him and he fell across the table. When I saw them, Matt was trying to escape to Tombstone. The Korean guy kept getting in his face. During this time, his friends (and now crying girlfriend) were trying to get him to leave Matt alone. Matt was at his wits end. After a couple of punches, the Korean guy was on the ground... with Matt's hair in his hand. Both men were on the road. The Korean had Matt's hair in a deathgrip, while Matt was trying to get away. The other Korean managed to get his prying hands off after a few minutes. I escorted Matt into the bar enteranceway, while the girls decided to high-tail it away. Coincidingly, Blair, another drunken forienger, walked onto the scene. After seeing part of what happened, he came to the conclusion that these Koreans were racist pigs. The angry and jealous Korean guy roared at Blair. Blair roared back. The two animals were doing some sort of a drunken war dance, not unlike what you might see two lions or apes doing on the Discovery Channel. One started pushing and swinging at the other, and I decided that this was a good time to get Blair the hell out of there. Somehow I convinced him to walk home, and somehow the angry Korean's friends convinced him (well, dragged him away kicking and screaming) to leave the scene. I thanked one of the Korean guys for being a good guy by shaking his hand and giving him some funny gesturs about drinking too much, which he returned in like manner.

Who's fault was it? Was it the girl, who apparently had a boyfriend, that decided it was a good plan to sit with us? Was it Matt, who had insisted that this guy's girl sit with him? Was it the jealous boyfriends fault for getting mad at Matt for wanting his "girlfriend" to sit with him?

Probably a combination of the three.

Since there's been some strange happenings going on at the girls apatment, we figured that it would be a good idea to find the girls and make sure that they made it home okay. We eventually caught up with them, only to be yelled at by Kristina. She was insulted that we were offering our watchful male eyes. She told Matt that "he owed her, for "embassassing" her" at the bar. She would not tolerate us playing the role of the gentlemen.

I'm really not sure what to think.

The post without a title

Last weekend was another good time here in Ulsan. Friday night involved me doing a little bit of 10-pin (the kind with the big balls) bowling. My scored were a terrible 74 and 50 points. I'm pretty sure that I ended up back at Tombstone after that.

Saturday night was even greater, although perhaps a little bit less memorable. I blame the German beer.

It was Anne's (and also Colleen's, a few days before) birthday. To celebrate, a bunch of went to an all you can eat/ all the beer you can drink(!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) resturant called Trevi's(?) near the Lotte Hotel downtown. Of course some of us made the climb to the helipad on top of the hotel for the best view of the city. The food was excellent; ranging from speghetti and meat sauce to sushi. The cost was 14,000 won for males and 12,000 won for females. Also at the resturant was a microbrewery, which supplied the resturant with four or five different kinds of beer on tap. I happily indulged in their darkest ale... multiple times.

Following that, we were off to a street cafe somewhere downtown. I enjoyed some cheap draft, while some of the girls got into peach soju. A group of Korean girls inside the cafe were celebrating a birthday, and were eating cake. When you go out for a birthday here (at least, where I've been), the resturant likes to play a birthday song over the loud speakers. When they were playing the song for the Korean girls, our birthday girls (Anne and Colleen) started dancing. Those sweet Korean girls realized that they weren't the only ones celebrating and came outside to share their cake with the foreign girls! That was very impressive and wonderful of them.

To cap off the the last few hours of daylight, we went bar-hopping to some of the foreign bars in the area. We checked out Benchwarmers and the Royal Anchor. I'd been to Benchwarmers before, but the Royal Anchor was new to me. It was a good sized bar with a live jam band. It had a great atmosphere. Apparently it's usually dead, but on that Saturday night it was a good place to be. I spend most of the time playing pool with a girl who know about as much English as I did Korean. It was a good time.

Sunday was a nice and lazy day for me. I didn't even make it out far enough to play frisbee with the USLUTS. I did make to bowling in the evening though. On my lane were a couple of veterns to Korea; Steve and some guy named Dan from Gatineau. Actually, I think he said he was from Aylmer. Anyway, he played a few games with the Quebec Nordiques in the early 80s. That was pretty cool. In a complete contrast to Friday night, I scored a 145 and a 121. Those are respectable scores as far as I can tell!

On Tuesday night, I joined the "Tombstoners" bowling "team". I even got a sweet bowling shirt out of the deal. Whoohoo!

A good sized gathering of people in Ulsan, after a night dark ale. 

Last weekend at the Royal Anchor bar in Ulsan. I made sure that I was wearing the blue wig by the end of the night. I've been told that same wig has been to such places as "Lush", "The Black Dog" and "Viagraville"; home of the giant Easter egg. If you went to university with me or if your last name is Yeremko, then you know exactly where these places are. 

Some of Colleen's pictures from Japan on Easter weekend.

Since I won't be posting any of my own photos for a little while, I've decided that Colleen (without her prior knowledge) would enjoy sharing some of her photos with everyone reading this. There's a few from last Saturday night, and a few more from our trip to Japan over Easter weekend.

I thought I was a rock star. 

The Busan subway system was as good of place to sleep as any. 

Squid and Pepsi for breakfast. 

The three amigos invade Japan. 

A water fountain and some nicely raked stones, somewhere in Fukuoka. 

The "perfect" cherry blossom. 

A random temple in Fukuoka. 

Here's Matthew and myself helping to feed some people in Fukuoka on Easter Saturday. 

Some Japanese people getting a warm meal on Easter weekend. 

Cool little statues at Tochoji temple. 

A monk burning some leaves at Tochoji. 

The largest wooden statue of Buddha in Japan. This was taken by Colleen in Tochoji temple in Fukuoka.

Billy, myself, Colleen, Matthew and Robert in front of a cool dragon in Busan. 

Thanks

Thanks everyone for the nice e-mails and comments. It's been nice to get them, as I've obviously been feeling a little down.

After work yesterday, I was able to get a new key from my landlord. The old one had no markings on it, and there aren't many people who know where I live, so I'm not too worried about that right now.

Hopefully I'll have a phone up and running again by next week.

Pay day is on Monday! Assssaa!

Bad night

I had a pretty bad ending to a decent night last night.

Lucky me, I had my jacket stolen last night. In my pockets were my MP3 player, my camera, my cell phone and my keys. As least I still have my wallet, as it was in my pants poctet. I keep my passport in my apartment, so that's safe too.

Life's a bitch sometimes. At least I get paid on Monday.

The foreingers who were at the bar (Tombstone, where else?) last night were all decent people. There was one swaggering drunk Korea, who is a obvious suspect. We (my friends and I) suspect that he was just really drunk and put it on my mistake. Who knows... We tried to ring my phone a number of times, hoping that he would answer. No luck. We left a text message on it too; with a message to return everything to Tombstone.

At least the guys here have been nice. Andy, one of the owners, let me drink some beer on the house, and Colin let me sleep on his couch (since I can't get into my place). I'll have to go into work early to tell my boss to get another key cut.

Obviously, don't expect me to answer my phone or to post any cool pictures for awhile.

Other than that, I'm doing fine. My job seems to be going well, and otherwise happy and I'm meeting a lot of awesome people here. Life isn't always rosy, and I know that. With every good, there's usually some bad. When shit happens, suck it up and move on.

Whether you take it as fact or not, the book of Job (with a long "O", like jobe), in the Old Testament, is a good book to read when things get fucked up. He had his family, wealth and health taken away from him. He suffered for years He eventually aqurired a new family, regained his wealth and became healthy again.

Carpe diem.

Dave Harvey's beatiful photos.

I didn't take this, I ripped it from Dave Harvey's site. He's another teacher here in Ulsan with a wicked camera. His pictures are often featured in the Ulsan Pear. Jason Teale, another teacher/photographer here, also has come pretty cool pictures on his website.

This photo, of the Sinbok Rotery, is actually very close to where I live. I live at the base of the mountain in the top-right of the photo, just behind Ulsan University (Taehakyo). Munsu World Cup Stadium is just behind those apartment buildings on the left, and the ground-level highway (HWY 7) in the centre leads to Busan; about a 45-60 minute bus ride away.

USLUT

I just found out that the ultimate frisbee "team" that I'm on is called U.S.L.U.T. (Ulsan Saucer Launching Ultimate Team).

Nice name, eh?

Ultimate frisbee and karaoke.

My friend Dave invited me to a Norae-bang(Karaoke) on Saturday night, with four Korean girls. Of course I had to go. There was no choice. It turned out to be a great time.

Matt also came with us, but left about halfway though. He didn't even sing songs by himself. He mostly just hung out.

Anyway, after everyone else had sung a few songs, I had no idea what I wanted to sing. I told Dave to pick a song for me. The next thing I knew, I was singing: "It's raining men, haleluja; it's raining men, amen...". I gave it my all too. I really put my lungs into it. I was just like George Michael, any member of N-Sync, or the lead singer of Wham(that group from the early 80s). Luckly by the end of the song, I remembered that I liked girls.

I made a mental note to never sing that song again.

After I finished, the girls game me a huge round of applause and told me that I was a great singer.

I made a mental note to sing that song everything that I do karaoke.

The girls were absolutely great singers. One of them was really impressive. She could switch between Korean, English and Japanese at will; singing songs in all three languages for the four hours that we were there. She had an amazing voice too; hitting all of the notes in a Mariah Carey song that she sang. She rocked.

My best songs were probably Welcome to the Jungle (Guns and Roses), Light My Fire (The Doors), and La Bamba (Los Lobos).

Near the end of the night, one of the girls began singing a Korean version of It's Raining Men. Stupidly, I joined in for the English choruses.

I made a mental note to myself to never sing that song again.

Yet again, the girls gave me a great applause and congratulations on my great singing.

I made a mental note to myself to always sing that song during karaoke.

The scary part is that I didn't drink any alcohol during this whole thing, and willingly sang that song. At least it was in front of a bunch of cute girls. If it wasn't, then there would be a major problem.

After karaoke, the girls went home(why?!?!?), and Dave and I went to the bar to play pool. I drank some water there. Everyone thought that I was crazy for drinking water, and not beer. One of the girls told me that I should play ultimate frisbee on Sunday. She was cute. Then I went home.


I woke up on Sunday, at the crack of noon, to the sound of my parents calling my hand phone. After talking to them, I got dressed and made my way to the park to play frisbee. There are exactly two whip marks on my back.

I was a great time though. We played for a good three or four hours, I made a few good catches and ended up with field burns and blood stains all over my bare legs. I am tired and sore. It was a good game. I'll probably play again next Sunday.

Following frisbee, we all went to a Korean resturant. Each table had a large frying pan on it. The servers put whatever it was that we ordered (chicken, rice, veggies and some cheese) in it and fried it up in front of us. It was really cool, and it tasted good. We each had a small bowl, in which to scoop some food from the pan into. We had chopsticks and spoons to eat our food with. I realized that I've become very accustomed to using chopsticks when I looked around and realized that everyone else at my table was eating with their spoons. What?!? I like using chopsticks! You don't have to scoop the rice up from the bowl with them. You just grab the food and stick it in your mouth. It's easier with chopsticks! It's the same way with soup. I just take the solid food out with the chopstick and then drink the liquid from the bowl.




Wow. I can't believe I just wrote that... and wasn't lying about it. Next I'll be carrying my own chopsticks in my back pocket to the bar, so that I can eat poutine with them.



Following my display of superior chopstick skill in front of my waygook(foreign) friends, Fin(a guy from Canada; brother of the cute girl who invited me to play frisbee who's going out with some guy named Keith. I don't like Keith.) and myself went to a foreign bar called Benchwarmers. It was pretty cool there. We watched Dazed & Confused on their big screen TV and BSed for awhile with whoever would listen (mostly another Canadian and a rugby player with a bummed ankle, who tried to convince me into joing the "Ulsan Ulgy Playboys" rugby team. No thanks, I'll just stick to ultimate frisbee. After that I rode home on the back of Fin's Honda bike. It goes fast.

Some parts of Ulsan, like this area downtown, are extremely nice. Well, as long as you don't look up. Notice the KFC, McDonanld's and Reebok stores? Somewhere around here is a Baskin Robin's. I took this picture while I was sitting on the padio of a cafe, drinking an iced mocha. That's one of my friend's Honda 400 motorbike, just to the left. Meet the Fockers is playing at the Megabox theatre; in English. Star Wars III is coming soon. Which country am I in again?

It's an outdoor mall with a roof. I wonder if they sell real Nike products in that store? We might never know... Just to the left of that is a Pizza Hut. 

WTF? It's an old brick wall behind that new wall, and the building isn't even finished on the right side! They are "building" this on top of a perfectly good building underneath. I wonder if the original structure was designed to support more floors on top of it? ...probably not. 

Karaoke! 

Here we are at in the karaoke room(noribang in Korean). Notice how all of the girls are leaning my way? That's because, combined with my great looks, I was so great when I sang "It's Raining Men". They loved me, but then left me before I could love them back.

One more pic of the noribang. 

A map of the Republic of Korea. 

No camping for me.

I was supposed to go camping this weekend, but it never happened. I was originally going to meet my friend Lyndon at the bar on Friday night to discuss the plans of camping for Saturday. Before I left to meet him there, CJ(one of the girls in the pictures below) called me and told me to come over. After much beer and soju, I finally arrived at Cheers by 1am or so. Lyndon wasn't there, and I didn't wake up until a few hours after we would've left to go camping. Oh well, such is life. It was still a fun night.

Here's the girls! They are all respectable English teachers. 

Here's more girls!