Service in Korea

I finally got around to listening to the newest Seoul Podcast. The show was recorded in a Italian restaurant, I think it was Italian, in Seoul. I nearly laughed my butt of when I hear d the live service…

Patrons: “Desert menu, please.”
The waiter hands over a desert menu
The patrons look at the menu where it says “Today’s Desert” and nothing else. They try to establish eye contact with the waiter who is now busy doing other things, supposedly to give them time to ponder there decisions between Today’s Desert and Today’s Desert. Finally they get her attention.
Patrons: “What is today’s desert?”
Waiter: “We don’t have any desert.”

Service in a “Western” Restaurant in Korea.

Kaalvoet oor die Drakensberge

There is a temple hidden in what I think it called Namsan (South Mountain) in Busan. It is strange that the mountain is called that, because it is in Northern Busan, but that is completely besides the point of this post. This temple is known for having rather large, impressive rock carvings. These carvings are the reason I went to Busan.

For the trip I packed my camera backpack with my camera, lenses and all the extras, like clothes and a a toothbrush . I estimate that this all weighed about 7 kg. Not much, but if you have to carry it, along with a lose tripod for 24km, then it starts working on your legs and shoulders. With this background information, let me give you a quick run-down of how I managed to rack up those miles.

I arrived at the bus station, first time ever, and walked back and forth a few times trying to figure out where I was supposed to go. When I finally found the subway, I headed to Haeundae Beach to look for a place to spend the night. It might be because of the time of year, but the prices were way to high and I am not going to pay 100,000 won just for clean bed. I walked around for a better price. The better price didn’t happen, but the miles did.

With no place to drop off some of the stuff in my bag, I decided to just take the train back to Beomeosa to find the cable car and then the temple for the photo. Station to cable car… another mile or two. By the time I got to the top of the mountain I realized that it might rain, and that I would have to push it to get back to the cable car on time, so not only would I be racking up a few more miles on the mountain itself, but I would be doing so in a hurry. I missed my turn off to the temple and only saw a decent map telling me this when I was nearly at the bottom of the mountain. Great!

At least I now have an alternative route when I go back to get the stupid photo.

Some more walking to the nearest station, some climbing of stairs, as all stations in Busan seem to have and more getting lost looking for the apparently biggest spa in Asia. The spa did not impress me and the miles even less. My legs felt like rubber.

Clean again, I decided to go see if I can find the bridge everyone is always taking photos of. I’ve seen it before, but I still can’t remember how I got there. Needless to say, after much walking I did not get my photo, again. With a tired body and not much to do, I headed to the main fun zone of Busan for a coffee and some “people watching”. While there I also searched the internet for a jimjilbang to spend the night in.

With information on a place to sleep, I left the coffee shop and headed to the nearest station. Of course I headed in the wrong direction. Miles. When I finally reached Haeundae it was a mission to find my target location because, heaven forbid, the directions would be faulty. Miles.

Sunday was not that bad, but I did add a few more. Not nearly as much as on Saturday though. Some of that included walking about 2km just to find a bus stop where the bus I was taking would stop.

All this for almost no photos, and none that I wanted.

I’m going to hell, for sure, or maybe heaven. Who knows?

I was obviously not raised in a Calvinist environment because I don’t remember every thinking that, no matter what I do, my entrance in to heaven had been decided on before I was even born. This is called Unconditional Election, I think, and apparently most of South African Christianity is Calvinist meaning they follow this doctrine.

This leads me to many questions. Why make an effort? Why go to church? Why stay away from all those “bad” things around you? Why be nice to people? Why spread the gospel to people who will go to hell no matter what they do, or go to heaven even if you yourself don’t do “convert” them?

How can people believe in something like this? If they argue that some other doctrine allows you to get in to heaven, then they are saying that this doctrine is a lie, which brings us back to how you can follow something that is a lie? Someone help me out here, please.

Would you believe I found this out by reading up on Afrikaans?

As a side note, I’m considering travelling somewhere this Chuseok, just to see to experience the traffic, and take photos of the people who cook and sell food on the gridlocked highways.

YOU, WAIT! YOU, GO!

Stopping at one intersection on my way to school, I saw two men, dressed in blue, directing the traffic. I assume they were police. It is a rather busy intersection and it would make sense that someone would direct traffic there.

Problem was that they were only directing motorists do to what the traffic light were already telling to do. When the light turned green, they would tell the cars to go. When it turned red they would tell them to stop and tell the next group with the green light to go. Stupid, isn’t it? I thought so.

I did however remember seeing them on a previous occasion. I normally pass this intersection much earlier and I saw them arrive a few days ago, but didn’t see them actually do anything. On that day they did have what seemed to be a control box open and was getting ready for something, apparently that something was this.

See, they work in threes. Two guys direct the traffic, or more accurately, make sure people do what the lights are telling them to do. They also keep an eye on how many cars are waiting. When they think it is appropriate, they signal the third guy, he presses the button and the next group of cars goes.

I guess they are not that stupid after all.

10th Annual Lifelong Learning Festival

This past week saw Icheon host the 10^th Annual Lifelong Learning Festival. It is not a local even, but a National festival, and it was bigger than anything I have ever seen at Seolbong Park. There were huge tents as well as many smaller tents, with exhibitors filling almost every spot, from all over the country. There were two stages with one busy almost every time I went past the park.

Everyone knows that Koreans see studying and grades as a very serious subject. Despite this Koreans don’t see “learning” in the same way I was taught to think of it. Learning does not stop when you leave school or university. You don’t have to go take an official course of something official like a language, or a computer program that you will need for a possible new job. It is a much wider concept.

Learning includes anything you can learn to do. Anything you don’t know how to do yet. Learning how to make paper dolls is learning. So is photography for fun, or a martial art you know nothing about. Anything that take a bit of effort to implant in to your mind is considered learning, no matter how menial it might seem. And don’t forget to bring the children along.

At the festival there wasn’t really all that much that was obvious to a non-Korean speaker. Most of the booths were representing the Lifelong Learning Centers from various cities in Korea, and you had to read their material or speak to them to find out what they were all about. I suspect it will be pretty much the same thing in each city. Why exactly I, as a visitor, would like to know what the learning Center in Busan, a city 5 hours away from me, offers no one no one would know.

At a few booths there were things that caught my eye. One booth had a setup for what looked like stop-motion photography. Another booth had a big setup and was teaching children funs sciency stuff and yet another had examples of that plastic food you see in restaurants. I am sure that most booths were offering interesting things, but the presentation in general was not exactly changing the world.

All in all I was really impressed that something like this even existed and having a look at this idea of Lifelong Learning might be something that more people and countries should consider.